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The huge Todoroki's villa was silent. The only sound that could be heard in the empty hallways was the creaking of floorboards under the hurried steps of the youngest family member.
Shoto still didn’t know how to read the large clock hanging in the living room, but he could tell it was late, even for him, who often stayed in the dojo until late at night. On those nights, his mother would usually burst into the room and take him away, not sparing his father a second glance. She would always whisper in his ear about how late it was and how he needed sleep to grow, but if Shoto tried to respond, she gave no sign of hearing him—she would stare at her feet and continue muttering to herself.
Once he was in bed, she would kiss his forehead and, to lull him to sleep, run her cold fingers through his hair. Shoto would fall asleep within seconds, worn out from training and soothed by her gentle touch, her face imprinted in his eyes.
As he walked toward the kitchen, trying not to get caught, he briefly wondered what his mother would do if she were there: Would she tuck him into bed, or would she look at him with the same fear and anger she had the last time they saw eachother?
He bit the inside of his cheek and instinctively brought a hand to the bandages around his left eye. It didn’t hurt as much as it did two weeks ago, yet Shoto felt his cheek dampen. The thought of his mother made his chest burn, and not because of the fire flowing in his veins.
Suddenly, he tasted something bitter on his tongue, and thanks to all the training he had endured, he knew it was blood flooding his mouth. Despite the sharp pain, he bit down harder to suppress his sobs. His father scolded him every time he cried. The idea of bursting into tears and waking him up made his heart pound desperately against his chest, as if begging to escape. He didn’t want another interaction with his father, not after today. The night was the only time he could distance himself from his father and release the sigh of relief he held in all day.
He turned the corner, mentally listing the things he needed, before he froze at the kitchen entrance, clutching the doorframe so tightly that splinters dug into his palms, turning his fingers red.
In the pitch darkness across the room, a figure turned, drawn by the unexpected sound, and his gaze landed on Shoto.
His wide eyes quickly hardened as he recognized the boy, letting out an exaggerated huff. Unlike Shoto, the older brother seemed unbothered by the risk of waking their father.
Neither spoke, only silence surrounding them, until Touya abruptly turned and climbed onto the counter, rummaging through the cabinets. Shoto swallowed, watching him the entire time. He had never seen Touya this close before; he was used to observing him, Natsuo, and Fuyumi through the window overlooking the yard or in the photos their mother showed him. Whenever he accidentally bumped into his sister or tried to talk to one of his brothers, their father would appear behind him and drag him violently away. None of them ever tried to stop him.
He had faint memories of a time when dinner was the only moment they spent together, but that hadn’t happened in years. Now, dinner was either with his mother or alone, just like every other free moment outside the dojo.
A loud noise startled him, making him clutch the doorframe as if to hug it. Touya cursed, and Shoto wrinkled his nose at the stream of words his mother had strictly forbidden him to say. Then he looked down to see the cause of the noise: a bag of rice had fallen from the pantry, spilling onto the floor.
“At least turn on the light if you’re going to stand there all night.” Shoto’s head shot up, his breath catching in his throat at hearing his brother’s voice for the first time. He was so happy he didn’t even process the request.
“Can you talk? Dad says you’re stronger than me, but you can’t even speak Japanese, apparently” Touya muttered, moving toward the light switch. Suddenly, a cold glow flooded Shoto’s vision, waking him from his stupor. He blinked a few times to adjust to the light. A moment later, Touya was crouched on the floor, gathering the spilled rice.
Slowly and hesitantly, Shoto let go of the doorframe, cautiously approaching his brother, as if he were a wild animal he feared scaring off. When he was only a few feet away, he reached out and briefly touched his brother’s cheek, only to leap back when Touya recoiled violently.
“What are you doing?” His older brother’s eyebrows furrowed, and his lips twisted into a grimace. “I’m not a dog.”
Shoto brought his hands to his chest, lowering his gaze to his shoes. His ears turned the same shade of red as his hair.
“Ugh. Do what you want. You’re so weird,” Touya sighed, resuming his task of cleaning up the mess he had made. Shoto tilted his head before stepping away, though he wanted to speak. Despite the harsh tone, Touya reminded him of their mother. He had the same white hair, the same nose, and the same jawline. Touching him felt like touching her again, both cold as the ice.
This thought reminded him why he had come, and he silently approached the freezer, only now realizing how high it was. He remembered how Touya had climbed up earlier, so he placed a foot on the cabinet handle and another on the fridge handle. Stretching his arm, he reached for his target, but just as his fingers brushed the handle, his foot slipped, and with a thud, he fell to the floor.
All the bruises and burns from the day reopened at once as pain seared through his back. Fortunately, he had lifted his head in time, recalling his father’s advice, yet his vision still blurred, and everything spun for a brief moment. His arms instinctively wrapped around his small body as he finally let out the sob he had been holding in since the hallway.
His whole body burned, and he thought he was back in the dojo with his father until cold fingers rested on his forehead.
He opened his eyes, unaware of when he had closed them, and his lips parted slightly.
“Mom?” he murmured, before a coughing fit doubled him over.
“Huh? No, idiot, I’m not Mom. Do I look like a woman to you?” a deeper voice replied, and two hands lifted him by the armpits. The more Shoto coughed, the more his lungs seemed to fill with ash, suffocating him.
“You only fell from a meter, calm down. I’ve been through worse and I’m fine. Should I call Dad to show him you’re not strong enough, or can you survive this massive fall?” Touya rambled on, and Shoto couldn’t grasp every word, but when he heard the mention of their father, his blood ran cold, and he lunged forward to desperately grab the sleeve of Touya’s sweatshirt.
“No! I’m—” a cough interrupted him. “I’m fine.” He sniffled, moving closer to his brother. He was cold, just like their mother.
Touya groaned in disgust and tried to shake him off, but Shoto clung to him and his arm, unaware, until his breathing slowed and his heart stopped racing. Touya even smelled like Rei, only with a slight hint of smoke.
Eventually, Touya stopped trying to push him away, sitting sulkily on the floor, the spilled rice forgotten a few feet away, while Shoto smeared snot on his jacket. Touya could feel the fire within him threatening to erupt, just as his stomach churned with every passing second. He bit his lower lip because, although he loathed his brother, who had taken the life he believed was his, he couldn’t bring himself to imagine burning him, as he had tried years before. He had told Natsuo before—it wasn’t Shoto’s fault back then. He couldn’t truly blame him, not when he could see the same bruises running across Shoto’s body as constellations in the sky. He simply couldn’t understand why their father chose to train Shoto over him, who could endure a fall and much more. He just wanted his father to stop focusing on his masterpiece and see him for once.
“Anyway,” Touya croaked, starting a conversation with the brat to distract himself from thoughts of their father. “What were you trying to do? Think you’re Spider-Man?”
Shoto stayed silent, somehow inching even closer in a matter of minutes, pressing his face against Touya’s side.
“Spider-Man?” he mumbled, his words muffled by the fabric.
“A hero in the United States. He’s pretty cool, he can climb walls and shoot webs like a spider.” He paused. “Obviously, I could beat him,” he felt the need to add.
“Oh,” Shoto said simply, and Touya soon grew impatient with the younger one’s limited vocabulary.
“Well? What were you doing?” he pressed.
Shoto was quiet for a few seconds before pulling away to look directly at him.
“Ice. My burns hurt.” To prove his point, he slowly rolled up his sleeve, flinching as his sore muscles, still aching from the fall, burned along with his wounds.
“You’re an idiot. Ice doesn’t go on burns. You’ll just make the injury worse. Also, couldn't you just create it since your quirk is perfect? Why did you come here? Or maybe, you would just freeze the whole house if you tried it. You probably need to practice to be as good as I was at your age. Anyway, first, you rinse it with cool water, then disinfect it, and finally apply an ointment” Touya listed all the steps, puffing his chest slightly and giving him an arrogant smile. His confidence deflated when Shoto stared at him as if he had hung the stars in the sky just for him. His only visible eye was wide open, just like his mouth. What disturbed his insides the most and crawled annoyingly under his skin, however, was the admiration painted on his face.
“Oh,” Shoto repeated once again. His father had never told him that, and his mother had always eased the pain with her ice, and although it hurt at first, the pain would go away as soon as she hugged him and rocked him.
“Yes. Oh,” Touya also said, more quiet than he had been all evening.
Silence fell again between the two, but this time Shoto was calmer. He liked his older brother, and even though he said things he didn’t always understand, he found him likable. He still didn’t understand why their father forbade him to talk to his siblings.
At one point, Touya stood up, looking at his little brother for a few seconds before sighing and grabbing him by the collar of his pajamas when he realized the boy wasn’t going to move.
“And you, and you what were you doing?” Shoto stammered, a small smile adorning his lips. Touya continued to stare at him, unsure of why the little brat wanted to keep talking to him.
“I... was hungry. I didn’t have dinner because I was training, so I wanted to eat something,” he replied, scratching his neck. Under his shirt, the burns on his stomach hurt, but he wasn’t as weak as Shoto to need treatment. He was used to it by now.
“Did Dad train you too?”
Touya’s heart skipped a beat and sank into his stomach, while his eyes narrowed on the child in front of him. He took a deep breath before looking away. He could feel his eyes starting to sting and his shoulders shake with shivers, but he wasn’t going to cry in front of his father’s masterpiece.
“No. I train by myself and soon I’ll show him it’s worth training me and not you. I just discovered something awesome today that you can’t even imagine! I’ll get stronger than you, I promise, and Dad will stop training you! Just wait, and he’ll finally see how much potential I have!” His tone rose, and his voice cracked toward the end. When he stopped talking, he was out of breath, and his hand was tugging at the strands of hair falling over his face, a bad habit he had carried for years.
At his brother's shouting, Shoto backed away, not expecting this anger. He had seen his brother as his mother all this time, but now he looked more like his father than ever. He had the same vein on his neck that swelled when he got angry, his nostrils flared the same way, and their cheeks turned the same shade of red.
He lowered his head and brought his arms above it, protecting himself from a blow that never came. Hesitating, he lowered his arms and looked uncertainly at his brother, who, if he had previously had an expression of pure fury, now had wide-open eyes, while his arms fell limply by his sides.
“I... I...” Touya stammered. “I didn’t mean to hit you, I wouldn’t... I wouldn’t have done it” he spat out the words, as if he wanted to remove a weight from his chest. He clenched his fists, feeling like he had to say more to his little brother to rip that mask of pure terror off his face, yet he did nothing. He remained silent, waiting for the boy to say or do something, even run away or push him, as Natsuo often did when he lost his temper, or scold him like Fuyumi.
He could almost hear her whiny voice reprimanding him on how to better handle his emotions, and no matter how hard Touya tried, the fire inside him couldn’t be extinguished. It burned him from the inside, consuming him until he and his pain turned to ash. The flames pushed him to scream, cry, laugh, and keep trying to get his father’s attention. They were what made him feel alive, and perhaps they were the only reason he was born; maybe he was meant to burn himself, burn everything around him, and watch others inevitably extinguish at his hand. Maybe he had even burned the love of his family for him: Natsuo and Fuyumi could no longer stand his complaints, his mother had begun to hate him and his father didn’t want to look at him anymore.
And now even Shoto, the masterpiece he had always detested, had been burned by his flames.
He passed Shoto, pushing him aside and ignoring the tears now running down his face; he just wanted to go to his room and scream into his pillow. Not that it would do any good.
Just as he was about to slam the kitchen door behind him, a tiny voice made him stop.
“Touya-nii?”
Touya stopped breathing, turning his head quickly to look at Shoto. The boy wasn’t looking at him in fear anymore: his eyebrows were slightly furrowed, and his bottom lip was poking out. “I’m hungry” he simply said.
Touya blinked a couple of times, before processing what he had just said. Of all the things he could have done, of course, Shoto chose the one thing that would surprise him the most. That’s why he was born, after all. He was a masterpiece.
“Then eat” he sniffed, wiping his tears with the back of his hand.
“Oh” Shoto said flatly.
“You can only say that word?” Touya raised an eyebrow.
“No” Shoto shook his head, then lowered it. “I just wanted you to stay here, but I didn’t know what to say.”
Touya stayed silent, before his lips involuntarily pulled upwards. An ironic puff of air escaped his lips. “Really? You thought I wanted to hit you, and now you want me to stay? You’re really weird.”
“You said you weren't gonna do it. And, and then I just met you, I don’t want you to, to go” Shoto mumbled as he fiddled with the laces of his sweatshirt. If Touya weren’t so jealous of him, he might have found him cute.
“You’re stupid.”
“Mom says not to say that word.”
“Well, that doesn’t change the fact that you’re stupid. You’re even stupider than Natsuo. I... I’m obviously the smartest.”
“Okay.”
Touya sighed, letting go of the handle of the sliding door. At some point in the conversation, all the waves of emotion burning inside him seemed to dissipate and fade. Maybe... Maybe Shoto didn’t hate him yet.
“If you’re really hungry, there’s some soba in the fridge from yesterday. I was going to eat it, but since I’m a future hero, I’ll give it to you.” Shoto’s stomach chose that moment to rumble, and Touya couldn’t resist the mischievous smile that appeared on his face.
“Soba?” the boy asked after a few seconds of silence.
“Huh? You don’t know what soba is? It's like...the most delicious thing in the world” Touya exclaimed, surprised. His mother always made it when he and Fuyumi were little. He had thought she’d make it for Shoto too, since she had spent the last five years by his side.
Shoto shook his head, and Touya sighed. The kid was so naive. He approached the fridge in search of the soba, and as soon as he saw it, he grabbed it, regretting his act of generosity when he smelled its aroma.
“Here. I’ll give you the soba I worked so hard to make.” It wasn’t true: he had ordered it takeout, but Shoto didn’t need to know that.
The youngest scrutinized it, bringing his nose closer to smell it, then looked at his older brother.
“What, you want me to feed you too? Forget it. If you want it warm, use your quirk or the microwave, I’m not your servant.”
Shoto quickly shook his head, and his hand flew to his left eye, which was covered by bandages. Touya could see the large red scar covered in blisters since the bandages didn’t cover much. If he had put them on himself, he did a terrible job.
“I don't want it to be hot. I'll like it even if it's cold” he said, and Touya didn’t hesitate any further. He didn’t need an explanation. He watched his brother sit at the small table and take a sip of the soup. He took another sip, and then another. Touya had to keep watching to make sure he didn’t drown in it. His father wouldn’t be happy if his masterpiece died from the soba Touya had given him.
Within a few minutes, the entire bowl was cleaned up to the last drop, and Shoto was smiling contentedly. He even licked his lips, trying to preserve a little of that delicious taste he had tasted.
“I’m glad you liked my dinner. Look at you, you’re dirty everywhere, you look like a pig.”
Shoto lowered his gaze to his stained clothes. “Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh. Now go back to bed, I want to eat in peace.”
“But I need... I... The burns” he simply said, and Touya had to take a deep breath to avoid losing control again. He didn’t notice the huge smile on his own face though.
“Alright. Come with me to my room. I have all the stuff for the burns there. If Dad finds out, he’ll get mad because ‘Ugh, Touya, stop training! You get too many burns!’ so don’t say a word” he mimicked his father's voice, and, to his surprise, Shoto burst out laughing. He had sounded so apathetic all evening that he didn’t realize how truly young Shoto was until he heard his laughter. He was missing a front tooth, and his cheeks turned pink. He didn’t look like the masterpiece Endeavor boasted about, how he would surpass All Might and become the strongest; no, now he just looked like his little brother.
Touya motioned for him to stand, and together, silently, they walked toward the older brother’s room. Shoto had never been on this side of the house, so he stopped at every corner to observe the furniture and walls, with Touya quickly dragging him by the collar. They passed Fuyumi’s room, hearing the annoying white noise that helped her sleep, and Natsuo’s room, from which a strange smell emanated, and which Touya had no interest in knowing the source of. Normally, he would have sneaked into his brother's room to talk with him, but recently, their conversations had mostly been one-sided, so he had stopped going.
He wouldn’t say it out loud, but he missed him.
Soon, they reached Touya’s room, and he shut the door behind them. Shoto stared wide-eyed at the room full of toys and books—he had never seen so many. His room wasn’t so well-equipped.
When he saw the object of desire that had tormented him for months, he ran toward the worn-out ball, picked it up, and gazed at it until the older brother’s voice pulled him from his trance.
“You’re not at the playground, if I’m going to clean your wounds, let’s do it quickly.”
He let go of the ball and moved toward his brother, who had just pulled bandages and disinfectants out from a pillowcase.
Touya rolled up his hoodie sleeve and began disinfecting the wound, ignoring the hiss that Shoto made.
“Stop fidgeting, it hurts so much just because you were dumb enough to use ice all this time.”
The older brother continued cleaning the wound until the dried blood was washed away. Now there were only reddish patches with large blisters on top. Shoto reached out to touch them, but Touya slapped his hand away.
“You really have the survival instinct of a panda huh? You can’t pop them idiot”
“What are they?”
“Blisters.”
“Blisters?”
“Yeah, they come to kids who ask too many questions.”
Shoto opened his mouth, then slammed it shut. He pressed his lips into a thin line and looked at his brother.
“Wow. You’re really stupid.” Touya chuckled, generously spreading ointment over the boy’s arm. It was almost finished, but he was sure that, after showing off his final tricks to Dad, he wouldn’t need to secretly buy it anymore.
Finally, he took bandages and wrapped them around the wounds, looking at his work with satisfaction. He had become good at treating them.
Shoto stared at them too, surprised that the pain was already starting to fade.
His mother was always there to make him feel better after training, and now that she wasn’t here, the pain seemed twice as bad as before. This was the first time in weeks that he felt better after training.
“Alright. Now go back to your room. I still have to clean all the rice off the floor in the kitchen, ugh, what a pain. But I’ll be a hero, heroes have to do annoying work too. You're part of it” Touya explained, even though Shoto hadn’t asked.
“Will you walk me?” Shoto asked before he could think it through. His mother was the one he always asked that question to, but she wasn’t there. She had hurt him, pouring boiling water on his face. She hated him now, just like she hated his father.
Touya, on the other hand, hadn’t hurt him like their mother did, and like their father continued to do every day. He had said he didn’t intend to hit him, he’d given him food, and treated his wounds, just like Rei had when she still loved him.
Shoto would always love his mother, but now she wasn’t here to do it.
He only hoped that Touya would stay.
“You want me to walk you too? What do you want, a bunch of grapes and me fanning you with giant leaves waiting for you to fall asleep while I sing?” Touya snapped sarcastically, laughing at his own joke, but Shoto didn’t understand, so he stayed silent and kept looking him in the eyes.
Touya sighed dramatically and wearily. “Fine! But I won’t tell you any bedtime stories. No lullabies. No cuddles.” Shoto nodded and then reached out his hand to take it.
“No. Now come on before I change my mind.”
Without checking if the little brother was following him, he walked toward the exit and Shoto’s room. The boy ran after him, grabbing his shirt to keep up. Touya sighed again at this, but did nothing to push him away.
When they arrived, the teenager was surprised to see how bare the room was. He had expected it to be filled with toys and all the luxuries Endeavor could give to his masterpiece, but there was only a futon and a closet. Not even a toy or something colorful to decorate the emoty walls.
Shoto didn’t seem as shaken as his brother, apparently used to this normality. He climbed onto the futon and then impatiently looked at his brother.
“Well? What do you want now?”
“You need to tuck me in” he explained, as if Touya had done it every day and they hadn’t just spoken for the first time that evening.
“You’re completely crazy. Ask Endeavor to do it, he's with you every other day. I bet he'll be happy to tuck you in like the baby you are” he replied with bitterness that Shoto couldn’t have understood unless he’d been awake from a young age. He turned away and stayed silent for a moment before mumbling something.
“Speak clearly, I don’t understand anything.”
“I said... Dad never does it. Mom used to” he repeated a little louder.
“Well, Mom’s not here anymore, you’ll have to manage” said Touya coldly. Just thinking about their mother made his stomach flip and made him want to scream. He didn’t need to be reminded of their last conversation or how, since Shoto was born, she had stopped giving him the attention she once did.
“Yeah. But you’re here.”
“And so what? Did you hit your head when you fell? I’m not your new mom,” he laughed at the absurdity of those words: he never thought he’d say them out loud, especially not to Dad’s precious masterpiece.
Shoto went quiet, before sighing and getting under the warm sheets by himself. He brought his hands to his chest and held them close to his heart; after all, it was the only thing he could hold and hug in that empty room.
“Goodnight, Touya-nii.”
Touya took those two words as his escape from this weird night. He hadn’t realized how tired he was until his little brother wished him goodnight. Yet, as much as his mind screamed at him to escape as fast as possible, his body stayed frozen in place, his feet stuck to the wooden floor. Shoto had already closed his eyes and seemed to have fallen into a dream world, but even relaxed, he was so different from the masterpiece he had hated from afar. He still hated those childish features, those two-toned eyes, and that hair that proved how much of a failure Touya was.
Still, Shoto didn’t hate him. He was probably the only one in the family who didn’t.
Maybe, after showing Endeavor how much he had improved, things would get better. Dad would start looking at him again, and Mom would come back home; Natsuo would start talking to him again, and Fuyumi would stop looking at him with disappointment. Maybe he could stop being jealous of Shoto and become a better hero than him.
Maybe they’d even become heroes together.
Or maybe he would continue to watch him with the same admiration he had shown him all night.
He began to walk toward the door and, with one last glance at the room, he spoke.
“Goodnight, Shoto.”
He didn’t notice the excited smile that bloomed on the child’s lips as he closed the door behind him.
Tomorrow, he would show his blue fire to his father and change their family forever.