Tododeku Week 2018

Equal Exchange

Summary

Trading secrets with your crush in the bathroom of a Target isn't the best way to have a bonding moment, but hell if it isn't efficient.

(Todoroki's also a selkie, but he doesn't learn that for quite a bit.)

Tododeku Week 2018, day three: Trust!

"One was a book thief. The other stole the sky." -Markus Zusak, the Book Thief

A/N

my initial on-paper plan-out for this one takes up two pages instead of one, like the previous two... I hope I can make it. It's 2:15 pm

Me: okay so what fun things can you find in a junkyard
Me: a trumpet
Me: perfect

look at that big word amount. I actually followed through with my promise yesterday to make up for a short one. who knew i could actually do it

as always, pls tell me if theres anything that i can do better, if i fucked up somewhere, or if you just need something clarified!!!

-

To be completely honest, Shouto has always felt something missing. Not something or someone in his life, like his mother, or a real father, but something that he could feel was supposed to be a part of him.

He finds that something when he's eight years old and trashing his old man's office in a fit of anger while he's away at work. It's in a drawer of the big desk, one that seemed to beg at Shouto to open it whenever he was in the room, or even passing by in the hall. It could have been fate, or intuition rooted in instinct, but it was probably just the big, fancy lock.

Since he's eight, frustrated, angry, and crying, he frosts over that lock and bangs on it with the empty trash can, whose contents were scattered all over the floor instead of looking for the key. After a couple solid hits, the front splinters and the wood caves in. Shouto's actually kind of expecting guns like the hidden closet compartment, but all there is is a thick, smooth bundled coat. Something about it makes his tears and breaths slow. Maybe the faint air of salt under the layer of dust.

He pulls it out gently, shaking it out to rid it of the dust and splinters. The coat looks to be in his size, which is weird but exciting. It's grey, with uneven black spots splattered down the outside. It's not cloth or fur, more like leather but... not. It's smoother. Something about it is cold, though – the kind of cold that reminds Shouto of wet rags on feverish foreheads. It's welcome and calming, and it feels kind of like home. Like this wasn't Endeavor's, like he was never meant to have it.

It kind of feels like his mom.

Shouto tucks it under his arm and runs out of the office to show Fuyumi.

Natsuo's too busy to care, anyways, as he's hunched over his thick school books through his open bedroom door. All of them keep their doors open when Endeavor's not home. When Shouto reaches Fuyumi's room, he raps on the wall to announce his presence. She looks up from her phone on her futon. "Fuyumi, what's this?" He asks, holding up the coat. She sits up and pulls out her earbuds, eyes wide.

"Whoa, where'd you get that?" She says.

"You recognize it?" Shouto asks hopefully.

"Yeah," she falters. "But where'd you get it?"

Shouto feels like grinning despite himself. "Father's desk."

Fuyumi looks like she does not. "That's Mom's," she says quietly. That makes Shouto frown. "That's the coat she always wore when she left to go to the ocean to swim."