The Alchemist (Todomomo)

5. Love from the past

The rays of the sun start gracing the earth with its presence and warmth and Shouto has already woken up because of his habit which he developed to escape his father's troops.

The warrior is still sleeping and so is the invisible woman.

Probably.

He rises and stretches his arms. Looking around, Shouto sees nothing out of the ordinary but he feels wary for some reason. Maybe it's just paranoia.

He closes his eyes and lies down once again. A wave of memories from his childhood wash over him.

Little Shouto looks around. The party organised by some aristocrat where his father had dragged the entire family to attend. He just wanted his mother to tell him a story and put him to sleep but that won't be happening anytime soon and that fact makes him sulk.

Shouto's siblings have abandoned him in favour of food and acquaintances. He's the youngest so he doesn't know anybody.

The large room with crimson curtains is illuminated by a golden light. People are laughing, toasting and drinking all sorts of alcohol. A sense of uncomfortableness had already enveloped him the moment he heard that he had to attend this party. On top of that, the food has yet to be served and he's already hungry.

He has found nobody his age which makes him move to the side of the room where chairs have been arranged.

He moves beyond the tall aristocrats with fake emotions and finds himself nearing his destination. But somebody is already there.

A little girl in a peach kimono is sitting on the chair with a bored look. Black hair pinned to the back with a hair clip which is not so fancy as the ones he had seen earlier, but so beautifully carved in an exquisite red colour which almost matches the hair of his left side. The hair clip and red floral designs of the kimono surprise him because he hates red. But now, he finds himself thinking it to be beautiful.

She sees him as he approaches and watches him sit a chair away from her. Curiousity arises but she doesn't want to be rude. The boy looks tired and gloomy as it is and neither does she want to spoil her already spoiled mood nor ruin the atmosphere for anybody else.

After a long hour of no interaction between the two gorgeous children as passerby dubbed them, they rise and move when dinner is announced. They stand in line, Shouto behind the girl, take plates, serve food and take it back to where they had been sitting silently.

Both notice that their choice of delicacies are the same but they're too hesitant to initiate a conversation.

Dinner has been consumed wordlessly and the waiter comes to take their plates.

After a while, when the girl stands up to call a waiter for a glass of water, she is pushed by one of the adults. Shouto ends up cushioning her fall.

Neither has the adult bothered to apologize nor has he bothered to look at whom he collided with. But that person, whoever that was, has provided them with the opportunity to interact.

"I'm sorry." Her delicate voices instantly warms his heart. Not because she apologized, but because she spoke.

"It's fine. Are you okay?" She sees a lot of emotions in his heterochromic eyes which she hadn't noticed before. Worry, excitement, happiness and sadness. And somehow she knows that these emotions are all meant for her and her only.

"Yes, I am. Are you okay? The brunt of my fall must've hurt your arm." And honestly, it did. His arm aches, but for once in his life, he's glad that his father trains him to death. It doesn't hurt as much as it should and being an elemental, the pain is already fading.

When they sit again, they're not as far as they were. They sit in the chair next to each other, still shy to introduce themselves and talk.

"I'm Momo." And that voice warms him up again. He's so excited to hear her voice which makes him feel so giddy that he can barely tell her to talk.

"I'm Shouto." He whispers but she can hear him. She can see that he's clearly more mousy than her and she finds it adorable. His cheeks are so chubby and they look so soft that she just wants to caress them.

As she daydreams about touching his cheek, an announcement interrupts her thoughts. She looks at him who's looking at her with wide eyes filled with surprise and embarrassment. She blushes hotly when she realizes that she had actually stroked his cheek.

Momo's hand retreats and she looks at the floor, her hand playing at her sleeves.

"I'm sorry." She says and turns to him. She's too embarrassed to look him in the eye but she starts rambling about how soft his cheek looked.

Her rant stops when she feels palms on both her cheeks. She sees him cupping both her cheeks with a smile so soft, she just wants to hug him.

His "intolerable" behaviour is being observed by his father who silently vows to discipline him. His mother is touched at the tender love those two children have for each other.

None of his siblings had seen that girl that night and when he returns home, he cannot ask anyone about her.

The next day, his father brutally beats him up. His mother, who ran to defend him, was also beaten up. None of his siblings had the courage to come to his defence.

That day, while preparing medicine for her son, the ice elemental threw hot water on her son and physically scarred the left side of his forever. The guilt and sorrow had engulfed her mind so much that she fell down the stairs after trying to run away from her son who looked like him. The mother of four children fell into a coma.

Despite remembering all those moments, Shouto still smiles as the bright sun rises.

The worst day of his life was when his mother fell into a coma. But the best day was when he met a girl whose warmth is remembered even after sixteen years.

For Todoroki Shouto, his mother raised him with love and affection and his father, with brutal training. But if he were to meet that girl ever again, he was sure he would crave for her love, affection and attention more than anything.

He is sure that he had fallen in love that night. A love which was as pure as the white of a cloud, but which was blown away by the winds and replaced by numerous grey clouds.

He rises once again and wonders if the girl remembers him. Where she might be, how her touch might feel, whether she will be able to provide him with that warmth she knowingly or unknowingly provided him all those years ago.