Please, Help Me

Why Shouldn't I Burn?

As Touya walked away from his mother's room, from his mother, feeling disgusted with himself, he went to the training room instead of his room like he'd originally planned.

As he'd expected, his father was there, burning everything in sight though it didn't do as much damage as he knew Endeavor had hoped. The place was fireproof, much like the rest of the house, but even then, Touya's flames were too hot for the room. Whenever he lost control of his quirk, which was often, mostly when he got overly emotional, he ended up leaving scorch marks everywhere when he smothered his flames. Of course, that just gave Enji something else to pick at, another reason he would never be good enough, and it left a bitter taste in Touya's mouth.

He thought about it multiple times, killing Enji and himself in one fell swoop. It would be so easy. He just needed to let his quirk loose, let the fire burning under his skin free, and he could watch everything burn. Himself, the damn training room, Endeavor, his false hero title, this hell that was called life, but then, Touya would always stop himself. Not because he was scared to die or kill his father, but because he thought about what would happen if Enji didn't end up dying with him.

Touya knew he would end up dying, his weak constitution, the thing his father hated about him, the thing that made him another one of his failed experiments, would guarantee it. But Todoroki Enji was another matter completely. Would he die? Hell, would he even get burned by Touya's flames? If Touya died but Enji didn't, wouldn't he just be leaving his family at his father's mercy? Was that fair to his family? Just because he wanted to end this hell and take his father with him, was it fair for him to leave? For him to not protect them?

Touya dispelled his thoughts, there was no point in thinking about something he wouldn't do. Slowly, he tried to creep away from the door, away from the training room and his father, but, because his uselessness didn't have an off button, his father ended up turning around at the sound of Touya stepping back onto a creaky floorboard. He looked straight at Touya, scowled, and turned back around.

Maybe Touya's luck hadn't completely run out on him.

Not wanting to test that theory, Touya ran, well, not ran, more like limped as fast as his aching body would allow, back to his room, shutting the door close behind him. He thought about locking the door, he knew he would enjoy the brief moment of privacy, but he didn't.

What if something happened?

What if one of his siblings needed him but he couldn't be there because he locked his door?

It had happened before when he was a young child, around 9 years old. His father had locked him in his room for a week as punishment for not using his flames during training, The only person other than his father that he'd seen during that time was his mother and even that was only once, just to make sure he was alive. Because he'd been so angry at his father while he'd been locked up, and, though he tried not to show it in front of his mother, knowing she wouldn't like it, it scared his mom too much for her to try and visit him again. It hurt, but, after a while, the pain numbed, just like the burns littering his arms.

After sitting quietly in his room for a while, though he didn't know how long, it could have been minutes or hours, he didn't really care, he decided that he should treat his wound at some point. Sure, it had already stopped bleeding, he'd cauterized it by accident while showing Natsuo the edge of what he wanted his little brother to believe was a burn that had opened and started bleeding, but he wasn't about to say unnecessary lies to his siblings.

Note the word 'unnecessary'.

Touya had lied to his siblings a lot. It was just what he did, how he tried to make them feel better, but it wasn't like he enjoyed telling his siblings lies. He just wanted to protect them for as long as he possibly could. It was just who Touya was.