A Song to Come Home to

Chapter Four

Natsuo can't move, he feels as if he's frozen under the red glower of Shigaraki. Natsuo carefully watches as the lithe man circles slowly around him, making him feel nothing more than prey for a starving lion. His eyes flicker to the door and there's a low and breathy chuckle just behind him.

"Maybe I spoke too soon. I suppose idiocy runs in your blood. I will warn you this time and this time only." Shigaraki saunters back into view with a bored expression. "If you make a break for it..." Shigaraki pauses, tilts his head and reaches out to the plastic chair. Natsuo watches in numbing fear as the chair instantly crumbles to ash underneath his touch. Shigaraki looks back to Natsuo with a wry smile, the scar on his lips pulls it into a twisted sneer.

"Do you understand now?" Shigaraki's question is dripping with an air of superiority. Had Natsuo not been felt cornered and Shigaraki's quirk had been nullified, he would have no qualms in squaring up against the man. Natsuo pushes down his flight or fight response and manages a stiff nod.

"Why me?" His voice feels thick as he struggles to keep his emotions from flaring up. Natsuo's question seems to be enough to make Shigaraki stop his circling. He still can't find it within him to relax as Shigaraki moves to sit down on the bed, crossing an ankle over a bony knee.

"Because you're weak." Shigaraki's answer makes rage flare within Natsuo's core. "That's what everyone thinks of you. Todoroki Natsuo, perhaps the only other Todoroki that brings shame to the family name besides that brother of yours."

"I'm not wea-" A glimmer in Shigaraki's eyes makes Natsuo's protest die upon his lips and all his anger withers away to nothing but pure guilt at the truth of Shigaraki's words. He bites down on his tongue and glares down at the floor. Those spoken words are not foreign to him, a sentence Natsuo is all too familiar with. There's a soft hum from the man and the bed springs squeak when Shigaraki leans forward.

"Don't you want to do something worthwhile with your life?" A soft and prying question that leaves his stomach souring.

"I am doing something with my life." Natsuo curtly replies.

"Really? All I'm seeing is you still vying for your dear father's approval."

"Shut up."

"Aren't you tired of being the weak link?" 

Natsuo's hands shake by his side and his eyes snap over to Shigaraki with a burning intensity. His anger only flares at seeing Shigaraki's amused look. To think that the man isn't even taking this seriously as he continues to mock Natsuo makes him feel pathetic.

"I'm not a weak link."

"Oh?" Shigaraki tilts his head, his smile growing. "Then why don't you show me your quirk? Isn't that what your family is well known for? The household that has ungodly strong quirks?" 

Natsuo is silent for a long time, his head is a churning turmoil of resentment and shame. At his side, his fists unclench and he lets out a long sigh. Shigaraki seems to take Natsuo's silence for an answer.

"Now that my point has been proven, I'll ask you one more time. Don't you want to do something with your life? To prove that you're not as weak as your family thinks? Don't you want to leave behind a legacy? What a shame for you to be judged just because you're quirkle-"

"You don't know anything about what it's like." Natsuo growls out. He's tired of how Shigaraki seems to think that he knows everything and that smug grin only rubs salt in his wounds.

"Please." Shigaraki scoffs, hardly blinking at Natsuo's growing anger. "I know how it feels to be cast out, to be rejected and pushed aside. Get off your damned high horse, you're nothing special. You're just another outcast that society has deemed as a failure." Shigaraki pushes up from the bed and straightens out his slouch, which leaves him just slightly shorter than Natsuo.