far away, from his refuge on the moon, he'd like to think that there's something still waiting for him on earth. like a home, maybe. or a friend.
pairing - implied tododeku (like. if u squint and up ur brightness kdndbjsk)
tags - angst (unsurprisingly), kinda melancholy vibe, just a little thing abt my take on shouto (this is mostly self projecting but we arent gonna talk abt that 😃✌)
Standing alone under a dead cherrywood tree blanketed in snow, pale white and soft brown and mellow grey intertwine like threads, ends left untied, just waiting to bloom again with a green so lovely.
His right side feels at home among the frost, like he is meant to be here, submerged in the quiet solitude and cold; feels at peace with the wind nipping his fingertips red.
If only - if only he did feel at home, buried ankle deep in December's first snow - but his left side, oh, his left side, boiling under his skin, shifting behind his bones like a beast awakened, is disturbed by the stillness of winter. Shouto feels the fire in his palm, how it rolls, how it rumbles, how it roars.
It is hungry, he knows. But he doesn't feed it. Never feeds it, actually. He has tamed the beast for so long, too long. It's growl numbs his skin, his scars, his heart. He uses his anger as a shield, never a sword, to keep the beast away.
Shouto doesn't think of anything, really. Not as he walks, aimlessly, hopelessly through empty playgrounds and frozen streets. He doesn't know where he's going, what he's doing. He is searching for something he's never had, even though he already has it.
He finds a calm in the fleeting hands of a winter he always runs back to.
How is he so bright? Shouto thinks, rolling his thumb over his knuckles, quivering while comparing sun to sea. He can't seem to understand anything this boy says, or does; why does he act the way he acts? Why is it that no matter what Shouto does, he can never seem to catch up, to be as good as people say that he is? Why is he threatened by someone so weak, so inexperienced as Midoriya?
In truth, Shouto has run for so long he's forgotten what he's chasing; or rather, what he's running from.
He's laughing now, with his classmates, freckled cheeks tinting pink and eyes so bright wrinkling at the corners. He sounds like bells, like windchimes, like someone who's effortless in the way that they are; he sounds like a light so bright, yet never scorching. A fire you can cradle in your hands, one you can come to for warmth even if you weren't previously searching for it.
Something dangerous rolls deep in Shouto's belly, dark and vile and something a little like envy, like self doubt, like desperation.
And why not Shouto, who has been working for his spot among heroes for a decade. Why not Shouto, Todoroki Shouto, the second best hero's son, who was born for the very purpose of surpassing, of thriving.
If he is not the best, if he is not the greatest, then what is it he's missing? What about Midoriya Izuku makes him the sun, the center of their galaxy?
Shouto was born to be the best. The world's greatest hero, the one who was intended to put an end to All Might's reign, the one who was created with the idea of destruction in mind. To be the hottest, the coldest, the fastest, the strongest; Shouto, born from an ending, only knows the haunting space in which resides the obsidian halt in the flow of life; he was offered no beginning to build upon.
There is no childhood to reminisce, there are no friends to catch up with or a mother to love or be loved by. There is only a big empty house and locked bedroom doors and a room he's forced to train in until there's tears and blood and fire and nothing else. Never anything else.
From across the room, they meet eyes. Midoriya's gaze is warm, like dirt in the summertime right before the sun sets, and he smiles politely, nodding Shouto's way.
Shouto breathes out, heavy and exasperated, only now realizing he'd been holding his breath. He unclenches his hands, knuckles white with the force of gripping each other so tightly, sweaty and shaking and sore. He looks away swiftly, feeling alien underneath the scrutiny he wished he'd seen in those eyes. He didn't, though. He saw nothing like that; there was only green and gold and a smile so genuine it pissed him off.
"Todoroki, are you okay? You've been awful quiet, lately." Asks Yaoyurozu, gentle and warm with scrunched brows and a frown.
Shouto nods, stoic as he is, as he's trained himself to be. He goes back to the page of a book he's been staring at since he sat down.
In his room, sitting at his desk with homework only halfway done, Shouto shivers. His window is open, wide and gaping, welcoming the cold winter air to clash with the fleeting heated atmosphere of the dorms.
He doesn't remember opening his window, but he doesn't feel like closing it - so he sits numbly in discomfort. The sky has darkened to a shade impossibly dark, like navy, like obsidian, and it runs wild without the stars to contain it. The soft glow of the lamp on his desk is fake gold, a mockery of sunlight as it colors his skin without warmth. He holds his pencil like diamond, unbreakable under his tight grip, wavering under the pressure of his absentmindness.
Eyes open but unseeing, Shouto wonders why he can't seem to feel anything. Like the blackness of night has leaked into his senses, he feels like he is watching everything from an outsiders point of view; his world is distorted through a veil of water, shifting and stretching and so numb, too numb to anything at all.
Maybe he's not meant for the kind of life he searches for. Maybe he's not more than what he has been taught - he is not more than his father's words, his father's actions, his father's abuse. Maybe the only thing that lies waiting for Shouto in the future is an end so cold, so alone.
All Shouto can see is the end. His end.
The reflection in the pond is of the moon, picture perfect in a bouquet of stars. If you looked hard enough, in the algae and sunken litter was a nebula. Shouto's shadow blended into the stillness of the water effortlessly.
Midoriya, Shouto thinks, turning to see the outline of him stumble closer.
"You're gonna miss it, if you just sit here. Come on."
He hesitates at the others outstretched hand, eyes lingering for just a moment too long before shaking his head and walking past Midoriya to the opening in the brush, emerging to rolling fields verdant and alive.
Shouto squints through the haze blurring his eyes, seeing past the fog in his mind. He stops himself from looking back at Midoriya, who hurries out a few moments after him. Maybe one day.
They both make their way to the blanket laid out a yard in front of them. Uraraka, Iida and Tsu, all bathed in silver starlight, are pointing out falling stars behind giggles and stolen breath. Midoriya joins them, excitement pulling at his cheeks as he marvels at the firefly caught in Tsu's hand.
It's picture perfect. Standing back, watching all of them, Shouto stood firmly behind the wall he'd built, settled right at the treeline, by the ponds muddy edge. He is comfortable here, observing.
Even through numbed skin and glassy eyes, Shouto can admit that it is beautiful, here, with them. He is content, more than content, actually, to bleed into the oblivion of the sky, blend in with an empty infinity. If he could help it, he'd come back down to earth, but the view from the moon is quite nice, Shouto realizes. Weightlessness has never been heavier, as it pulls him up, up, up; far away from the summer fields and singing crickets.
The others call for him, distantly. Friends, almost, if only he didn't hold them at arms length; even through that distance, voices are drowned out and muddled into incoherency. Pleads heard, yes, but not comprehended. Not now, anyway - maybe in a few days, or weeks, if they don't fade away before Shouto returns.
He blinks, and he is here again.
Standing alone under a dead cherrywood tree, Shouto wonders how he managed to let his mind run that far away from him, to a summer that's never happened; a summer that never will.
There is snow gathered on the tops of his boots in small piles, pure and delicate. He shivers - Shouto has always been more sensitive to the cold than the heat. Gently, he lifts his hand, trembling and losing its color, as he brushes his fingertips over the edge of the scar on his face, and takes a moment to feel how his blood boils underneath. He thinks about nothing at all.
"Maybe one day," Shouto mumbles to himself.
areudirty
blakekathryn
andulkaphoto
origamiaround
vaporwave
kaledo-art
turnnoffyourmind
kianamaiart
