Suicidal Todoroki x Midoriya | What it Means to Love

48 | My Fault

Shoto Todoroki

The blood in my veins sharply halts itself and hardens into serrated, precipitous ice as my forehead heats up, the invasive warmth slowly sprawling out to the top of my head and crawling down to my neck. It feels as though the flat of a searing sword is tracing down my limbs, and yet the wretched blood sprinting through them chills the inside of me in an instant.

What? I ask myself, questioning whether or not I am truly awake and alive in reality at the moment. This cannot be... She cannot be dead. I stare in bewilderment at her—the person I was having a ginger, amicable conversation with less than half of an hour ago—but she exhibits no signs of ever opening her tranquil silver eyes or taking a breath of air. Then how did she die? I was never informed that she was being afflicted by any critical health conditions. Why have I accepted this so easily? Why...am I not weeping? Why do I not feel remorse? Shoto, produce tears for your own mother! Dammit! What's...wrong with me?

Entangled by the nettling threads of dubiety, it feels as if the ghosts of my tears are flowing down into my lungs rather than down my cheeks. I stand silently at the foot of my mother's bed and hang my head in contempt for myself. Was it when she was losing stability from the recollection of pouring the boiling water from the kettle down the left half of my face? I reminded her of that. I caused her memories to resurface. I never should have... I killed her... I...

A casual knock arrives at the door. I open my mouth to reply to who I assume is Aizawa, but my words clump together in my throat and form a barricade around my dwindling voice. I can sense that the door is slowly rolling open, but my body is paralyzed. All I manage to muster up the mental strength for is idly staring at the fresh corpse of my deceased mother in frigid stupefaction.

Everything you went through... You were recovering so well. After how many times he struck you physically, mentally, emotionally... M-Mom. Mom, you were one of the strongest people that I knew. Even though you wanted to burn away what reminded you of that animal, you were right. You were right. I was simply a reminder of the trauma. But you fought. You moved the mountains that were closing in on you...for what? For me to char them to ashes? To have everything you knew splintered to shards? Ten years of progress...revoked in less than an hour by my hand.

"Todoroki?" Aizawa's exanimate voice pierces the cool, silent air like a burning blade. "You never replied. If I'm interrupting something, then I'll leave, but you should have been proactive." Not a muscle of mine can so much as involuntarily quiver as he draws closer to me with slow, slick movements; the subtle thumping of his feet hitting the floor sounds as prominent as his voice. "Hey. At least respond to me when I'm talking to you."

It was my fault. It was my fault.

Yes, it was your fault. Yes, it was your fault. You killed her. It's your fault.

I have seen death numerous times, but that does not justify the fact that...that I've no tears to shed over her death. That will never suffice as justification for allowing myself to view the death of the one who sacrificed so much for me, that, and my siblings as a bagatelle. Nothing will ever excuse this inexpiable fact.

She will never wake up, Shoto. She will never speak a single word more. Her existence will no longer be tangible or sentient. Do you not comprehend? You will never converse with her again. Never. No one will have that privilege. Your anathematizing actions liquidated it. You. You killed her. You incinerated all of her progress. Despite that, you aren't sorry. You aren't sad. You aren't ashamed. You don't care. You don't care. You can't care, can you? How selfish. How revolting. How animalistic. You did this to yourself. You didn't want to feel, and here you are. You reaped what you sowed, yet you are dissatisfied with the product. You are ungrateful. You are selfish. You think only of yourself. Foolish. Worthless.