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animanicravyn - Thank you so much for the review! I definitely thrive of comments so your review was my motivator to get this chapter published, though I was also spurred by the can of red-bull I drank haha. I hope you enjoy!
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As the Number Two Hero, their Father was rarely home; always out on a mission, or patrolling Shizuoka or whichever prefecture was in need of assistance. Doing almost anything and everything to raise his crime statistics, and subsequently, his standing in the Hero-ranking system.
Miyuki enjoyed when her Father was out on business. Because without him there, their home almost felt like a home. Their Mother would smile a little more as Shouto clung to her waist, watching over them as Natsuo and Fuyumi pulled she and Touya into a game of soccer or whatever game Fuyumi had cooked up.
Her siblings laughed a little louder too, Natsuo especially as he outgrew Touya, and for her, without the weight of their Father's stare on she and Touya as they trained, Miyuki felt like she could breathe.
...And then Shouto's Quirk manifested, and everything changed.
Whatever paper-thin tranquility the rest of them had assumed whenever their Father was gone was all but shredded in the aftermath of Shouto's hybrid Quirk.
To start, their Father was always home. Mouth pressed into a thin line as he took to personally training their brother in the backyard.
He had told Touya and Miyuki to continue with their training as they had before, but with his eyes already trained on Shouto as he took to practicing with his Quirk for the first time, only a deaf person could miss the emptiness of his words.
Their father, still believing they could still be Heroes together, did not believe they could surpass All-Might.
Now, Shouto had become the new bearer of this dream. Only a child and yet already expected to carry the weight of their Father's world. Their very own Atlas. The perfect Todoroki, Father had said during what was meant to be a celebratory dinner.
Shouto. Her brother. Her baby brother.
Their Mother had all but barricaded herself in her room since Shouto's Quirk manifested, her sobs ringing in Miyuki's ears long after she managed to fall asleep. Fuyumi's voice, naturally soft, had become nothing but a mere whisper as she asked Miyuki what to do each day when their Mother refused to leave the confines of her room.
It seemed, since Shouto's Quirk had manifested and their Father stopped leaving for extended periods of time, their house had become a whole new purgatory altogether.
Miyuki saw it in Natsuo's face, in the downturned lips and forlorn blue eyes that became shifty whenever he turned a corner. Her brother was proof that not all blue-eyed Todoroki's looked so resolute, so fiery. In a household where looking like their father meant hurting their Mother and earning their Father's disapproval, Miyuki could only understand why her brother kept himself scarce and in his room.
Since their Father had left them to their own training, her twin had become insistent on amping their training; to distract them from their Mother's absence, the growing chasm that existed between their siblings, from lamenting…what had happened to them?
For Miyuki, Touya and even Fuyumi– the memory of a stern but caring Father and a lively Mother, a normal family untainted by one's greed, taunted them most nights.
During those nights, Miyuki often found herself out in the garden, following the scent of ash and sweat as she joined Touya's side.
Tonight was no different.
Sitting against the lone maple that stood in the middle of their garden, Touya had his head tucked between his knees and eyes pressed shut as Miyuki joined him beneath the great tree.
He didn't acknowledge her presence, nor did he flinch when she slowly drew the arm closest to her over to inspect more thoroughly.
Lifting his arm under a sliver of moonlight, Miyuki could see Touya's fresh burns all the more clearly, careful not to jostle him too much as she reached for the tub of soothing balm in her pocket.
Beginning to treat his wounds, the relieved inhale Touya let out was all Miyuki needed to hear to know her twin had returned to her. Back from wherever he went when his mind took him into another place, to another time. From wherever he went where she could not follow.
"How long are you going to stay out here tonight?" She finds herself asking, after all his injuries are finally taken care of.
At her question, Touya's raises his head, tired blue eyes blinking up at her.
For the first time in a while, her brother doesn't look angry. Doesn't look one-step away from bursting at the seams. Rather, he looks quite calm. Almost relaxed. It's more unsettling than it should be when Miyuki recalls what happened only hours before.
"Until Natsu learns to keep his mouth shut," Touya rasps, irritation flashing across his face as Miyuki's stomach churns.
[It's becoming harder each day to calm him down, to keep their siblings safe].
"And until you realise I wasn't going to do anything, just show Father that we're more deserving of his time. Not him. Us."
Him. Shouto. Miyuki's baby brother. Their baby brother.
Touya tried to burn their baby brother tonight.
"You tried to hurt Sho-chan, Touya." Miyuki says aloud, words raspy too as she toys with the empty tub. "You could've seriously hurt hi–"
"–And if I did, 'Yuki?!" Touya snaps, hands clenching into fists on his knees. The air warms around them then, and tensing herself, Miyuki returns Touya's warning with a warning of her own. Hand brushing against the ground, a thin layer of ice blooms from beneath them.
The ice cools their skin, and something in Touya's tensed up shoulders soften as he relents.
As they've learned, Miyuki's ice is stronger in the night. So it would be foolish to try fight her now.
"I know what I did was bad, 'Yuki," He admits, dropping his head against the tree with a thump. "But I thought if I could make Father see his prized possession was weak, show him how he was flawed too, then maybe he'd look at us again. Maybe he'd remember we're here too..."
It starts of with small sniffs, which then evolve into raspy hiccups as he re-bends over his knees that Touya Todoroki, with only his twin sister–his other half–to bare witness, begins to unravel beneath the shelter of a lone maple tree and slivers of moonlight illuminating them.
Letting the tub fall at her side, Miyuki reaches an arm over his shoulder–careful not to brush his bandages too harshly–and pulls her brother into her embrace. The first time he's let her hug him in weeks.
"We've always been here..." Touya cries, his devastation turning to near-desperation as he presses his face into the side of her neck.
"...So why?"
Why were they not good enough?
Why did their Father not want them anymore?
Why did their Father not want him?
Miyuki doesn't answer, nor does she bother.
They've heard too many falsities from their Mother, whose attempts to maintain their family only to have her promises proven to be futile, to blindly trust any pretty words that could be said.
Based on the way Touya digs himself even deeper into her arms though, her brother knows this, too. Instead of waiting for an answer that's already come in the form of her embrace, Touya takes Miyuki's hug for what is is and simply weeps.
For who knows how long, Miyuki lets her twin cry in her arms until there's nothing left to cry, moves to lift him when his body gives way to fatigue and starts carrying him back inside when all is said and done.
She carries her sleeping brother past Shouto's room (where their mother has finally managed to soothe his cries), past Fuyumi's (where she knows her sister and Natsuo are both curled around the other), and towards her own room at the very end of the long corridor.
From the Western corridor (where Natsuo's and Touya's rooms are located), Miyuki catches a glimpse of red and blue in the corner of her eye and holds back a flinch as their Father's shadow becomes more apparent in the shifting light.
Her Father, waiting outside Touya's room, beckons Miyuki to bring him over.
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For the first time ever, Miyuki ignores his order.
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Status: Unbeta'd.
