Work The Pain Away (Todoroki Shoto x reader)

Ch.3

I wanted to explain myself, say that it wasn't that I was bad, it was that the others had actual quirks, that they were better than I was.

I didn't even know how she managed to know what score I got. She always knew. Ever since I was young, this would happen. I would test or something and if I didn't get top then I'd get yelled at.

After my mom hung up, a few minutes before the bell would ring, I closed my eyes and took a few breaths. My hand ached and I knew that I probably shouldn't have done all that work.

I glanced down at my hand, which was red and swollen. My hand was throbbing. How did I manage to hurt it this bad. I looked at my table. My bag was laying haphazardly next to it, some unknown chemical pouring out of it.

"Crap," I yelled out in panic. I swiftly pulled the bag up, watching as the chemical stopped dripping. I put the bag down on the floor as it was supposed to lay before looking back down at the table.

In my panic I didn't notice a boy walking up to me. The red-white boy had his hand on my shoulder, he looked concerned for me. I wanted to tell him to help me out but I didn't. I clenched my teeth and sucked up the pain. I got to work.

I cleaned off the table before going through with trying to identify what chemical it is. After thorough examination of what the chemical did to my hand and the table I concluded that it was Sulfuric Acid.

Sulfuric Acid at a high concentration can cause dehydration and severe chemical burns, maybe even thermal burns.

Red-white, or RW as I've started calling him, took his hand off my shoulder and looked down at my hands. He watched as I pulled my sketch of some sort of mask off the table.

He watched as I shoved it in a separate plastic bag, taking it away from anything else. And watched as I hit buttons on my bag, checking to see if I lost a lot.

I didn't lose too many chemicals and it wouldn't affect my performance at all. After that I turned to look at RW. He just watched me, knowing he wouldn't be able to stop me.

"Oh, hi. Sorry about that. Ha ha," I laughed nervously. I wanted to leave the conversation. I wanted to leave in general. RW was about to say something when my phone started ringing. It was my dad. I panicked and picked up, apologizing to the boy and quickly facing away from him.

"(Name), your mom just told me that you only got second place. Now, what did I tell you? I told you that you wouldn't be able to make it. And I was right. I want you to accept defeat and live your insignificant life with your equally useless grandparents."

Ah, yes. My grandparents. That's where I got my quirklessness from. They were both quirkless but managed to give birth to a son, my dad, who had a quirk. My dad got into UA but didn't make it through fully. My mom, on the other hand, also has a quirk and it's a pretty strong one too.

She can make people relive the darkest parts of their life. She used to use it on me a lot when she trained mine in physical combat. I would never tell her what I saw, no matter how many times she tried to force it out of me. It wasn't her place to know.

After my dad hung up, after about a minute of him telling me that if he couldn't make it I definitely wouldn't, I turned to the boy. I've ignored my dad long enough to not take it to heart but when I saw the RW's face I was confused.

He looked shocked at what he just heard. I must've been so used to all the hate and screaming that I thought it was normal. The boy remained quiet for a while before awkwardly turning away.

"Sorry. You should probably go to the nurse," he said quietly.

I nodded at him, "right. Can you help me out? I just need you to carry my backpack. I can carry my bag."

He nodded and took my backpack before following me to the nurses office. I wanted to feel comforted by his presence because it's always bad to be left alone after my parents yell but I couldn't bring myself to.

It was awkward. The tension could've been cut with a knife. I was only lucky that my dad didn't say anything about me being quirkless. I smiled to myself, much to RW's confusion, before realizing that my hands still hurt a lot.

When we got to the door of the nurse I thanked the boy and asked, "what's your name, anyway?"

He put my backpack on the ground before turning to face the hall, "Todoroki Shoto. But just call me Todoroki."