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Hope can be a painful thing. You can cradle it, coo sweet words of encouragement, wishing for it to stay by your side, but hope is a painful thing. You can pour all your strength into sustaining it above the flood of turmoil that threatens to sweep you off your feet, but it would all be in vain for soon enough your head will go under and your hope will be submerged. The light will inevitably extinguish because hope is a painful thing.
Hope is a painful thing, and at the tender age of five, Shouto Todoroki knew that far too well.
In the blink of an eye, his hope was ripped from him, his head submerged so far into the water he feared he would drown, the light extinguished so violently that there was no coming back. When he overheard his mother call his left side “unsightly”, something in him crumbled. It did not take much to realize it was his hope.
The burn over his eye served as a physical reminder that screamed hope is a painful thing at Shouto each time he caught a glimpse of his unsightly reflection. Long gone were his hopes of becoming a hero that would save people, a hero that loved, and a hero that was loved back. Because what was the point of saving people and being loved by strangers when you couldn’t even save yourself or your mother? When you didn’t even love yourself, when it seemed like the only person who had ever truly believed in you, loved you, had broken down because of you and had poured boiling water at the mere sight of you merely because you had had hope?
Time is not kind. As it stretched its big calloused hands, wrapping them around Shouto’s throat, it sped by, never slowing down to let him catch his breath.
Time was not kind when it made him endure the agonizing hours of training, at the merciless hands of his father, that left him breathless and in pain far more often than not.
Time was not kind when it ran ahead, taunting him as it scooped away his childhood in the blink of an eye.
Time was not kind when it forced him to wait for the day he could face his mother again, to look into the same eyes that had held so much fear and hate for a moment before all he could feel was a scorching heat splashing against his face.
Hope is painful and time is not kind. At age fifteen, Shouto Todoroki understood this well. And rather than cling to the hope that there would be a moment where all would be alright and that time would be kind for once, Shouto settled on becoming a realist. He had come to find all too soon that it’s better to think realistically, to not allow yourself the earthly pleasure of hope, in order to be pleasantly surprised when things turn out for the better, rather than be crushed time and time again-- knocked down peg after peg until your lungs burn as they try to pull in oxygen to help get you back up to where you once were.
He used to dream and hope endlessly-- about being a hero, about saving his mother, about saving his siblings from the wretched fire that threatened to burn them all alive. But five-year-old Shouto was silly and naive for hoping for such unattainable things, is what fifteen-year-old Shouto settled on. Hope tends to blind you like that if you allow yourself to bask in the sweet nothings it has to offer. And he had fallen for its trap. He had been so caught up in his hopes that he had forgotten the hearth that contained those same wretched flames he so desperately tried to put out had been inside him ever since he was born.
Hope is painful, time is not kind, and his left side is unsightly. As he sat in the folding chair of the waiting room, Shouto Todoroki had no room for doubt in his mind that these were simply the hard truths. Though hard pills to swallow, Shouto forced them down day after day. Though they left bile rising in his throat, though they made his insides churn, though they left him in a daze, Shouto Todoroki swallowed them without complaint because they were simply facts of life.
The grass is green, the sky is blue, hope is painful, time is not kind, and Shouto Todoroki’s left side is unsightly.
一一一
“IT'S YOUR POWER, ISN’T IT?!”
With those words, something inside him ignited. But hadn’t the flame been extinguished? Stupid Shouto, he had let himself hope, let the flame slowly flicker, barely alive, practically unnoticeable, until now that it had grown so much its scorching heat could be felt all around the stadium.
People cheered him on, unaware of the hearth that had been ignited by one fool whose words had struck the match. Soon that fire, that flicker of hope, grew and encased Shouto, covering him like a warm blanket for just a second, reminding him of the dreams he had long since abandoned before the heat grew unbearable and instead morphed into an inferno of rage. It coursed through his veins and flooded his senses. That fool, how dare he cause the ember of hope he long thought extinguished, to reignite? Didn’t he know-- didn’t he understand that hope is painful? Didn’t he understand that time is not kind to the foolish enough to cling to hope and wear it fearlessly on their sleeve as he once had?
He was supposed to be a realist, yet he had unknowingly allowed himself to cradle an ember of hope; shielding it from the vicious winds that carried nothing but defeat. But, time is cruel and it will not allow one to shield anything forever, for time puts an end to all things good far too soon as there is a limit to how long you, or anything for that matter, can last. Still, Shouto had let himself hope that through this event, this stupid festival that was supposed to display your strengths and not the fears and weaknesses you so desperately tried to hide, he would be able to prove to not only his father but to himself and mother as well, that his left side was useless. He really didn’t need it. If he could just prove that he didn’t need it to win, he could also convince them that he didn’t need it to become the hero that could put out any and all fires, starting with the one that had been raging so viciously all his life.
In the end, all hope had ever brought Shouto was despair and emptiness. And yet here was this green-haired fool that did not seem to understand the three facts of life that had long reigned in complete dictatorship over Shouto’s life. The last vestiges of hope had long left Shouto’s heart, hand in hand with cruel father time who had decided to pass by too quickly yet agonizingly slow all at once. Shouto knew with every fiber of his being that hope was painful, so why was this fool trying to convince him otherwise?
“SHOUTOOOOOO!”
The heat was catching up to him.
And he was so terribly afraid he would burn.
Shouto wanted nothing more than for that wretched hearth to be overtaken by the flames that erupted from his left side presently; for it to be burned to an unrecognizable singe and to take him down with it.
Suddenly, he is five all over again. The scar covering his left eye twitched with phantom pain, reminding him, for what seemed like the thousandth time, just how painful hope is. He saw flicker by those eyes filled with fear and hatred, the same ones that had once held love out to him like a buoy ready to be cast out into the sea that threatened to drown him at any moment.
Any crumb of hope was tossed away as Shouto’s heart, calloused and worn out, cried out one last time. A cry of pain, sorrow, anger, guilt, shame, jealousy, and feelings that could not quite be put into words. A cry that sent blue-orange flames of hellish heat out towards the fool that lived in blissful ignorance to the rules that Shouto was forced to live by. A strangled cry that engulfed his entire being and left him clawing for air. A cry that called out for help from no one in particular for Shouto knew that no one was there to hear it; it was a cry that fell on deaf ears.
And as the cement wall erupted between him and his opponent, the force of their powers nearly colliding, his heart choked and shriveled up and Shouto gave up. He allowed the winds of the explosion to carry him away, not even trying to throw up another wall of ice to save himself, and he closed his eyes.
Mother, was the only word running through his mind as his insides churned. He muttered it like a mantra; perhaps he was allowing himself to pretend that if he said it enough that she would appear there to catch him. He longed for her touch once more, to see her, to show her that he no longer clung to the silly hope his past self had, to prove he could completely reject his left side and still come out victorious. Perhaps only then would she hold him near to her heart as she once had all those years ago, with those eyes filled with nothing but love, and maybe then Shouto could pretend all was well.
His eyes remained closed as his back slammed with a sickening crack into the concrete wall of the stadium behind him, no mother to catch him. They remained closed as his limp body fell like a ragdoll into the rubble beneath him. They did not open to see the commotion in the stadium, nor to see the shocked faces that littered the stands.
The darkness was cold, like his right side, and welcoming--so he allowed himself to bask in it. He did not mind if he didn’t wake up, perhaps here he could live without fear of the heat. Whether it be here or there, the world would go on without him. And it did. As the whirl of emotions mingled with the yells of surprise that overtook the stadium, no one was particularly concerned for Shouto; at least not in the way he longed for. So here in the dark he would stay, pretending for as long as cruel time would allow him that he would not have to face the smoke of the fire once he awakened.
Out of bounds.
Out of hope.
Out of luck.
Out of time.
Out of love.
Unbearable.
The cold wrapped around his aching heart. Somewhere far away Shouto could feel a nauseating sensation overtake his body. But choosing to ignore that far away sensation, Shouto remained in his minds’ eye. The world around him pitch black as he seemed to be able to see himself sitting alone in a cold, dark room from a different perspective as if he did not inhabit his body. Here he was truly alone like he knew he’d forever be, engulfed in the lack of everything. No light, no color, no family, no friends, nobody, nothing.
How did it come to this?
Where did all the time go?
The room seemed to sing to him. The sound was intoxicating, like a siren captivating the sailors aboard a ship now destined to crash.
The music slowed. Certainly this was his cue to leave, but he did not want to. Subconsciously, Shouto squeezed his eyes closed, clamping them down, focusing on wishing to stay in the cold forever.
The nauseating sensation was coming back. It blossomed in his head and extended its vines down his spine, overriding his nervous system in order to carry itself throughout his entire body. He could feel something sticky dripping down the base of the back of his head.
Just a little bit longer. Please just let me stay a little bit longer.
But time is cruel. It had never cared about what Shouto wanted, so why would it start now?
Slowly, cautiously, he opened his eyes. Almost immediately the pain flooded his senses completely. Whatever the cold had held at bay was now rushing at him at full force. Dust settled in his lungs each time he tried to draw a shaky breath. A ringing pulsated in his ears as his unfocused eyes scanned the blurry faces that peered down at him from above. His mouth felt dry and he was so tired.
Shouto looked up at the blaring sun. What disgusting heat it radiated.
He turned his face to the side, gritting his teeth as pain shot back down his spine. Blinking slowly, he took another look around him, taking in his surroundings. No mom. Shouto blinked back the tears he hadn’t realized were threatening to escape.
A hand touched his shoulder and Shouto cringed.
“Are.. are you alright? Todoroki?”
Shouto grimaced as he craned his neck to see the face that belonged to this voice. When an unruly mop of green hair came into his view, Shouto could not hold back the disdain that seethed out of every part of his body.
“Shu- shut up,” he choked out, barely loud enough to be heard, gritting his teeth as he turned back around. This is all your fault.
In the darkest of shadows, hope lights the way. A beam in the darkest of nights, a promise deep down that offers its hand to pick you back up, an offer that remains extended at all cost. That is what hope should be. But when hope becomes a liability, when it morphs into nothing but pain, that is when all is truly lost. Shouto had become swallowed by the darkness, the hand retracted, the beam never to relight the path set before him.
Shouto curled into himself, trying to make himself as small as he possibly could. He swallowed thickly, each breath feeling like molasses inching down his throat. The sun felt blistering as it cast its harsh rays upon his exposed nape.
This is it. Sorry, mom… I’m really sorry. Please forgive me, I’m sorry. I tried, I really did, but it didn’t matter. It was all my fault to begin with and now I’ve gone and messed up my one chance.
Shouto stared at the crumbled concrete in front of him, his expression blank and void of any hints pertaining to the thoughts that were currently careening through his mind. Though his eyes were open, the world around him seemed to fade away until all that was left was the overwhelming dread that accompanied the feeling of the smoke that completely engulfed all his senses. Maybe someone was calling his name somewhere; either way it didn’t matter, nothing did.
Nothing ever would.