The King is Dead

A Sincere Attitude

He didn't think he'd ever come back here. It smells like home. Like stale smoke and singed edges on everything. Like irony blood and like an oven with dry chicken baking inside, just like father used to bake it.

He didn't think he'd ever be here with police officers either. An investigator and Detective Tsukauchi along with their small group of police. All Might is here too, Shouto doesn't know why he's here. Hizashi is here, used the excuse that if Shouto needed to sign that he could translate for the men. Hizashi just wants to be near Shouto.

"Okay, Todoroki. Anything you can tell us he did to you, and anything about that night went is useful. Lead the way," Tsukauchi nods and slides the door open, Shouto steps in.

There's immediate anxiety filling the room. He goes through his old routine, glancing at corners and even underneath the furniture to make sure father wouldn't surprise attack again. There's nothing, he continues.

The officers are all looking around the house, Tsukauchi told them if they found anything that they had the freedom to ask what happened there. Shouto was told that he had the freedom to refuse any questions he wanted.

He knows they're mostly there for the story of why Shouto killed his own father, so Shouto wants to get through that and go back to the dorms. He leads Tsukauchi, Hizashi, and All Might along with him to the dojo. Tsukauchi is taking notes on things he sees, which walls have blood stains and which ones are singed. He puts it down for a second when Shouto opens the door.

It's been a while, hasn't it? He hasn't been thrown around this room in a really long time.

"Todoroki, what did you see him doing that triggered a fight response?"

Shouto clears his throat, voice suddenly feeling useless. "He called me in here the same night it happened. We had trained earlier than that and it confused me." Shouto pauses, remembering how he had been drifting off to sleep when his name was shouted from across the hall. "I obeyed and he told me to just stand and listen to him."

Shouto walks over to the table near a treadmill, Tsukauchi is still scribbling as he speaks. "He started talking about how I was useless, he called my family useless too. I was still standing there when he told me that since I couldn't even eat I could never beat... I couldn't beat All Might." Shouto clenches a fist to his side, taking a deep breath so he doesn't disappear. He's been to therapy the past few weeks after school and Ms. Matsuda tells him that as long as he can breathe and feel and see, he can ground himself still. She tells him to tap a finger or count his breaths. Despite his doubts, it keeps working every time he does it.

"Okay, do you remember what happened next?"

All Might looks uncomfortable, he looks guilty. Shouto has never blamed All Might for what happened here. It wasn't his fault. It was just training that needed to be completed. Nothing else.

"He picked up a knife but it seemed a lot bigger than the one he'd usually use. It would've gone through my arm and out the other side. He talked about getting a new wife and then I yelled out something about my mom at him." Shouto turns and gets closer to the bloodstain his father had left. He points at it. "He pushed me down and then kicked me here, he didn't stop for a long time until he went to grab something else." Breathe.

"Was it another knife? Or was it the gun we found?"

'"Dad? Did Fuyumi really hate me? Is that why she left?"

Enji looked up from his work, turning in his office chair to his son who was wiping his eyes. "Shouto, why are you crying in front of me?"

"I'm not... I'm not crying. I'm just tired." Shouto wiped his eyes some more until his hand came down wet with tears and his eyes were bloodshot red, the left eye hardly noticeable. "Did she hate me?"