Cold | Suicidal Todoroki

23 | Wounds

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

Day 157

I couldn't stop cutting. I hadn't cut for a while, but once I started, I kept going. I cut all over my body, and while it didn't particularly hurt while I was cutting myself, the burning sting afterward hurt like hell. I wanted to keep experiencing the feeling of my flesh being ripped open. The brief adrenaline rush that envelops my entire body. The dull, flashing pain. The panic from seeing all the blood and cuts. A part of me wanted to keep cutting until I passed out from the blood loss. I wanted the feelings to last. I wanted to hold on to them. But everything is fleeting. Slashing and slashing like painting across a canvas... I still keep coming back for more.

After all those instinctual feelings went cold again, and after I did what I could to bandage myself up, I got high. I craved it. It was an abrupt craving, but an intense one. Why not? It felt pleasant. It made me feel something...to some extent. But Katsuki visited me at my dorm when I was still high. He could see it in my eyes and detect the change in my behavior and mannerisms. He stayed with me and made sure I wasn't being reckless, so I guess that's a good thing.

It makes me wonder why Katsuki hasn't decided that he deserves someone better than me.

I remember passing out after having another coughing fit, and when I woke up, there was a burning pain shooting through my left arm. Katsuki was disinfecting my wounds and wrapping them up again. I was bleeding through my clothes from the deepest cuts. When I looked up at him, his eyes were squinted, his cheeks were tinged with red, and there were tears rolling down his cheeks. He didn't even bother to wipe his tears or put on his explosive persona when he noticed that I saw him like that. He finished wrapping me up, and I don't know why, but I wanted to hug him. He didn't make me feel sad, guilty, or ashamed. I just wanted to hug him. I did. He flinched a bit, but then, he hugged me back and started sobbing into my shoulder. Katsuki Bakugou was sobbing into my shoulder.

I held Katsuki for a while as he cried. It felt like a waste of time at first, but...something about holding him while he let himself be vulnerable in front of me made it seem different. I told him it was okay, that I was there for him, and that I loved him. For the most part, I've replicated how Midoriya and Yaoyorozu comfort me so that I can reflect that onto others because it seems to be effective. But Katsuki asked me another question that still lingers in my mind:

"Shouto...do you feel anything at all?"

No. Nothing that I can think of, at least. But I told him that seeing him sad made me sad, and that I just had trouble expressing myself. I don't think he believed me. He then asked me why I'd mutilated my arms, and if I hated myself. I don't know if I'd say I hate myself, but I don't particularly like myself. I said that he already knew the answer to the first question. He gave me a blank, empty scowl, and he spat, "That fucking bastard... It's his fault you feel like this. It's because he beat you, and I...couldn't figure it out in time... What the hell did he do to you, Shouto?"