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Todoroki Fuyumi was not naïve to her father’s deficits. She knew the sort of man that birthed her and her brothers. She knew that sort of man her mother married. She knew the sort of man that haunted the halls of their home.
But she didn’t have the luxury of stewing in her anger and resentment toward the man. She didn’t have that sort of permission to give herself. Shouto needed someone after her mother was sent to the hospital. Natsuo needed someone after Touya died.
Even her father needed someone as he destroyed everything around her.
Fuyumi was a dutiful daughter if nothing else.
Someone needed to make sure that the whole rotten house of cards didn’t collapse and burn until it was time.
So she forgot all the times her father yelled at her, all the cold distances, all of Shouto’s horrible blankness to his face, Natsuo’s open resentment, and Touya’s deathly quiet. She allowed herself to be thrust into the role of the woman of the house after her mother’s mind had broken, shattered like porcelain and left a boy scarred for life.
She swallowed the sick sour bile behind her teeth, kept a placid smile on her face, and pretended to forgive and forget.
It was a lie, of course.
But she felt rather accomplished at it by the time the War ended.
The thing is Fuyumi does love her brothers very much.
She wished that she had a way to provide them with a happy and loving home. She tried, sneaking Natsuo out to get ice cream, making sure that Shouto got as much cold soba as she could slip him without their father finding out. She tried with Touya when he was alive (or, well, non-insane and not a villain), but the resentment for their Father spilled over to the rest of them.
But she still loved them.
How could you not love someone when you were stuck in the same shit situation as them?
How could you not love someone who would, at least, understand on some level? She desperately wanted understanding in turn.
She desperately wanted normalcy.
But that went up in smoke years and years ago. Maybe, it was something that never existed.
The day that Dabi did his dance, Fuyumi sat on her bed and wept.
It just felt like another dagger in her heart.
“Do you regret it?” her therapist asked.
Fuyumi clenched her hands together.
That was such an open-ended question that she almost wanted to laugh. She regretted a lot of things, too many to count. She didn’t regret her anger though: not at Natsuo, not at Shouto.
At Father, at Mom, at Dabi or Touya or whoever he was.
She did not forgive them. She knew it wasn’t rational. She knew it probably wasn’t kind. But they were all older. They were all supposed to protect her, help her, be there for her and Natsuo and Shouto.
But where were they in the end?
Nowhere, it was just Fuyumi offering as much comfort as she could in that house.
She ignored that churning in her gut.
“No,” she said pleasantly. “I don’t regret it.”
Fuyumi had long made peace with her ability to lie.
Touya was on the brink of death, she thought, looking into his hospital room/prison cell. He was crumbling away at that point. He looked pathetic.
Fuyumi was a person with empathy. As a person with empathy, she didn’t like seeing Touya suffering so. But she just looked at him and felt tired.
She just felt tired as she closed the door behind her.
“Fuyumi.”
“Hey Touya,” she said, looking at him.
“Felt like you had something to say but didn’t want to say it in front of the others.” He looked at her. “I’m a big boy. I can take it.”
He told Shouto he was sorry.
It was up to Shouto whether or not he’d take the apology to heart.
“I don’t forgive you,” she told him, crossing her eyes. “Not you, not Mom, not Dad. I don’t forgive any of you for what we were put through. I don’t forgive you for trying to kill Shouto, for leaving us there. I won’t forgive you, Touya. I won’t forgive you at all.”
He blinked at her whether in surprise or another emotion, she couldn’t identify…
She didn’t know.
“I am so tired. I am so angry at you three. You all were older. You were my big brother. You were supposed to be there. But you and Dad….And Mom…”
She took a shaky breath.
“I can forget. But I can’t forgive. I just…”
She shook her head.
“This was dumb.”
“Fuyumi…”
The door closed behind her.
It sounded final.