strangled

¹¹change in attitude

Eagerly you finish up the last bit of sowing on your new costume.

Glancing at your reflexes in the mirror, you can see your obvious under-eye bags and tired expression. But on the inside, you're excited because you finally finished your work. Even if it took all night to complete.

A harsh pounding comes at your door causing you to jolt in surprise. Dabi growls on the other side. "You've been up all night with that damn sowing machine! Turn it off!"

This isn't the first time he makes it known to you that the noise is annoying him. In fact, he's been complaining for the past few hours. Nonstop.

You turn off the machine by pulling the plug out of the wall. "It's off now so quit your whining!"

"Turn that shit back on one more time and I'm burning your head off!"

Rolling your eyes, you hold up the outfit. Black cut-up shirts, threads, fabrics, and other materials are cluttering the floor along with some addons from Shouto's old hero costumes.

He'll never notice some of the parts missing because he just keeps his old outfits in a box in his closet. The cardboard started collecting dust quickly after he put it in there.

If he did find out, however so, you would be in big trouble because you aren't allowed to search through his things. Especially his closet.

You pull off your robe, revealing your naked body then tug on the outfit. Once it's on, you examine yourself in a full-body mirror hanging against your bedroom door.

This looks better than I expected.

Once you've made sure that everything fits perfectly and threads aren't coming undone you pull off your new outfit. Humming to yourself, you start to clean up the floor.

But when you move to put the cardboard box back in Shouto's closet, your entire body halts in its spot.

In the corner of the closet, on the carpeted floor, a condom filled up with an unknown drying liquid is wrapped up in pink lace panties.

Panties you know aren't yours.

Even if they were yours and you somehow forgot about them, why would there be a condom in it? Shouto doesn't have protected sex with you. It would go against the goal of getting you pregnant.

Your mind automatically concludes that your husband had cheated on you. But why is the evidence of that in here? You're home twenty-four-seven and if you try to go out Shouto is always tagging along--

The night of the gala...

He said he wanted to take care of business at home and left you at the party for over an hour. You distinctly remember Endeavor winking at his son before he left. Did he... know that his son was going to cheat on you?

In the bed that you sleep in every night...

You clench your hands into tight fists. Your bottom lip trembles. Your eyes start to burn because of how hard you are trying to stop tears from falling.

The urge to cry isn't simply because Shouto cheated. That's not it at all. What's painful, is the fact that you're starting to realize he's not the same guy you started to have a crush on when you both were younger. He's not the same kid who comforted you along with Natsuo after Touya died. He's not the same child who snuck into your room at night to share strawberry milk with you.

This entire time you were hoping that the younger version of himself was still somewhere in there, buried under whatever Endeavor forced into his head. All because you never wanted to hate him and lose another childhood friend.