Fading into the background

Chapter eleven: Getting ready for the sports festival

Shoto spends all Sunday and the next week getting trained by Endeavor. It is harsh. The training is longer and he has to push his quirk further than ever, but he endures it without a thought of complaint. He pushes himself harder every day, knowing that there is barely a week until the sports festival, terrified of what will happen if he doesn't win.

Shoto's routine becomes a cycle of beatings disguised as combat training, of ice and fire that leave raw patches of pink skin faster than they heal, of waking up on the training room floor because he was too tired or just passed out, of putting on makeup and going through school paying more attention to not wincing than the classes, just to go back to that house and start over again.

The days mix into each other to the point that Todoroki no longer knows how much there is left and whether he will be able to withstand it. He is so absorbed by his twisted routine that when one day Endeavor tells him to leave the training room without having 'trained' at all it takes him several minutes of staring blankly at a wall to realize that it is Sunday again. That the sports festival is the next day.

Shoto shuffles back to his room dragging his feet, still shocked by the fact that he does not have to train today. He has been completing the same exact cycle for almost a week, and now that it has been broken he does not know what to do. He spends perhaps one hour just sitting on the edge of his bed and just nervously playing with the bandages below his sleeves before he realizes that it might be a good idea to check his phone.

He has 389 messages on his friends group chat.

He slowly reads them all, although the majority of them were small pictures with sometimes a sentence that did not make sense to him. Some of them also moved. Shoto gives up on understanding them after a solid 20 minutes of just staring at his phone. Finally, he manages to figure out that they are all meeting for brunch at Koda and Shoji's, who apparently share an apartment because their families live too far from UA. They are going to spend the rest of the day together, playing games and watching movies until after dinner. It takes him another 15 minutes of scrolling through the messages and weird pictures to find the address and that they are meeting there at 11:30. He checks the time at the top of his phone and it reads 9:17, just enough time to shower and reapply all the bandages and makeup before going. So he texts that he will be there.

Showering has always been a process that Shoto despises with all his heart. Taking his clothes off in front of a mirror has always made his skin crawl. He is aware of how he looks, after all he is the one that applies cream to the burns and stitches shut the wounds that later become scars, but it is a different thing knowing than seeing. He always tries to avoid the mirror for this reason, but the bright sickly colors that adorn his skin make it hard to avert his gaze. He thinks it is stupid, considering he has no issue looking at his wounds to patch them up and cover them, but he tries to not think very hard about it.

Having to see his reflection is not even the worst thing. What he hates the most is the painful feeling of water and soap going into his wounds. He knows it is necessary to avoid infection, but that does not make it any less agonizing and it still leaves him nauseated for a couple of minutes afterwards.

This time there is a particularly nasty burn on his lower left abdomen and just having water run over it is twisting his stomach into knots. The nausea mixed with the pain is revolting and he waits a few minutes, hoping it will pass. He really does not want to throw up, even after years of practice, moving without his prosthetic is awkward and slow and he does not want to make a mess.

The queasiness subsides slightly so he decides to put on the soap. It becomes immediately apparent that it was not a good idea when the gut wrenching feeling returns with a vengeance. He immediately gaggs and has to leave the shower heavily leaning into his crutch. He is still dripping wet and covered in soap when he starts retching into the toilet. He can feel the sweat mix with the water on his forehead as he heaves, pulling uncomfortably at his wounds every time. Thankfully, the vomiting bout ends rather fast and after a few minutes he feels good enough to go back and rinse the soap.

Shoto carefully pats himself dry, being extra mindful of the burns. He reapplies the creams and bandages without much trouble, his hands going through the motions automatically after having done it so many times. There is surprisingly very little need for makeup, after all he is going to be seen by millions of people tomorrow so Endeavor has been careful not to touch any visible part. Just in case he still puts on some makeup on some bruises that might peek out of the collar of his shirt and his right sleeve.

He finally puts his prosthetic back on which instantly makes him feel much better as he can now move freely. He gets dressed in simple, long sleeved clothing, grabs his wallet and his phone and gets ready to leave. Shoto is checking the groupchat to make sure that there has not been any changes and notices that it is almost eleven. The train ride to Shoji and Koda's is close to an hour.

He is going to be late, which he does not like one bit but there is nothing to be done about it. He is slightly confused since he thought that he had time for everything. He is considering where he had miscalculated when a slight churning of his stomach reminds him that he had gotten sick in the shower, which takes some time.

Reluctantly and rather nervously he texts the group that he will be around twenty minutes late. He immediately puts the phone back in his pocket, not wanting to know what their answer is. He goes downstairs to leave the house and sees his sister Fuyumi with an older boy he vaguely recognizes as his brother. He does not know his name but he decides to ignore him and just say goodbye to Fuyumi since he is already late so he does not want to start a conversation with him.