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Winter break was Shouto’s least favorite time of year.
Even before he started school at UA, it seemed to be the worst part of his life. The two weeks that were supposed to be celebrated—That were celebrated in the Todoroki household, were always horrible for Shouto, no matter how old he was.
He remembers that at seven years old, when Fuyumi and Natsuo were sitting at the table with him, the three of them sectioned away from the adults. He was in so much pain the entire time, his heart hurting and head aching. He was so unbelievably confused and exhausted, and his siblings had only looked at him with worry throughout dinner. He’d fallen asleep at the table, only to be woken up by Endeavor, and forced to train harsher than usual.
That night, he hadn’t slept. And the cycle repeated for around a week before Father became lenient again upon his patrols starting. Then it happened again the following year, and again, and… He stopped counting on the chance of it not occurring after the third Christmas of pain. He started forgetting after a while, only now able to recall the first, because of how sudden it was and how hurt it made him.
Today was Christmas Eve. Endeavor invited a few business partners over, as well as properly asking Natsuo to come visit. Fuyumi made a lot of foods, all of which Shouto found himself far too anxious to eat. He loved his sister’s cooking, which truly, he did, and he always said it—He just knew that he would end up wasting it. He could see the nerve ticks of Father’s. How he clenched his fist at his side while smiling or laughing obnoxiously at someone’s bad joke. They weren’t scared of him. He wondered how they weren’t.
It made Shouto feel sick. So he simply sat with Natsou for a while. They made small talk—His brother spoke about work, and while it was obvious that he wasn’t really paying attention to what he was saying, it was more than clear that he was listening to the words. Or, at least it should have been. Shouto was listening to his brother, hearing the words go through one ear and slither out of the other like water after a shower. His father and he only trained for half an hour the night prior, meaning that he wasn’t going to have a good time tonight.
His brother didn’t stop talking too much, only to occasionally stare at him or continue eating. Fuyumi eventually sat down with them, starting conversation with their brother. Although he wasn’t a part of the conversation, Natsuo continuously involved him and asked him things. He wondered why, though obliged and answered with one or two words. Fuyumi did the same once or twice, but left it up to him in the end.
Shouto watched Father as people began leaving. He could tell that he would have nothing good to offer, given how he was more or less rushing people. Maybe it wasn’t obvious to them, but his body language was weird like that. He wonders if anyone else picks up on how he makes himself a bit bigger when he’s about to make a decision. He watches one of the businessmen gather his friends, or, partners, and bring them to the exit slowly.
He knows that Fuyumi knows what’s gonna happen. He’s not quite sure if Natsuo does, but he’d find out eventually. As soon as the last person was out the door, Shouto’s shoulders tensed and he listened to Father’s footsteps trail the hallway.
Fuyumi asks him something, though his eyes are trained on the door. Maybe he’d be able to fight back better today. He’d been working hard at U.A., hadn’t skipped out on a single day of training there. His morning runs were a daily routine, sometimes ending up becoming a nightly one if he had the chance. He’d be able to withstand at least two hours.
“Shouto.” Father’s booming voice called from the hallway, face appearing after a second of silence. He sounds angry without really trying to. He doesn’t know why he tenses up even harder. Shouto knew it was coming. He blinked up towards the man, seeing Natsuo furrow his eyebrows in his peripheral. “You have ten minutes. Change and meet me in the training room.” Endeavor continued, which Shouto instantly ducked his head in response to. Natsuo stared at him for a second, then scoffed and stood up. “Seriously?” Natsuo asked sharply, “You’re making him train on Christmas Eve? The kid barely gets any breaks with-“
“It’s fine, Natsuo,” Shouto spoke up, his voice luckily not cracking. He didn’t look at his brother, though he saw the way that his hand clenched into a fist out of the corner of his eye. It wasn’t the same way that Father’s did, which eased his tension just a little bit. “Thank you, Shouto. Don’t keep me waiting.” Father said, his voice harsher. He left right after, his footsteps trailing away. Shouto wouldn’t blame Natsuo if it hurt more—He knew Father got butthurt over simple things.
He had nine minutes, now. Natsuo should be gone before training starts. Shouto swallowed and stood up, his vision blurring. Fuyumi put a hand on his wrist, and he blinked again, looking down at her.
She frowned at him, that pitiful, unhappy and almost angry look. “It’s okay.” He offered, voice low as he tried to sound polite. She shook her head almost instantaneously. “It’s not okay, you know that!” Fuyumi whispered sharply, more than clear that she really didn’t want him to. “Please. Just don’t get too hurt. I don’t want to find you in there again,” She continues, voice sounding painstakingly similar to Mother’s.
He remembers the last time he visited her. How she was worried about him. Shouto nods, shaking her hand off. Eight minutes. “I promise you won’t.” He says simply, the lie feeling bitter. He’d drag himself to his bedroom, then. She hesitates before letting go of his wrist, only for him to be stopped by Natsuo.
He tilts his head, as if it were obvious. “I need to go get changed. I shouldn’t be late,” Shouto tells him, and he looks more than apprehensive. His face contorts in the way Endeavor’s always does, before he let Shouto properly pass him. He doesn’t listen to what Fuyumi starts whispering to Natsuo once he’s at the door.
Shouto’s room is stale and deafening. The clothes he normally wears for training sessions are already laid out on the edge of his bed, and he can’t help but wonder if it was father who put them there. He doesn’t remember setting them out earlier, but he could have easily done it to be faster.
He wriggled out of his polo-shirt, tossing his belt somewhere and barely wincing at the sound of it. He had no bruises on his torso. He hadn’t seen himself without any bruises in a while, so he took a second to look. Maybe it would be okay, he surely had a chance of dodging everything. If the chance had a possibility of being below one percent. He’d never let his father forget it, if it meant he’d go uninjured for one night.
The weird feeling of his shirt was one he never got entirely used to. It was a strange, quirk-made material, one that was fully heat and cold resistant. His quirk couldn’t burn it, no matter how hot he burned during training. Father’s hadn’t yet either. It was unlikely that it would, though he couldn’t simply believe that. He’d laugh when it ended up burning, because that’s what Father had told him. That it wouldn’t.
As his mind hit one minute, Shouto entered the training room. He set his water bottle down, seeing Father staring at his phone with a deafening scowl. As soon as the difth floorboard into the room creaked, Father looked up and smiled at him. The anger in his expression didn’t cease, only shifted. “You were almost late.” Father tells him, putting his phone into his pocket. “Would you like to tell me why?” He continues, and Shouto knows it isn’t a question: It was never a question. It was always a trick.
He didn’t answer, allowing Father to stand up. A few steps forwards, and Shouto still doesn’t say anything, only waiting for Father to pull the first move. He always did this. He tried to initiate conversation, only to completely decimate him as soon as he gave in and answered. “You’ve been slacking at school.” Father taunts, hands tense at his sides. A countdown starts in his head. Shouto has no more than a minute before it starts. He shakes his head, remaining stiff.
Father smiles, and just as Shouto predicted, raised a suddenly flaming fist to hit him. He raised ice, dodging backwards as far as he could without falling out of the room. He always treated it like training at school. The doorway was out of bounds, he’d lose if he somehow fell out. Shouto stumbled backwards at Father lunging for him, making him laugh.
“You’re pathetic. Fight me like you’re a real man!” Father boomed, fire shooting at him. Shouto was just slightly too late throwing up an ice wall, fortunately able to block the ending shot, though being hit by the brunt end of it. The burning of his right side was easily cooled off, the sensation curling around him that felt just like Mother’s hand against his face. “I’m more of a man than you’ll ever be!” Shouto hissed, sparking a long, sharp shard of ice at him. Father dodged it like all of his other attacks, and two large hands gripped him before he could back off.
He’d hit a nerve. He felt the pressure, shouting as he tried to fight back, being thrown to the floor with a painful sound. The floorboards didn’t crack. They never did. Everything else cracked, that wasn’t supposed to. He groaned, and the front of his shirt was pulled as Father kicked him in the chest. The air was punched out of his lungs, a dizziness in his head that could only occur when he wasn’t standing.
Father backed off, after a few seconds of looming over his limp body, blinding fire still fizzling in the air. ”Stand up!” Father shouted, crossing his arms over his chest. Shouto didn’t like the sight of being sized up while nearly writhing on the ground, so he squeezed them shut as he caught his breath. The eyes on him felt like they were burning. Had Father gained heat vision? Probably not. It felt as though he did.
Shouto’s lips turned down, baring his teeth as he forced his hands under him. It didn’t feel like he’d possibly broken a rib, leaving a relieved feeling stir throughout his body. Father charged him again, his face blurry. Shouto clenched his jaw, raising his arm and ice coming up with it. His left side always felt paralyzed when he fought with Father. He watched as his ice was destroyed as fast as it came, dodging off to the side as swiftly as he could.
Maybe he’d defeat Father this time. Maybe he could get the upper hand, some stupid way. Shouto used the wall as leverage, boosting himself off of it and kicking Father in the side. His hopes were faux to most, even to himself, in the way that Father only stumbled. Shouto reached far inside of himself, fishing for the warm ember in his chest as he continued to fight.
Ice wall, break, dodge, hit. Stumble, break, ice wall, dodge, break. He choked as he was slammed against the wall this time, Father not immediately letting go like he normally did. The hand tight against his throat was nowhere near as bad as the sudden sharp pain in the right half of his torso.
Shouto heaved, kicking at him desperately as he was punched a second time. One more and something would break. He couldn’t breathe. One more, the air was already punched out of his lungs, and the hand kept squeezing. One more, and—
His fire bursted out of his hands, sparking into Father’s face and forcing him to slip backwards with a shout. It was funny, seeing the man falter when it came to his own ability used against him. Like father like son. Shouta’s right hand came up to his throat, panting for air like a starving man. He hated it when Father choked him. He blinked away the spots from his dry eyes, a slanted blur reaching him instead. Nobody ever spoke about the way their vision blurred when they were near, or looking at fire for too long. Shouto never missed a day without seeing it, and he was only now subject to it again.
Father shouted about him being a brat, charging towards him again. He scrambled out of the way, and though Father was nothing but brute, he wasn’t stupid enough to run into the wall. Shouto gripped the side of a chair, maybe the indent in the wall, to help himself stand up properly.
“You’re pathetic,” Endeavor spat at him, his flames bursting again. Shouto stared at him, stumbling back and sparking flames in his hand. “Compared to what?” He all but hissed, throwing a small curve towards him. “Watch it,” Father warned. Shouto would have rolled his eyes if he could tear them away.
Shouto grimaced again as flames that weren’t his own licked his right side. He felt them coat his arm, chest blooming with newfound pain as he inhaled the uncomfortable smoke again. Father growled, using one arm’s length full of force to shove him to the ground.
Shouto got up again, hand fishing out something from close by to use as a weapon. Weapons weren’t against Father’s rules. They’d been used against Shouto more times than he could count, and he never said anything about them. He swung the item, a wooden log—Probably a backup plan for Father—It cracking over the man’s shoulder.
Father groaned, the sound turning into something of anger as he pulled the weapon back. Right. Shouto remembers when he tried to use a weapon last, it never went his way. He was fighting against someone three times his size, for no-one’s sake. The fire instantly swarmed the log, which wasn’t a pretty sight in Shouto’s current position. He tried to move out of the way, but Father seemed to be an extra step in front of him.
The sound that came out as his side was struck was more than sickening. A splitting crunch that reverberated in his body as he collapsed, the pain almost tearing through everything he could think about. His head hit the ground, jaw coiled tighter than it usually ended up being. Another heave escaped him as he rolled onto his forearms and knees, ears ringing loudly. It was so loud, and everything hurt—And he knew he had to get up, but the gag that left him was detrimental. He coughed, vomit coming up harsher than the previous time.
Endeavor didn’t attack him while he was down. He knew the man was standing right there as he threw up everything he didn’t eat. The smell was putrid. He wheezed after the last bit came up, squeezing blurry eyes shut.
The bubbling voice of Father struck out again, barely even twenty seconds after he’d stopped puking. “Get up!” He shouted, the shakiness of the boards below him twitching as the man probably stopped. He was nothing more than a large child, and the worst man alive. Shouto remained writhing for a moment, before he forced himself from his elbows to his hands, cringing at the wet and thick feeling now on the edge of his fingers.
He didn’t get up fast enough. He was supposed to be faster, the fastest. Shouto felt the foot on his back, registering it as his chest hit the floor. Father stomped once, leaving him gagging again. His hair was in the vile, disgusting mess on the floor. Tears burned hot in his eyes as he squirmed, trying to find a way out of Father’s wrath.
The foot didn’t leave, only remained and throbbed, followed by a hand in his hair to lift his head off of the ground. He couldn’t shut his mouth, panting for any oxygen through the smoke. He felt Father’s hand on his lower back, even through his shirt, hot and seething to his skin. His eyes closed before he could register much more, wanting to leave the sensation entirely.
He wasn’t able to count again until Father left. The man had spat that he had to clean himself up. Shouto was curled up on the floor for nobody knows how long. Everything felt horrible, and his clammy skin touched the air for too long. He knew his face was covered in tears and some other things. He doesn’t know how long he stayed there for, eyes glued to the foggy ceiling.
Fuyumi wouldn’t come and save him. She was surely asleep, his screaming long since over. His slack jaw finally shifted, teeth clicking against each other to provide some sound. It was barely audible, but he kept doing it to hear. It took a while for him to begin getting up, the ringing in his ears never choosing to subside. He wondered, briefly, if he could do anything to get rid of the sickness—The fetid sickness in his chest, not just the puke on the floor.
Shouto sighed through his nose, grimacing at the awkward feeling that seeped away from it. Was his nose seriously bleeding? He waited a second before blinking a few times, slowly but surely sitting up. He felt his wrists twist uncomfortably, his chest hurting again. He felt bile raise again, so he sniffled and swallowed as quickly as he could.
All he could smell was smoke. He wondered if it would stay longer than usual—Father was generous over the past few weeks, especially over the weekends. Maybe this is what he was waiting for. Maybe he’d been planning to hurt Shouto like this for much longer than he’d really thought.
He wiggles his fingers, then his toes, and forces himself to breathe properly. Everything really, reallytugging. Like they wanted to pull him apart and leave him with nothing but skin and organ. His brachium was throbbing in pain in a way that was weirdly difficult to ignore.
Shouto wonders if Father intended to do that. Intended to hurt him so bad just to not call up the ugly doctor that he always did. Maybe he didn’t cry enough, because when he bawled—That creep was always called. Then he’d save him from imminent danger, prevent him from any long lasting damage. Most of the time he’d only be called if Shouto’s body was visibly broken. When his bone was sticking out from skin, when his face had been harmed more than Endeavor meant to… Or, most commonly, when something couldn’t be fixed by a next-day blame on school training.
He mumbled a curse as he slipped, his foot just barely stopping him from falling face flat again. He dry heaved shortly after, squeezing his eyes shut so he wouldn’t get any more nauseous. After a few seconds of lucky sicknessless passed, he opened his eyes and slowly forced himself to his feet. The world seemed to tilt on its x-axis, his head slightly moving to accommodate the world’s adjustment. Shouto frowned to himself, seeing everything through the wrong lense. He forced his body to halt, hands sticking to his knees.
A lot of the training sessions he went through were better than whatever this was. He’d be able to stand, to breathe without feeling like his throat was being squeezed with two too-big hands. He waited another second before beginning to trudge forwards, wanting to get back to his room before he ended up fainting.
He wasn’t entirely sure if he’d actually make it or not, because everything was so distorted that it made him strongly believe the house was in range of a strange quirk. Shouto pressed his left hand to his right upper arm, cringing at the wetness soaking up his sleeve, now clinging to his fingers.
Shouto leaned heavily against the left wall of the hallway as he continued his way to his bedroom. The hall doubled, maybe tripled in size, making each step of his feel ridiculously uneasy and small. It took sixty-one and a half steps to reach his quarters from the training room. His bedroom was dark, the noise in his vision no longer welcomed with familiarity—Everything was so dark! He brushed up against his desk, having barely been able to properly shut his bedroom door.
Everything was heavy and his brain was really begging for a rest, but he promptly used the only recovered front of it to continue moving. The one thing in this God forsaken house that he liked was how everyone had their own bathrooms. Well, at least he had his own bathroom. It meant that he could clean up without any worry about an intruder. Or Fuyumi, doting worriedly after training.
He grunted at nothing as he slumped against the door of his bathroom. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, most of his body’s turmoil visible to him despite his horrible vision. Shouto was hunched, trembling, squeezing his arm and gripping at his shirt as if it were the only thing to tether him to the ground. He shuddered, looking to the shower and back to the floor. A shower would help, he knew that showering always helped one way or another—But everything was burning.
Shouto remained still for another few seconds, before finally gathering his sentience and stumbling to the shower. He hated how rich Endeavor was, how their house had so many crappy installments that were from his money. The shower was filled with buttons and he was pretty sure even had a few verbal commands. Slowly but surely, Shouto strips down, almost gagging at the sensation of his shirt peeling off of his skin with now dried blood coating it. Maybe it peeled away some of his skin with it. He wasn’t completely sure.
He shakily scrambled with his hand against the wall of the shower, blindly reaching out for something. His hand eventually found purchase around one of the ledges of the shower, allowing him to pause and breathe. Even though he was highly regretting the choice of getting into the shower, he knew he’d thank himself later. A beat passed before he properly was able to open his eye again, scanning over the warping buttons. Two was for heat, three was for cold… Four was as cold as it could go, five was as hot. Something like that.
He wavers as he reached for the fourth button. Hot would do him nothing but pain, and he couldn’t be assed to do anything but stand under the stream of water. Shouto pressed the button, then braced himself as the pipes rumbled. A spray of ice came from the showerhead above him, running over his trembling body. He exhaled slowly, feeling the tension just barely begin to leak out of his legs and shoulders.
It didn’t feel good. Really, it didn’t, not at all. But he stood still for a while, allowing the water to do its job of cooling his entire body down alongside the help of him not using his quirk for once. At some point he slowly moved his free hand, running it over his bicep to make sure the blood had mostly been washed away. He felt nothing more than a bit of warmth, so he moved on to his chest, then his right ribs, grimacing at the dip in skin. Momentarily, Shouto pulled his head away from the water to look down.
Redness enveloped his vision. Not too much, it wasn’t like it was everywhere, but it still took up the majority of his chest and side. He didn’t like the way that it became blotchy, fitting between his ribs and only atop the third and fourth one. He was sure the bottom two had broken, or, at least one of them had broken harsher than the others. He pressed down on it, then choked up at the throbbing that bounced back at him. Shouto ducked his head back under the water, holding his breath as he ran his hands across his body. He stopped at his abdomen, something switching in his head.
Shouto didn’t want to stay at his house for any longer than he already did. He fished around in his drawers for a t-shirt, irritation and anxiety blooming in his chest. He could leave the house and never look back. He didn’t need to become a hero. He was sure that Father would be fine off without him. The man was the number one hero, after all, and likely would hold the title for years to come. He wouldn’t be anything to Endeavor after a while.
So what if he just turned into nothing now, and left before he became anything at all?
He paused, hand gripping a plain shirt. It wasn’t a horrible idea. He remembers wanting to run away as a kid, thinking that everything would be better if he made it to Tokyo, or something stupid like that. He wasn’t dumb and young anymore. He had physical cash, he knew his way around the city and outer cities from patrolling with other heroes. He had a crappy disguise—Well, if you count some generic navy blue hair dye, he definitely had it. The one issue was his fucked up scar and his eye in general.
But that wasn’t going to stop him. He could just say it was a freak accident, if someone ended up trying to talk to him. Change up his voice, sound more like Natsuo-nii when speaking to anyone. Shouto bites his tongue. A second passes. And he settles on his decision.
Shouto snatched the t-shirt, pulling it on with a stifled groan as he stumbled across the room. He grabbed his junky old bag, digging through it for the familiar boxy wallet. It had around one-hundred-and-eighty thousand yen slipped into the main compartment, another forty or so thousand loose in his bag. He flicked through the cash, then dropped the wallet back into his bag and went to keep changing. He could easily survive with two-hundred thousand yen. A month, at minimum, and he knew that he could forge some shitty documents that ensured his safe passage to getting a job.
He pulled a pair of pants on, then fuzzy socks that Fuyumi got him for his last birthday. He put a hoodie on over top of his t-shirt, slightly squirming to feel if the bandages had wounded up tight enough. They were fine—He was fine. He was incredible! The stupid plan of running away from home he’d made a decade ago would be put to use. He thanked himself for starting to save up cash a few years back, originally having wanted to purchase something that Father wouldn’t ever allow.
Shouto made his way back to his bathroom, flipping the light on and slowly getting down onto his knees to access the cupboard below the sink. He’d be pretty bruised up for a while, and sure as hell couldn’t just go about without re-bandaging his wounds. He took out his first aid kit again, as well as his box dye that he’d bought on a whim a few months ago. Ashido wanted to see what he looked like with dark hair, so they’d bought something semi-permanent dye. He was going to miss her.
…He was going to miss all of his classmates, really, but doubted they’d care much. They cared much more for Midoriya, and he was very sure they wouldn’t blink twice if he didn’t return after winter break was over. He stood back up and stared at himself in the mirror, pursing his lips at his still wet hair. He sighed. Sooner than never, he told himself, uncapping the dye before lifting his hands up to his head.
He squirted in a bit to the root of his hair in the middle, rubbing it out to the sides. He kept adding more every time he ran out of enough to keep spreading it, eventually reaching the end of the bottle. He’d gotten almost all of his hair, save for a bit of the red towards the back. He doubted it would become an issue in the long run. He put the dye bottle into his first aid kit, not trusting the idea of throwing it away. Father would probably see it before he even got five miles away from the house.
Shouto left his bathroom to put his kit into the duffel, then went and gathered a few shirts and pairs of pants. He also made sure to grab socks and underwear, because, anyone in their right mind would hate to not have necessities. He gathered up a few other things, like the picture of him and Mother from before everything broke completely. Shouto had burnt off Endeavor’s face from the picture at some point during his early teens, not wanting to see it every time that he tried to relax in his own bedroom.
He waited around fifteen minutes, sitting on his bed and staring at the ground, before rinsing his hair out in the sink. He dried it off with the darkest towel he had, and stared at himself. He looked a lot different. Black hair reminded him of something, but he didn’t have much room to think about absolutely anything other than getting out. Shouto liked the way that it was, now, because he didn’t have Father’s weird red covering half of him. He probably wouldn’t be pointed out as “Endeavor’s Kid” anymore.
Another minute passed as he watched himself. His face turned and swirled, skin turning grey and pink. Maybe he was hallucinating, or maybe he was seeing the truth. The truth… It wasn’t often that he got to have funny thoughts like that one. He’d normally stomp them out before he giggled, but he smiled, blowing a breath out of his nose again. Then he grinned, toothy and all, his slightly off-white enamel glaring against the bathroom lighting.
Shouto stopped himself from laughing much out loud, forcing it down. He could laugh when he wasn’t in the house anymore.
He tossed the towel atop his bathroom rug, then ran his hands through his hair. It was almost like Iida’s, though it was a little bit lighter on his previously red side. Shouto dropped his hands, then turned on his heel and shut the light off on the way out. He had everything he needed, aside from his phone. His phone was likely still in his pants from earlier, and Shouto sure as hell wasn’t going to take it with him. It was one of the things that Father always checked. His location. Because, who would Endeavor be if he couldn’t “ensure” his son’s “safety”?
Shouto picked up his bag, just barely wincing at the sound of the picture frame shifting around. He turned and stuffed it in a little deeper, burying it between a pair of pants and a shirt. The bag pressed uncomfortably against his ribcage, a pulse of white, searing pain coursing throughout his body, but he couldn’t bring himself to pull it away. His breathing was a little bit shallow, all but getting louder as he stepped out of his bedroom.
When he’d originally thought of running away, he could have used his windows. Unfortunately, Endeavor didn’t want Shouto sneaking out to have a life or friends, so he put locks and sensors on them. He was an idiot, though, and didn’t end up doing it to the front or side doors. A man could only have so much greatness before he lost his key factors, and it seemed that smarts was the first one Endeavor misplaced.
He tip-toed across the hall, pointedly avoiding the creakier floorboards. He leaned on the wall for support at some point, finally making his way into the main area. He hesitated, glancing at the front door for a moment. Shouto considered stealing something of Endeavor’s. It wasn’t like he’d notice it missing—Father had far too many bottles of booze to care about one going missing, much less if Shouto himself was missing too.
A beat passes. Then another one. Shouto stepped into the main room, then went to Father’s cupboard. He fished his hand around inside for a second, hand clenching around a rigid, somewhat round bottle. It was large, but his hand fit nicely around the side of its base. He pulled it down and stared at the label: Hibiki. Shouto remembers hearing Father saying the name of the beverage once whilst they were out at dinner.
He stared at it for another second. Then he smiled, because why wouldn’t he? He held it tightly, moving it to his left hand to ease the light pressurized pain in his bicep. He held it around the neck, his thumb overlapping his index finger. Maybe rebellion was nice, he thought, as he uncapped the bottle. A small pop echoed into the silent room. Shouto waited a moment before deciding to take a small sip.
Almost instantly, he made a face. It was a bit strong, but it tasted quite sweet. It made him think about the green apples that were often served with breakfast, commonly something that he’d take as a snack before or after his runs. He shut it after a moment of consideration and decided to take it with him. He started his way out of the room, properly aiming for the front door this time. He stared at the shoes that were there. Fuyumi’s, Endeavor’s, and Shouto’s slippers. Or. Apparently not his slippers.
He leans over with a grunt, frowning at his shoes not being in their usual place. He traced back his steps, furrowing his eyebrows. He’d left them in his bedroom before he went to train, and somehow forgot them while packing his bag. He looked at the bottle of booze, then the door, before straightening up and turning to make his way back to his bedroom.
Before he could do much, Shouto heard a floorboard creak. It was quiet, but it was audible to him. He tensed up. Shoot. He didn’t want to be seen, so he did the next best thing, and slipped out of the house as quickly as possible. He pulled the door shut very slowly behind him, cringing at the obvious bit of snow that had blown into the house in the very little time. Shouto’s feet were already cold, forcing him to bite back a groan at his ridiculousness. If only he’d taken off his shoes at the door when he got home the other day.
Shouto forced his fire to flare up, the warmth spreading throughout his left half. He could live with a bit of chill on his right side. He wasn’t sure how chilly it was in terms of celsius temperature, but he always preferred the cold over heat. He waited another second, only finally turning away as the light inside turned on. Shouto’s legs began moving before he could even think, sprinting down the door’s path to the front gate. Panic shriveled up in his chest and stomach after a few seconds. It was probably Fuyumi, and by God did he not want her to see him running away.
He squeezed the bottle in his hand tightly as he slowed to a stop in front of the gate. “Shit,” he mumbled for the first time in a while, fumbling with the electronic pad used to lock and unlock it. He flipped it open with his free-er hand, trembling fingers punching in the code. Eleven twenty-five. He remembers when Endeavor had changed it—It was the date of him becoming the number one hero. He hated how happy Father was that day. The device let out a shrill beep, both halves of the gate slowly pulling apart.
He didn’t dare waste the time waiting, already starting to squeeze through the gap as it opened. The bottle clanged against the metal once he forced through, making Shouto almost instantly wince at the thought of it cracking. He bolted down the rest of the driveway, then turned to the nearest part of the sidewalk that he could make out. For once, he found himself quite thankful for the fact that Endeavor hired workers for every little thing, as long as it meant he didn’t have to lift a finger. The sidewalks were shoveled every six-to-eight hours, leaving them easy to make out in the snowy night.
For a while, he ran. He ran even while the wound on his side felt like it was stretching in ways it shouldn’t, screaming at him to stop and allow it to heal. He crossed a street without looking both ways, feeling overjoyed at the fact that he was out. He barely payed the injury enough mind, only waving around in his cold side’s half of his brain to have ice stir against the wound. He randomly made turns at street corners. At some point he began slowing down as the panic fizzled out, a sad and mopey sparkling flame reaching the end of its course.
He stopped near the end of a block, breaths coming in uneven pants as he hunched over. He felt sick, but he felt amazing at the same time. It was an odd and exhilarating emotion that bounced around his brain. Maybe he was having a psychotic break—Most people that went through them ended up explaining their feelings and thoughts in a very similar manner. He stared at the ground, trying to understand the spots growing in his vision. After a second, he looked up, glancing around the area. Damn it, yeah, he was so done for.
There wasn’t a single thing he recognized. Sure, the street he was on had to connect to another one and so on from that point, but everything around him was so incredibly bland. There were a few cars parked tightly on the side of the streets, some random store’s lights still on, but aside from that? He had no clue where anything else was. The fog from the snow had slightly gained since he left the house, thickening against the street as small flurries danced around to hit the floor. He stared at everything for a second longer. It was wonderful. More than wonderful—It was excellent!
He sighed a little dramatically, looking down at the bottle in his hand. He knew it was irrational, but he thought about how much it would take for him to no longer feel the pain. A lot of people spoke about alcohol numbing the feeling of injury, whether it be mental or physical discomfort. He wondered if it would work on him as well as it worked on random internet users. Sero had once said that his father drank a lot, something about it being associated with his quirk. He remembered faintly about how one of his teachers had given him and his classmates a lecture on different substances and their effects on specific quirks.
Shouto popped open the lid again with a little bit of struggle, staring at it before raising it to his mouth. He inhaled through his nose, then took a few awkward gulps of the sickly tasting liquid. It burned his throat roughly, skimming along the inside of his esophagus. He tilted it back down, biting back a gag at the way the aftertaste stung a little more than drinking it. But it was nice. It reminded him a little bit of a sweet drink he’d tried with a few classmates while out in the city.
He squeezed the neck of the bottle tightly, pursing his lips. He didn’t feel too opposed to drinking more. Shouto fiddled with the lid in his hand, then took another smaller sip from the bottle. He wondered why the top wasn’t really made for drinking from—Most bottles were made for when someone wants to directly drink from them. He spun the cap back onto the bottle, tightly twisting it before starting to walk again.
Even though he didn’t know where exactly he was trying to go, Shouto had a general idea of what he was trying to find. He knew that there were a lot of nicer alleys to fall asleep in than… Whatever the hell the few he’d just walked past were. Briefly, Shouto wonders if garbage trucks actually came about this neighborhood. Something about the way the trash was piled up around and on top of the garbage cans told him that they surely didn’t.
He finds himself tripping over nothing after crossing a road. He stops to look down at his feet, grimacing at the sight of his socks fully soaked and uncomfortably clinging to every bit of snow. He mumbles something without meaning to, looking to the side and stumbling to brace himself against the wall in order to take them off. The snow was caked to the bottoms of his feet more than the sides, a wince escaping him as he tugged them off bit by bit. He discarded them by shoving them in his pocket, the cool sensation picking through his pant leg.
Shouto looks down at the bottle again. He wonders if the weird feeling in his cheeks and stomach were from the drink, or if they were simply a result of the cold. Hibiki 17 is plastered along the front of the bottle—He wonders why there are numbers, and if they mean anything specific. The font was strange and large, making up the majority of the label. Maybe it was for identification in stores. He never learned much about alcohol, only knowing about how it made Father act.
He pushes off of the wall and continues trudging forwards. He wasn’t entirely sure as to when he stopped counting, but it felt wonderful. The numbers all blurred into one. Maybe Shouto had taken fifty steps since he left the house, or maybe he’d taken five hundred. He stopped counting the sips he’d taken from the bottle and he sure as hell wasn’t counting the seconds anymore. He fiddled with the cap of the bottle again, still walking straight. If this is what feeling good was like, he wasn’t sure he wanted to ever return to Endeavor.
Every so often while walking at a… Relatively even pace, Shouto would take another sip from the bottle. The taste was just as sickly as the first sip, but he grew used to it over the short period of time. While lost in thought, at some point he stumbled and tripped over something, cursing under his breath as the wind whipped in his ears. He was lucky to not have fallen, grimacing at the fact that a bit of the Hibiki had spilled. It wasn’t like he paid for it, so it didn’t matter anyways.
He wasn’t very sure as to where he was. Shouto looked around, blinking wearily at the bright lights surrounding him. Street lights hadn’t always been that bright—He remembered learning about the different LEDs used for them, and how they were supposed to die out over the course of a few decades. Maybe they’d been replaced recently—Or perhaps they were just new additions to the neighborhood he was in.
A small smile spread across his face. He liked the color of the lights. They were a weird, dark orange, something murky that made him think about one of his friends. He knew the name of the color, but couldn’t remember it. Something… C, it was the color of a metal… A metal—Or a common wiring used at school and Ground Beta. Beta, B… Bronze!, Shouto’s mind exclaimed, a short bit of sound coming out of his mouth alongside it. He huffed, laughing through his now big grin. Some random bystander probably thought he was going crazy. He wasn’t, because it was just so funny—The lights were bronze! Bronze was a weird color in its own.
He looked down at the bottle for what felt like it could be the hundredth time. The liquor in the bottle was also bronze. Bronze was in everything—It was the color of Father’s fire, and his own when he was mad. The roofing on the house could be considered bronze, if he really squinted at it. It was easy to consider that some bricks had a bronze undertone, too. Shouto hummed quietly as he began to walk again. He glanced one way before beginning to cross a street, jumping at the trill of a car horn. He giggled, staring at the lights from what was probably the car for a second before turning back and stumbling forwards.
The snow was so thick. It kept landing in his hair, then falling off whenever he moved too fast. God, yeah, he needed to figure out where he was gonna go. His smiley expression drooped low, his brain stirring with anger at the fact that he kept going back to logical reasoning. Yes, Shouto knew very well of the fact that he’d have to settle down eventually, but couldn’t he just live without the thought for a while longer? He had nothing important to do. Time wasn’t running low for him—If anything, it was only continuing to go up. It was like he had a counter making sense of the seconds he was gaining opposed to anything he could possibly be losing.
His thoughts trailed off as he lifted the bottle up to his mouth again, his wobbly smile returning after he swallowed. It wasn’t a stinging taste anymore. He stared at the bottle after he pulled it away from his mouth, blurry eyes taking in how much he’d had to drink. A quarter… Tierce? A third. He’d had a third of the bottle, about a third. Maybe a little bit more than that. He didn’t feel very sick, unlike how people had explained what drinking felt like for the first time. Maybe Endeavor’s drinking habits had given him a boost—He’d surely be fine having a little bit more. His side pulsed in pain again as he lifted his arm, pulling an uncomfortable whimper out of his chest.
The drink reminded him a little bit of a cold soba brand he’d had in the past. At least, the smell of it did. He took another, much smaller sip, and then finally decided to take a look around himself again. Bright green lights were flashing on the side of a building across the road. They were glimmering through the snowy night. It was weird, how thick the snow in the air had grown. When he left the house, it was like a light sprinkle, now leaning more towards a blizzard than anything else.
He pursed his lips, finally slowing to a stop near an alleyway. He peered into the darker corner, the drink sloshing in his hand. It was just full of piled up trash bags, annoyingly seeming to block off an exit door. Maybe the next one’ll be better, he thought. That started a cycle of Shouto shuffling forwards, stopping at the next alleyway, and deeming it unkempt before repeating the actions again. Forgive him for having standards!—He didn’t want to wake up to a rat eating a hole in his hoodie.
Shouto eventually found a nice area. It wasn’t so much a singular alleyway as a small thread of them, the end of it cutting off into two ways to turn. He’d made it somewhere around the mid-to-depth part of the city, then, as it was rare to find an odd string of alleys like this one. He leans against the wall after a bit of walking, eyes dramatically trying to shut. Everything was warm, and shit, did he feel nauseous. Now he understood how people were explaining being drunk.
…Was he even drunk? He grunted as he finally stilled by a corner, stopping for a moment. Eventually, he chose to lower himself to the ground to avoid the possible chance of falling over. There was a thick layer of snow on the ground, covering the majority of things. A trash bag was almost completely covered. He frowned, shuddering as he brought his knees to his chest. He gently let go of the Hibiki bottle’s neck, patting down his pocket with his other hand. He shouldn’t have dropped the cap somewhere in the snow. His frown deepened as he looked down, then stopped. The cap was in his hand.
He sputtered a giggle, the sound coming out broken and wheezy. Of course. He had the cap all along, that’s what he kept squeezing in his hand the whole time. Shouto’s giggling turned into a more genuine laugh as he slung his hand over, shakily trying to twist it back onto the bottle. He stopped trying after a second, deeming it good enough to leave. He stared at his hands afterwards, his laughter dying out slowly. He sighed, shoulders drooping as he blinked at his fingers. They were slightly bent, weird and long. He didn’t like it very much.
Shouto leaned his head back against the wall, his hood providing a small bit of cushioning. He shut his eyes for a second. He very much doubted that someone was going to find him here—The area was so gloomy, and it definitely wouldn’t be any different on Christmas Day. He hummed aloud. Christmas… Fuyumi would be okay. Father would probably freak out when he didn’t show up for breakfast, and when he goes to find him, he won’t be there. He didn’t even leave a note for the old bastard.
His smile returned lazily. That was okay. Endeavor didn’t need a note, he’d be fine without one. He didn’t deserve it. Shouto’s head lolled to the side, opening his eyes again, though they drooped. His eyelids felt like they’d grown magnets on the edges, pulling back towards each other no matter how hard he tried to keep them open. His breathing slightly improved, no longer the heavy and somewhat gasping pants from earlier. He gave in, shutting his eyes again. When he opened them, he wouldn’t be in that wretched position anymore.
He found himself appreciating that thought. The feeling in his right half didn’t subside, but the warmth from his left allowed him indecent comfort.
Shouto sighed again, his lips parting as he began dozing off into an easier rest, coming slower than exhaustion took hold of him over the past few nights. He welcomed it wholeheartedly.