𝐊𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐋𝐢𝐞𝐬 || S. Todoroki x Reader

36 - Hope

"Y/n, I'm glad you could make it."

You snorted, looking up at your teacher and wondering how much sleep—if any—he'd gotten so far on the trip. Only two days away from his precious coffee maker and he was looking far worse for wear. Although you couldn't just judge, knowing you looked just as bad if not worse.

The stale room the HPSC had given you for the past few days didn't shut off its lights at night, nor did it have any windows. So you were stuck with white lights all day, every day. The second you'd stepped foot in the room, a part of you had withered and decayed, your heart stopping in your chest. You could practically see a younger version of you sitting on the bed, clutching your fox plush with one hand, elephant with the other as you rocked yourself into panic attack after panic attack.

You'd returned to your old room since moving out, of course. Every month during test weeks they made you stay at least the night to track your vital levels and whatever the fuck else they did with your body. Despite the familiarity, it never got easier stepping foot back into your pale prison.

The first time returning you'd fallen to the floor and started sobbing, violent shakes jolting your spine until it started cracking. Eventually, they'd put you down with a needle in your arm and you'd awoken sometime later strapped to the bed. You could still hear your screams as you kicked and thrashed and begged them to let you go, to let you stay somewhere else, anywhere else just not there, please. They'd just come and ingest you with more drugs until finally you were too tired and dazed to fight back. No matter how much you begged, nothing ever made them change their minds.

That first visit they'd kept you a week, you were pretty sure, although the exact dates weren't clear. Time didn't work the same in those hallways, it bent and wrapped around you like a cocoon until you weren't sure what was real and what was a dream.

This time, thankfully, had been easier going. After they'd deposited you in your room and firmly locked the door behind you, you'd sat on the bed. The sheets smelled like disinfectant and blood. Instead of fighting the memories, you let them consume you. This was the closest you got to Toya after everything. After he didn't come back.

You'd clutched your fox, burying your face into its familiar smell. The tears came like always. Instead of wiping them away, you let everyone soak into your skin until they faded. Rather than sleeping through your grief, you let your fingers trail the etchings you and Toya had left on your bed frame from when everything was simple and right and cruel. Your name and his, fluttering through pictures he'd managed to carve showing the outside world. Butterflies, flowers, snow, running water, the sun, the moon. 

You liked remembering the way his face would light up whenever he talked about The Outside.

More tears, more aches, more memories.

Old wounds opened, gaping and bleeding pain like it would never run out. Your body always burned after the visits, like it was cycling through the memories as your mind was.

"Me too," you said, bowing in front of your teacher. The band of your overnight bag dug into your shoulder and you held back a sharp wince. Everything was sore. Sakamoto insisted on having you go through your usual monthly checkup despite it only being a few weeks since your last inspection. You spent hours in combat rooms, on the stupid treadmill with wires and suction cups stuck to your skin. Your arms prickled where they'd drawn blood, other lesions from needles injecting whatever the fuck into your body. "Glad, I mean."

You were still out of it, just enough that every so often there would be two Aizawa's standing in front of you.

A line formed between his eyebrows. "Are you alright, Y/n? You look..." he trailed off into silence.