When the Heart is Ash (I'll Savor Your Warmth)

Tepid Ardor

He's glad that Bakugo isn't here with him now. It's probably worrisome that he's buying more pills and it's been less than a week. Shouto knows he's fine, but looking from the outside in, he can see why someone might be concerned.

Instead, Aizawa came with him. He needs a coffee and didn't want to make his own. He likes the dark roast here.

They split up upon entering the threshold, Aizawa off to the coffee stations and Shouto off to the medicinal aisle. Shouto looks over the chapsticks before anything else. He picks out a strawberry one, so he can get a bow from Yaoyorozu and call it a gift. He doesn't know Natsu enough to pick anything out just yet.

He picks up a bottle of ibuprofen, and as he stands in line, he picks at the blue label. The cashier nods to him, some sort of show of respect, he guesses. Shouto nods back.

He stuffs the product into his pocket before Aizawa can say anything or see. It's just a precaution. The people he knows are way too overprotective.

They walk out together, hands all stuffed into their pockets besides Aizawa's one, to hold his coffee. It's a snowy morning, the temperature is a bone-chilling cold that's not pleasant in the least. Even Shouto finds himself feeling the coolness of snow.

"Hey, kiddo," he prompts Shouto to look his way. "Do you and your mom talk over the phone?"

Shouto wishes that were a reality. "No, she's still technically hospitalized, even if she's better. It's their policy to keep patients away from media and so a phone is a risk they can't afford to take."

Aizawa hums, "Bet that's inconvenient. You barely get to see her, nonetheless talk to her."

Shouto allows himself a small smile, looking down as his sneakers crunch through layers of snow. "It's true that I'd like more time with her, since I didn't start seeing her until recently. But we still write to each other." He looks to the sky, clouds covering the surface of it and making the entire atmosphere appear white. White on the rooftops, on the clouds, white on the ground and piled up on cars. "Her letters are like really good novels that I can read over and over again."

"Well, you're quite the optimist, today. Something happen to make you this happy?"

Shouto shakes his head. He feels nauseous, that headache is still pestering him, just like his sister, and his father is texting him nonstop despite being muted.

"Coulda fooled me," Aizawa voices, sipping his coffee and flinching away when it turns out to be too hot.

Shouto remembers when he used to love the snow just to spite Endeavor. Endeavor is fire, has always been fire. A never-ending flame that Shouto tended to unwillingly, just by existing and enduring.

Snow is still special to him, in some ways. It reminds him of his mother, of the good parts he can remember of his time spent with her, before the incident. It reminds him of looking out in the courtyard and seeing Touya, playing with Fuyumi and Natsuo. They seemed so untouchable, that trio. A goal he would never reach. Endeavor was the barrier.

A third of that goal has been taken away from him, but he guesses he beat Endeavor there. He can talk with Fuyumi and Natsuo and see them whenever he wants. The same with mom.

Endeavor still controls him. He's left directions etched into Shouto's brain, directions to perfection. Shouto doesn't believe he's perfect. A lot of others do. Like some of the girls, Kirishima and Kaminari. They're wrong. Perfect doesn't even begin to describe Shouto. He's on the opposite end, of that spectrum.

"Todoroki," Aizawa calls, and when did they make it back to the dorms? "Remember you can come talk to me whenever. You're pretty good at timing it out to when I'm not sleeping, anyways."