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Shouto exists and he’s okay with that. He exists and he does all that he has too and he’s fine. Some days he can barely tell that he is still existing, still alive in this horrible world. Ever so often it feels like the world is moving and he is standing still, the wind is blowing and people are talking but he is standing still. Sometimes he has to remind himself that he is real and that he exists and when that happens sometimes he wonders if he would prefer not to. If he would prefer to be gone, the fire that is his life burned out.
Shouto has realized after time that everyone has a fire that burns inside of them, how they use that fire is up to them, how they use their life is up to them. He doesn’t know though if the fire inside him burns hot and bright and no one can control it or if it has smoldered out and the only thing left is ember.
Shouto loves people, he thinks he does at least. Love is so difficult to him. what is it? Do you earn it, do you do something to get it? Did he do something, in some life where he doesn’t deserve it? He asks all the questions he could possibly think of in some quest to find out what love is.
His father isn’t there right now, but he should be. Natsuo is leaving for college, Shouto doesn’t know how he feels about that. He doesn’t know how he feels about Natsuo leaving, but that doesn’t change the fact that he is leaving just like everyone else.
“You know I love you right, Shouto.” Natsuo is at the door and they are saying their last goodbyes.
“I know.” He does know that Natsuo loves him, even if it is in the most basic of ways he loves Shouto.
Sometimes he questions if he is even able to love. Raised by two parents that never loved each other. Why would it be out of the ordinary for him to be unable to love? Unable to feel love towards another person and even if he can feel love who’s to say that it isn’t corrupted by his father.
They are sitting at the table, just him and Fuyumi.
“Shouto, some days I’m really worried for you. And I’m sorry I can’t do more, I wish I could.” Shouto knows that Fuyumi is really worried for him and he wishes she wasn’t.
“You don’t have to be scared, I’ll be fine.” He was always fine, no matter what was thrown at him he was always okay.
“Things will get better.” Fuyumi always thought that things would get better.
“Maybe they will.” He doesn’t know if he believes that things would ever get better, they never really did in the past.
“I love Shouto, I really do and I’m so sorry.” She does love Shouto.
“I love you too.” Who knows if he really loves her.
He knows that he is his father's son. Everyone says so and everyone thinks so. He is angry and he is cold and he is unapproachable but one thing he isn’t is loud. He doesn’t know how he feels about loud people though. Some like Ashido are loud but never really angry and then there are people like Bakugou. Bakugou is so like his father at times that he doesn’t know how he is able to be around him. Sometimes he isn’t, sometimes Bakugou gets too much and the world will melt into some old memories of some horrible day, but for the most part he and Bakugou are able to coexist. Maybe people like Bakugou and his father are just easier, you know what they want and what they are thinking. They are constant, you know how they will react, they aren’t trying to hide anything from anyone.
“He is in the bathroom, he cannot think, cannot breathe, he feels like he barely exists, and maybe he doesn’t want to.
“Hey Icyhot, I know you're in here. You’ve been in here for like ten minutes. Are you done yet?” Bakugou’s yelling grounds him to the place he is in his school’s bathroom. He leaves the stall and washes his hands and Bakugou just stares at him. Maybe he knows and maybe he doesn’t but it doesn’t really matter.
“You good?” The question was said quietly almost like Bakugou was worried.
“I’m fine.” He leaves the bathroom and he doesn’t look back at Bakugou and he doesn’t worry about what he is thinking.
Shouto’s life has changed so much in the last year that at times it scares him. Everything is changing and even if so much of the change is good it is different. But there is one change that could never scare him and that is Midoriya. Midoriya has changed his life and he will be forever grateful. He plays back that moment in his life again and again the moment where somewhere said that they were there for him, that they cared and that might have saved him.
Anger was killing him and Midoriya saved him. He would have destroyed every part of himself and everyone around him if it hurt his father and sometimes that thought scares him. That he would have done all of that just to hurt his father. His anger now feels like rolling waves coming over him instead of that he is drowning in it, his head under the water and there is water in his lungs and he can't breath and it surrounds him all encompassing and everything. Ever so often when the waves feel particularly high, he cannot sleep, because it feels like for just a bit he is drowning in anger, and memories of days that should never have occurred come back to him if only for a minute.
“Please stop Enji, please.” His mother was crying, trying to get his father to stop, he was on the floor, too tired and too weak to get up, too weak to stop his father from hitting her and sending her to the ground.
“Mom.” She couldn’t hear him. He tried louder “Mom.” He tried again and again to get her attention from where he was laying on the floor but he was too weak and too quiet and he just let his father hit her and he just let his dad drag him away from the room to a different training room away from her and all he could do was cry out “Mom”
It was always about strength, about being about being strong. Everything is always about strength, about how strong you are and how long you can last in this horrible world and it’s horrible competitions. Everything his father did was about strength and about who was the strongest. He wonders sometimes if anything he ever did made him stronger. Sometimes he feels like a mug glued back together, usable but it will always break along the lines you glued together.
“Touya-nii do you think I’m strong.” Touya looks down at him and he smiles even if it is a little sad.
“Of course I do, you're one of the strongest people I know.” Shouto smiles back up to him
“Really, father says that I’m weak and that I’ll never be strong.” Touya’s smile flickers for a second like he can’t keep it up, but it comes back just as soft as ever.
“Don’t listen to father, you’re really strong.” Shouto doesn’t listen to father because father says that Touya and Mom are weak and they could never be weak.
“Okay”
His father is trying to be better. He is trying to be better and to make amends. Shouto knows that he feels something about this but he is unable to really tell what. He doesn’t even know if he can believe that his father is really trying. Endeavor as a hero has done so much, but as a parent he hasn’t even taken his first steps. He knows that his sister cares about their father, wants him to be better, believes that he is really trying and that maybe far in the future things will get better for their family. He knows for some reason that he can’t figure out that he cares too. He wants his father to live and he wants to know what he will do with this chance that people are giving him. He knows how much one person can change if they set their minds to it, how much a person or event can change someone.
After calls had been made and TVs turned off, Midoriya led Todoroki back to his bedroom. He opened the door quietly and they both slipped there feet almost gliding across the floor.
“Are you ok Todoroki?” Todoroki hadn’t said anything since he had called his sister and Midoriya was a little worried about him.
“I care.” His voice was quiet, like maybe Midoriya wasn’t meant to hear it.
“What?” Midoriya needed to know what he meant.
“I care about him, I care if he lives or dies.” Todoroki was louder this time and he knew who he was talking to.
“Oh.”Midoriya finally understood what he meant, he cared about his father.
“Why do I care about him, why do I care about him?” Todoroki had no idea why he cared about someone who had only hurt him.
Shouto cares about a lot of people. He cares about his sister and his brother and his mother. He cares about Midoriya and the rest of his friends and he cares about the people he is supposed to protect. And for some odd reason he cares about his father. He cares about the people he cares about because in some way or another he loves them, but does that mean he loves his father. He doesn’t know if he ever loved his father even as a young child, he doesn’t think his dad was around long enough for him to love and then his father got worse and worse, angrier and angrier and any love he might have had was gone.
But now he wants to see where his father is going to go from here. He wants to see if he is really trying. Shouto doesn’t know if he will ever forgive, he doesn’t know if he can. But he does know that he wants to see where his father goes from here.
But most of all Shouto just wants to keep moving, move on from the past and into the future. He knows that it is unhealthy to never stop and look through the past and that moving and moving away and away from the past won’t make it disappear but he doesn’t think dwelling in the past is any healthier. So for now he just exists, and maybe he’s moving forward meeting new people and making new relationships and maybe at times he dwells in moments of the past he thought were lost to the void of his memories, but for the most part he exists and he is happy with that.