Izuku Todoroki

"Papa?" Izuku rolled his pupils from his laptop to his daughter. "Do you know when Dad's coming back yet?"

It had been six months since Shoto marched forth into his line of duty, but the heterochromatic man had yet to return.

For a moment, Izuku stared at the screen of his laptop as if to read what he had written for the novel he was working on. "Not yet. I'm sure…it'll be soon. He's working hard." Although his routines had adjusted to the absence of his husband, he still could not fully adjust to the fact that Shoto had seemingly vanished from his life.

Izuku could recall the dead stare that greeted him upon opening his front door to his returning boyfriend. Yet, Shoto had embraced Izuku of his own volition, and the two simply ensconced each other into a halcyon paradise of palpable affection. Regardless of the enrapturing moment, however, the perpetuated image of Shoto's vacant eyes had been burned into his memory.

"Has Dad ever smiled?" Rina questioned, but a vice tore into Izuku's chest at the notion that the question had been roused in the first place.

Blinking slovenly in thought, Izuku drifted through his memories in an endeavor to locate the most recent recollection of his husband's pictorial smile. "Um… Oh, that's right. I think it was our wedding anniversary last year. Well, that's at least the last one I remember. Um… " He scratched the back of his neck a bit.

"How come he never smiles?"

With a sigh, Izuku set his reading glasses down on his desk. "You'd have to ask him, but part of the reason why is because of his personality. It's also how he was raised." His gaze drifted as residual sympathy gripped his chest.

"Yes, I'm certain," Izuku replied to his betrothed after having placated the latter's panic attack; Izuku had accidentally dropped a glass, and the instant that the glass shattered on the floor, Shoto's behavior flicked like a lightswitch before insidiously boiling into a panic attack. "I want to hear it all, Shoto. As long as you're comfortable with telling me, I want to hear about your feelings and your past."

Although it was axiomatic to Izuku that Shoto spurned the idea of discussing either of the topics, Shoto still nodded and exhaled deeply. "I guess I can't keep it to myself forever. If anyone's to know about it from me, I'd want you to be that person. Izuku, my father abused me. At first, he trained me from a young age to prepare me for the military, but as I got a bit older, I realized that I didn't want to choose that path, and that he shouldn't have the ability to force me into the military at all. So, he beat me. 'I'm not beating you. I'm beating the nonsense and disrespect out of you.' But…he started to abuse my mom as well for siding with me and defending me. He usually beat me with broken bottles, but it was different the day my mom died.

"One day, I heard my parents arguing, and suddenly, the sound of glass shattering. I think they were arguing about me. Their shouting peaked before dying out. The front door slammed shut. I left my room and saw my mom on the kitchen floor with shards of glass and splatters of blood strewn across it. But as I ran up to her…I saw her cutting herself with the glass. I didn't know what to do. She told me—her unbearable son—not to help her. So…I didn't. I always obeyed her. I sat beside her and watched silently. I could tell she was in a lot of physical and emotional pain. Her blood was so vivid but such a deep shade of red. I told her to stop before it was too late, but before I knew it, I was staring at her lifeless body. I'd watched her cut until she bled out. The crimson-tinged shard of glass rested between her fingers on the floor. Her eyes were open but not alive. I didn't feel anything over it. She looked at peace. Finally…

"I knew I should've been devastated or sad, but I wasn't. Maybe my father ended up beating my emotions out of me. But I wanted to join my mom. I wanted to be at peace. I wanted out of my life. Just like my mom, I took a shard of glass from the floor, and I started to slit my wrists. Once I started, I didn't want to stop. The rush of adrenaline and pain felt…satisfying, I guess. I deserved it. I let my own mother kill herself. I was the mistake. I was the one that deserved to die. I kept cutting deeper. Before I could get very far, though, Fuyumi and Natsuo found us. While Natsuo called the police, Fuyumi tried to console me, but her words meant nothing to me. It didn't click at the time, but…I wanted to die more than I wanted to see my mom again."

"Papa? Papa?"

"Huh? O-Oh, sorry. I zoned out for a bit…" The sharp exhalation Izuku expelled almost seemed to latch around his neck. "Hey, Rina? Has your dad said or done anything that's ever been…concerning?" He lightly scrunched his eyes closed at an intrusive image materializing in his mind of his husband curled up beside the lifeless body of his mother with a shard of glass ripping through his wrist.

Rina was silent for a moment. "Sometimes when he makes us breakfast, he picks up a knife and stares at it for a while. I asked him why… He said that some memories dominate his sense of time and reality. I hugged him. He looked sad. He didn't hug me back. He looked like he was thinking about something."

"He put the knife to my neck and covered my mouth and nose with a cloth. My body wouldn't move, and I didn't know he was simulating a scenario. I guess the point was that you never know when something like that might happen, and that anyone could do it, but…it's different when the assailant is your own father.

"I didn't want to hurt him, even if he was always hurting me. He kept wedging the knife deeper into my neck, but I let him continue. Then, he let me go. He told me I was a useless mistake that never should've been born. I knew what his words meant, but they left no emotional scars. So, he hit me as he yelled about how worthless I was. He was furious that I didn't do anything. But I waited for the moment he dropped his guard…and I stabbed him with his knife. I deliberately stabbed his arm rather than anywhere that could have been fatal. Still… I was seven, Izuku."

"That hug…probably did a lot more for him than he'd let you see," Izuku finally sighed. "Your dad didn't have the happiest childhood. Thank you for always looking out for him, though. I wish Yuujin could see him the same way. Speaking of which, I'm going to go talk to him." He grinned and patted Rina's shoulder.

"When I'm strongly reminded of something jarring from my past, everything floods back at once. It takes over my mind like it's a parasite. And then…it replays. Again, again, again. Sometimes, I recollect it all so much that my mind is surfeited with it, and instead of feeling what I felt when I was there in the past, I just feel numb. I guess that's just how my mind copes over time. If it can't handle the pain, it gradually erases it. But when I'm not numb to the pain yet, my mind does everything it can to destroy what I felt. No. It's not my mind. It desires destruction, and I feed it that in return for the silenced pain."

Once Izuku knocked at his eldest son's door and shuffled inside, he offered a small wave to Yuujin, who sat atop his bed with his phone in his hands. Yuujin glanced up at Izuku and set his phone down with a sigh.

"Can I get you anything?" Izuku queried while lingering near the propinquity of the door. "Can I do anything for you?"

Yuujin shook his head. "I'll ask you the latter."

I sometimes forget you're only ten, Izuku found himself thinking. What was I doing at your age? Oh. Still watching that hero show featuring All Might… Shoto watched it too.

Biting his lower lip a bit, Izuku crept towards his son. "I guess we'll see. But you did fantastic during the piano recital last night. I'm so proud of you, Yuu... Your dad would be as well." He sat at the edge of Yuujin's bed.

"I doubt that." The younger of the two rested his chin between his knees. "He's probably not even coming back. Why did you want to marry him?"

Coils of piano wire scraped through Izuku's chest at the fell remarks Yuujin spat out. "Yuujin, your dad is a good man, and I married him because I love him. You should've seen his smile when we got to adopt you three. I teased him about it for the next week. He was constantly checking on you three. It was like he couldn't last fifteen minutes without checking on you guys." A smile poked through his dolor from the reminiscent bath of memories flooding back to him.

"Shoto, you checked on them eight minutes ago. They're doing just fine."

"Well…I can't confirm that they are unless I'm there."

"Are you sure we're talking about the same person?"

Just like that, Izuku's smile shattered. "Is there something specific that bugs you about him?"

Yuujin's lips were briefly tugged to the side. "What's he hiding that's so important? Why can't he just be like a normal dad for one day? Why can't we have a normal dad? No. You're a normal dad. Maybe it would've been better if we had a mom instead. Someone…that would actually love us and spend time with us like you do." His fingers gripped the sheets of his bed.

A reverberating twinge of pain split through Izuku's temples as he debated on how to respond to his son's precipitous torrent of emotion. "I know we can't hide the truth forever, but I think your dad's afraid of getting too close with you three just yet because you're all still so young. I know it's not easy…but please give him a chance. He just wants to protect you three."

"Izuku? If something happened to me, would the kids be sad?"

"I'm sure they would, but… Shoto, you're not…thinking about—"

"No, no. I'm not, Izuku. I swear that. But I wasn't sad when my mom died, even though I spent as much time with her as I could because I loved her and felt loved because of her. I… I don't want the kids to be sad because of me."

"What are we too young to hear about? We already know we're adopted."

"He's in the military," Izuku sighed while fixing his gaze on his hands. "Your dad left to fight in the war. He leaves after dinner to visit his mom's grave. He doesn't…want you guys to be sad if he…" He shook his head and pursed his lips.

"I'll believe it when I see it. Even if it's the truth, it's still his job to love us. Why… Why is that so much to ask?" Yuujin's voice splintered into quivering fragments. "It's been y-years. He's had years, yet…" The magenta-haired boy attempted to provide his sangfroid with a breath of life. "If he gets himself killed…I won't be sad."

Izuku's chest throbbed as though his heart was rapidly and exponentially expanding and contracting to hear the final sentence of a coruscating conviction that dripped from his own son's mouth. He wanted to flood the room with his enigmatic husband's hardscrabble past, assiduous nature, and iron will when it came to his family, but Izuku apprehended his tongue with his teeth.

"It cuts me free from the past. It's quick, almost instantaneous relief. It helps me feel something, yet it calms me down. My feelings are numb, but I can feel the rush of adrenaline that fades into the feeling of calmness. But I hate the scars. I hate that I have to do this to get the effect. I hate that I couldn't hide it from you forever, but I also think it's for the best. When I picked up that shard of glass for the first time…I never thought it would turn into this."

Swallowing thickly, Izuku finally replied, "You don't know…what your dad has been through. It's hard for him to care, to be empathetic, to be compassionate… But he still does everything he can for us. He—"

"If he's as strong as you say he is, why isn't he strong enough to actually care about us, to have empathy for us, and to have compassion for us. We're family, aren't we? He obviously hasn't been in any wars since we were brought here. That's more than enough time to change. So, does he not care enough to put the effort in? Is that it?"

"By the time I've realized I care about something, it's already gone, more often than not. But what's the point of caring if it's gone? My mind tells me to eradicate the feelings connected to it, but some just won't die."

Izuku exhaled deeply through the pandemonium blistering through his head. "Yuu, when you could be joining war at any given moment, the story is different. I wish we didn't have any wars at all, but it's because of people like your dad that we're still here. Your dad…can't afford to let the countless deaths he watches bog him down. But it takes a toll on anyone. It can't be easy to understand now, but…war is so much more than just a big battle between forces. A war is a culmination of individual wars. It's terrible... Yuujin, I need you to know that when your dad comes back, he is going to need us to help him more than ever."