Suicidal Todoroki x Midoriya | What it Means to Love

21 | Why do You Want to Suffer?

Izuku Midoriya

Once we reach Todoroki's house, I help settle Todoroki comfortably onto the couch in the living room. He looks immensely dejected sitting there, carrying with him a familiar emptiness in his eyes. Endeavor calls his name with an assertive, but soft tone. Todoroki dismisses him promptly by stating that he doesn't need, nor want any sympathy from the likes of him.

While I start preparing the soba for Todoroki—and I guess now also for his dad and myself—I start to think more about Todoroki's rough, complex relationship with his dad.

He's just n-numb now... Nothing that E-Endeavor does impacts him positively in the slightest. He seems more hateful than ever, and I thought he'd already reached a culmination of hatred. I know E-Endeavor wants to reconcile—and he is, even now—with Shoto, but now it's Shoto trying to execrate E-Endeavor by ripping out his throat. I don't really understand, but at the same time, I do. At first, with K-Kacchan, I always wanted to make sure he was okay. I thought—and I still think—he's an incredibly gifted person, and I look up to him, but I don't appreciate how he treats others. Ever since we were young, I worried about him. To me, he looked like he needed help when no one else would give him a hand. But now I yearn to prove to him that I'm...I'm not the weak Deku who can't do anything anymore! I think Endeavor wants to prove that he can change, but Shoto wants to prove that he doesn't need Endeavor. W-Well, maybe I'm just looking at this all wrong. I guess I'll never know unless I manage to pry the words out of Shoto himself—and doing that is like trying to fit a square key into a circular lock.

By the time the soba is done, Todoroki is fast asleep on the couch. He always looks so charmingly adorable asleep—I swear I don't try to see him like this!—but primarily, like now, his expression is grim and considerably perturbed. I don't have the faintest idea how nightmares truly function, or how they can frequent someone so often, but I know that I would never survive in Todoroki's place; a single nightmare typically evokes acute distress for the remainder of the night, and this never fails to follow me into the daylight.

"Shoto," I whisper to him, nudging his body. "Sho-oto. Hey. Shoto. Wake up? Sho—"

Todoroki, with incredible speed and reflexes, thrusts himself to his knees and is in a stance to prepare to snap my neck. Before he's able to fully wrap his arm around my neck, he hisses in pain, slinking back like a cat with its hair raised into the shadows. Although it's only been a matter of days since this has transpired, it feels as if it's been months.

While I start sweating bullets as a scalding heat disperses through my body, Todoroki sharply exhales and further draws himself back into the couch with a vexed expression. As if some ignominious tragedy has occurred, he hangs his head as his languished shoulders rise and fall. Although I expect to see a fragment of emotion or retribution stirring from him, he remains stone-faced.

P-Please tell me you aren't trying to conceal your emotions. "Sh-Shoto, what happened? A-Are you okay?" I put my hands on my knees and peek further into the wilderness cloaked by shadows to see that he doesn't quite appear to have the stone-face I typically relate him to, but instead he does have a small seed of emotion growing in his eyes. "I'm here for you." I offer him my shoulder with a disconsolate smile.

Much to my chagrin, Todoroki seems as if the world could be collapsing in on itself right now and he wouldn't notice the chaos brewing around him. "They wanted to kill you," he mutters faintly. Wh-Who's they, and why me? "I...did not amount to enough." Processing what he's implying, I shudder at the thought.

I curl my arms around his neck, even though I'm shaking a bit. "W-Well, that isn't reality, is it? I'm r-right here," I assure him. "But, umm, d-dinner is ready. I hope you don't think it's too terrible." I help him to his feet, and as I do, I swear I hear him muttering something about no one being able to disprove whether or not dreams are considered reality; a few pillows fall off the couch as he stands on his two slightly unstable feet. "I'll always be here for you, Shoto. I want you to be able to feel empathy and happiness. I-I want to see you with a genuine smile. You're suffering, and I can't stand that."