THE OTHER SIDE / s. todoroki ✓

six. him

YOU WERE A MYSTERY TO SHOTO TODOROKI BUT HE WAS THE SAME TO YOU.

The moment you stepped foot into Class 1-A, you had presented yourself to a nightmare gaggle of students, all incredibly powerful, over-whelming and anxiety-inducing for you to look at. And honestly, you took one look at a kid with straw-coloured hair and a perpetually angry expression and wanted to back out of the room before he exploded it.

Class 1-A was vastly different to your old class, and the unfamiliarity of everything daunted you. You were training to be a hero, (albeit, sidekick,) if you ever tried to be a Pro Hero, perhaps some ethical questions about your Ability would arise. After all, you had the power to create a living dead army at your fingertips, but doing so would enable a catastrophe beyond means.

But Class 1-A had something your old class didn't: Shoto Todoroki. He sits next you in lessons and his closeness is strangely addictive for you. And he could say the same. Normally, Shoto didn't have a problem with paying attention in class, even if was something he wasn't exactly keen on like algebra, but he found his eyes drifting to you where you daydreamed often about a euphoric utopia with your mother, or fiddled with your pencil out of boredom. He liked how your eyes were filled with this intriguing warmth, yet they were reminiscent of a somber soul, he could feel your sadness but relate to it. He liked how you doodled on the corner of your notebook, drawing some intricate and meaningless thing but the way you held the pencil in your hand, how elegantly you wrote, it drew him to you.

You could say the same thing. You liked how his different he looked, how beautiful the colours of his eyes were, and how soft his hair looked. You liked how he always had a steely calm gaze, wits for days and a mind that was always contemplating. You liked how he did the little things, like help you when you didn't understand the class work, leaning over to your desk and writing with your pencil next to your hand. You liked how you went to the flower shop with him, talking with him for hours about the world in the cafeteria, and you found yourself liking him even more when he asked you to meet his mother.

Shoto doesn't speak much when he is with his mother, the silence is riveting for the woman, but the past few months, especially when her skin becomes brighter and her attitude more lively, he found himself talking more and more about this girl he met at a flower shop, a girl whose smile he liked and whose sadness made him attached if too personal.

His mother is in the psychological ward, two floors below your own, who rests in the back of the cancer wards, where the terminally ill die peacefully. By her bedside are the dozens of letters all from Shoto, all beautifully hand-written with such emotive care and affection. Blooming flowers teeter in a glass vase by the window, as if foreshadowing her eventual recovery.

Meanwhile, by your mother's window, the peonies and lilies cannot help but wither quickly next her draining presence, as if death is always lurking inside that room.

You are behind Shoto, trying to hide yourself in his shadow, but he wants to show his mother the girl he's been talking about, and his obliviousness to your nervousness means he takes your hand and brings you forth gently into the light of the room, wherein sunlight drenched the place to be alive.

His mother... is beautiful. You find yourself enraptured by her warmth, her livelihood, how different she was to your own mother, who like her, was in the same hospital, at the same time. But just so different.

It hurts you secretly to know that your mother can never look like this, with rosy cheeks and a beautiful natural smile and eyes that are blue like a calm sky. But you choose to ignore that hurt and revel for him, for Shoto.

Shoto's mother was surprised at the appearance of a new visitor. Shoto didn't bring people often, unless it was Fuyumi or Natso if they could find the time to come, let alone a person from school.

At first, things are off to a slow and awkward start, but when you're with Shoto, you feel like a burden has been lifted off your shoulders, you feel free to be yourself, to not be held down by society.

When you're with him, you don't feel like a stranger to yourself anymore. You feel like you have something else to live for, other than your mother.

author's note: dont question me on what this is bc I wrote it while playing gta 5 hahahah