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He was to write in pencil, always.
Forests of slate grey grow in reverse, roots sinking into pristine paper. They stoop and wither, fading as the winds whistle and howl around them while statistics and solid numbers pile up and shatter at the edges of his fragile world. It is quiet in the woods where frigid fact and logic govern everything, save for the fierce storms sent by his father that gradually claim his siblings, terrifying them into submission one by one.
Memorised chemical reactions recite monotonously in the back of his mind, a constant reminder of his father’s looming presence. It is not enough. Knowledge held no shelter against the firestorm that was Endeavour. His mother is swallowed up as the left side of his face burns but parboiled flesh is a small price to pay for her eye contact—he's been starved of that lately. Presence haunting her eye sockets, there is a lull in time as she regards him hesitantly, her face gaunt behind the flames. Brittle regret lines her cheekbones and jaw as they lurch from under her skin, cracking under the weight of his horrified stare before she is shackled by misfortune once more and dragged away. He doesn’t see her again.
He fights back with chipped ice among torrents of tears and barely smothers a single flickering flame. Retreating to his forest is the only option left. He wallows in solitude and loses what’s left of himself in studying the marred bark of the trees.
Pressure rains down on his back, dousing the remaining fire to push him further into the pool of unattained knowledge as a bubbling white scream streams from his gaping mouth. Lukewarm water hits the back of his throat. A wet gasp chokes his cry for help as he breaches the surface thrashing, a hoarse groan accompanies his frantic intake of breath, precipitation blurring his vision as he is forced back under.
Currents rush at him from all sides, twisting his flesh and moulding him into the object his father so desperately craves. The elasticity of stubborn, scared youth aids him in putting himself back together once he is in private, the ghost of his mother’s palms rubbing soothing circles on his back as he rearranges his entire being under its protective mask. Components of himself are lost in translation each time he makes this change between true self and who he needs to be to survive. Cogs of passion and humour litter his bitter history and leave lonely hollows behind. It’s not that his heart breaks, it is just woefully empty. And without a heart, who is he to care?
Already his psyche is dented. An obvious patch up job. Second-hand Shouto. Memory violently singed into the side of his face, skin taught and disfigured as it cradles his cheek, the milky hue of his iris akin to the fading image of his mother.
Burning lungs convulse and shudder under the surface. He is drowning. His eyes close and mouth slides open in his unconsciousness, allowing water to rush in. It tastes like Mendeleev.
The notion of soulmates is a whisper. A prophecy hidden in an old wives’ tale. It flutters among the leaves of his isolated forest, carefully passed on by a doting maid in a bedtime story. Hope bounces weightless across the woodland canopy and a glimmer of hope tingles in his veins. He has a premonition that his soulmate, whoever may be, is his one-way ticket to freedom. For a moment he forgets that fairy tales often have gruesome endings.
A soulmate is a far off dream, puffs of rounded silver, sweet, fluffy and melt in your mouth, and yet those marks still appear. Green, brown and red from felt pen, like notches on tree bark.
Graphite smears across his skin, dissolving as the pencil crosses beige plains. Smudged fingerprints trail across his forearms, pitiful attempts at contact printed in coal and soot. Determination and uncertainty spur him into a frantic trance. Lead digs into his flesh, blunt tip tearing it up in the wake of its slow torture. Repetition carves the silent words into his skin, pain screaming while he is unable. His limbs are left raw and bleeding in between angry red welts of failure.
Ink continues to drop onto his palms like warm rain stirring the forest floor but his tongue is cut. He cannot reply.
His father dislikes the chips and marks on his perfect son. Fumes quiet as a thunderstorm, lightning sparking on his tongue and erupting when Shouto is the nearest target. Rumbling hatred drowns out his desperate reasoning that it wasn’t his fault, he had no control over the scrawl that wasn’t his. Until it doesn’t, and he rips up the sleeve of Shouto’s shirt to brand hatred across his arm, forbidding the mystery that is his soulmate from marring his son’s skin.
Years passed and he remains the forest’s sole inhabitant. He has been carved out of obsidian and marble to stand and serve a purpose decided before birth. Brought into the world as a tool for his father he allows himself to be manipulated like a puppet, insides now truly hollow.
The only visitor that ventured into the bleak wasteland he called home was Yaoyorozu Momo. Another tool sent to carve him into ‘perfection’ who instead offered him filling warmth and hushed friendship. They talk long into the night and one day she speaks of their future, of when they get to leave this awful place.
It sparks an idea.
Fifteen years under his belt offer him enough knowledge of this labyrinth that he can navigate it in the dark. Coins are easy bribes for newer staff and silence is only expensive if people are looking. A hand snakes out of its money laden pockets and stalls the power late at night. No one notices the weakened spirit of a boy slip out.
Liquid charcoal paints the night sky and the air tastes crisp and fresh on his tongue. More gold buys his way into the city and he stumbles out, chilled breezes nipping at his exposed skin. He forgot to bring a jacket in his hurry.
He stops and thinks of a silhouette. A figure shrouded in the smoke of newly doused fires with its face obscured, reaching out to him. Contact. A phone. His first mission in this new world should be to acquire a phone to surpass the pencil on his skin.
Dazed from the high of escape clashing with the overwhelming stimulation of his senses, he doesn’t realise he’s been spotted. The phone is wrenched from his hands as he is bundled into the back of the car.
Underestimating Shouto’s knowledge has always been his father’s downfall and bribery soon brings him another phone which he expertly hides away. Feigning illness he retreats to safety and scribbles the number on the side of his finger, the titans his father has hired to stand guard outside his door none the wiser.
In the morning he scrubs off the ink and finds the first message to arrive on his phone.
From: Unknown Number [05:47]
Hi…?
A firework dances in the pit of his stomach, the amplification of sparked interest. His shoulders curl upwards, hand tempted to cup the warm smile on his lips in his palm as if it were too intimate to share even with the empty space of his room. What should he do now?
Instinct tells him to write down the number somewhere. Hidden away in two separate locations just in case his memory isn’t strong enough as he runs through it over and over again. Tripping over loose digits as he debates what his first words to his soulmate should be at the same time.
Giddiness rampages in his stomach, buzzing through bouncing legs and stretching his mouth into a grin as he tries to stifle any noise he might make for fear of being caught. Suspension tugs at the ends of his tingling nerves making him restless and he decides he can’t wait any longer.
He opts to be brief and to the point. An explanation of a controlling father and an apology for the years of silence. Then an offering, his name.
His soulmate’s hesitancy is understandable with the violence of the threats Enji had printed across his skin all those years ago but after a few minutes of probing he is trusted enough to call them by name.
Izuku.
It takes all of five minutes for him to spill his guts. There’s a disconnect between the blunt tapping of his fingers against the screen and the chasm in between his lungs as fragmented trauma arranges itself into neat sentences, his crushing childhood compact and tied up in a bow. Emotion swells in his chest, tightening his breathing and pushing tears above his waterline with the space it takes up. It’s unusual. He places it as hope.
This is the first time he’s ever had to explain his whole situation to someone and, quite frankly, he’s a mess. Overlooking his situation in its entirety is overwhelming. Storms of abuse easily cloud vision and once you get used to it, it’s hard to look past the silver linings and into the light. To remember what’s truly healthy. With no experience of this in the first place, it’s almost impossible.
Recounting his experiences to Momo has always felt monotonous with the occasional surge of boiling rage to liven things up. Venting didn’t do much for his mental state, only running through the most recent events out of obligation and to further ingrain every despicable thing he had been through into his memory, whether for later revenge or a progress check he didn’t know.
Momo, whilst always supportive, was powerless to help him. But Izuku had been chosen by fate. And if fate was absolute and there was absolutely no way they could be together while his father had control then somehow Izuku would be able to get him out of here. Eventually.
A few hours of questioning later he pushes himself a final time and admits one of his greatest and most disorientating fears: he no longer knows which parts of himself are real and while are carbon copies of his father welded into his being. Nothing is his own, not even himself. To Shouto this act represents how safe Izuku makes him feel but this knowledge isn’t much of a reward.
Before Izuku has offered paragraphs of concern and reassurance. Methodically analysing each piece of information given to him to produce an array of answers, the need to help ingrained deeply into his every interaction. However with these two sentences he changes Shouto’s life.
‘You are your own person. The strengths you have are your own power, no matter who you share them with.’
He takes a moment to acknowledge the turn in his stomach then brushes it off and changes the subject of conversation, eager to learn more about Izuku. It isn’t until he’s lying on his back, hands resting on his gut, in the lukewarmth of afternoon that it finally begins to process. A high pitched whine crescendos to block his hearing and he watches his old mind-set crumble and shatter to the ground in slow motion.
It’s too big of a corpse to bury in one day and he knows the effects will likely haunt him for years but with this, the first step, he starts to learn what it is to be free.
The next few days pass in a merry-go-round blur. He stockpiles information about Izuku. Switching his tactics of retaliation to those of delicate, private healing so that his resolve reinforced with the promise of friendship and intimacy. Hope hooks its way into his ribcage and snares his heart, tugging at the corners of his mouth just enough to arouse suspicion.
After three days of solitude in his bedroom, he readjusts his mask and steps out into Enji’s castle, the burning dread of being found out dripping down his neck. Optimism weighs more than he expects and he stumbles, replying to his father a little too amicably, the words lacking their usual bite.
Suspicion narrows Enji’s eyes, the anticipation of a snarl curling his upper lip until he decides against it and instead roars a hearty laugh, a little too forceful to be disregarded as a threat. Luck remains on his side and she helps him to disguise hope and excitement while his father is lulled into a false sense of security, the cuffs on Shouto’s hands loosened as the ball and chain around his ankle remained.
Without the constant need to prove to himself that he was not and would never be the same as his father, his pride allows him to bend to his will with the knowledge that he will spring back. Even the most despicable creatures hold lessons to be learnt from and with this discipline he can make the lectures bearable.
Months of rocky footwork and near discoveries finally yielded once Shouto finally settled into the rhythm of this new dance around his father. The high from his introduction to Izuku was ever climbing and the buzzing in his chest left him restless and being trapped here under tyrannous rule will never leave him content.
Plotting his second escape in private was exhilarating. Momo had already voiced her stern disapproval, knowing the effects of acting out would only lead to a downward spiral in Shouto’s relationship with his father and not wanting to know how they could break through rock bottom. But now he has more than one friend, another ear to turn to.
Izuku joins him under the covers of his futon, precisely mapping the details for Shouto’s latest stunt as each message leaves Shouto’s phone with a whisper into the darkness. Blue light illuminates his face, elongating the shadows under his eyes as those three dots ripple on the screen and he can feel Izuku’s eager energy pulsing through the screen.
They conspire for hours, each using a myriad of perspectives to tighten the seams and stitch up any loopholes. Resigned to his adamance, Momo wishes him luck and pushes a crumpled slip of paper into his hand, neatly formed numbers marking a line of contact between them- just in case he ran into trouble.
Tonight is just a reconnaissance mission. Get into the nearest town, find a payphone and call Izuku so they can exchange addresses without fear of being tracked. The thought of finally hearing his boyfriend’s voice makes him almost giddy, curve of a smile resting fondly against his lips. He packs enough cash for a taxi to take him anywhere in the ten closest prefectures in case it all goes well for once and he can ride into the sunset towards his fated prince.
With Enji gone for a business trip, all that is left is to find an opening and by late evening he’s in the centre of town. The neon lights and bubbling of conversation permeating the air isn’t as overwhelming as he last remembers and instead he finds himself drawn to the warm lights of nearby streets.
Music thumps from a building with its doors spread wide, jagged edges of broken people interlock as they sway in the smoky light. An intriguing magnetism tugs at his chest and he wonders forwards, slinking through the doors and into the shadow.
A life of toil has aged his face beyond his years so it takes little prompting for the bartender to push a drink into his open palm. Bitterness weeps on his tongue as the alcohol burns along his gullet and laps at the lining of his empty stomach. A few drinks later and the tension in his muscles retires, leaving them slack after weeks of anxiety.
Absentmindedly he runs a hand through his hair, the other dragging across his chest as his hips move lazily to the beat. Soothing to the skin, he repeats the actions as the tempo increases, belatedly wondering what it would be like if this was Izuku touching him instead.
Izuku. He stumbles forward with a fond giggle slipping through his lips, righting himself as he makes his way towards the entrance and the world tilts. He should call Izuku right now. An insatiable need to convince Izuku how important and amazing he is prods at his back, pushing him forwards until he gave up finding a payphone and instead fishes his mobile out of his pocket. A few taps on the screen and he’s leaning heavily on the brick wall, the smell of chill and urine mingling in his nostrils as he presses his ear to his phone, counting the dull trills until someone picks up.
“Hello? Shouto is that you?”
The voice crackles through the speaker and Todoroki melts against the brick. It’s higher than he expected, a little nervous if the tremors are anything to go by, and he’s still whispering like they’re living separately from the rest of the world, conspirators again.
“Izuku,” he drawls. “Izuku, Izuku, Izuku.”
His breathing is too laboured and vision too foggy to notice the hitch of breath on the other line.
“Shouto, why are you calling from your mobile? Did something happen?”
There he went, worrying again. Izuku was so considerate and kind and wonderful. Always putting others before himself. But Shouto was good! Shouto was fine and everything was going to be amazing. They just had to get together.
“I couldn’t wait to hear your voice. It’s so beautiful. You’re so perfect, Izuku. You’re amazing and clever and smart and wonderful and pretty and-”
There is a slight giggle from the other line.
“Pretty? You haven’t even seen me yet.”
“I just know,” insists Shouto. “I know you’re beautiful and handsome and wonderful and I’m going to love you until I die. Oh wait fuck. Wasn’t supposed to tell you that yet.”
“Shouto are you drunk?” asks Izuku, stuttering through the last word with embarrassment.
“Maybe.”
“Are you safe? Will you be able to get back alright?”
Again with the worrying. Izuku really was something else. He voices this with pleasure as he hears his boyfriend sputter indignantly on the other line.
“So you’re not usually this affectionate then?” Izuku teases.
“I could be, if you wanted me to. I’d do anything for you.”
“Will you find yourself a taxi and either get yourself home or somewhere else safe?”
“Just give me your address and I’ll come over,” mumbles Shouto, rubbing a palm down the side of his face. “I can’t bare being apart anymore.”
“Tough luck,” comes a voice from behind him.
Spinning around, Shouto blinks forcefully as the night distorts and ducks just in time to dodge the arm thrust at him. Veering violently to the side he almost loses balance and is promptly caught by another member of what he recognises as his father’s security team.
She yanks him up by the scruff of his neck, rolling her eyes as his stomach heaves and he looks at her in disgust.
“How did you-?”
“Tracker. In your phone,” she replies, nodding towards his hand.
Putting a GPS tracker on his belongings didn’t necessarily mean they had been through them. If Izuku was discovered he would be put in severe danger and with what they had already heard the security guards were sure to report this to his father and get his phone searched to find the culprit for this behaviour.
In a last minute bid he pelts the phone down at the pavement, watching in hazy satisfaction as the screen shatters and the phone skitters into the nearby gutter. The security guard watches with a derisive snort then pins his arms behind his back and shoves him into the car. He breathes a sigh of relief tinged with nausea, he could find a new phone but preventing himself from getting a hangover when the night is nearly drawing to a close seemed a lot less likely.
They said love brought colour into people’s lives, but it wasn’t bright and overpowering like the metaphor suggested. Instead Izuku gifted him mossy greens and fern yellows. Pops of crimson and sunset reds and oranges.
And for love people conquered outlandish feats just to make their soulmate smile, so that’s what he would do.
His plan was to surprise Izuku. Turn up out of the blue with flowers and kiss him senseless between muttered apologies that he deemed indefinite unless Izuku could taste them on his tongue. Heat powders his cheeks as he reassures himself that this would be a gift well received. Izuku loves him, after all.
The image of Izuku motivates rather than blinds him, bandaging his feet as they begin to ache and numbing the paranoia he is so used to. Three quarters into his journey of winding bus routes, taxi rides and sprints they catch him by the back of the collar. Dragged by his neck, he hangs his head in shame and braces himself for the onslaught of harsh punishment. At least his foolishness meant he wouldn’t have to explain, again, to Izuku that he had failed. He marks the tally of his failures on his ribcage as his father adds another lock to his shackles.
He stews in the car face blank and foot tapping, right leg crossed over the other. Underneath his skin excitement is drumming, hot with warmth and anticipation instead of ferocity.
Momo jitters and trembles with adrenaline beside him, safe in the privacy of the taxi to let her emotions run wild, composure shattered, while inside he soars, finally feeling at home, or at least on his way there.
It’s been years since he’s heard the voice of his soulmate but he had replayed those drunken moments over and over and committed what he could piece together to memory. The soft caress of its intonation paired with the underlying melody and sweet tone as it delivered affection. The repetitive judder of syllables when he was nervous. This time it’s paired with a tentative caution, hope straining at the surface but still repressed until he can gather more information.
He relays the address to the taxi driver then lets his hand drop to his side, not wishing to say another word to his soulmate until he can do it face to face.
They spend hours in this purgatory. Momo occasionally jolting, head snapping back over her shoulder when she felt eyes on the back of her neck. Shouto tracing every wrinkle and groove in the headrest in front of him, eyes loosely focussed and head tilted slightly to the side.
The charcoal sky is smoky this time when he steps out of the car and into the real world, again. He wonders if somewhere his father’s pride is burning. There is no rush as they unpack their things and walk up to the door, Momo standing a little behind Todoroki so as not to interrupt the first meeting between soulmates.
A scarred hand twists the doorknob, freckled face crumpling around eyes already lined with tears, just like he knew they’d be.
“Shouto,” Izuku said, pulling him into an embrace and tucking his chin into the crook of his neck, the perfect fit. “You’re here.”
“I’m here,” he replied, loosening his grip so his boyfriend could pull back. “It only took us seven years, too.”
Izuku laughed brightly, Shouto flushing under the touch of his affectionate look.
“For what it’s worth from all those months ago,” Izuku said, “I love you, too.”