Shouto Todoroki

Keep yourself together. "Ah, those…" Todoroki forced a chuckle while arrant fear crawled through his veins. "My cat…clawed me when I picked…him up." Searing, bitter sweat coalesced along his vibrant flesh as he opened up his watering eyes to see Bakugou slowly shaking his head. "Why are you…"

Bakugou cautiously pinched one of Todoroki's bandages to unravel it, but he came to a halt once he realized that there were translucent flowers wilting at the inner peripheries of Todoroki's eyes. "Liar… You fucking liar… You're a cutter…aren't you?" He peered into Todoroki's glacial, glassy eyes.

Please don't call me that, even if your cutting assumptions are true. "N-No. I'm not, Katsuki. I'm fine…" He squirmed with frenetic movements in Bakugou's grasp and tore his hands free to bring Bakugou's lips into his before anything more could be said.

I forgot, Todoroki inwardly rebuked himself while traversing through the warmth of Bakugou's mouth with his tongue. How could I forget? I wasn't even thinking. I just wanted to give him everything. I really am submissive. If I can't conceal the scars, I don't let him take off my shirt. It's been a while since we've done this, though. It's been at least two months, and usually, it happens at least twice a week. Their lips spilled down into two separate puddles, but Todoroki merged them into one again. I trusted him with everything I had. That's how much I loved him. But I didn't have the strength to admit the truth about how I was doing. Now, it's too late. It really is all my fault. It's all my fucking fault. But how was I supposed to tell him? How would I have brought it up when being depressed just wasn't me? When the me he knew me as was so much stronger? When the person I was showing him was a lie, and yet, at the same time, who I really was to him?

Licking his lips, Bakugou pushed his sultry, silent lover down into the sheets again. "Why didn't…you tell me?" Bakugou queried through his saturnine grimace. "I never fucking knew, Shouto!" His glistening lips trembled.

"I'm not!" Todoroki desperately pleaded; his own stoicism and equanimity were falling apart with the facade he wore. "And please don't assume anything when you don't know anything."

"Then show me what's under there!"

"I…can't."

"Why?!"

Bakugou's voice evanesced into the thickening silence that suffused the room. Incertitude transfixed Todoroki's mind, and he hadn't the faintest clue as to how to respond.

Is that all you care about? Is that all I am to you? I also didn't want to tell you I cut because you'd hear that and immediately alter your views on me. That's not the person you know. Shouto Todoroki wouldn't slit his wrists. There's nothing wrong with his life. He's perfectly fine. He isn't someone that should be depressed. Exactly right. Everything I'm going through…is so insignificant. 'Everything.' But that 'everything' is 'nothing,' really. I'm not going through anything, but somehow, I still feel this way. Why? How? How can I be as depressed as someone that's been through hell and back when there's otherwise nothing wrong with me? It's like every good thing that happens to me just brings me down instead. Like happiness itself has been erased from my mind and replaced with sadness and emptiness. But…why?

Finally, Todoroki drowned out his tempestuous thoughts. "Because I'm weak, Katsuki," Todoroki sobbed while attempting to glue the shattered pieces of himself back together. "But I'm not… I'm not a cutter." He stared up at Bakugou with a wry, fragile lour.

Shaking his head, Bakugou hissed, "I don't fucking believe you…" Such a coruscating, pointed utterance crunched through Todoroki's skull and wrapped around his lungs.

"I…" Bakugou's vermillion eyes drenched Todoroki's stomach with guilt. "Fine. I'll stop lying to you. That's how useless I am." Todoroki inhaled and exhaled deeply, and like a flame being extinguished, he suffocated his torrent of emotion with the feeling of emptiness again. "You're right. I'm a fucking cutter, Katsuki. I hate that word with a burning passion. I cut to force some kind of feeling that lasts for a while into myself. I've had depression for quite a few years. Don't ask me why, because I don't know. I just feel empty and sad all the fucking time when I don't have any reason to feel like that. But I didn't want to tell you. I didn't want you to worry. I didn't want to burden you. I didn't want an awkward relationship, because how… How was this relationship supposed to become as wonderful as it was if I'd told you that I constantly contemplate suicide?" He bit his tongue—he had no intention of admitting to having suicidal thoughts.

Bakugou was silent, but his atrabilious, stupefied expression spoke all it needed. His jaw hung slightly agape, and his expression trembled. Rivulets of diamond glided towards the floor from his eyes.

Even Todoroki was silent for quite a bit. He didn't know what to say. What was he supposed to say in his own inextricable predicament?

I hate myself, Todoroki berated himself with incandescent derision. I should've left you from the start, but I keep holding on. You're the person that means the most to me, despite what you did. When I found out, I still remember that feeling of everything inside of me imploding. It felt like someone hacked open my ribs and chest. I couldn't breathe. The world went white. He splayed his digits to cool the sweat adhering to them. I also remember the feeling of when I kept stabbing my scissors through the top of my left hand. It hurt, but my feelings overpowered the pain. I'd never harbored such immense animosity towards myself before.

Finally, Todoroki's lips parted, and from there, it was as though the visceral, achromatic words that poured from his mouth had all been rehearsed—subliminally, knew what he wanted to say. "That's why…I didn't answer my phone. I couldn't move. I wanted to die. So…I made an attempt. It wasn't enough. I couldn't pick up my phone if I was desperate to. But all I could do was lie. How was I supposed to tell you…I tried to commit suicide that night?" For a fleeting moment, he was silent again. "I didn't think one lie would make you cheat on me. I didn't mean to ignore you. I didn't… I would've answered because it was you, but I couldn't. I hate you for what you did, but I hate myself more for still loving you. I just can't let go... I love you. I want you to still be mine, Katsuki... That's how much I love you. My Katsuki Bakugou. My cheater. Possessive, I know, but you became the only thing that was keeping me from falling apart. I clung to you because that was all I could do, but now, I can't let go. I'm too dependent on you for a sense of anything. I know that. I know. But…I think I might have a solution to this. You'll know it when you see it."

Swallowing thickly, Bakugou offered a slow, vacant nod. Todoroki couldn't blame him for the anomalous reaction. After all, the dolorous quandary was a mutual experience.

If only I'd broken up with him the moment I found out he was cheating on me, Todoroki growled to himself as Bakugou held him fast. I wouldn't have caused this mess. I could've avoided this all. But I just can't let go of my feelings for him. I can fix that. His frigid, quaking hands deftly caressed Bakugou's sides as their bare legs twined together. But his skin is so soft. I want to touch him and feel him in every way, and I want him to do the same to me. I love him. I love every fucking inch of him. But that's why I hate myself so much. Why did I let myself become so dependent on one person just to keep going?

"Anything…I can do for you now?" inquired the ash-blonde in a soft whisper.

I don't want those fake words of sympathy, concern, worry, or whatever you'd like to call it. "It's fine. I'm better now," Todoroki insisted before planting a kiss across Bakugou's cheek. "Thanks for asking." He ejected a sigh that mantled Bakugou's neck with warmth.

You're only so kind to me now because you know the truth, Todoroki inwardly maundered. I hate that. I don't want your pity. I hate you. I hate you, Katsuki Bakugou. But no matter how many times I tell myself I hate you, I just can't hate you. I know it's my fault. I shouldn't have trusted you like that. I shouldn't have been so dishonest about how I was doing. I shouldn't have chosen to stay with you after knowing you cheated on me and had a better relationship with Kirishima than me behind my back.

You didn't care about the reason why I wasn't picking up. You just yelled at me for it. I had to come up with a rushed lie and stick with it, because why would you deserve to know the truth if you weren't even willing to consider my own feelings? I tell myself that, but he had every right to be pissed off, and I just made things worse. Why would he have been rational and considerate when his mom was in a coma and his father suffered a near-fatal wound because a villain ambushed them?