Shoto Todoroki
- Week 3 -

Bakugou's door releases a small whine as it opens and Mitsuki steps through with a grocery bag in each hand. Her head pokes through the door that's now ajar, and once she confirms that I'm awake, she grins and proceeds through. Bakugou follows suit behind her with his eyes low to the ground.

"Had a rough night last night?" she asks while setting her groceries on Bakugou's desk and rummaging around the bags for something.

'Rough' would be a severe understatement. "Sorry. I sincerely hope I didn't worry you," I sigh while inwardly chastising myself for provoking such an urgent scramble at such an ungodly hour to arrive at such an abominable place.

"You crack me up," she chuckles with a hearty snicker. "Don't worry about worrying about the people you think might be worried over you." Fishing out a thermometer and a small bottle of pills from the dense forest of miscellaneous and—much to the immaculate Bakugou's chagrin—randomly assorted items and goods in the grocery bags. "Would you believe it if I said Katsuki came crying to me over you? Guess I did manage to instill some manners into him." Once Mitsuki holds the tip of the thermometer to my mouth, I press it down beneath my tongue.

Bakugou rolls his eyes, scoffing, "I didn't fucking cry to you. Don't make shit up, old hag. Oi, oi! Be careful, dammit!" His wry expression resembles that of a bulldog.

Mitsuki sneers, mouthing something inaudible before wheeling her head around to snap, "Don't you start swearing your head off at me, Katsuki!" Her hand balls into a fist before spreading out to point at Bakugou. "You don't behave like this around Eijirou and Shoto, do you?" Hearing my name in an assertive tone pokes my veins with pins of fire.

"Shoto!" Endeavor vociferated as a bestial, baritone growl. "You have three seconds before—"

Breathlessly staggering into the training room, I was instantaneously apprehended by a pair of greasy, grimy hands. Utterly appalled by the rancid claws gradually pinning me down to the tatami mats on the floor, I bit back the boiling bile bombarding my throat.

Blithe and perky, Endeavor's lips curled up to form a nefarious smile. "Such desperation can mean only one thing..." His abject eyes of turquoise pierced my stomach with keen flames.

I lack sufficient strength in order to defend myself, I haplessly realized as I gulped down the bitterness in my mouth that I'd long been surfeited with the frigid taste of. At your sides should your filthy digits remain. A struggle is futile. A succinct stratagem is of paramount importance. Even so, he would simply reprimand my advances to liberty. A puppet of vanity strung up by the threads of adversity must I be.

"Thought we lost you," Mitsuki sighs, handing me two small capsules and a glass of water. "No fever, though. Katsuki made it eminently clear to me that you're sick. Any ideas?"

He sounded as if he was flirting with me after that. I feel like vomiting. The way his hands explored my body... Ah. Mitsuki. Did she mention Eijirou? Kirishima? Why is it that his name has such deleterious effects on my mind? A benevolent soul is he. Then, why? Why does it hurt so much?

Prying my fingers from my arm once more, I shrug. "Something more detrimental to my health than a cold," I mutter distantly, still internally weaving my way through the threads of my memories as I force down the pills I was handed.

A disease that, by some inexplicable means, causes flowers to bloom from my lungs. The Hanahaki Disease that results in an inevitable death without surgery or requited love. What should I do in this unfortunate scenario that yields the desire I've supplicated for all these years?

- Week 4 -

My eyes are veiled by an immaculate black while I shift restlessly in the futon of my dorm. Despite my depleted energy and enervated body, my mind is eerily alert with fervently swirling thoughts. As if clashing blades with my mind, I meander through the depths of my looming, tenebrous thoughts of the past, present, and future. Once I can endure the crossfire of precipitous impulse and the act of seeking reconciliation no longer, I wrestle myself free from my futon to torpefy my mind for even a transient flash.

I cannot quell the injunctions conjured up by my mind. Even if I must plague my mind with guilt, would they not prefer that I cut to cope rather than succumbing to the suffocating sound of suicide? I would not have to think if I lacked a body to house my mind, and a mind itself. What was it that kept me awake in reality before Midoriya gave me his hand? Alone would I stand, staring down from that bridge to the obscure buildings and moving vehicles below. I'd been asked by a few who frequented that bridge for their daily routines what my purpose was for being there. I would always say I was looking for something, varnishing the truth while still being truthful. I persistently looked for reasons...to both live and die. There was a woman who asked me why I always had new injuries. I still remember the guilt I felt when I lied. She continued to gently prod for more information, but I didn't allow her to hear anything objectively from me. After a few weeks, however, I informed her that Endeavor was my father, and she no longer questioned me. I was thankful to be left alone, yet I felt so empty. I've not visited that bridge since the Sports Festival from last year. Veer away from such tempting thoughts. Instead, reap the pleasure of these divine scissors piercing through flesh again.

Whipping out the dual blades of chrome as I grip the left sleeve of my shirt and rip it upwards along my arm, I unravel the light bandaging wrapped around my flesh.

Just one... I command myself with plastic authority. Today was bewilderingly pleasant, save for the manifest flaws. Everything was so pleasant. Only once I crawled into my futon did my memories launch their mass assault. It was so pleasant. Why is it that I feel the same inside? Even when all is auspicious, I still want to sit idly and rebuke myself. I still want to drag this pair of scissors across my skin. I still...want to die. Why do I want to die when I have friends that would jeopardize their own wellbeing for mine? Why is it that their words are simply deflected? I reach for them, but I can never grasp them in time. I don't...have the right to want to die, yet I still contemplate it every night.

"Perhaps I would simply be more successful without your defective existence haunting this world."

The person who was practically responsible for creating me... I am the thing infringing on his own right to happiness. I am the thing of vanity that he still allows to live in his household. I am the thing that should be terminated. Ahh... Die. I truly should. Even when I tell myself to cast these thoughts asunder, they indignantly strike back in reprisal. Die, cut, cut, die. One. Erase it. Die. Cut. One. No. Yes—

Beneath the throaty ululating of the torrent of discord reverberating through my head, I fall prey to my inner beast. With adrenaline flaring up and judgment dispersing into the vacuity of nothingness, my mind, like a honed blade, thrusts frigid flames through my veins. The sweltering, distorted world sinking its teeth into my skin suddenly regains absolute clarity.

The abrupt insanity of my hectic mind is skewered, however, as a gelid line promptly writhes around until a blazing sharpness seeps into my consciousness.

Crimson.

The pin to my balloon of realizations is the hue of crimson; it's shattered mercilessly. Staring now at the trench of crimson smirking up at me from my arm, an acerbic gasp flushes through my being.

How deep...is this gash? I cerebrate as self-culpability fleetingly smudges my vision. Damn. It never dawned on me that I'd slashed through my arm until I saw the blood and felt its furious flames. This will not close naturally. A wound like this requires stitches. I've no needles and no thread or anything of the sort in my dorm. I would not deign to express this to Bakugou. Yaoyorozu... I suppose I must suffer the ramifications of disregarding her requests. A worthless disappointment I truly am.

Expeditiously retrieving my phone with my right hand, I dial for Yaoyorozu with my quaking thumb as the remainder of the digits of my right hand cradle the phone. After roughly seven seconds, she is benignant enough to make the visceral decision of picking up a sudden call at two in the morning.

Before Yaoyorozu can greet me, I hiss, "Yaoyorozu...I-I need to ask you something." My words are emphatic, yet staid by nature as I force them from my lips.

Guilt tramples my head as if pounding coals illuminated by yellow and orange into my skin. You will be disappointed in me beyond all else. I will never be more of a disappointment to anyone else than Endeavor and myself, but I wish that I did not have to bring disappointment to so many people. Forcing the guilt boiling in my stomach to simmer, I sigh at the pulsing of my head.

"Are you okay, Todoroki-kun?" she asks promptly with evident discomfiture lacing her overwrought voice.

Endeavoring to staunch the crimson river slithering from my arm to the floor below in small beadlets, I rise up to my feet in pursuit of proper medical supplies.

I hate to ask this of you, but I can ask no one else. "I didn't see how deeply I'd cut until..." I whisper, unable to finish my sentence.

"I'm heading over to your dorm immediately," she informs me with grim authority. "It's all right, Todoroki-kun. I'm not disappointed in you." It seems my thoughts are incredibly predictable. "How many are there?" Shuffling thumps jumble around my head as Yaoyorozu's phone picks up her sprinting.

"One. It's extensive enough to qualify as three or four," I state, managing to muster up my phlegmatic persona as I drag myself to the door. "I sincerely apologize for failing and worrying you simultaneously." With a click, I unlock the door for Yaoyorozu. "It wasn't my intention—this I swear." I now slink down along the side of the wall and sit up against it.

While Yaoyorozu gently admonishes my self-deprecating words and potential thoughts, my mind drifts to Bakugou and how consistently he reminds me not to be so horrifically critical of myself. Brooding over his farcical, yet sincere words, the familiar prick of petals being shed in my lungs provokes another fit of coughing, but as I begin to wheeze, the door to my dorm flies open. I stifle and manage to suppress my remaining coughs, despite how my breaths crackle in my throat.

"I'll get this taken care of," she assures me with the saturnine blossoming of a smile as I present my arm to her; her brows hike upwards as her eyelids peel open. "Does it hurt a lot?" Immediately kneeling down and scrutinizing the laceration running across my arm, her warm fingers graze my cool skin.

I shake my head. "Not significantly. It will soon." Hanging my head in self-reproach, I inwardly ask myself how I've allowed myself to feel comfortable with her dressing my wounds.

The audacity of my naïveté is indisputably execrable. Daft, reviling remarks are all I hear it utter in such shrill shrieks. I wish I could incinerate this ceaseless desire to die. It isn't that I want to finally be happy...but I could perhaps obviate their worrying. I wish. I think. I hope. Despite my efforts and their efforts—unbeknownst to them—to finally become jaded with this longing for death, my thoughts of suicide have only increased over the years. I just...feel so damn sad. I've learned to quell my emotions before an audience with indifference, but that heightens the depressive wave I feel when I'm at last alone. Even when all is well and his warmth is radiated beside me, I can't...erase how I feel inside. I'm exhausted from feeling like this. Of feeling only sorrow, pain, and nothing at all even when their efforts aid in momentarily mitigating the pain. I'm exhausted. So I cut. I cut and cut until my abject dolor begins to fade and the pain throbbing in my heart is replaced by the preferable pain of my skin being slit. I cut until I forget...

"Disgusting."

Why do you look at me like you always do whenever you touch me like that, then?

I can never function properly when I recollect my memories from him. I always want to cry out in agony, but I cannot allow myself to do that before anyone. I always want to cut until my thoughts distort and I forget once more, but here I am in this deplorable predicament. I always want to wring my own neck until I falter and put myself out of my own inexpiable misery. I always want to, but I...never can.

The sensation of glass searing my skin winds up my muscles into taut states while I sharply press my teeth into my tongue. Wincing with a subtle grunt, I can feel as my left arm spasms from the frigid fangs of the disinfectant being applied around my wound. Before long, the binding pressure of bandages coiling around my arm jerks around the blank neutrality of my facade.

"Todoroki-kun, I've dressed it to my best ability, but I can foretell that you'll bleed through, so I need to take you to the hospital," she informs me.

I clamp my eyes shut. "I would sooner purchase needle and thread to add the stitches myself," I hiss in a whisper through my teeth. "Sorry... Ah. I-I'm fine with that." I detest my own incompetence. "Really." I tug on my sleeve until it slinks down over the bandaging.

Yaoyorozu flashes a disconsolate, almost rueful smile. "I'm at a loss on what to believe...but I've decided that I will take you to Recovery Girl. Here." She helps me to my unsteady feet while I regain my balance by placing my free hand on the wall.

I should have eaten today, I internally scold myself. I will compensate by eating more tomorrow, regardless of whether or not it hurts or I simply do not feel like eating. That is what Bakugou would want, correct? I am quite hungry as it is, but I would prefer to wait until the condition of my throat is ameliorated.

Stumbling forwards towards the door, I cling to the side of the wall with violently trembling limbs. My body crumbles towards the floor as if doing so is now a habit. Raspy breaths leak through my lips while I refrain from coughing.

Get up, I command myself virulently. Walk. Are you so weak that you cannot stand? Worthless. You act as though you seek her pity. Disgusting. Get up.

"Todoroki-kun, this is awfully reminiscent of...then," she gently sibilates. "I'm fine," I scoff, generating a few metallic whines and clinks as I open the door. "You were so thin," she presses, following suit behind me. "I'm fine now. I've had the luxury of being able to eat, thankfully," I maunder disparagingly.

After Yaoyorozu contacts Recovery Girl and the two of us gradually trudge into the infirmary, I'm seated at one of the familiar, sterile beds of white. Upon the query of why I'm here for urgent matters being presented to me, I avert my eyes from Recovery Girl and peel the sleeve concealing my bandaged wound and scars to my shoulder. From the corner of my eye, I catch the motion of Yaoyorozu nodding her head. Resting my chin on the palm of my right hand, I can feel Recovery Girl removing the bandages hugging my arm fast.

'All I want you to do is remember how fucking perfect you are. I'm not sayin' that as a snide retort or anything. I wish...you could see what I mean.' I suppose I am perfect... I am a perfect candidate for the lingering effects of adversity seizing my life.

Presumably inspecting the depth of the gash in my arm, Recovery Girl warily inquires, "Was this...a suicide attempt?" With unanticipated astonishment soaking my discountenanced thoughts, I meet her dejected gaze and shake my head slowly.

'Sure as hell hope you know how damn glad I am to have you here with me.' Hearing the initial assumption to be a suicide attempt... My chest is tightening again. It hurts. My heart feels cold. I can feel the petals scratching at my throat again. Suicide attempt... If this was a subliminal attempt to end it all, then why could I not have been successful? Why did I...request assistance? I can feel the tears forming. I can't. Don't let them know. Preserve the facade.

Phosphorescent ribbons of emerald curl around my arm where my major laceration lies, but the veil of green still ensconces the entirety of my limb.

"I don't...believe it was," Yaoyorozu verbally answers with concern eminently manifest in her foreign lilt. "Todoroki-kun called me—he was seeking aid for this."

'Tch. Don't make me repeat myself, dammit. Until you feel unadulterated, true, genuine happiness, I'm not gonna stop.' Bakugou... You are never eluded by my lies, but you are astoundingly precise and accurate with what you declare as bullshit. Does my attention divert when I lie? Am I simply so predictable?

"How predictable, even for a rotten animal. Leave my sight."

Although the cuts that had been healing on my arm are now nothing more than visible scars, and the lethal laceration as well, I ponder whether or not a Quirk exists to heal the scars transparent to the eye. Dismissing such grandiose ideas of inanity, I still cannot fully suppress the thoughts pertaining to the rehabilitation of my debilitated heart. The scars beneath my skin are the ones I cannot bandage, so they flare up; I feel like I'm suffocating. The wounds inside without any tangible traces are so horrifically excruciating with the detestable emotions they evoke; I wish I could simply vomit up these festering, invisible wounds to purge the pain that torpefies my mind and instills a seemingly perpetuated desire to erase myself through self-destruction.

'You know what? Whenever I suspect you're feeling particularly down, I'm gonna hug you. Don't fucking call me soft.' Whenever we remain within a mutual propinquity of each other and the duration exceeds thirty minutes or so, I always have to leave to squeeze the petals from my lungs. Whenever your presence draws near, my chest is struck with another ceaseless itch. Ah. What a hapless coincidence. No. This time... I have to leave.

"I..." I manage to muster up my quivering, raspy voice for a prolonged syllable before the culmination of petals in my lungs revokes my ability to breathe.

Desperately flailing from the bed to the floor, I bolt my jaw shut as Yaoyorozu and Recovery Girl simultaneously lift me up to my feet with the intention of shoving me directly back into the bed.

No. I need to leave. I can't breathe. Any movement of air scratching beyond my tongue will unfetter a behemoth of coughing. I can't breathe...

"Todoroki, I can't allow you to leave yet," Recovery Girl informs me with what I deduce is an obligatory derivative for her motive.

One slight, involuntary twitch of my throat forces me to jerk my head down towards the ground as I begin the process of hurling petals and blood from my mouth. The noxious, internally irritating sensation of the flower petals scraping my insides as they're jumbled through my system is perhaps the equivalent of shoving my fingers down my throat.

Retching up the petals stained in blood while something ticklish with many thin, light arms—I assume this to be the plant my body nurtures—yanks swiftly through my lungs like a small feather duster being shoved through them each time I inhale or exhale, I find myself gagging.

Throwing up after an especially strenuous training session with Endeavor, I was on my knees on the floor. Pregnable with my attention wrapped around the fact that I was throwing up, my body was soon thrust headlong at the wall moments before my collision with it.

"I've got it. Here."

"Thank you, Yaoyorozu."

"Shoto, you must be prepared to endure the relentless attacks that will be thrown your way," Endeavor scoffed with gelid words while I feebly turned my head to see him crossing his arms at me. "You will not be given any clemency. You should have anticipated a follow-up attack. It doesn't matter what might have been plaguing your mind, or what your body wanted to do. It will not stop the next attack from your opponent. Now, get up and try again."

Although aware of the trash bin tilting around on the floor from my grasp, I've not yet processed anything beyond my own thoughts and actions.

Just like then...

Although now continuing to gradually decrease in intensity and frequency, my hoarse, throbbing coughs continue to pummel the air.

My chest heaved with my aggravated hyperventilation, but my inert body was unable to struggle as my consciousness slipped away into darkness. While weaving between the warmth of unconsciousness and the frigidity of consciousness, I eventually felt a certain warmth around my body and rhythmic bumps moving my stationary body.

Now with my hands clasped around my decimated throat, I stare down into the trash bin beneath my head with a grimace. Wincing at the streams of my breath that feel as though they carry blades through my raw insides, I muster up the perfunctory lift of my head.

The following day, I awoke in my futon with different clothing from what I'd been wearing during training.

Dad...

Glancing at the massive scar streaking down my arm, a vice of the crushing guilt of reality at last wriggling into my head threatens to disfigure my stomach. Recalling Yaoyorozu's reaction to the severity of my self-inflicted wound and Recovery Girl's immediate assumption of an attempt at suicide upon unraveling the bandages masking the scarlet truth beneath, I ask myself again why I called Yaoyorozu.

"Are you all right, Todoroki-kun?" queries the fuzzy, reposeful voice of Yaoyorozu.

I nod my head languidly, and as I part my lips to speak, I realize that my voice has evanesced. What do I say to Bakugou? Can I say anything? Recovery Girl doesn't seem convinced that that cut was not an attempt. I suppose that I would not put it past myself to have deceived myself with the thought that it was an accident. Staring at my hands, I close my eyes for a second or two.

"Todoroki?" Recovery Girl asks, drawing my pupils to hers. "Do you know what this disease is?" I nod. "When did you first notice any symptoms?" She hands me a clipboard with paper and a pen to write down my answer; I write down that I might have been developing symptoms for it about four weeks ago. "It's progressing faster than usual... Todoroki, have you thought about receiving surgery to remove the plant? I'd say you have about two or three months or less before the flowers completely prevent you from breathing. Is that why—"

I shake my head and write, I'm being honest when I say it was an accident. I did, however, intend to cut. My hand lifts the pen from the paper so that the tip hovers just above the thin sheet of white. I made a promise that I don't intend to break. Nonetheless, I've still been thinking about it. I don't know what I want to do yet. I hand the clipboard to Recovery Girl, who positions it so that both she and Yaoyorozu can comfortably read it.

Yaoyorozu, whose hand still covers her mouth after hearing that I have only a few months left to live, questions, "Might I ask who it is that...brought this disease upon you? Two or three months..." Her glassy eyes of a dolorous onyx cause my own tears to threaten to pour from my eyes.

Don't look at me with such a sad face, I think, struggling to remain as the stolid student I've built my glass reputation up from. You should be thankful. You should not miss me. It hurts even more...knowing how much you care. It hurts. It makes me feel so alone, somehow. I don't want you to care. I would prefer to die knowing that I did not affect anyone with my death. I wish not to cause further harm. I inflict that harm on myself, yet the others notice. They worry. Why? Why...would they care? I am no one of significance. Her lachrymal eyes are going to asphyxiate me. Sometimes, I wish I lacked the ability to see. It hurts to see their harrowed expressions all directed at me.

Writing my answer down on the paper again, I write, I don't know. I don't like anyone like that. Bakugou is the most likely candidate.

I believe I remember a few instances last year when they held hands. Besides, I am 'friends' with Bakugou. He is my 'friend,' correct? Friend... Why does the word taste so rotten and potent?

After listening and responding to Yaoyorozu and Recovery Girl for another fifteen minutes or so discussing my pitiful disease, Recovery Girl asks me the same questions as I remember from when I was diagnosed with depression. Although I did consider answering truthfully with what little time remains for me, I decide against it and simply abstain from admitting the full truth. Now with prescribed antidepressants again and pills to reduce inflammation and help to mitigate the pain from the disease, Recovery Girl explains that Aizawa will be informed of my condition to monitor my behavior in the classroom setting; I find this to be an atrocious decision, but I nonetheless comply.

I suppose this is far superior to seeing a therapist and being put on suicide watch. I would certainly be mortified. Must Aizawa know of this disease and the fact that I am a depressed fool who is also seemingly—which is in fact truthfully—suicidal? Although he has been my teacher for the past year and a half, and he is a man with an eminent proficiency in his combat skills, that does not mean I trust him with this information. Perhaps that is simply selfish of me... Regardless, if it is the case that I truly do 'love' Bakugou, then that is most unfortunate. I should not burden him with how I feel if I do feel that way. Hm. How peculiar. I never thought that I might be attracted to someone of the same gender. The same gender? The way...he would look at me. The way he would touch me... I feel filthy on the outside and on the inside. Would Bakugou look at me like that and touch me like that if he loved me? Does he find that I look at him like that? Am I as filthy as Endeavor? How could I have been so blind? Disgusting... Filthy... Worthless.

Entering my dorm with Yaoyorozu at my side at the early hours of the sullen, serene morning, I attempt to force my voice to squirm until it escapes my throat. "Th-Thank... Thank...you," I squeak as though learning how to speak again, unable to muster up a feigned smile.

She nods. "In the event that you ever need my help again, I'll be here for you," she reassures me while I sit atop my futon, "but I digress. Todoroki-kun?" My eyes rest on her forlorn expression. "How long...have you been engaging in self-harm for?"

She deserves to know the truth after I seemingly tried to kill myself by slicing open my skin. I open my mouth to speak, but my wavering voice hitches. "Ah. I... I-It's been...seven years. I can tell...you more l-later." Unconsciously beginning to count the accumulation of scars protruding from and prominently visible on my arm without lifting the sleeve, I exceed fifty before my concentration dissolves.

After a few minutes of terse conversation and silence, she now queries, "I just want to make sure, but you were honest when you said that that cut was not...a suicide attempt, right?" Her doleful eyes force me to yield to the impulse of casting asunder my eyes from hers.

I nod, brushing my fingers over my sleeve where the large, hideous scar is. "I wouldn't...leave s-so abruptly. I'd...die with an ocean of r-regrets if I never fulfilled a p-promise I made with...Bakugou." Grasping my water bottle on my bedside table, I cautiously drink down scorching streams of somewhat lukewarm water.

"I'm glad to hear that," she says with a plaintive smile before pausing. "Todoroki-kun? If and when this promise is fulfilled, I still want you here. You've positively influenced a great many. You, Bakugou, and Midoriya-kun are at the top of our class. We'd all be devastated to lose you. You're a good person and a good friend, Todoroki-kun. How would you feel to lose Bakugou?"

I...truly do believe I would join him. I remain silent, shaking my head. I cannot imagine my life without him. Without him, I would unravel and fall apart. Because of him, I can still tell myself that I will do something the next day. If Bakugou died...you would put me before yourself and rush to stop me from following in his lead, wouldn't you? All that pain...just to keep me alive. You are mistaken, Yaoyorozu. I am not a good person, nor a good friend. You, however, are both.

"That's about how I would feel to lose you." Hearing her despondent claim, I immediately return my eyes to hers. "I would still feel different from how you would, but I'm certain you understand what I mean." She unfolds her hands from her lap and places her hand on the hand of mine scratching at my scars.

The following morning, merely a few hours succeeding my incident, my alarm shrieks in my ears to alert me to awaken, but I've simply been staring at the ceiling, haplessly awake. I don't want to move. I don't want to do anything. I'm tired. I don't want to be here. I have to get up. Bakugou and Yaoyorozu will be concerned if I am not present for breakfast or class. Get up. I'm so tired... Tired or not, I have to get up. Pulling myself upwards and dragging my legs towards my chin, I stare absent-mindedly at the wall for an approximation of five minutes before the realization that I've been staring strikes me.

My stomach twists and snarls as if insidiously reminding me of how I'd initially articulated that I would eat additional portions of food today. I just...don't want to. My body pesters me to eat, but I don't want to. I have absolutely no explanation or viable reasoning for this. I simply feel callous when Bakugou finds my health to be the fulcrum of his priorities. Why is it that anything that comes to mind feels like such an arduous enterprise? I wish not to speak with anyone. Even the tantalizing thought of being wrapped in Bakugou's embrace again... Not right now.

With excruciating effort, I haul my body to the shower and habitually steel myself for the cool streams of water to fly across my cuts. When the contact of the water to my arm fails to feel as though serrated teeth have jammed into my wounds, I tilt my head.

Before I've finished my daily routine in the bathroom and end up hacking up another round of yellow petals, I hear a knock at my door. Despite my chest being fleetingly free from the cobweb-like hold of the petals, I still find breathing to be abnormally, yet familiarly difficult. Cognizant of the denotations from my strained chest and shortened breaths coupled with my whirling light-headedness, I shake my head.

I need to eat, I inwardly hiss with acrimony while dressing myself. Bakugou would recognize my fatigued daze, and Yaoyorozu certainly would as well. Ah. There is someone at my door. Make haste, Shoto.

With considerably damp hair and a uniform that I'm currently in the process of buttoning up, I unlock the door to see Yaoyorozu. She sheepishly averts her eyes from my hands threading the lower buttons of my blazer up.

"I s-sincerely apologize, Todoroki-kun," she apologizes with a flustered stutter while I step out of the way from obstructing her ingress to my dorm. "Ah. Should I..." She briefly glances around before hesitantly stepping inside. "Thank you very much, Todoroki-kun. I didn't mean to disturb you. I was worried when I couldn't contact you by phone."

I leave my bathroom door open while I stare into the mirror at my hideous reflection and adjust my tie from there. "Sorry. I...was showering," I candidly remark with an amended voice from its previous state, although it's still quite hoarse. "I didn't worry you...did I?" I internally lambaste my incompetence yet again. "Sorry—you already answered th-that."

While I finish up in the bathroom, Yaoyorozu replies, "No worries. Nonetheless, I was going to ask if I could accompany you for breakfast." I nod. "Splendid! Thank you, Todoroki-kun. Tell me when you're ready."

I flick off the light in the bathroom and nod again as I approach her with a wavering gait. "'When you're ready.' Is that all right?" I lightly rub my eyes.

She smiles blissfully. "I'll take that as a yes."

Once we arrive at the common floor, Midoriya greets the two of us with an animated, uplifting smile. "Good morning!" He looks up to my mien and subtly pulls back his head a bit. "T-Todoroki-kun, are you okay?" He steps closer to me with his head tilted to view my face.

"Look at me." Endeavor's hand gripped my chin, curling partially around my cheeks and lower jaw as he stared into my eyes as though I'd been a specimen beneath a microscope. "Your eyes have been contaminated with fear."

Locking my gaze on Midoriya's eyes, I instinctively cease to breathe or blink.

"Oh! Uh, I p-probably made that super awkward..." he gulps, stepping back. "I'm so sorry about that. Umm. T-Todoroki-kun?"

Crashing back through the glass barrier separating my soaring thoughts from the depths of reality, I blink and shake my head. "Sorry," I sigh in a debilitated whisper as my eyes flick around the room and catch a glimpse at Aizawa's gray clothing and locks of jet-black hair.

"You look exhausted... Don't feel like you have to push yourself if you don't feel well enough," he says with such seemingly servile solicitude.

I scratch at my left arm. "Th-Thanks," I murmur, leaving my cold thanks to dangle in the air as I amble off.

Yaoyorozu apologizes for Midoriya and says something I can't quite decipher before following suit behind me.

After forcing myself to choke down breakfast and heading off to a virtually empty homeroom with Aizawa, Bakugou asks me how I'm doing while leaning up against my desk.

"I'm...fine," I sibilate.

"You look like you just crawled out of a fucking grave," Bakugou retorts. "Tell me what happened."

"It doesn't m-matter."

He tips his head back and sharply inhales through gritted teeth. "Then what the fuck happened to your voice?" he demands.

Please leave me alone. "I woke up...and—"

"Woke up? Right. The bags under your eyes beg to differ, so get some decent sleep, dammit. Oi. Stop." His daunting eyes of effulgent flames threaten to cut through my being as his hand grasps the hand of mine furiously clawing at my arm.

This warmth of yours that I relish and wish never to forget the feeling of... Why is your warmth what's killing me the most?

- Month 1, Week 1 -

Tonight is the night that Endeavor returns from his trip to America. His absence over the past month has been a superlative experience, and yet I still feel the same. Even though I may as well be the most fortunate person for the bonds I have the honor of heightening, the compassion and visceral benevolence of those I hold close, and the luxury of the life I live and the vital and frivolous things in it, I still feel as though I'll shatter into irreparable shards each time I feel emotion. Although I am inclined to believe that this evidence alone should suffice as authentication that Endeavor is not the one culpable for the maelstrom of torment that drives knives through my chest, it seems that no evidence will serve to coerce anyone but me.

Standing atop the stage adorned with decorations to inveigle the audience with the thought that all flows in a predetermined, lovely cadence, I have donned another set of masks for the masquerade interwoven into the play of reality to perpetuate my ulterior, designing ways. Waltzing aimlessly with au fait movements by the transparent strings embedded into my limbs, I must certainly be viewed for my adept skills and commendable profile. Beyond the blinding lights, behind the enrapturing motions, and beneath the defining masks, however, is the me that I wish I did not have to be.

Since Bakugou was adamant on being informed of the day that Endeavor would return from his voyage of sorts to America, he made it eminently evident that he will be spending the entirety of today with me. As such, it is by Bakugou's supreme, executive decision that the two of us are going out for lunch together. Prior to leaving, I void my system of the yellow clumps of petals that had been strung up in my lungs.

"Are you certain we should go out for lunch?" I ask Bakugou after retching up the godawful petals of yellow in the bathroom.

I can envision a twinge of a writhing, itching pain in my chest causing me to brusquely scramble to reach the bathroom. Damn. There will more than likely be others present. I am positive no one would like to hear someone coughing maniacally. How unsanitary. Filthy. Disgusting.

Bakugou offers a resolute nod. "Hell yeah, I'm certain. You never leave your dorm or your house or whatever unless it's imperative you do."

Now considerably overwrought from the idea of others being present for my purging of petals of blood, I sigh, "I'm not very hungry." Lifting my sweatshirt over my head, my long-sleeved shirt rises up over my hips a bit to reveal some of my flesh.

"You bein' honest?" He inquisitively tilts his head while I nod. "How did it go from you being hungry all the time to almost never? Todoroki, you haven't been eating very much lately." He crosses his arms.

I've felt somewhat full and nauseous, although I assume this is from ingesting blood and petals to reduce the frequency of my sudden departures. "I know. I just don't feel like it. I feel nauseous. I'm sorry." I lightly press my hand against my stomach while dejectedly hanging my head.

I must be a disappointment again. I am so incredibly selfish, then. All I am...

"Always thinking about itself, I see. Only concerned about itself. Whining about mere scratches and bruises. You should be fucking disappointed in yourself, you fucking failure."

I simply bring them down. I hurt them. I worry them. I did not stop him. Why...am I so worthless? All that I do...hurts someone. Why? What gave me the right to hurt others like this? Truly, if I died, would that not be for the best? My chest aches with guilt. It hurts again. Again? No. Simply more than I typically feel. I'm so tired of the pain inside. It hurts so much. Why?

Warm, robust arms slip around my torso as Bakugou rests his chin on my shoulder. "I've gotcha," he whispers with his sonorous, alluring voice. "Don't beat yourself up. Don't blame yourself, either. I can hear you berating yourself in there. It's not your fault, dammit." His grip tightens around my trembling body.

How many times must I reiterate that it is my fault? "I disagree," I murmur with rancor dusting my words.

His hair brushes along my cheek. "Goddammit. What the hell do I have to do to change your mind? C'mere." Scooping me up from the floor and into his embrace, he positions me bridal style in his arms and locks his gaze with mine to ensure I feel comfortable.

I nod as he carries me to a nearby couch. "I don't think you can," I admit, diverting my gaze while Bakugou settles himself against the corner of the couch between the armrest and back cushion. "I can't hate anyone but..." Damn. What do I say now?

"But?" he questions, insinuating me into his embrace so that I rest atop his thighs.

Will he hurt me? Look at me with such lascivious eyes? Would he...touch me there? Is he simply luring me in to tear me down? Certainly not... Right? Can I trust him not to?

I nuzzle my head into the crook of his neck. "Am I heavy?" I exhale softly.

"Yeah, right. Not at all. You don't think you're fat, do ya? I think you're perfect. Tch. I mean that." With cheeks mantled with an effervescent peach, he tilts his head away from me.

Why are you so kind to me? "I disagree. I think...I'd argue that you're perfect." I suppose I feel warm inside when I dote on him, but I don't deserve to receive anything of the sort. "But... Never mind." My fingers gently tug the fabric of Bakugou's shirt towards my palms.

He lightly snorts. "Won't say you're not right, but I'm not blind to the truth, either. Anything you wanna get off your chest?" The deft dance of his fingers across my back soothes my being, yet as well as providing me with the feeling of insects with thin, skittering legs creeping through my chest, it feels almost as though I know his warmth is around me, but I've been torpefied inside and fail to feel it.

There are times I wish I could tell you how much I want to die to find a reprieve from the adverse fate I've been inextricably tethered to. "It hurts...and I don't know why," I reply with forlorn fortitude.

"Physical pain or somethin' inside?" His husky voice kisses my ears.

I haven't cut since then. Yaoyorozu was proud of me for that. She seemed so relieved. How could I continue my heinous infringement of... To forget again. The memories are overflowing. I can't forget, but I can fleetingly forget when I mutilate myself. I've felt so empty without it. When I don't feel that emptiness, I feel like collapsing to the ground and sobbing until someone or something lends me a hand or kicks me aside. It hurts. To forget about the ruthless, excruciating pain in my heart and from my heart, I cut, but...

"Only my chest and throat physically hurt." Silently inhaling Bakugou's unparalleled scent through my nostrils, I close my eyes.

Putting aside the memories stalking me from then, I feel so comfortable and warm like this. It is so reminiscent of when I'd straddle his leg and he would press my head into his chest, but it feels different this time. I still cannot quite entertain the thought of wholly trusting that this will not simply result in my backstabbing, but I feel safe. He would not deliberately encroach on and shatter the peripheries of my personal space there, would he?

"Mind if I touch—"

No. This is what I feared. I tense, curling my limbs a bit inwards.

"—your arm?" he finishes.

My arm? You have already repulsed your eyes with the sight of my scars a myriad of times, so it would be quite queer to decline. I nod, figuring that Bakugou is repositioning himself. He always first asks for my permission. He always realizes when impulse has overridden his typical thoughts, and he then apologizes. Why is he so considerate? Compassionate? Patient? Why? I would never have thought him to be so 'soft' previously. If this is the treatment I receive, then what must Kirishima receive?

"That hurt?" Bakugou questions, although my thoughts have gifted me with glass wings once more to abscond from reality; I nonetheless shake my head. "I see. Well, anything else you wanna say?" He rests his cheek against my skull slicked over with red and white hair.

"Your swearing was scarce," I comment, forcing a chuckle from my throat.

While tucking me into my futon, Fuyumi sighed, "Your laugh is so precious, Sho. But I haven't heard it in a while. It would mean a lot to me to hear your laugh again sometime soon." She planted a kiss on my cheek.

How hideous. How wretched. How deplorable. An ignoramus such as I should not have the privilege of laughing, even if feigned. What, then, was necessitating such a peculiar urge to force myself to laugh? What an inconceivably abstruse person I must be.

Bakugou's head shifts, pulling back to stare at me in bewilderment. "Did you just laugh? Damn. Hey. If I swear less, you should laugh every now and again. It's..." His imperial, gleaming eyes glance down. "Tch. Look. It's nice to see your dour face with some kind of emotion on it that doesn't have negative connotations. It's nice to hear your voice with life in it, you monotone, calm-ass soldier." Meeting my gaze again, he seems almost to be enamored by my eyes. "But your eyes say everything." He frowns.

I've grown to despise my eyes. "Why do you like looking at my eyes? They're...unsightly, unlike yours. I like yours."

"Tch. Fuck you," he spits, despite the heightened hue of peach creeping across his cheeks. "What the hell makes you think that about mine? You know what? Never mind. Why do you think your eyes are unsightly, Todoroki?" His majestic eyes of ruby implore that I speak the truth.

Although I've been trained to hate myself, I've learned to believe it. "I don't want to talk about it," I utter in an undertone, refusing to allow my self-loathing to directly seep through my words.

He embraces me as though this embrace will be our last. "One day," he reminds me as a fresh flurry of petals spring up through my chest. "You better keep that damn promise. I want you to get better, and I want to help you get better. Don't be such an ass to yourself all the time. When you do that, you're also bein' an ass to me. So—"

Abruptly ripping myself free from our sweet, warm, idyllic hold of intimate bliss, I wrestle myself to the floor and swiftly stumble towards the bathroom. Failing to suppress the entirety of my coughs, I cover my mouth with my hand to prevent any petals or blood from littering the ground.

After disgorging the army of yellow petals from my system, I gasp perfervidly for air. Each breath that slinks down to fill the vacuity of my lungs, however, feels as though I'm gulping down barbed wire. With breaths trimmed in maximum duration, I only agitate my stomach with the heaving of my chest.

Bakugou now thumps his knuckles against the door. "Oi. You all right? You sound like shit."

I never would have guessed. "Fine," I pant, clearing my throat and soon realizing that I'm swallowing another petal slicked over with blood. I feel like throwing up.

Dragging my enfeebled body up to sit up against the wall, I attempt to steady my breaths again. Collecting my thoughts and gliding above the transparent barrier separating sky and galaxy from terra firma, I close my eyes into the gateway of a vast, lucid serenity. While slipping through this ethereal gateway, however, I'm met with tenebrous turbulence from the vexatious opposers of soaring beyond the barrier. A sullen smog mulls over my vision, polishing it with clarity by the authoritative injunction from Reality's subordinates. Squinting through to the hazy, sublime glade cut out from the surrounding shrubs of shadow, I transiently tuck in my immaculate wings and dive upwards towards my destination. Swerving through wretched brambles of crystalline charcoal, I reach for the murky mirage of light...to simply collide horrifically with a thick, undulating tree. Now deprived of my means of transportation and propulsion through sky, I plummet down to the groping henchmen sent out by Reality.

"Bakugou?" I ask while still ensnared by the daze of my mind clashing with reality.

No response.

A pin of trepidation impales my chest. "Bakugou?" I ask once more, shuffling to my feet and washing my hands at the sink.

Hustling out of the bathroom with choppy, wide steps, I scour the hallway and eventually the floor for Bakugou, but much to my dismay, I am unable to locate him. With palms uncomfortably warm and sticky, I reach for my phone to text him, but as my fingers curl around it, I dither before deciding against it.

I would simply be a burden. I don't deserve him as it is. Even so, this piques my curiosity. I never realized how much of an attachment I have to him. Is that what love feels like? I would prefer not to pine over anyone or grow this attached. What a paltry emotion widely viewed as lovely. Hm. Odd. I would not kn—

My thoughts are dismantled as Bakugou steps inside from the porch with a large bag in his hands. "What...happened?" I question, visibly bemused as my heart begins to drum as though it's a dog's jovial tail thumping on the ground.

Bakugou motions for me to follow him to my dining room. "What do you mean 'what happened?' You forget what I was doing?" He places the bag on the kotatsu and hands me a bowl of soba and a packet of sauce.

"I don't remember anything after you knocked on the door," I sigh, internally rebuking my forgetfulness and overall vanity.

"I said I was gonna order the food since you sounded like shit. Turns out that Shitty Hair was the one delivering the food." He takes a bite out of his curry that I assume to be hot and spicy—how disgusting. "He talked my leg off. Damn fool." He shakes his head.

Kirishima... "Pardon my asking, but are the two of you in a relationship?" With an insouciant stare, I await his response.

"Well, shit. If you knew, then we were probably obvious. Dammit. Yeah, we were. Not anymore, but we were." He rubs the back of his neck. "You're not homophobic, are you?"

I shake my head. "I think I might prefer a guy to be my partner, if I am ever to have one," I answer while staring down at my untouched soba. "I don't see the point of love."

He blinks a few times as if to assure himself that he heard me properly. "Oh, really? Good to know. Oi. Eat. The point of love? Couldn't tell ya. Thought I knew when I was with Kiri, but turns out that I knew fucking nothing. Tch." His grip tightens around his chopsticks. "I don't know anymore. I hate that I don't know when I thought I did. I'm so damn confused."

I thought I knew what it was like to feel sad, but it turns out that I was incredibly wrong. "Ah. I see. I might...eat later. I don't feel well." My stomach lurches simply thinking about ingesting anything right now.

"Take a few bites and you can be done for now, 'kay?" He nods his head at me. "If that asshole comes back and you have to train, you're going to regret not eating. Why haven't you been feeling like eating?"

"The p—" I stop myself before I can utter 'petals' to Bakugou. "The putrid blood that I occasionally swallow." Given that this is in fact a truthful constituent to the whole, I would say this will suffice.

Bakugou's brows are tugged downwards. "Blood? From what?" he demands in a gruff, ferocious growl.

Only Yaoyorozu knew, yet my memory has once again failed me. "I guess I forgot to say that I've been coughing up blood," I remark nonchalantly.

He contorts his expression awry. "You've been coughing up blood and you didn't think to tell me?" he snarls, pressing his fist into the surface of the kotatsu. "That's why you've been leaving to go hack up a storm? Shit! Then, really, what the fuck is wrong with you?"

Quite a bit, but I needn't expatiate all that. "I'll be fine." Plucking a small clump of the phenomenal gift to mankind known as soba, I can only hope that my body won't reject it. "It isn't contagious. It has stages, it seems. It should get exponentially worse before clearing up." Tasting the sensational taste of soba that I cherish, I ask myself again why it is that I usually don't feel like eating; my stomach hastily answers my query.

"Oh. My. Fucking. God." His palms quiver with ire. "Now I really want to punch the shit out of that jackass! For fuck's sake... Stages? Where are you on the scale, then?"

"On the scale? I haven't been weighed in a while."

"Not that kind of... I'm going fucking insane. What stage are you in out of how many stages?" His fingers furiously curl inwards and outwards.

Recovery Girl had been providing more details about my disease to me while in the infirmary with Yaoyorozu. "Typically, the stages go as follows: by the first month, the developing petals must be expelled from the lungs; there are some cases where blood falls before the petals. During the first month, there will be more, larger petals. During the second month, the petals thicken and clump together, and there will often be leaves. For the cases including blood as one of the side effects, it isn't uncommon to suffer from daily nausea. During the third month, the flowers will have partially bloomed, and there are rare cases when the plant spreads to the stomach; this causes occasional vomiting of petals and developing flowers. During the fourth month, the flowers are fully developed, and either surgery or finding a way to have requited love is imperative. If neither occur, then the disease leads to death—usually by the fifth or sixth month."

"The second stage out of four or so," I reply without any emotion leaking from my words.

Bakugou clamps his eyes shut and deeply inhales before exhaling. "And you're telling me it's supposed to get exponentially worse?" I nod. "Halfway through and it's supposed to hit you like hell in the form of a truck on the goddamn highway... Shit, and he's coming back. You better not fucking die on me. You die and there's gonna be hell to pay." Vivid snaps of tangerine ignite from the palms of his hands.

"Yeah..."

Later that afternoon, my phone vibrates persistently from my pocket. Pulling my phone free, Endeavor's name defiles my eyes. Sliding off of my futon from beside Bakugou, I promptly exit my room and accept the call from Endeavor as a blistering air of foreboding rattles my veins. Holding my phone to my ear and swiftly shooting down the volume, I head outside.

"Shoto," states a glacial voice acting as the blade to pry open the lid to my jar of memories.

You haven't uttered my name in quite some time. "Yes?" I reply with my conventional indifference, tamping down my stomach-churning disquietude.

"I will return in a matter of hours," he informs me with an eerily anomalous placidity to his words. "I have an abundance of things for us to discuss then. Have you been continuing to train?"

This relentless terror sickens me. "Yes." Occasionally.

"As expected of you." 'You.' "I need you to do something."

"Yes?"

"Dispose of all the alcohol in the house but one bottle," he commands, much to my absolute stupefaction.

Have you found a new brand in America superior to those offered in Japan, and therefore the current bottles you own are obsolete? "Yes," I sigh, not bothering to question his automatically unequivocal reasoning.

Silence envelopes the air for a few seconds. "Thank you, Shoto. I will see you in a few hours." He now ends the call.

What...the fuck? No. I refuse to believe it. I have fallen prey to your abominable, designing machinations for far too long. How cruel of me. When I cannot determine whether or not your thoughts and judgment have been clouded by alcohol, I can believe nothing. Even if you are sober, everything can be shattered like glass when you're drunk. And I...refuse to allow myself to break like those bottles you enjoy torturing me with by deceiving myself with the thought that your words will remain true through and through. You might be my father, but I cannot trust you. I cannot trust that you are not simply endeavoring to gain my trust to force me into bed with you. Absolutely repulsive.

Fighting back the stirring in my stomach from springing up, I return to my room with shivering skin. "He'll be here in a few hours," I begrudgingly whisper, clutching my twisting stomach. "I'll return shortly." Heading down into the kitchen, I begin scouring for all the bottles of alcohol Endeavor purchased.

It's as though my stomach is a blender unable to be turned off, I think to myself while retrieving another few bottles of alcohol and setting them on the ground. I don't think I can endure the emotional damage if he harasses me like that again. I—

My hand flails through the air as a bottle of champagne slips through my fingers. A familiar crash of glass shattering on the floor triggers another onslaught of my memories to lunge for me.

Shit.