The Third Flame (A TDBKDK FANFIC)

CHAPTER 7: The Black Sheep

A/N: Hello everyone!
... I am probably late for a Christmas update, so just take it as a compensation 😅 In any case, Merry Christmas! Thank you all so much for taking the time to read this book!

Shoto was returning home on his usual bus after spending a fruitful time at school. He was finally able to put in a good word for Bakugo and help both of his favorite people out. He was glad, but that didn't mean that his heart ached any less.

Shoto thought he was okay with being just someone important to them, but now that he thought about it, it clearly wasn't enough.

'I... Can I do more than this...? Will I be satisfied by being just a friend?'

Shoto was grieving inside, but his face remained as placid as ever. After all, what's the point of expressing when nobody is there to listen to you?

He was so lost in his world that he did not even realize when he had reached home. He was snapped back to reality when his sight rested upon a black sedan parked in the lawn. He froze in front of the gates of his bungalow, not daring to take a step any further.

"He is back..."

He mumbled to himself as his breathing picked up pace and a bead of sweat ran down the side of his face.

His palms began sweating soon after as he tried to calm himself.

'It's alright, he won't say anything. Today is supposed to be a good day... It will be a good day...'

He couldn't help his legs, which were trembling more and more as he grew closer to the door of the house. Shoto stopped again, this time, in front of the door and clenched the handle in his hands. He took a deep breath, with which all the tremors in his body stilled.

'Ok... Here it comes.'

He said to himself as he entered inside, only to be met with an empty bottle of beer that was thrown at him from across the long hallway by his father, Todoroki Enji, an extremely famous business tycoon and the owner of Endeavor Laboratories.

The bottle he flung at his son hit Shoto in the head and shattered into tiny shards of glass right there, some of which were successful in pricking the dual-colored boy's forehead.

"YOU! Y- *hic* YOU'RE ONE USELESS BASTARD, YOU KNOW?"

Enji drunkenly screamed at his son, whose left side of the face was now covered in a darker shade of crimson. Blood from his head was streaming down his face and staining the clothes he was wearing, but he did not dare move from his place.

"ANSWER ME! DO *hic* YOU KNOW HOW PATHETIC YOUR *hic* EXISTENCE IS?"

Shoto was used to such circumstances. This wasn't the first time that his own father was speaking to him like this. It had been a usual occurrence in the life of the bicolored male since the day he had started his schooling; hence, he knew better than to ignore his father's question at the moment.

"Yes, father."

Shoto answered in a timid yet stable voice. However, Enji did not like that. He never did. He had always thought that his son was looking down on him, especially when he spoke so, in Enji's words, confidently.

He knew that Shoto was a born genius and far more talented than he ever was, but he could never accept it, especially not after how the business was falling apart under him.

"You son of a bitch... You DARE LOOK DOWN ON ME!"

He yelled at Shoto, his youngest child, and began angrily marching over to him. Shoto started losing his cool demeanor and was shaking with every step his father took towards him. The closer Enji got to him, the more he couldn't stop himself from imagining the worst that he knew was yet to come.