Smile | Suicidal Todoroki x Kaminari

9 | "I like you"

This story is not intended to promote or encourage actions/behaviors such as suicide, self-harm, abuse, violence, purging, or eating disorders.

Shoto Todoroki
•⊱—≬—⊰•

Anxiety became the blood coursing through Todoroki's body as he deceived himself into believing he could cauterize his sangfroid before bleeding out. It felt as though his aching stomach was being pumped full of his thrashing, vehement emotions. A maelstrom of disorienting defenses bashed between attempting to shake off the shock and abject anxiety, crumpling down to the floor to stabilize a sense of equilibrium again, and remaining in place before any precipitous decisions or assumptions could erupt from the hapless imbroglio.

Shit, Todoroki internally gasped as his anxiety slashed through his senses. Shit. Leave. Leave. Why? Why is he here? He knows. He'll tell someone. Go. Now. Before... Fuck. No. I have to... I can't. I can't... What—

"You sound like shit," Bakugou remarked with an expression that was neither satisfied nor vexed. "You look like shit as well—shittier than the burn eating half of your face. What, you sick or something? Why the hell did you even show... Oi."

Todoroki was paralyzed. His chest had tightened and compressed into a vice of trembling trepidation. Shameful tears of jittering vulnerability frothed from his eyes, but those tears were a predominant result of a mere reaction to being abruptly submerged in apprehension.

"Todoroki," Bakugou asseverated, but he wasn't discountenanced by Todoroki whatsoever. "Oi. Breathe, dammit. Tch. Didn't mean to shock you. Slowly. Like this." Demonstrating deep, long breaths, Bakugou slowly succored his distressed classmate. "Better. Keep goin'. Nice and steady. Ain't gonna rush ya." His smoky, gravelly words were saccharine sighs of solace.

With bulging eyes and quivering hands, the taller of the two honestly wouldn't have been surprised to have inadvertently vomited, but he successfully subjugated the oozing tar of fear that coated his insides without any cloddish mishaps. So, with a duplicitous smile that perhaps even fooled himself, Todoroki thanked Bakugou for his assistance, and after a few moments, for the cold soba as well. Though, a javelin of guilt impaled Todoroki's burning stomach from the fact that he'd deliberately thrown up the soba he'd received from Bakugou and was inauspicious enough to have essentially been caught in the act by the same person.

"Tch," muttered the ash-blonde. "Don't thank me. Thought you could use the soba. Yer... Fuck my nonsense. But, oi. What's with all the smiles?"

What does that mean? Todoroki asked himself. You thought I could use the cold soba? Ah. Oh. But I'm so damn fat... If I wasn't, I wouldn't have to resort to self-induced vomiting, but obviously, I am.

The grimy, skittering feeling of consternation continued to circulate through Todoroki's veins as he finally washed up at the sink. "It's been hard not to smile," he chuckled, but it tore his mind like a piece of paper to feign the emotions he could only desire from afar. "I've felt happier than usual. But we're late to class as it is. Again, thanks. I don't know why this all happened, but...thanks."

"I'd really have to be an asshole to not do something." With arched brows, Bakugou queried, "Did the soba I made with Ponytail make you feel sick?" He crossed his arms, but solicitude surfaced from his eyes.

Todoroki shook his head, but a tinge of cool relief showered across his blazing anxiousness. "I...didn't feel well when I woke up. I thought it would last for a bit and subside, but I guess I was wrong." He glanced down to the diminutive nicks left around his knuckles.

I guess that's a summary of my life, Todoroki inwardly muttered. I don't feel well when I wake up, and at first, I thought everything would eventually get better, but it's gotten to a point where nothing really helps anymore. I keep trying, but it all backfires. What's the point of living if everything is a series of being lured into the false hope of being okay, coming so close to claiming it as mine, and watching it shatter by my own touch? It hurts so much that it's almost funny. I laugh it off like it doesn't kill me, but brushing aside the agony with a smile... Oh. I got lost in thought. Typical. What was he saying? That I better not have caught some disease and spread it around for everyone to contract?