Work Text:
Todoroki Shouto feels emotion in flames. He's felt angry flames: his brother Touya's flames born from hatred. He's felt flames of fear, when his mother burned him many years ago and left his face scarred. Flames of hatred and arrogance, of regret and sorrow. He felt all sorts of flames inside his forever burning heart. Hatred, envy, disgust, and every ugly emotion. But of course, he's never felt flames of love. Flames that burn like a wildfire inside your heart, while feeling so warm and safe and happy and feelings Shouto's never felt.
Shouto wonders what love feels like. He loves his mom, he loves his sister, and he loves his brothers. He loves his friends and teachers at school. Maybe he even loves his father as well.
He thinks he loves Midoriya. He might be obsessed, even. With the way his stomach flutters when he's around him, how he just cannot stop looking at him, how he wants to touch him - his arm, permanently scarred from when he saved him on that day at the sports festival, his soft and fluffy hair, the freckles on his cheeks; Surely he's in love.
Love is a wonderful feeling, he surmised. It gives him a giddily feeling in his chest, and the flames in his heart, that once raged with anger, feel warm and gentle.
But right now, his chest feels like it's burning. Watching Bakugou and Midoriya's heartfelt reconciliation, he could only stare with empty eyes. Though the two may have had a rocky relationship in the past, Shouto has seen them grow. He noticed the little things; Bakugou helping Midoriya train his new quirks, Midoriya constantly watching him with wide eyes - like seeing a lover for the first time in an eternity. How Midoriya deeply admired Bakugou and how this admiration ran so much deeper than just them being hero students.
He watched Bakugou get skewered right in front of Midoriya to protect him. He remembers the horror he felt watching it unfold - the crimson blood, the oppressive air pressure in the sky, grabbing Bakugou's body as he fell. He watched as Bakugou, even with holes in his body, searched desperately for Midoriya in the hospital. How he initiated the search for him after he ran away from school.
He's not a fool. He may have grown up in a broken, loveless family, but he's not dumb. He knows that what those two have is love. Love in its truest and purest form. A type of love Shouto could never even dream to have.
Love is a wonderful feeling, Shouto knows. But he wants nothing more than to rip his heart out of his ribcage if that'll mean this heartache will go away.
Before that day at the sports festival, Shouto was only an empty shell of what he is today. A doll created by Endeavor that was fueled by spite and resentment. But Midoriya gave him a heart and oh so gently placed it in his chest. And he burned.
Midoriya lit the fire in his heart, and it won't go away. He might just yearn for the rest of eternity, an undying love that will surely never be reciprocated.
But none of this matters right now. They still have to beat Shigaraki and All For One. He still needs to handle Touya and fix the remnants of his family. Only after that can he begin to grieve for a love he never had.
He doesn't have the time to remedy his broken, aching, yearning heart.