Chapter Text
Asahi Shimbun
Your critical guide to current events in Japan: breaking news, politics, business, sports, arts and entertainment, weather, and more
Sep 29, 21XX
Villains arrested after attack on busy shopping street
Four villains have been arrested for attempted theft and public endangerment after this afternoon’s attack on the newly rebuilt shopping street in Higashi Ward. Thanks to the quick response by Pro Heroes in the area, there were no major injuries to civilian bystanders. However, several buildings in the area sustained significant damages. Affected businesses will remain closed until the buildings are cleared by a safety inspector. (read more)
Sep 30, 21XX
Discontent with the current Hero System persists
Following the villain incident in Higashi Ward yesterday, another man was arrested for reckless quirk use after using his quirk, “Memory”, in the middle of the gathered crowd. Although there was no additional damage to the area, several civilians reported emotional distress after they were forced to relive painful memories under the influence of his quirk. According to eyewitnesses, the man directed his quirk toward the crowd after blaming Heroes for failing to save his wife and child during the war. Similar sentiments of discontent with the current Hero system were echoed by several civilians who wish to remain anonymous. So far, police have found no link between the man with the memory quirk and the other villains.
October 2, 21XX
NPSC and HPSC joint press conference scheduled
The National Public Safety Commission and the Hero Public Safety Commission announced that they will hold a joint press conference later this month to address concerns about the current structure of the Hero system. The press conference will be broadcast on national news stations. In-person attendance will be limited to approved members of major news outlets.
Shouto’s Phone
Messages
Katsuki
Friday, September 29
6:22 pm
Katsuki
Hey. Do you have time to talk tonight?
8:24 pm
Katsuki
Shouto?
11:02 pm
sent
Sorry. I was asleep.
Katsuki
At 6:30? Are you sick or something?
typing…
[I don’t know. Lately I feel so…]
sent
It’s late for you to be up. Did something happen?
Katsuki is typing…
typing…
[I’m sorry. I know I’ve been ignoring everyone again. I just can’t…]
Katsuki
It’s fine. Go back to sleep.
sent
Are you sure?
Katsuki
Yeah. I’ll call you tomorrow.
Call Log
Saturday, September 30
Katsuki 2:05 pm
Incoming call, 14 min 11 sec
Shouto’s Journal
Saturday, September 30
Mood: 2
Katsuki called this afternoon and we talked for a little while but I feel like we didn’t actually say anything.
Lately it seems like he’s trying to… I don’t know. Protect me or something. Because he can tell that something’s wrong. But I don’t know how to explain what I’m feeling or why I’m so tired all the time. And I don’t understand how not talking about what’s going on with him is supposed to make me feel better. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.
UA Online Learning Portal
The date and time now is Oct 2, 21XX 07:14 PM. Logged in as: Todoroki Shouto
Class 2A Homeroom
📋Assignments
Select an assignment to view details, start working, or edit your previous work.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: October 3, 21XX, 9:15 AM
Subject: Assignments
Todoroki,
You are missing the last three assignments in the online portal for my class. I know you’re dealing with a lot right now. If you need more time or have questions about the alternate assignment for your work study, let me know.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: October 3, 21XX, 12:57 PM
Subject: Re: Assignments
Sorry. I’ll work on them this week.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: October 3, 21XX, 5:32 PM
Subject: Re: Assignments
Will you be able to attend the group video call this week or should we schedule a separate meeting for Thursday?
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: October 3, 21XX, 6:16 PM
Subject: Re: Assignments
[Draft] [I don’t know what I’m supposed to write for any of the reflection assignments. What’s the point of doing them when I don’t even know if I—]
[draft deleted]
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: October 3, 21XX, 6:20 PM
Subject: Re: Assignments
Thursday is fine. Sorry for the trouble.
Tuesday, October 3
Shouto handed the questionnaire back to Shizume Sensei without meeting her eyes. It was bad enough that he had been exhausted, unmotivated, and (as Katsuki would put it) feeling like complete shit for the past month, but sitting here in his therapy sessions each week trying to dissect why he was feeling this way without finding any solutions just seemed to make things worse. Shizume Sensei glanced over his answers then set the paper aside and smiled warmly at him.
“Is there anything in particular you’d like to start with today?” she asked.
“Not really,” Shouto said, running his hands over the blue faux velvet cushion in his lap.
It wasn’t as if anything new had happened since his last session. He was still volunteering at the hospital to fulfill his work study requirement, visiting Touya whenever the facility allowed, and trying to be present with the rest of his family enough that they wouldn’t worry about whether he was okay.
“Last time we met, you mentioned some things you were planning to do this week. Did you get a chance to do any of them?”
Shouto vaguely remembered listing some things he knew he should do, like training, catching up on his schoolwork, or reaching out to his friends, but hadn’t had the motivation to do any of it.
“I talked to Katsuki a little.”
“How did that go?”
“I don’t know. Fine, I guess.”
It was frustrating not to know whether Katsuki was purposely avoiding certain topics, or if the recent disconnect between them was his own fault. Shizume Sensei tried to get him to elaborate, but after a few more noncommittal answers, she moved on.
“How about training?” she asked, “Were you able to make time for that?”
“I’m just tired,” he said, “I’ve been trying but I don’t really feel like doing anything.”
“How long have you been feeling this way?”
“I don’t know. A while, I guess.”
He knew he should at least try to give a better answer but he truly couldn’t pinpoint when everything had become so overwhelming. Shizume Sensei glanced at the paper he’d filled out earlier.
“You answered ‘sometimes’ to the question about feeling bad about yourself. Do you feel like you failed yourself or the people you care about?”
“It’s not that I think I failed,” Shouto said, suddenly annoyed at the way the questionnaire attempted to reduce his confusing feelings into tidy boxes with numbers to be analyzed. “I just… I feel like I can’t do anything now. The war is over. I saved Touya. We all survived. But now what? Coming here was supposed to give us a chance to figure things out and move forward, but what have I even done since we’ve been here?”
“Most of the time, progress doesn’t look like progress when we’re in it,” Shizume Sensei said, “What you’ve been doing—being here for Touya and the rest of your family, isn’t nothing. Being a hero is a big part of your identity but it’s important to remember that it’s not your sole responsibility to fix everything.”
“It’s not about ‘being a hero’,” he said, biting back his frustration, “I wanted to bring Touya home and make sure everyone was safe, and I did. I know I can’t fix everything myself. I’m not trying to. But now everyone else is working hard and moving forward and I don’t even know if…”
He broke off and turned his gaze toward the window. He hated the feelings of uncertainty that had been hovering at the periphery of his mind ever since the war ended. A pair of sparrows perched on the oak tree outside and he watched them flutter from branch to branch while he tried to collect his thoughts.
“Shouto,” Shizume Sensei said gently, “When you’re ready, there’s something you said before that I want to circle back to.”
After a minute, he nodded and when he met her gaze, he felt the subtle calming effect from her quirk.
“Why do you want to be a hero?” she asked.
“We’ve already talked about this a hundred times. I don’t know what else you want me to say.”
She waited for a little while to see if he would say more before she spoke again.
“As you said just now, you wanted to save Touya and keep everyone else safe. You also said before that you wanted to become a hero because you admired All Might and that you wanted to be able to protect your mother.”
Shouto nodded automatically and she continued.
“You talked about how your sister encouraged you to apply to UA and how the friends you made there helped you to understand the kind of hero you wanted to be.”
Shouto sighed. All of that was true, but hearing his words repeated back to him didn’t make him feel any better.
“What’s your point?” he asked.
“For the past month, every time the topic has come up, you’ve talked about your reasons and motivations for becoming a hero in the past tense and avoided questions about your plans for the future.”
“I… what?” Shouto’s breath caught in his throat as he turned to stare at her.
“These are just patterns that I’ve observed during our meetings,” Shizume Sensei said, “It doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong and it’s completely understandable if you feel uncertain about what you want.”
Shouto sat there, trying to wrap his head around her words.
“What do you mean, ‘what I want’?” he asked.
“The war is over, Shouto. You saved a lot of people, including your family. Now you get to decide how you want to move forward. You don’t have to figure out your entire life now, and you can always change your mind, but I want you to answer something honestly for yourself. Do you still want to be a hero?”
Shouto opened his mouth automatically, ready to respond that of course he still wanted to be a hero, but something stopped him. Unlike Katsuki or Midoriya, who had never once wavered in their goal, he had faltered along the way and been full of doubt for so long. Still, he had decided to be a hero on his own terms, hadn’t he? Regardless of how things had started, he chose this path for himself and made each decision intentionally so that he could become the person he wanted to be. But was this still what he wanted? Or was he just clinging to the only path he’d ever known because the uncertainty was terrifying?
You get to decide.
His mom had been the first person to tell him that and he had carried her words with him as he reaffirmed his desire to become a hero but now…
Do you still want to be a hero?
Something inside him broke and he heard the desperation in his own voice when he finally answered.
“I don’t know.”
Messages
Katsuki
Tuesday, October 3
6:15 pm
Katsuki
Hey. Can we talk tonight? I wanna ask you something.
8:19 pm
Katsuki
Did you fall asleep again?
typing…
[I don’t know what I’m supposed to do anymore]
Katsuki
Shouto? You ok?
Call Log
Tuesday, October 3
Katsuki 8:23 pm
Missed Call
Wednesday, October 4
Katsuki 6:40 pm
Missed Call
Katsuki 7:03 pm
Missed Call
Messages
Katsuki
Wednesday, October 4
7:15 pm
Katsuki
I’m not doing this shit again. Answer your damn phone or I’ll kick your ass.
8:49 pm
Katsuki is typing…
Sunday, October 8
The rest of the week passed in a haze for Shouto. He still showed up at the hospital to fulfil his work study hours but he finally gave up the pretense of afternoon training sessions, instead heading straight back to the house and curling up on his futon until someone came to rouse him for dinner. Instead of bringing clarity, acknowledging the uncertainty that had been growing for who knew how long, combined with the guilt that came with ignoring his friends’ calls and messages made him feel even worse. He hated his therapist’s reassurances that it was natural to feel conflicted and even depressed because most of the time he didn’t feel sad, or angry, or anything; just numb. He couldn’t bring himself to explain this to his family, but sometimes the way his mom sat beside him without speaking and ran her fingers through his hair made him think she understood a little of what he was feeling.
He spent most of the weekend in bed, alternating between sleeping and scrolling through his phone without really paying attention to anything. He had muted the class group chat because the constant conversations about hero work was too overwhelming, and the other messages from Iida and Midoriya were left unanswered because no, he wasn’t okay, but how could he explain that to his friends who were all working hard to achieve what had once been their shared goal?
Katsuki stopped calling after Shouto failed to answer for three days in a row, but sometimes when he was scrolling through their message history, three dots appeared, indicating that Katsuki was typing something. He never hit send though and every time the dots disappeared without a new message, Shouto’s heart sank. Part of him wished he could tell Katsuki everything, but it would be cruel to place the burden of his uncertainty on Katsuki’s shoulders when what Katsuki wanted more than anything was to return to hero work himself.
Shouto drifted into an uneasy doze and when he woke the sun had already set. He could hear people talking at the front door but he assumed that it was just the couple who owned the house they were renting; they lived next door and had been coming around for dinner most Sundays since the wife had begun sharing gardening tips with Rei. They were kind people and good neighbors, but Shouto didn’t think he had it in him to sit at the table and make small talk tonight.
He burrowed deeper into the futon as soft footsteps padded down the hall. There was a knock then a patch of light spread across the tatami floor as the door slid open.
“Shouto?” Fuyumi said, “Someone’s here to see you.”
A flicker of surprise cut through the fog of apathy hovering over him. Shouto didn’t know who would be there to visit him specifically. He got along with the people he volunteered with at the hospital but he never stayed to chat after he was done with his shift the way Natsuo did, and he wouldn’t consider any of them friends. Either way, he wasn’t in the mood to see anyone.
“I’m tired, Nee-san,” he said, keeping his back toward her, “Tell whoever it is I’ll call them tomorrow.”
“Shouto…” Fuyumi’s voice was full of worry and he hated it but he couldn’t do anything to make it better.
He reached for the blankets to pull them over his head but then someone else spoke.
“Fuck that, Half and Half. I just spent all day on four different trains to get here. The least you can do is get the hell out of bed.”
Shouto’s breath caught in his throat. He thought he must be dreaming, because why else would Katsuki be here? But when he sat up, he saw the familiar explosion of blond hair illuminated in the light from the hallway. He couldn’t make out Katsuki’s expression at first, but when he crossed the room and knelt down beside Shouto’s futon, his crimson eyes held a mix of concern, relief, and something else Shouto couldn’t quite place.
“What are you doing here?” Shouto asked.
“Told you to answer your damn phone or I’d kick your ass.”
Katsuki didn’t sound angry, but Shouto looked away. He should have just texted back instead of making Katsuki worry, should have talked to him, used his words to explain what he needed and Katsuki would have understood. But he didn’t even know what he needed anymore and having Katsuki here…
A warm hand wrapped gently around his wrist and Shouto reluctantly met his gaze.
“You okay?” Katsuki asked.
The look on his face told Shouto that he already knew the answer. There was a challenge buried under his question, as if he was daring Shouto to lie and say he was fine so he could argue that he clearly wasn’t. But Shouto was tired. Too tired to question why Katsuki was really here. Too tired to fight with him or pretend that he was okay. He had been trying for too long to keep going, even when he had no idea where he was headed, hiding his uncertainty to put others at ease. He didn’t make a conscious decision to move, but a moment later, he was in Katsuki’s arms, hands clenched tightly in the soft fabric of his sweatshirt.
Katsuki stumbled backward in surprise. “Shit, gimme some warning, huh?”
“I’m sorry,” Shouto whispered, already pulling back, because this wasn’t something they did. But Katsuki just pulled him closer, wrapping his arms around him the way he had so many months ago, the night before the final battles when they lay side by side in his room, clinging to each other and to the hope that everything would be fine if only they could survive tomorrow.
Katsuki didn’t say anything, didn’t try to convince him that everything would be okay. His steady heartbeat filled the silence between them and Shouto closed his eyes. It was warm and safe in Katsuki’s arms, but deep down, he still felt numb.