Warning: graphic description of vomiting. Abuse and self-harm, though not explicit. Please mind the warnings and take care of yourself.
It was almost time for Homeroom, and they had one more week until the Sports Festival.
The teachers had all been working them hard. Foundational Hero Studies had swiftly turned into a class that everyone both dreaded and loved in turns, as they were constantly pushed to the very limit of their powers and endurance—pushed to find their limits, then go right on past them.
Plus Ultra, and all that.
Shoto himself was perfectly capable of keeping up with demanding training schedules on your average day; but with the way his training at home had also kicked up a notch, he found himself flagging nearly as much as his less-trained classmates, his energy easily spent by the end of the day.
Thankfully, they would have an easy day today. The afternoon had the usual Hero Studies scheduled, but the morning was only Modern Art History with Midnight-sensei, then a free study period, during which Shoto was seriously considering catching up on his sleep.
He was debating whether his grades could take the hit, or if he should use the time to fret and stress over his inability to beat Yaoyorozu in the class rankings... when he was forced back to reality by an unpleasant surprise.
"You know, Todoroki-kun, I am a very honest person, ribbit," said the empty chair next to him.
Shoto didn't flinch or even tense, because no matter how quietly you moved, his teacher in the art of maintaining situational awareness had been pain, pain, and more pain—one of the most effective teachers you could possibly ask for. But he had to hand it to whoever had managed breach his personal space without sending off any alarm bells till they were already in very close proximity, because that was not an easy thing to do, by any means.
He turned to see a student (long, straight green hair framing liquid dark eyes) staring up at him with the patient air of someone who had nowhere else they'd rather be. Shoto hated people who gave off that feeling, because they were incredibly hard to get rid of.
He didn't ask, Who are you? Even though he wanted to. Manners and social graces had been hammered into him by the same teacher as the creator of his excellent situational awareness; Shoto's tongue had little control over the sting inherent in its movements, but he was fully capable of knowing when it was and wasn't appropriate to let it loose.
Speaking of tongues, this was the student with the long, prehensile tongue, wasn't it? The (Shoto discreetly flicked his eyes down to confirm, yes, a skirt) girl who had come in relatively high in the Apprehension Test, as they had all come to call it? A Heteromorphic Quirk, was it.
Shoto politely met her eyes, held the look for one, two seconds, then slid his eyes away dismissively.
"Yes? Was there something you needed?"
He could see her head tilt in an amphibious movement, likely studying him. "My name is Asui Tsuyu, and you can call me Tsu-chan. Like I said, I am a very honest person, and I like to say what I think."
She moved into his line of sight, apparently not noticing or ignoring the rigid, unfriendly lines of his body (not an unusual occurrence, but always a disappointing one). Reluctantly, he met her gaze; it seemed like he'd have to actually engage with this one.
"And?" he asked, cool and impatient, as if to say, 'would you get to the point?' without actually saying the words. A long pink tongue flicked out, big eyes blinking slowly, but otherwise, there was no reaction.
"And I think you have incredible control of your quirk, ribbit, so good as to almost be impossible for your age. Did you start your training very young?"
("Wrong. Again!"
Shoto's lower lip wobbled, but he obediently slapped a hand onto the floor and pushed himself up. The paper-thin skin of his arms flashed with darkening red splotches and green-black-purple dots in a macabre pattern as he shifted his weight and stood.
"Ready," he called, his voice high and brittle, but still eager, still willing. His eagerness was met with a cold wall of immovability, and seconds later, tennis balls flew at him with unerring precision.
He dogged the flying missiles, trying his hardest to hit the few he could even see with his terrible control over his quirk, and felt a sinking feeling in his stomach with each stream of flame and ice that failed to connect.
Two balls hit, in succession, and Shoto lost his footing and tumbled to the ground.
"Not. Good. Enough! Again!")
Shoto blinked away the memory. Things from his past had the most unfortunate habit of popping into his mind at random points throughout his day, without any obvious triggers. It was always unsettling, and incredibly aggravating.
Tsu-chan's eyes blinked up at him, still waiting patiently, and Shoto felt a spike of resentment at the social conditioning that made him feel compelled to respond to such unrelenting attention.
"...from a long time ago," he finally, reluctantly, admitted. "My family has been very... supportive, of my dreams to be a hero—"
("You will be the one to defeat All Might, boy. You will build yourself up and break yourself down, over and over and over again, as many times as it takes to make you into the man you need to be, or so help me, I will be the one to do it, and if I have to do it, Shoto? I won't be so careful as to make sure you are intact at the end of it." )
"—so I have always been provided with whatever training I have needed or desired," he lied. The words tasted of fire and ashes, and blood mixed with tears.
Tsu-chan was nodding in front of him like this made a lot of sense. "Would this be because you are the son of the Number Two Hero, Endeavor?"
His heartbeat picked up in his chest. Shoto brought suddenly shaking fingers up to press against the skin and bone hiding the rapid thump-thump-thump, trying to fight his instinctive reaction to toss his entire desk forwards and into her inquisitive, tremendously rude face. Maybe then she, and the few other people he could sense listening in, would forget about this entire conversation and that he had ever been mentioned within the same breath as Endeavor.
Some of this must have appeared in his face against his will, because Tsu-chan nodded at him as if something she'd been wondering had just been confirmed, and quickly backpedaled.
"I apologize, Todoroki-kun. If I had known you wished to keep it a secret, I would have been more discreet."
Thump-thump-thump went his heart, pumping blood up through his veins and throughout his body, tirelessly carrying oxygen so his brain could continue to function; without oxygen, Shoto would die and turn into little particles of dust, to be remembered only for his relation to a hero unworthy of his title. He reminded himself of these things as he dropped his hand and dug deeply into the recently healed burn scar on his stomach, relishing the pain as it successfully shocked him out of his spiraling panic.
"Don't worry about it," he said, through a clenched jaw that hated the movement and fought against it; he pressed harder, and produced something like a smile. If the way the heat signatures around him leaned back slightly was any indication, he hadn't managed it as well as he'd thought.
"It's not like it's a secret. Anyone could have found out from a simple internet search. I don't care—"
Lie, lie, lie.
"—who knows."
"That's really awesome though!" Someone burst out—ah, Tails, the one with a prehensile tail and a proficiency with martial arts.
Catching Shoto's eye, the boy in question flushed and rubbed at his head in embarrassment. "I'm sorry, I couldn't help overhearing… it's just that I'm a huge fan? I mean, Edgeshot is my favorite, but I can totally appreciate Endeavor!"
"I feel the same," Crow Head piped up. He inclined his head at Shoto, clacking his beak once as a sort of emphasis. "Endeavor's capture rate is astounding. If I am not incorrect, I believe it has been at 100% for the past three years running? His position as the Number Two Hero is certainly well earned."
Suddenly, everyone was talking at once, expounding on their love of the Second Strongest Hero.
"There was this thing I saw on tv this one time—"
"—And the villain flew back over 100 meters!"
"—Control of flames, naturally; still, Best Jeanist has many commendable traits—"
"I like his costume! He's a real sense of style, you know? And that fire beard, like, sorry Todoroki, but wow-"
"Of course, in comparison to, say, Gang Orca—"
His ears were ringing.
Shoto touched one hand to his left ear absently, his eyes darting left, then right, as the conversation caught on to more people and spread like a viciously contagious virus.
The ringing grew with the ebb and swell of the chorus, and he became aware that his breathing had fallen into the deliberate pattern he had learned to adopt when his lungs became tight and the world started to turn on its axis.
The bell rang, and the voices mercifully paused. This gave Shoto the second he needed to become aware that he would not make it through the next lesson intact if this continued.
As a yellow caterpillar inched its reluctant way through the door, Shoto scraped his chair back (not quite aware enough to notice the slight fall in volume at his sudden movement) and rose to his feet.
"I… bathroom," he managed to grit out, sounding only a little strangled to his own ears, before speed-walking to the door as fast as he could while maintaining his even breathing. He heard someone call out as he reached the door, a confused: "Wait, what just—" before the door slammed shut behind him, and he was running.
The new few seconds-minutes-hours blurred together into a confusing, endless moment of shapeless color and sound. He might have run into someone, even, at some indecipherable point in his mindless run; he couldn't be sure, as he had only the vaguest impression of purple, gravity-defying hair and a sharp pain in his side. But when his world finally snapped back into alignment, his head was inches away from cold porcelain as he vomited his breakfast, then red-tinged stomach acid, and everything else was swiftly forgotten.
When his heaving had mostly subsided, Shoto spat one last time, fumbled for the toilet roll, and tore off a handful to scrub over his face. Then he collapsed against the wall like a puppet with its strings cut and slid slowly to the ground.
Endeavor. Endeavor. Endeavor.
It had sounded like a chant, or a prayer: a multitude of voices, all coming together as one to intone the chant to summon their god: the Number Two Hero.
All Might was a god in his own right, but his followers with their adulation and cries of gratitude had never grated in quite the same way as today's rousing chorus.
Endeavor. Even thinking the word sent spikes of nausea streaking through his chest, the image that sprang to his mind like a pavlovian response inciting rage, bitterness, resentment—an outpouring of emotion that swelled and swelled till he couldn't contain or repress it, and the emotions overflowed from his body in the form of an unstoppable physical response.
Shoto lunged for the toilet bowl and vomited again, though this time all he gained for his troubles was a spasming throat and streaming eyes.
Endeavor, Endeavor, Endeavor.
Would that be him, someday? Would he stand on a pedestal, tall and proud and secure in his superiority, while his worshippers prostrated themselves before his feet and proclaimed him fantastic and magnificent? Would becoming that great god, believed to be untouchable, invulnerable, unattainable—would that turn him into the sort of hero who, to maintain his position of power, would give no thought to the bodies he left behind in his wake?
Just the thought that he might one day become that sort of person, that he might someday hurt the people he cared about—
Shoto pressed a hand to his mouth and muffled a scream.
"…Uh, hello? An-anyone in here?"
The hand he'd used to cover his mouth was on the verge of slipping when the voice froze it in midair. Quickly, Shoto pressed hard against his mouth to muffle any unintentional noise, his breathing patterns turning to short, shallow puffs as he slowly, carefully, pulled himself to his feet.
"Hey, uh, if um, there's anyone in here, I was… that is, Aizawa-sensei sent me to find Todoroki-kun and see what was wrong with him, and… a gen-Ed student, named, uh, Shinso? Said he saw him passing here. So If you've seen him or heard from him… I was, um. Going to tell Aizawa-sensei that he went to the nurse? Because um, if I were Todoroki-kun and I wasn't feeling well, I wu-would um, do that. I'll just-I'll just go now, to-to check a few other places? So. If there's no one, then don't worry about it, but if, um. Anyway. Bye?"
The sound of shuffling footsteps began to move in the direction of the door, and a second later, it swung closed with a quiet whoosh of air.
It wasn't until the faint sounds of someone walking had faded away completely that Shoto risked folding out of the unintentional fighting stance he had fallen into. He paused for a short minute before doing anything else, and just concentrated on getting his thoughts together as his pounding heart began to subside.
That had been… Freckles, the very-short-lived Class Representative? The one with the Quirk that had a lot of power and was strangely similar to All Might's, except in the way it had a tendency to shatter his limbs when he utilized it.
What an odd encounter. Shoto didn't know Freckles well enough (beyond their shared trauma from the USJ near-death experiences) to understand where that strange conversational idea had sprung from, or even what the boy had intended with it, but the boy had managed to get through to him that he now had a whole free period with a ready-made excuse. For that alone, Shoto supposed he would have to thank Freckles, when he could bring himself to go back to the classroom.
(You could thank him by remembering his name, something whispered quietly in his head. Shoto flicked the thought away like one would flick away a fly and paid it no mind.)
He slid the lock, and pushed the stall door open with a quiet creak.
…Granted, if he actually wanted that excuse to slide, he would now have to actually go to Recovery Girl's office, wouldn't he.
The adrenaline rush had taken care of the last of his nausea, though thinking about it threatened to bring it all back up again, so Shoto pushed the memory firmly aside and went to splash his face.
Other than a few vague mental notes in the back of his mind (including an incident of very familiar bullying and abuse that he was very deliberately not thinking about) and the events at USJ, Freckles hadn't really registered as anyone worth… noticing, as terrible as that sounded in hindsight. The strange backlash of his quirk and relationship with All Might, in all its confusing mystery, were worth noting, yes, but they hadn't been enough to keep the boy in his thoughts…
Shoto looked up into the mirror, that thought running through his head, and reared back in unavoidable shock.
He wasn't one to look into mirrors, for reasons he didn't mentally want to touch on, and now he was deeply regretting it.
His face had the gaunt, sallow look of someone who had not been sleeping regularly—which was true, but not something he had been keeping track of, as naming one night in recent memory when he had slept a full night's sleep was a nearly impossible task. Beneath his eyes (he traced rough, patchy skin around a sky-blue eye and fought a shudder), the black-blue coloring beneath translucent skin seemed a shade darker than the last time he had cared to notice.
He dragged his fingertips down his face from under his eyes, watching the skin pull and stretch. How long had he been like this? Was it very obvious? Shoto pulled a little harder, then let go, and watched the skin take a fraction of a second to shift back into place. Dehydrated, huh. Great.
Shoto leaned his hands against the edge of the porcelain, wishing, for a moment, that he could follow the running water down the drain and into the sewers, where he could wallow in the filth he could feel running underneath his skin.
Then he shook his head and slapped his face a few times, hoping to put some color into them (it didn't work) and some sense into everything else. Then he straightened his back, exhaled, and set about sticking the pieces of himself back together.
The person that stared back at him in the mirror a few minutes later was barely recognizable, but it would hold up under scrutiny well enough. He only had to survive long enough to tear his way through his training regime this evening, and then he could collapse under all the things he was failing to carry.
Enough, he told himself coldly. Enough. Then he spun on his heel and headed back to the infirmary to lie his way through an examination long enough to snag a hall pass.