Suicidal Todoroki x Midoriya | What it Means to Love

26 | What Have I Become?

Shoto Todoroki

It is immensely difficult to believe that such a splendid gift has been bestowed upon me not in my dreams or nightmares, but in reality itself.

Staring blankly at my perfect piece of art that I have produced using my own two rancorous hands, I wear a grim, sinister smile. "I have never felt quite like this before," I mutter to myself, astonished by the wonderful feeling of overwhelming ecstasy I'm experiencing. "I find this to be extremely pleasant. I have bided my time for quite a few years to finally allow this to commence, but it is done. It is impossible to alter the past." With a satisfactory sigh, I begin to engulf the incriminating evidence of my inexpiable crime with flames to mortify its existence and obfuscate the identity of the culprit. Like holy water, my scarlet flames burn the hell out of this fine household. I am capable of commanding my flames to the point of controlling what they will truly burn once they envelop their target, so the house itself remains unscathed.

I am quite exhausted by feeling like a despicable failure. Ah. I remember my days of crying myself to sleep. How weak I was then. Hmm. Is it 'normal' to break individual emotions rather than being consumed by them? Perhaps I lost my composure back there.

Once I've ensured that every last droplet of evidence has been thoroughly disposed of, I nod and return to my room. The explosion of adrenaline pumping through my veins begins to die out, but the only imbalance in the equation originating from this is that the euphoric haze securing a malevolent smile on my face fades away.

What has become of me? I wonder with a neutral mien as I pull on another set of clothing and set fire to my old pair contaminated by Endeavor's damned blood; how shameful it is that I cannot burn the blood which runs in a pale teal through my veins. Was I not the one who vainly cried out that I would never be like him—that I would one day become a hero to save Mom with a smile? Now who is the one who has turned into the successor of him not solely by blood, but by nature—the one that committed the heinous, inexcusable crime of murdering not simply my damn old man, but the Number Two Hero? That same person. Who have I become? What have I become? By living in this nightmare, it seems I've inherently acquired its flaws. Who I am is what I abhor the most.

Letting a petty hiss squeak through my lips, I walk back downstairs and into the tranquil silence of the living room. No longer does the potent scent of iron pervade the air, but perhaps I simply cannot recognize it from having been exposed to it for an extended period of time.

What were you staring at so intently? Tucked away in the lonely corner of the room is a tall, beige shelf. Something on here? Scanning the voiceless shelf from top to bottom, I search slowly and meticulously for anything out of the ordinary. So far, all I see is a thin layer of dust covering the shelf and all of its banal books and dull nicknacks; they look extraordinarily soft and fuzzy by the way in which the light gray, rounded flakes clump together along the faded objects.

Upon reaching my eye level, my eyes widen as a brief wave of a mild heat licks my shoulders. Sitting there on the shelf, worn to time and neglected in dust, stands a recently-dusted black picture frame with a picture resting inside, somewhat obscured by the white sheen reflecting off of the glass. The frame is a generic rectangle, but what it encases with glass is a memory I cannot recall.

This picture, framed by glossy wood and lightly tainted by fingerprints, is of my family prior to being ripped apart. Standing shoulder to shoulder in the back are my mother and father; they're holding hands and smiling brightly as if their marriage had never been forced in order to produce a perfect child. Blue and silver eyes gleam even in this picture. Sitting on a long bench before my parents from left to right respectively are: Touya, Natsuo, me, Fuymi. I'm sitting on Natsuo's lap while Touya and Fuyumi are huddling up next to us with their arms wrapped behind our heads. We're all smiling under the thin strands of yellow sunlight filtering through the spring cherry blossom trees. Small petals of pink prance merrily in the background, mingling with the wind and waltzing by above our heads. Like a shallow breath whisking across the cool, untouched face of the photo, the cherry blossoms are swirling, and yet stationary, like a sea of blossoming stars.