Suicidal Todoroki x Midoriya | What it Means to Love

47 | "I will save you"

Shoto Todoroki

I cautiously approach my mother, and once I step within range of her reach, she deftly runs her hand along my jawline. "You've grown so much. I suppose it was to be expected after ten years, but..." Her melancholic, blissful smile clicks its nails at my thoughts. "I knew you would turn out to be a tall, handsome young man. I'm sure the ladies have been head over heels for you." Her fragile fingers slide off of my cheek as she glances at the burn mark on my face. "I'm so, so sorry, Shoto. I was never able to tell you that out of sincerity—I'd apologized out of desperation following the spur of the moment. I never should have done that to you... You're not just my son, but you're a human being that can feel pain. Nothing gave me the right to do that to you, but in that moment, I snapped." She points her majestic, doleful eyes to the ground with a disconsolate mien.

Everything you were pressured into was a valid incentive to act as you did. What he did to you is abhorrent and inexcusable. That being said, so too is the malicious death I wrote for him. If you were ever to learn of the truth, I... Would I simply remain phlegmatic, saying that I have wronged society, but that what is done is done? Would I suffocate in my own ignominious wrongs?

"It was not your fault," I assure her, glancing out the frosty window to the gently falling flakes of fluttering snow twirling in the wind outside. "I cannot begin to fathom what that must have been like for you to have endured for so long. Nonetheless, I am quite certain you do not wish to recall those memories. As such, I must tell you this: I missed you, Mom." Straining to express a smile for my own mother, I slightly lower myself down to her level and gently wrap my arms around her neck. "I am very sorry that I did not visit you sooner."

My mother brings her arms around my chest, clutching me fast as if I'm a fading figment of her imagination. She gradually glides her hands down to my waist, her fingers tracing along the grooves of my ribs. The sensation of her arms tightly pressing into my abdomen repulses my insides, but my mind convinces me to ignore the pain and cherish my mother.

She inhales deeply. "Ever since the day I was hospitalized, I missed you, Shoto. I never wanted to abandon you with your father." My mother is saturnine as she releases me from her embrace and gazes deeply into my recondite eyes. "Although I wish I could say that if I had the opportunity to go back in time, I would have refused your father's hand in marriage...but I never would have had you, Natsuo, Fuyumi, or Touya. I couldn't stop thinking about how his training sessions would affect you." Her eyes of a faded, shimmering titanium glance up from the floor to meet mine. "Shoto...your eyes are so empty. I feared that this would happen. Before I left, I could see that there were dim embers left in your eyes, but I can't see their glow any longer. Your father crushed what remained, didn't he? I'm so sorry that you have to be going through this."

You are the one one who must face the empty eyes of your own son, so I am incredibly sorry that you must see these damaged eyes of mine. Empty? Perhaps even that would be an understatement. He and I both extinguished the embers. Nonetheless, I am no different from how I was before. Mom, why? I never should have been brought into existence. I have only brought strife with my wake. What have I accomplished thus far? Shattering my family and the people in it, as well as the people I've been surrounded by. Although I am blessed with a boyfriend who loves me, I do not deserve him or his love. He has shed far too many tears over my worthless existence.

"It was not solely him; I am also quite culpable." You are a disgrace. Do not remind her. "Nonetheless, I did manage to enroll into U.A. through recommendations."

Why do I suddenly feel so alone talking to her? Even though I stand in this affable emanation from her, I feel so alone. It almost seems as if I am speaking with an illusion. I know that she is real. I know that this is reality. I feel so warm inside speaking to her, yet I feel alone. Despite being in the presence of someone I love, and who loves me, I am still by myself. I am always by myself, regardless of who I am with, or how many others surround me.