Work Text:
He’d been missing for almost two months.
No word of him, no texts, no calls, nothing. Not even a letter. She hadn't seen him at the park where they first met or his favorite theatre. The staff there shook their heads when she asked if he’d been around town, but still nothing at all. He disappeared completely off the face of the map, like how a magician does, Sako vanished in a cloud of smoke. He left her alone, terrified, sad.
Did she do something? Did he leave her and never look back? She thought to herself. Was she just not enough? The questions she asked herself made her mouth go dry. Natsuo’s heard everything, her crying fits and angry rambles about him, from his secrecy to his abrupt departure. Natsuo would tell her the same thing everytime, that if he sees him he’ll break his spine. She knows her boy troubles are making everything worse, the family was barely hanging by a thread after Da- Touya’s reveal. It didn't help that Sako left her confused and angry.
Her brother had come back from the dead to kill her father, it still threw her for a loop no matter how many times she tried to think deeper.
What had happened to make this all happen at once? Okay, think. Think back to the day he left.
Sako left a week or two before the war started. Her heart clenched as she remembered their last interaction.
---
“I have to go, Fuyumi, darling.”
Fuyumi looked up from her stack of what seemed to be endless amounts of grades from children she told not to use crayons on their tests. Her boyfriend slid into the seat beside her, beautiful honey brown eyes filled with adoration and something somber. She furrowed her eyebrows and took his metallic hand in hers, rubbing circles into his palm.
“Go where?” She asked. Sako smiled softly as he reached out to stroke her hair.
“I have to work, beloved, they need me for an urgent matter.” He explains and she leans into his touch, trying to hide the disappointment she felt.
“How long are you going to be gone?”
Sako looked off to the side briefly and then back at her. He doesn't know, she realizes. His job has always been under the radar to her, whenever she asks he simply tells her it’s a side gig that requires him to travel. It didn't make sense how he was so relaxed about everything except his job, was he hiding something? Of course not. He wouldn't lie to her, not ever. He promised.
“Well, can you at least be back in time for dinner tonight? I’ve got a new film we can watch,” she said, trying to stay hopeful. She had no idea how long he’d be gone so it was okay to be this eager, right? She wasn’t codependent, her childhood made that very clear. But she still felt a little sad. Sako noticed this and sighed.
“I will try, my love. Don’t fret, I’ll be back before you know it.”
He squeezed her hand reassuringly, but his expression did not match. Fuyumi drew away from him and tried to think positively. Yeah, he’d be back soon.
“Okay, just don't be gone too long or I’ll watch all the murder mystery films without you,” she teased. Sako gasped and pulled his hand away from her to grasp his chest dramatically.
“You wouldn’t!” He and Fuyumi giggled and shimmied her shoulders playfully.
“You don’t know, maybe I like them,” she feigned innocence, much to Sako’s amusement.
“Truly, you are a fiend. My great great grandfather would be proud.” He kissed her forehead, featherlight and short, and, just for a second, seriousness replaced his smile.
“I’ll be back when I can.”
And he didn't come back. Took a bag, kissed her farewell and vanished. A month and two and a half weeks he’s been gone. She’d be lying if she said her heart wasn’t aching the entire time, mostly with confusion and anger and sadness. One part of her brain told her he couldn’t deal with her anymore while another part argued and said it was just a delusion.
She’d texted, over and over. Sat at the bench they met at and fed the bird he made disappear with his magic. Called mid-sob and begged him to come back and she apologized. Apologized for things she didn't need to, and then picked up the phone and left ten voicemail messages about Touya.
He wasn’t there for her when she needed him most. Her father was injured and risking his life to such a degree, her brothers were under unimaginable stress and her poor mother having to relive all of this. Fuyumi was helpless to all of this, sleeping alone in a bed made for two. She had no idea how hard she fell for him until he was gone.
---
“Ah, did I ever tell you how beautiful you are?” Sako mused whilst putting on a film for them to watch. This week it was his turn, and like always, he put on a noir murder mystery. ‘The suspense’ he would claim. ‘That is the key element of a good mystery.’ Fuyumi blushed and plopped down next to him, wrapped in a snug blanket.
“Yes, Atsuhiro, all the time,” she giggled and scooted closer to him. He laid his cheek on her head for a moment and went back to pressing buttons. She liked seeing how his brain worked, everything was a performance to him. He told her he used to be a magician in his early days so she understood that, but it still made her smile when he would monologue over something small like bad carpeting.
“Good, just checking. How does this one sound? ‘Orient on the Murder Express’, I find it a classic.” He turned to her for her thoughts, she tapped her knee and chewed her lip.
“How violent is it?” She asked wearily. She really didn’t like watching gorey things, reading it was okay, but to see it on screen made her sick. It reminded her too much of home.
“One scene, it’s short. I’ll skip ahead if you'd like,” he offered. Fuyumi nodded and adjusted her glasses. Her boyfriend was oddly quiet for a second.
“Do you think I’m a bad man?” He questioned quietly. She raised her eyebrows and leaned on his shoulder.
“Just because you like mysteries doesn’t mean you’re bad.” She mumbled, still Sako frowned. He opened his mouth to speak, but he didn’t. Instead he turned the film on and huddled closer to Fuyumi. It went on for some time, he commented on the little bits of fine filmmaking and plot holes in the storyline.
She wasn’t even focusing on the movie at this point, she just liked hearing him talk. He would get frustrated if a character didn’t go for something they wanted or if someone dressed wrong for the time period. He would compare the villain to a ‘Lord of Thieves’ or something along those lines and say how they got him completely wrong.
Hearing him talk was calming, she eventually fell asleep right there, nuzzled on his shoulder.
---
She’d do anything to hear him speak again.
Was it normal to miss someone so much? Was she being too demanding or clingy? What if he really did ghost her? She lay there on the couch they were watching that cheesy rom-com only three months before. The blanket she draped over her shoulders still smelled like his cologne and the laundry detergent he brought home without any explanation.
She sniffled, curled up on the spot he used to sit in. Everywhere. She looked everywhere, still nothing. Fuyumi reached weakly for the remote and flicked on a documentary he was excited to watch, about a king of thieves or something like that. She turned it on, nibbling on her thumb while it played out.
“Oji Harima, the Peerless Thief. During the rise of hero society and the shaping of the world we live in to this day, he targeted those who had greed in their hearts yet called themselves heroes.” One man says in the film as he stands outside a museum. A man appeared on the screen and Fuyumi had to stop to look at him.
She tilted her head and looked closer at the picture of the man on screen. How weird, his eyes are like honey and his hair is messy and brown.
Like his. Fuyumi’s heart jumped but she laughed at herself and continued on. That’s silly, you’re just a heartbroken girl who can’t stop being a creep and seeing her boyfriend everywhere. She unpaused and resumed the cinema.
“He was a menace to the rich and a king to the poor, a folktale come to life. He and his legacy live on to this day, they have the thief’s blood in their veins. The few people in his family that have been identified remain anonymous.” Another picture was shown, and this time she stopped again and had to grab her phone. King of Thieves, why does that sound familiar? She zoomed in on a photo of Oji and put her glasses back on.
She dropped her phone.
“My great great grandfather would be proud.”
“A magician never reveals his secrets.”
“Do you think I’m a bad man?”
The brown hair and eyes weren't a coincidence. The upturned nose. The small eyebrows that always quirked upwards. His mischievous smile. It was undeniable. Fuyumi hadnt realize she was shaking, her heart thudded in her chest and her vision was going blurry with tears. She gasped out for breath as realization and shock dawned on her. He never said anything about his job or his family.
Hastily picking up her phone, she wildly looked up ‘Oji Harima ancestors’. She looked through, they all looked so similar to Sako. She kept scrolling and scrolling until she found something.
‘Mr. Compress has been proven to be a descendant of Oji Harima, the Peerless Thief.’
She didn't have to read the rest of the article to put the pieces together.
Utter agony, despair, and anguish flooded her heart. She sobbed over her phone, staring at the villain who looked back.
The magician antics, the marbles she found in his pocket once, everything. She gripped the phone so tightly, ice began to spread over it. She rarely ever used her quirk, but this time she didn’t care that frost covered her phone and engulfed the mocking mask. She whirled around to the nearest wall and screamed, throwing her icy phone in the direction and watching it shatter into pieces. She heaved and panted, then wailed and collapsed onto the floor.
He was a villain, he was a villain, he was a villain.
He killed and stole and hurt others and looked at her with such tenderness.
It was all fake, wasn’t it? Did he want to steal from her and take her cut of the Todoroki fortune?
“You bastard,” was all she could croak.
He did leave her with something, after all, she thought. A flurry of rage and sadness. An empty hole in her heart. She missed him and hated him and loved him.
She loved him.
And he was gone.