A bath of saffron mantled Todoroki's dorm. Silence buzzed through Todoroki's ears while his thoughts roared through his mind. He stared down at the final sentence that he'd written in his notebook, and with a sigh, he stood up from his dusty desk.
A part of me still wants to clean this desk, Todoroki thought while closing his notebook and canting his head to view the veil of dust clinging to the desk. It stands here, unable to move. A lifeless, inanimate object. Quite the layer of dust builds up over time. Gradually, the clean sheen of the desk fades away. Hazy, achromatic tendrils of dust eat its color. The desk is unaware of the dust. Those looking at it notice almost immediately. More dust, more time, more work. But why bother cleaning it? The desk will be dirtied with a new layer of dust. An endless yet preventable cycle.
He espied the final poem he'd written:
Frozen River
Dawn shatters the frigid night.
The snow seeps beneath the growing light.
Spring has finally arrived.
It envelops the dead that once thrived.
Cherish the fleeting light as it cries out.
Watch the tears force the flowers to sprout.
Even the frozen river capitulates to its wrath.
From a crystalline mirror to a weeping bath.
Fangs of ice splinter and break away.
All the unfeeling ice melts by midday.
Tears of a thousand reasons flow at last.
Imbued with numbed feelings of the past.
Light inevitably creates room for shadow.
Beaten down by time to a faded glow.
A rainy night devours the melting sun of hope.
Stumbling again over the same slippery slope.
Day and night cascade through an hourglass of time.
Such a normal cycle is less than sublime.
The seasons molt their feathers once more.
Longing for shards of the past that endlessly soar.
Hoping for when the river of agony disappears.
Mindlessly moving like clockwork gears.
Falling into a new rotation of overexposure.
Everything freezes into a monochromatic blur.
Merciless frost now savages the ground.
Winter perniciously perforates the river all around.
A world mantled in a thick haze of gray.
Was this not the desire to liquidate the fray?
The river at the heart of the forest stops.
A memory of a myriad of frozen teardrops.
Cracked ice is still simply ice.
Every desire comes with a price.
The dawn won't make a difference now.
Is such a damning reality worth a final bow?
The light won't melt the ice of indifference.
The reign of a benumbed world will commence.
A frozen river made impenetrable by force.
Time is a constant while seasons fly off course.
Day and night remain the same.
How many are there to blame?
Sardonic irony laughs at the new desire.
Only damage will arise from igniting the fire.
A mutilated world won't thaw the river.
Another rotation of watching the world wither.
Spring will come again like clockwork, right?
Surely, there's a reward for winning the fight.
The frozen river remains still in the sun's heat.
Tomorrow, today's consequences will repeat.
Todoroki ambled towards the chair he'd pushed beneath the noose that draped from the ceiling. "No wonder that desk always reminded me of myself," he muttered under his breath while standing upon the chair and peering into the maw of the dangling beast. "You might as well call this the spring for me. An escape from winter, at the bare minimum. Is this my reward or my punishment for trying so hard to only fail throughout it all? I guess I really should've been careful with what I wished for. Now that I have it, I can't get rid of it, and it's killing me more than anything else I might have been struggling with."
Yet, Todoroki slid his hand into his pocket and extracted his phone. He dialed for Bakugou, and once the whirring buzz of the phone chimed twice, the ash-blonde picked up the phone.
"Oi, somethin' up?" inquired Bakugou, whose soft yet husky voice drifted in a descending modulation.
"Katsuki…" Sinking into thought, Todoroki was silent for a few moments before he stepped down from the chair and lumbered towards the door. "Can I visit you for a little bit?"
"Come on over. Any reason for this? It's midnight, dammit."
"I know I woke you up, but I want to see you."
"Shouto, don't tell me you're high as fuck right now."
"I'm not high or drunk right now. I'll see you soon." After hanging up the phone, Todoroki promptly arrived at Bakugou's dorm. "You're smelling me?"
Bakugou withdrew from inhaling Todoroki's scent. "For once, I don't smell anything on ya," he admitted in a sigh. "That's a hella good thing. Oi. Any thoughts about hurting yourself today?" He glanced at Todoroki's wrists.
Shrouded in silence, Todoroki rolled up his sleeves to reveal the fresh bandages winding around both of his arms. "I cut a lot," he murmured nonchalantly. "They're from a few hours ago. I can't remember if I've told you or not, but I get these abrupt, unbearable urges to cut myself. My cuts are always deep. I haven't been able to make them anything but deep for a long time. Sometimes, I want to cut feeling numb with something, and other times, I cut just because I have the urge to." Sliding his sleeves back down, Todoroki then stepped forwards and embraced his boyfriend.
Reciprocating the act of affection, Bakugou curled his arms around Todoroki and sighed, "You know how damn dangerous that is, Shouto. I know you wanna feel like you're in grave danger, but yer whole life ain't worth that." He planted a kiss on Todoroki's cheek. "I fucking love you, asshole. I want you to be safe. C'mere." He lifted Todoroki up so that Todoroki was straddling Bakugou's hips. "Goddamn… Ugh. You really are a man made of ice."
As Bakugou sat down on his bed with Todoroki still on his lap, Todoroki chuckled, "Mmhm!" He slapped a smile over his indifference before twisting his expression into a smirk. "I can taste your blush from here, Katsuki…" His tongue swept over his lips.
Bakugou curled his lips into a scowl. "Fuck you…" he growled. "I know that expressiveness is fake. You don't feel shit from this, do you?" His eyelids fell as Todoroki pinned his back to the bed.
Todoroki's blissful facade shattered on the floor as swiftly as it had materialized. "Correct." His hands slid free from Bakugou's warm digits while he sat upright on the bed. "Yet, it doesn't bother you?" He leaned his head against Bakugou's shoulder.
Bakugou shrugged while furrowing his brows. "I ain't offended, at least. I'm the one playing myself. Doesn't mean it doesn't hurt, knowing you've never felt the same way. I'm just a damn fool chasing after an impossible dream and killing myself in the process by trying. I know you wanna experience love. Tch. I wanna be the person that's the key to your frozen heart. Just like some cheesy-ass story…" His dejected gaze faltered to the sheets.
I know I'm going to break him with this suicide, Todoroki thought as silence drenched the room. He really does care about me. I truly must have changed to not care about how much the others will grieve my death.
Todoroki nestled himself into Bakugou's lap again while combing his fingers through the ash-blonde's hair. "You're warm," Todoroki candidly sighed. "But I think that this is what I'd consider to be love, Katsuki. I want to cuddle with you. No one else. Just you." He exhaled slowly while Bakugou's warmth seeped into his body.
"Tch… Yer skin is warm, but damn are you cold at heart. I'd assume it's a defense mechanism because of that piece of shit that abused you." Bakugou peered into Todoroki's dual-colored eyes. "I still blame myself. I still had time to save you, but I was too late. Shouto, I…" His lips slowly sank closed.
"Are you all right?" Todoroki asked while tilting his head.
"Not gonna lie to you, so…I'm really not," Bakugou admitted in a growl.
Todoroki held Bakugou fast. "Do you want to talk about it?" His senses began to focus on the rhythm of Bakugou's heartbeat.
"I can't forget when you were so fucking terrified of me that you hid in the corner of your dorm. I was so damn desperate to find out who was hurting you. I wanted an instant answer. I know it did more harm than good. But I saw how you reverted back into being a cold, dismissive asshole, and no one else was saying shit. Really, for a while, it felt like I was the only one that noticed what was going on. Course, that fueled my ego. But I didn't know how the hell to handle the situation. After I scarred you when you hit me, I… I cried, Shouto.
"If I'd never been an asshole like that to you, would you have been happy right now? Was I the nail in the coffin? Was I the one…that pushed you over the edge? I know Deku caught on, and he always treated you so nicely. If I'd just told him what I knew and left it to him, would he have saved you instead of letting this happen? It's thoughts like those that prevent me from sleeping. Y'know, I've never been so goddamn open about my feelings before. Love fucks with your head."
So these are the burdens he's been carrying and hiding from me, Todoroki realized. Even Katsuki has his own demons to fight. I'll be burdening him with a lot after this. He'll think it's all his fault. That he could've done something different. I'm sure he'll hate himself for a long time. After all he's been through to help me, this is how I repay him? By letting him find my neck in a noose after he poured all that out to me? How cruel. Even so…it still doesn't bother me.