The last memory Shouto had of his mother was the moment right before the kettle tipped over his face.
The doctors said something about the brain blocking out the memory of traumatic injuries in order to protect itself, so he didn't really know what happened after she did it.
Right before that, however, they had been sitting together in the kitchen. His father had been having a bad week, which meant the whole family was having a bad week, especially his mother.
"People do strange things when they're in pain, Shouto, remember that. Things that don't make sense."
He watched her fist clench as water boiled in the kettle on the stove. And now, as an adult, Shouto didn't know if she had been talking about his father or herself.
"And negative emotions like anger, sadness, frustration, grief, make people do things they wouldn't normally do. They make them forget themselves. They make them unpredictable." Her attention flicked down to his younger self, who couldn't read the mania in the whites of her eyes and the sweat on her forehead. "You must never feel these things, Shouto, or you'll start to act like him."
She hissed the last word with the whistle of the teakettle, and it gave her pause. She regarded the two mugs set out with their tea bags placed, then her eyes danced to him. Reaching out, she lovingly caressed his right side, fingers running through pure white strands of hair. Her smile was tranquil as she seemed to glide over to the kettle.
"I promise you'll never be like him."
It was a promise she seared into him.
It turned out the legal punishment for leaving the hospital was nearly nonexistent. The social ramifications and the personal guilt, however, were near devastating.
Shouto had been awoken just a few hours after their emotion laden promises to Katsuki leaning over his childhood bed and vomiting violently onto the floor. He reached up a concerned hand to steady him, only to discover the man was damp with sweat and burning up with a fever. The bile was sickly sweet and made his eyes water, but that didn't stop Shouto from leaning in and wiping Katsuki's mouth on the back of his sleeve when he finally came up for air.
"Alright, I think it's time to cut this adventure short." He said as he leaned over to grab his phone. The screen lit up with dozens upon dozens of missed calls from various people.
Bakugou Masaru
Missed Call (12)
Bakugou Mitsuki
Missed Call (18)
Kirishima Eijirou
Missed Call (11)
Todoroki Fuyumi
Missed Call (2)
Todoroki Natsuo
Missed Call
Father
Missed Call (3)
XY Hospital
Missed Call (4)
Unknown Number
Missed Call (3)
Shouto grimaced at the lineup of notifications, some names far more unpleasant than others, as he hoisted Katsuki up to his feet to stagger back to his car. The sick man didn't protest being manhandled. That concerned Shouto greatly. They moved slowly, Katsuki coherent, but sluggish and disoriented enough to be uncertain about putting one foot in front of the other.
"Fuckin' hurts." He groaned as they made their way to the front door of the house.
It spiked panic in Shouto when he heard Katsuki admitting weakness, something no one would ever believe, and he wasn't sure he did either. He translated the panic into action, rapidly swirling his scarf around Katsuki and draping extra layers on him.
Shouto reached up to swipe at the sweat collecting on Katsuki's forehead. Without eyebrows it would be hard to keep it out of his eyes, and Shouto tugged at the beanie to lower it nearly to the brow bone.
Satisfied that Katsuki was sufficiently protected from the cold, Shouto quietly led them out to the car. Katsuki was huffing staccato breaths and it seemed even their minute movements were causing stabbing pains by the way he was wincing. He carefully eased Katsuki into the car, pulling the seat belt over him in a fluid motion, and he reached down to press his lips to Katsuki's beanie-covered forehead before briskly moving to the driver's side. Shouto had barely started the car when his phone lit up with an incoming call.
Unknown Number
It was not saved in his phone, but it was a number he recognized regardless. It had already attempted to reach him three times tonight. His phone connected to the car's entertainment console as he backed out of the long driveway as smoothly as he could manage.
"Where the hell have you been?" A woman spat through the speakers of his car with a crackle of energy. The voice was immediately familiar and had him pressing back into his seat, guilt ramping up even further at the sound of Ms. Nurse.
"Is Katsuki with you? Who am I kidding? Of course he is. You two are in so much trouble. Leaving the hospital, so irresponsible, especially for you kid, I'm disappointed."
"Katsuki is.. it's — he's doing really bad." He said, and Shouto could hear the panic in his own voice as he stumbled through the sentence.
Ms. Nurse was quiet for only a second.
"Alright, calm down. I'll get things ready for him on this end. You kids are taking years off my life, I swear." The words stung, and Ms. Nurse appeared to divert her attention. The old raspy voice began barking orders at people in the hospital. Shouto attempted to reel in the panic as he drove the speed limit to keep from jostling Katsuki too much and keep himself from veering off the road.
Katsuki's eyes were screwed shut, and he had slumped into a position that looked horridly uncomfortable, but seemed to be providing him some relief from the pain. Not enough for him to attempt to be part of the conversation.
"-where were you two? How could no one find you?" She finally asked, returning her attention to them. Shouto felt himself sigh.
"We were at my father's house." He said, reeling his tone back to a bland monotone he hoped sounded like his natural cadence, and not like he was now failing not to panic.
There was silence on the other end, only for a moment, but it was resounding.
"I thought the Bakugous informed your family that you two were missing?"
"They did. I have calls from all of them."
Ms. Nurse paused again. Shouto could hear the unsaid questions in the static.
"They didn't check their own home? Did they bother looking at all? Do they care about you or your boyfriend?"
It hung between them for only a few seconds, and, to her credit, Ms. Nurse seemed to regain herself with a quick cough into the mic.
"Well, when you get here, pull right up to the ER entrance. I'll be waiting to pick him up."
Shouto hummed in understanding and once again there was a pause. It went on long enough that he almost thought she had just forgotten to hang up the phone, but just as he reached for the end call button, her voice came back over the speaker, gravely sincere.
"I've got to go. Get him here safe, kiddo."
"Of course." He said just before Ms. Nurse hung up the connection.
His father only lived 15 minutes away from the hospital, and it being the dead of night meant there was no traffic, but the quiet seemed to drag the ride on.
Katsuki sat in a pained silence the entire time. Shouto doubted he was even aware of their surroundings, and when he chanced a glance timed with the passing of the dim streetlights, he could see him glistening with ill-looking sweat. When Katsuki let out a particularly distressed sound, Shouto reached over, placing a hand over Katsuki's where it had been fisted over his knee.
"Hey," he said, giving Katsuki's hand a soft squeeze. Katsuki grasped onto him like a lifeline. "We're almost there, just a bit longer."
Katsuki lolled his head over, eyes glassy and unfocused despite the vice grip on Shouto's hand.
"I'm dying." He said, teeth clenched. Shouto could only spare him a second of attention, catching the way his chest heaved up in maybe a sob, maybe in pain, maybe both.
"You are," Shouto said, and Katsuki's flinch had nothing to do with the bumps in the road.
But Katsuki wouldn't want Shouto to mince his words, not for him. And, if Shouto separated himself from all the things that made him who he was, if he let out some of the icy cold that was just waiting to break free from within him, he knew that was a harsh, objective truth.
"But not today, not while I'm here. I promise."
Katsuki didn't respond, but somehow his hold on Shouto's hand seemed to tighten even further and Shouto wondered if his bones were going to snap under the pressure. It was a vice grip that lasted until they finally made it to the ER ambulance bay. He was sure he was absolutely not supposed to park here, but Shouto kind of felt like an ambulance in this moment and Ms. Nurse and a few other late night hospital staff he recognized were already racing out to meet them so he supposed it was ok.
The nurses were extremely efficient with the extraction of Katsuki from the passenger seat, and moments later Shouto found himself alone in his car, idling in the ambulance bay. It happened so quickly. Shouto blinked and they were already carting the man off deeper into the hospital.
He didn't even get to say goodbye.
Shouto sucked in a breath, holding it as he lowered his head to the steering wheel of his car, trying to detangle the mess of his mind.
The freezing cold mass in his chest had been with him since he'd woken up, but without a goal that immediately needed his direct attention, it began overtaking all his cognitive functions. It crawled along the bones of his ribcage, spreading outward like a merciless and icy infection. There was a hint of a tremor in his hands, that raced up his arms and raised frightened goosebumps on his skin that he put all his mental efforts into quelling.
But there was the starting of a storm inside Shouto, overwhelmingly negative emotions that had been bidding their time to overwhelm him.
The fear, numbing and heavy as it crept into his limbs, pressed down on him with a force that locked him in place. The panic, a contradictory raging fire burning his lungs and racing his heart. Making it impossible to catch his breath, making his throat swell and blister.
There was something else too, something so cold it burned in his chest.
The anger.
Anger at himself for indulging this outing, anger at Katsuki for… for everything. He couldn't articulate the finer points of the freezer-burnt rage he was feeling at Katsuki, and he gripped the steering wheel with everything he had. It was a blind anger, made him want to go scream his lungs out or hit something. His muscles were seized in their tension as he tried to calm himself.
An image briefly flashed of his father, looming over his family, face set in a permanent snarl, arm poised and ready to beat down any opposition, and Shouto shuddered.
His mind fell back to unpleasant memories and old habits. He thought of his mother as she told him not to feel anything, and not to trust people, and to keep the world at an arm's length. He felt like he needed some of that right now, desperate to stop feeling angry, and scared, and out of control. He needed to unfreeze himself.
Katsuki was inside, alone — not alone, with the nurses his brain supplied helpfully, but Shouto was here, alone. Feeling way too much and wishing he could feel a whole lot less.
Shouto gasped in empty breaths, knuckles white from his grip on the steering wheel.
Feel less. Alternatively, feel nothing.
Katsuki had helped him learn how to process what he was feeling in the time Shouto had known him. A warm balm that thawed him out of these episodes. Katsuki wasn't with him now. He didn't have time to melt away the ice. Shouto needed out now. He needed a mental ice pick to crack it open and rip himself free.
He dug up old exercises from when he was younger, techniques his mother taught him, eyes closed and picturing all the emotions he wanted to get rid of as taut strings, or tendons, or sinew. They ran from an anchor in his head into some oblivion he couldn't imagine.
Shouto reached out with an unseen force to the first string. Anger, he pulled and pulled until it snapped like a worn out guitar string and something unraveled in his head. He conjured up strings for fear, panic, sadness, frustration and snapped them all one by one. Each snap loosening something, until finally, as he sucked in a hard breath, there was relief.
He felt… emptier, but far more capable of moving his car out of the ambulance bay and go check on Katsuki.
Once inside, it turned out he wasn't even able to see Katsuki. The nurse prattled on about some sort of emergency tests and something about only family being allowed in so Shouto found himself slumped in a shitty plastic hospital chair in the lobby instead of the nice plastic chair that had molded to the contours of his body in Katsuki's room. He understood why he couldn't be back there with him, so he was sitting quietly, waiting for permission.
The world felt a little distant, detached.
"Oi."
Shouto jumped as he was cuffed over the back of his head, and a familiar old nurse made herself known. Ms. Nurse sized up his condition for a moment. He must have looked somewhat put together because a moment later, she took a breath and gave him a proper scolding for his actions.
"Do you know how reckless-" she said, and continued on in a rant that Shouto couldn't find enough care in himself to focus on, so he let her vent at him as his mind wandered.
He chanced a glance up to really take in her appearance, and she seemed the picture of exhaustion. His eyes flickered to the clock on the wall and he noted it was hours past when her shift usually ended. It was also far later than when he'd woken up to Katsuki getting sick. When had the hours passed?
"Why are you at the hospital so late?" He asked softly, genuinely curious.
The old woman narrowed her cartoonish eyes at him and then one eyebrow cocked up in disbelief at his interruption. She didn't answer immediately. Her gaze was back to assessing him, before deflating and taking a seat in the hard plastic chair next to him.
"Because — believe it or not, you kids have grown on me. I was worried about you two, couldn't leave 'til I knew you were safe," she said.
Shouto let the words settle on him like a blanket. His mind flickering back over the past few hours where his own father hadn't found them and they were in the man's own house. Shouto felt his throat close up with an involuntary emotion that had him sucking down on his front teeth, and he bowed his head down at her.
"I see. I apologize on both our behalf, it was stupid to leave. I'll accept any punishment that seems fit."
She sighed, a hand coming up to pat gently on the top of his head.
"Kid, as long as you understand, we aren't gonna ban you from visiting or anything," she said, much softer this time.
There was a knot in Shouto's chest that unwound with her words, and he felt himself relax a little bit. "But you should go home. You look exhausted and you will not be able to see him tonight."
Shouto wants to object to leaving, but he also knew he needed sleep. Being on the edge of exhaustion wouldn't make for good company when he could see Katsuki again. He gave a nod of acknowledgement without protest and Ms. Nurse's eyebrows knit together with it, as if she's expecting something more from him.
His mind was calm, or maybe just far away, and he knew, logically, going home to sleep was the best thing he could do.
He turned and didn't say goodbye to Ms. Nurse as he left the hospital.
It was the end of their freshman year of college when Shouto thought he remebered noticing something wrong with Katsuki.
They didn't go to the same college. Shouto was still walking the strict 'path to success' being dictated by his father. That included going to a fancy, well known business school that would garner him unearned respect by reputation alone.
Katsuki was going to a state college with a good basketball team, not entirely certain what major he wanted because he was 'too fucking good at everything,' but really, was vying for the attention of talent scouts for the big leagues.
Shouto tried to make it to as many games as he could, even as a freshman Katsuki still got a fair amount of time on the court, a testament to his skill, but tonight was just some post season game and Shouto had finals coming up. His phone screen streamed the game as he read over a case study for his oxymoronic business ethics course, when suddenly the broadcast went quiet. The steady drone of sports announcers narrating player actions suddenly halted. The absence of noise was louder than the noise itself and Shouto looked at the screen. There was a player on his hands and knees towards the middle of the court, one hand holding his head.
The announcer picked back up their narration after the pause.
"-we're waiting for word from the guys downstairs, but up here folks, we aren't sure what happened. Number 17 Bakugou Katsuki seemed to have, I don't know what would you call that, faint I guess, moments ago-"
The stream really had his attention now. A replay of thirty seconds prior flashed up on the screen, focused in on Katsuki slowing down in his pursuit of another player, pitching sideways as if he became top heavy, and crumpling to the ground.
It had Shouto shoveling his useless business notes into a backpack and speeding out of the library. It couldn't have been called running because if someone had seen him behaving in such an 'unbecoming' way, it would have surely made it back to his father, and he wasn't interested in the headache of a fight that would cause.
Not that the rushing made a difference. When he arrived at the stadium, Shouto found out despite the fall, Katsuki had point blank refused to be taken out of the game, so Shouto didn't see him until much later as he was exiting the locker room. Shouto had stood off to the side of the crowd of friends, fans, and journalists waiting for his specific basketball player.
Katsuki was one of the first out of the locker room, immediately swarmed by congratulations and concerns from the waiting crowd. He fended off the fans with artful expletives as his sharp gaze zeroed in on Shouto.
Katsuki had a way of cutting through a crowd like butter when he wanted to, it was a special skill developed from being a prodigy at everything, needing to extract himself from 1st place circles had become a necessary skill when he decided humoring bystanders was no longer worth his time.
Prodigy was defined, in this case, as someone who dedicated an obscene amount of hours to every inane hobby, sport, and extracurricular one's parents enrolled them in order to ensure they would not lose.
"Katsuki." He greeted quietly as his eyes roam over the man in front of him. He was extremely sweaty, generic man deodorant wafting off him in troves, but he didn't seem any worse for wear otherwise.
"Shou." He said, inclining his head towards the exit and taking Shouto's closest hand in his own. As they walked, Katsuki didn't look back as he flipped off the crowd behind him and shouted over his shoulder, "Don't follow me dumbass extras!"
Shouto allows himself to be pulled along by him. It was something he'd grown accustomed to knowing Katsuki for so long, and he took a moment to catalog his condition.
Katsuki was scowling, not really a concern. He didn't seem to be overly tired, no bags under the eyes. His skin was pale for someone that was just doing intense exercise, possibly a concern. There was a twitch in his eye that was unusual. It seemed to be in response to outside stimuli, and Shouto considered that Katsuki might have a headache or even the start of a migraine.
He went over points of possible concern: pale skin and a potential headache. He wondered if he should reassess the sweating, too. Maybe it wasn't from the exercising. On the court he had possibly fainted, according to the commentators, and what he saw of the replay seemed to confirm that as well-
"Oi, Halfy, you just gonna to keep on staring like some sort of braindead moron?" Katsuki's gruff voice cuts through the tangent in his mind.
They'd stopped outside the school building. It was late but the air was still warm from a late spring day. Katsuki was tapping a finger against Shouto's temple, and he blinked in time with the touch.
"I swear, for someone with absolutely nothing going on up there, you sure get lost in that pretty head of yours a lot."
The words were rude, but Shouto could read the way Katsuki's expression softened around his eyes, heard his tone shift from sandpaper to silk, and knew there was nothing but affection in the comment. Shouto squeezed Katsuki's hand and raised his freehand up to the man's forehead the way Masaru has done for him in the past.
He realized belatedly he had no idea how to determine if someone's temperature was abnormal using this method.
"Are you feeling ok?" He said, settling for using his words, but was rewarded anyway when Katsuki pressed into the hand on his forehead. Katsuki's eyes closed, content with the touch.
"Mmm, was fucking nothing, vertigo or some lame ass shit, skipped lunch today s'probably why."
Shouto felt his brows knit together in concern. It was very unlike Katsuki to skip any meal. His health was extremely important to him in his never-ending quest to be number one. He voiced that concern and the man groaned, leaning even more weight into Shouto's hand.
"It was a long fucking day Half 'n' Half. We'll talk about it later." The words were nearly a petulant whine coming from Bakugou Katsuki, so Shouto accepted the excuse at face value, and determined it must have been a truly trying day. "I'm starving now, though. Let's grab something to eat."
Shouto remembered wanting to press further about the fainting, but acquiesced the request gracefully and left it at that. In the moment it seemed a nonissue.
Needless to say, they never talked about it later.
When Shouto returned to the hospital the next day, he needed to take a breath to steady himself before going in. Guitar case clasped in his hand, he was eager to see Katsuki, needed to see with his own eyes that the man's still ok before he could ease the tension between his shoulder blades.
As he walked into the building, no one stopped him, which he took as a good sign that Katsuki had been returned to his normal room. Shouto was a well-known face at the hospital at this point, recognized by nearly all the staff and many other long-term patients. When Katsuki had been moved in the past, he'd normally been flagged moments after walking through the door. It was one of the few times having such a flashy appearance had been useful.
He followed the long-familiar route through the hospital, giving polite nods when he was acknowledged even if he didn't properly recognize the people he was passing.
He didn't expect the stillness of the room when he entered.
Katsuki was laying flat in the hospital bed, far more lines and machines attached to him than the day before. There were new bandages wrapped over top his head, pristine and white. His complexion was ashen, corpse-like, and if it weren't for the heart monitor and the barely there rise and fall of his chest, Shouto would have believed he was dead.
He hesitated in the doorway a moment, cold negative emotions icing his feet to the floor before he disposed of them with the efficient snips of mental scissors.
He sucked in a breath through clenched teeth, feeling emptier and lighter, moving up so his thighs pressed against the edge of the bed and he could take one of Katsuki's wire crusted hands in his own.
It was colder than Shouto could ever remember it being. Katsuki, for the longest time, had been a beacon of intense heat. His passion and drive radiating a warmth Shouto had long grown comfortable in, but the illness bled it out of him.
Shouto swallowed, throat swollen as he curled his hand around Katsuki's and squeezed. He didn't squeeze back.
"Oh kid, staff told me you were here."
Ms. Nurse stood in the room's doorway. Her face was always wrinkled with age, but it seemed more pronounced now, deep set and heavy. She said nothing at first, eyes drifting over his form before lingering on their connected hands.
"Emergency surgery," she said, gesturing to Katsuki's head. She didn't elaborate on the specifics.
Shouto had trouble following medical terminology, and sometimes hearing about the details of procedures made him nauseous. After fainting one too many times while Ms. Nurse attempted to insert an IV into Katsuki's arm, it set the tone for how she discussed Katsuki's conditions with him.
"We aren't sure if he'll wake up, but it probably won't be today."
"Oh."
He didn't know how to respond.
He squeezed Katsuki's hand and got no response.
There was a miasma of emotion coming back for him, and he couldn't quite tamp it down as he focused a dull expression on Ms. Nurse. She met his eyes and her frown didn't ease, but she eventually bowed her head to exit. Other patients need her attention.
"I'll be back to check on the two of you soon." She said, fully confident that Shouto would still be there in the hours to come.
He was not sure how long he ended up staring at the doorway, but at some point Shouto blinked and realized his feet were beginning to ache from standing sentinel at Katsuki's bedside. He let go of the man's hand and set his guitar case on the floor, pulling the instrument out and quietly tuning it the best he could.
The night before he had time to think about everything that had happened during the jailbreak. The promises he made. There wasn't much he could do now, but he could be here, and he could play the guitar. So he'd do that.
He carefully balanced his phone against Katsuki's unmoving thigh and pulled up the tabs for an old pop punk song. He wasn't very talented when it came to music, so it was slow going as he squinted at his phone screen, reading the small numbers and having to pause every other minute to tap the screen to keep the device from falling asleep.
It took him well over an hour before he got a handle on the rhythm and finger placement, but eventually he was humming the melody along with the guitar.
It was around that time when he realized he could feel eyes on him. Shouto felt his heart skip a beat as his head whipped to look at Katsuki. He hadn't moved, eyes closed and completely still except the subtle rise and fall of his chest.
But he was being looked at.
There were different red eyes peering at him. They were low to the ground and just barely making it over the side of the bed like the intruder was trying to hide. The eyes widened with surprise when he caught them looking, and Shouto matched the stare silently. Neither of them moved for a moment, and Shouto was no stranger to letting awkward silences hang in the air.
The eyes blinked at him owlishly for a moment. There were pale little fingers curled over the side of the bed, holding the tiny person — a child, his brain supplied — steady as it watched him.
"C-can you play this one?" They said, probably a little girl, maybe five or six years old, from the cadence of her voice, but it was hard to distinguish at that age. She started humming a melody to a beat so unsteady even Shouto could recognize it as tragic. He didn't recognize the song at all, and even if he did he was not nearly good enough to just play a tune by ear.
"No, I don't know it."
They were at a standstill again, staring at each other blankly. He briefly wondered if she would just leave without saying anything, but the girl overcame the silence again, seemingly as unperturbed by awkward staring contests as he was.
"Can you play something pretty?"
He wasn't sure what would constitute as pretty, but it probably wasn't in the repertoire of songs he and Katsuki had learned to play together. He tilted his head back to stare at the ceiling, trying to think of anything 'pretty' to play.
"Ah. I know one I think is pretty."
It was something he learned at the request of his sister. A soft little French love ballad that was easy enough to learn and hum along too. The little girl sat quietly as he played, her expression enraptured when he started humming along to the melody.
When he finished, there was a tired-looking man standing in the doorway of Katsuki's room. The little girl didn't clock him immediately, too caught up is her excited praise over the 'mega pretty super awesome song,' but when she did, she seemed to perk up even more. Shouto thought he recognized him though, at least a few times he was sure he glimpsed the man. He remembered thinking the man stood out against the stark white motif of the hospital dressed entirely in black.
"Daddy!"
The girl launched herself away from Katsuki's bed and at her father's leg. Shouto smothered a wince as the leg the man had been resting all his weight on took the brunt of the child's attack. To his credit, if it hurt he didn't so much as flinch as his hand came down to rest on the girl's stark white hair.
"Eri, you can't go wandering off bothering strangers." He said, though despite the unenthused drawl the man didn't seem to put any force behind the words, especially when the little girl looked up and beamed a large smile at him. A killing blow to any incoming reparations if Shouto had ever seen one. The man's eyes scanned Shouto and then Katsuki's still body, and he seemed to settle on a light admonishment.
"I'm sure-"
"Todoroki Shouto."
"-Todoroki doesn't want you accidentally waking up his friend."
Eri had the awareness to look stricken for a second as her eyes darted from her father, to Shouto, to Katsuki. Shouto found his eyes drifting to the catatonic man as well.
"Actually, if she could wake him up, I think I'd owe her a great debt. She's not a bother at all."
It was an honest admission. Ms. Nurse's 'if he wakes up' weighed heavily on his mind. He thought it might be nice to have the little girl on his team on the mission to wake Katsuki up. He gestured at them with his guitar and continued, "you both are welcome to swing by with song requests whenever, I'm trying to get better."
The man didn't say anything for a moment, his deadpan stare rivaling even Shouto's for unnervingness before he came to a conclusion, pointing his thumb to his chest.
"Aizawa," he pointed down, "Eri. We'll see you around, Todoroki."
"Bye-bye Todo'ki!"
The little girl waved, her enthusiasm making up for both the adults in the room as she was shepherded out to their intended destination. He felt like he wouldn't be seeing them around, not that he'd blame Aizawa for not wanting his extremely young daughter hanging around a strange adult man. It surprised him when Aizawa spoke up once more before departing.
"If you want to get better, start by properly tuning your guitar." And then he was out the door.
Shouto looked down at the guitar, strummed, and listened. He couldn't tell if it was out of tune or not and just shrugged, going back to his phone to refresh his memory of the tabs for the song he had been playing before Eri came in. Before he started again, he looked at Katsuki's sleeping form.
Shouto brushed his hand over cool fingertips. Without the energetic presence of the little girl, the sound of the medical equipment in the room feels oppressive.
"Kats, wake up soon- please," he really wasn't above begging, if it was for Katsuki. "I can't do this without you."
"So, how's that feral boyfriend of yours doing?"
The voice came up behind him and Shouto nearly jumped out of his skin from the scare. Shouto had been staring blankly out over a sea of business elites, slowly counting the seconds as he prayed no one would attempt to approach him at one of the insufferable events his father mandated he attend. Some charity event all these people were just going to write off on their taxes or whatever it was rich people did, since they couldn't just donate to a cause without getting something in return.
Despite his surprise, Shouto's expression remained dull as he turned to face Yaoyorozu. She was wearing a warm smile, her hair pulled back in an elegant updo, and she was decked out with dozens of precious gems surely worth more than all the donations combined for the event.
Shouto didn't care for such elaborate displays, he had been forced into a deep green suit that he knew Katsuki would hate, but he also wasn't burdened with the expectations of running a mega conglomerate like Yaoyorozu, yet.
Yaoyorozu was young, a woman, and a lesbian.
She'd been dealt a bad hand for the aspirations set in front of her, yet she refused to confirm, and continued to excel and subvert the expectations of the archaic old men that ran this world. She gave the dusty corpses that refused to progress with the rest of the world a run for their money, constantly keeping them on their toes, and she did it with more grace than even the most elegant of dancers.
For all Yaoyorozu thrived in this world, that Shouto tried to avoid like a plague, she was still his best friend.
Shouto wanted to roll his eyes at her comment. Yaoyorozu was his best friend that did not like the aforementioned 'feral boyfriend' ever since their explosive first encounter, and all subsequent encounters since Katsuki discovered the easiest way under her skin were detailed descriptions of Jirou's latest relationships with other people.
Instead, Shouto offered a minuscule smile and head nod at her, not willing to allow any of the hovering vultures around them any insight into how he was really feeling.
Neither Yaoyorozu nor himself hid their sexual orientations, despite how much his father wished Shouto would, yet if either of them so much as smiled a little too widely in the other's presence rumors kicked up that they were involved. It was tiring.
"I wish you two would at least attempt to get along." He said, quiet enough that any prying ears wouldn't be able to hear him whining.
"I'll make you the same offer I always do, Todoroki. I'll play nice when your brute plays nice."
Shouto sighed. It really wouldn't be an unreasonable request for anyone that wasn't Katsuki, but the boy was more prideful and stubborn than anyone he'd ever met. It didn't help that Yaoyorozu had absolutely no qualms about getting under Katsuki's skin the second he provoked her.
Katsuki was good at reading people and finding the right buttons to push, but Yaoyorozu was a god at getting her way. Years of dealing with CEOs and high-strung business elites had ensured that. Privately, he thought Katsuki actually respected Yaoyorozu a lot, but that wasn't his secret to tell.
"It would help if you didn't rile him up, you know." He said, tone dry.
The girl had the audacity to let a glint of glee flash in her eyes.
"Why Todoroki, whatever do you mean? When am I ever anything but perfectly polite with your… wolfish companion?" Her voice edged into the intonation of formality that she took up when she began playing her politicking games, and he shot her a warning look.
"Oh relax, you're always such a stick in the mud when it comes to him. Seriously, you're way out of his league."
Shouto huffed a laugh before he could stop himself, a mistake that would whip the rumor mills into a frenzy in the foreseeable week. He couldn't stop his expression softening as he thought of Katsuki.
"It's actually the other way around, Yaoyorozu. He's way too good for me."
He believed that whole-heartedly. The amount Katsuki had given him since their meeting astronomically outweighed what Shouto had returned, but few people saw it that way.
"I'd probably die for him if he asked me to." He said as an afterthought, he didn't know if there was any other way to return to Katsuki all that he had given him.
She studied him for a moment, thoughtful.
"You're right, I take it back. You're both hopeless and most definitely deserve one another."
She took a sip of champagne, and the expression that flashed across her face was an instant red flag. She was about to say something incredibly witty and likely hilarious at the expense of Shouto's dignity. But, by the grace of a higher power, whatever she was about to say was cut off by a buzzing in his pocket.
Surprised that anyone would be trying to call him, Shouto took out his phone.
Incoming Call… Bakugou Mitsuki
Shouto felt his eyebrows pinch with confusion. He was close with the entire Bakugou family, and they knew he had to attend one of his father's asinine events. It was unusual that one of them would try to call him right now.
His eyes flicked up to Yaoyorozu, and her expression seemed to mimic his concern. He clicked 'accept' on the screen and brought the phone up to his ear, but he could already hear Mitsuki's loud voice before the receiver was anywhere near his ear.
"Shouto, sweety-" Mitsuki took a breath. It sounded ragged and her tone wavered in a way that he'd never heard before. His mind immediately went to Masaru, worried that something had happened.
"We know you're at that fancy-man charity party, and Masaru told me to wait to call you, but I know you'd want to know. The damn brat is in the hospital right now," She had to pause to sniffle. It crackled violently over the phone.
"He — uh, he had a seizure during practice today. The doctors are running tests to try and figure out what's wrong." She said, struggling to get the words out.
"He hasn't said anything, but you know I raised an emotionally constipated little asshole."
Her laugh sounded forced enough to hurt. "And not that he'd ever say it, but he's clearly shaken up by everything. If you could get here as soon as possible after your event, I know he'd appreciate it."
She took a steadying breath, and Shouto said nothing. A mixture of shock and surprise freezing him. He could see Yaoyorozu looking at him with a truly worried expression and he couldn't imagine what he looked like right now.
"Hey, Shouto, you still there?"
Mitsuki's voice wasn't shaking anymore, but her tone was unsure in the wake of his silence. He blinked, trying to recover from the news that he just received.
"Ah — Sorry. I'll be there as soon as I can."
"Thank you, sweetheart. I know Kats will be happy to see you. Love ya bunches, Waldo."
He hummed a soft goodbye in response to her. Like her son, Mitsuki was allergic to calling anyone by their given name, and yet she had addressed him as Shouto twice in their brief conversation.
Fancy-Man party be damned. He was leaving now.
"Everything alright, Todoroki?" Yaoyorozu was right next to him now, her hand lightly tapping against his elbow to get his attention.
"I need to go. Katsuki is, uh, he's in the hospital?"
He was pretty sure he was panicking, and maybe he said that really loudly because now it felt like the eyes of the entire room were now on him.
"Whoa, ok, come here. It's alright."
She immediately snagged him by the elbow and all but carried him into the nearly deserted foyer of the venue the event was taking place in. She turned to him, both hands firmly planted on his shoulders, and forced him to face her. "What's going on?"
"Uh."
He looked at her, her expression was stern and stable, reassuring. It made him feel a little less like he was icing over and helpless.
"Katsuki's mom. She said they had to take him to the hospital. They don't know what's wrong."
Yaoyorozu nodded grimly, her lips pressed into a thin line. "Alright, yeah, get going. The town hospital is over an hour's drive from here."
"But I need to speak with my father. If I just leave-"
"Don't worry about that. I'll run interference with your old man."
"I — thank you. Thank you so much Yaoyorozu. I owe you big time."
"Oh, stop that. You owe me nothing Todoroki, you're my friend."
He could only stare at her for a moment. Overwhelmed with gratitude, it washed over him in a surging force that had him nearly tackling the girl in a bone-crushing hug. If the sound of a camera's shutter went off from somewhere behind them, he didn't care as he thanked her profusely.
"Enough, you're embarrassing me." Her tone was fond, even as Shouto immediately released her and stepped out of her personal space. He gave her a quick bow, fully bending ninety degrees before he spun on his heels and power walked out of the venue.
It was an excruciating drive to the hospital, and he honestly remembered little of it. No clue of the number of traffic laws broken on the journey and he thought that was probably for the best.
Once at the hospital, he realized he should have called Mitsuki ahead of time to let her know he wasn't waiting for the event to be over to meet them at the hospital.
The woman at the information desk had been friendly and firm, resolutely refusing to provide any information to him about a patient that was not his immediate family. He couldn't blame her, though. She was following protocol, and he looked like a spectacle.
His father mandated that his personal team of stylists dress Shouto for all these events he was required to show his face at. He had to give the man credit for not trusting Shouto to show up dressed to a level of socially acceptable standards. It was absolutely warranted. If given a choice, he'd show up in a stained t-shirt and sweats out of spite.
The stylists had placed him in a well fitted deep green suit, a black dress shirt, a matching green tie, and freshly shined black dress shoes.
They had waxed back his hair, but purposely hadn't parted it evenly so that some of the red locks from his left side waterfalled over the white hair of his right side. He was just thankful they had kept his makeup to a minimum for this event. Foundation, lip tint, and a bit of neutral eyeshadow that he was told brought out the stormy intensity of his gray right eye. They assured him that the look was 'wildly refined.'
He was on his third attempt at calling Mitsuki when a familiar voice called his name.
"Shouto, we weren't expecting you until later."
Masaru was turning a corner into the lobby, a paper cup of coffee cradled in his hands. He looked exhausted, a tiredness weighing down his posture, looking about ready to collapse in on himself. Shouto crossed the lobby to meet the man, stashing his phone away.
"I left as soon as she called me."
Masaru laughed at that, but it didn't feel like there was much energy behind it.
Masaru was shorter than him, but as he encompassed Shouto in a firm hug, arms coming around to hold him in a steady, it felt like he was a child again, being smothered in the worried embrace of his mother.
He deflated against the man for a moment, returning the gesture with everything he had. Masaru was thumping his free hand against his back in a comforting rhythm, the other balancing his paper cup precariously.
"Of course you did, bud."
There wasn't exasperation or annoyance in his tone, just the bemused warmth of someone who shouldn't have expected anything less. He pulled away after a moment, careful not to spill any coffee. He still looked just as tired as he had moments ago, but it also seemed like some of the weight he had been shouldering had crumbled off.
"We are still waiting for test results from the doctors. You're welcome to wait with us in the room for the verdict."
Masaru gave him a warm smile, the one that Shouto knew Katsuki had inherited from him, and Shouto gave a small nod in return before they headed deeper into the hospital.
Turning into the actual room, Shouto realized he suddenly hadn't been sure at all what to expect. He'd imagined an unconscious Katsuki, prone in the bed, hooked up to so many machines and wires he would have looked caught in a web.
His imagination had proven far more dramatic than the reality of the situation.
Katsuki was in a hospital gown, yes, sitting up on the bed with his features pinched in annoyance as he squinted at the tiny screen of his phone playing basketball highlights or something similar.
There was a single IV in the crook of his arm and a clip on his finger measuring his heart rate, but other than that he looked unharmed. His blonde hair was pushed back messily, held at bay by his signature black headband. It was such a Katsuki look that Shouto suddenly felt silly for the panic that had been squeezing years off his life in the past hours.
Masaru walked into the room first, and Shouto hesitated in the doorway. Katsuki was relaxed when he looked up to greet his dad. His expression looks drained too, but he was doing a far better job of covering it up than his father.
Shouto waited in the doorway until Katsuki saw past his father, his posture stiffening into a scowl as Shouto raised his hand to wiggle his fingers in a quiet hello. He watched Katsuki's red gaze assess his outfit and the lines of his expression deepened further.
"The fuck? Why do you look like that?"
"Do I look bad?"
Katsuki scoffed.
"You look like you're about to deck the fucking halls."
Shouto hummed in contemplation as he assessed the green of the suit. Katsuki was vehement about excluding specific kinds of greens from his day-to-day wear because his unusual hair situation often read a little too 'holly jolly.'
"The stylists said I looked good."
Katsuki barked a laugh, setting his phone down and reaching his hand out towards Shouto. It was a cue he took to cross the room and take Katsuki's extended hand on his own. The man reached up to card his other hand through his painstakingly styled hair.
His gaze surveyed Shouto's face, likely noting all the makeup and other fancy things that had been done to him, his knowledge of makeup and style vastly outweighing Shouto's own.
"Yeah, well, those stylists were shit. It's the middle of July — easiest job in the world to make you look good and they nearly failed."
The words were harsh, but also not, and Katsuki's hand didn't leave his hair. They held each other's gaze for a moment and Shouto could see the ticks in the man's expression fade into something far softer and warmer. He'd entangled his fingers in the bright red strands of hair and started guiding Shouto down to meet him.
"Christmas come early or something?" Mitsuki's voice cut through the moment and shattered it easily.
Katsuki jerked back at the interruption, yanking Shouto's head back by his hair in a violent motion. The jerking movement had a sound escaping from somewhere buried deep inside himself that was entirely inappropriate to be making in front of the Bakugou adults.
He could feel a heat washing over his cheeks that he couldn't keep down, but at least in consolation Katsuki was fighting his own interesting mix of horrified and horny expressions.
Mitsuki's cackling drummed out the loud, embarrassed, beating of his heart as he extracted himself from Katsuki's grip, though he kept their hands linked together. Masaru was also still in the room, in hindsight another horrifying oversight on Shouto's part, head turned politely away from them where he'd been pretending to busy himself with an apparently fascinating motivational poster.
"Oi, Hag! Fuckin' — get out!"
Katsuki ripped the pillow out from under him and hurled it at his mother, who was still in the middle of an egregious hyena laugh. There was little he or Masaru could have done to stop the projectile from clocking Mitsuki square in the face.
Silence, and then.
"Brat." Her face was a snarl as she pulled the pillow down. "I brought you into this world, and I can sure as-"
The clearing of a throat and a knock interrupted the threat. A doctor stood in the doorway, a tired old face looking unimpressed at the rowdy energy of the room.
Katsuki's hand twitched in his grip, and the sign of apprehension at the doctor's arrival was enough to set Shouto on edge as well.
"Apologies for the wait," the man started, letting himself into the room. He took a moment to regard everyone, so quiet now that he could feel the thump of his heart aligned with the deafening beep of the heart monitor.
"How much do you know about Mr. Bakugou's illness?"
Those words, spoken casually, became the first line of the tragedy Katsuki and he would find themselves the stars of.
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