I'll always look at you Post-war Touya Todoroki x Reader
It clung to your clothes every time you visited the Todoroki estate, sinking into fabric, into skin, into memory.but you always shook your head. You didn’t mind.
Because at the end of the corridor, behind the heavy wooden doors, Touya was waiting.
Or rather—burning.
He was always burning.
You were small when it started. Barely tall enough to reach his sleeve, sitting on the engawa with him as steam rose from his skin. His hair was brighter then, red and wild, his grin sharp and proud.
“Watch this,” he’d said once, flames flaring from his hands, too bright, too hot.
You clapped anyway.
Endeavor didn’t.
That was the first time you saw Touya’s smile crack.
You came often. More often than anyone else.
The adults called it duty—an arranged marriage, decided before either of you were old enough to protest. Political. Strategic. A future already written. You loved him even before you completely understood what the word really meant .
But you didn’t hate it.
Neither did Touya.
You patched him up after training, hands steady even when his skin blistered beneath your touch. You learned where the burns appeared most, where the skin split easiest. He hissed and snapped and complained, but he never pulled away from you.
“He didn’t even look at me today,” Touya muttered once, staring at his hands, fingers trembling from overuse. “Did you see? He didn’t even look.”
You lifted his chin, thumbs warm against his cheeks, forcing his eyes to meet yours.
“I’m looking,” you said softly.
He froze.
Your voice was small, but it landed harder than Endeavor’s silence.
“I’ll always look at you, even if no one else sees” you promised. “Even if he doesn’t. I promise.”
Touya swallowed. His flames flickered—unsteady, emotional.
Sometimes he was cruel when he was hurt.
Sometimes he lashed out, words sharp enough to cut.
And despite it you stayed
The day it happened, the air was wrong.
Touya came back from training shaking, teeth clenched, flames crawling up his arms uncontrollably.
“He told me to stop,” Touya spat, eyes wild. “He- He Told me I wasn’t suited anymore. That he’s focusing on Shoto now.”
Your heart broke quietly.
You reached for his arm, instinctively, to cool it, to help—
“Don’t touch me!” he snapped. Slapping your arm away.
“Touya, stop—!”
The fire exploded.
Pain ripped through you, white-hot and blinding.
You screamed.
Rei was there in seconds, pulling you away, her own voice breaking as she scolded him, hands shaking as she wrapped your burned arm. Touya stared at you like he’d just killed something precious.
“I didn’t mean to—”
“I didn’t—please—”
They separated you after that.
For his sake, they said.
For yours.
That night, you snuck out anyway.
Touya sat alone in the dark, knees pulled to his chest. When he saw your bandaged arm, he broke.
“I’m sorry,” he sobbed, forehead pressed to the floor. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you. I never wanted to hurt you.”
You knelt in front of him and cupped his face gently.
The scar burned faintly beneath the wrappings.
“I don’t care,” you whispered. “Look at me.”
He did.
Even with tears. Even with guilt.
“I’ll still look at you,” you said. “Even with burns. Even if you hurt me. Even if the whole world turns away.”
The scar stayed.
You never hated it.
Then one day—
Touya didn’t come back.
Sekoto Peak burned for hours. They said his quirk had overwhelmed him. That his body couldn’t take it. That there was nothing left.
They said Touya Todoroki was dead.
Your engagement was quietly dissolved.
Your future erased with a single sentence.
You screamed into your pillow that night until your throat bled.
And still, no one looked at him.
Not even in death.
Years later, the world burned again.
You were watching the broadcast when the man with blue flames appeared on screen—stitched skin, hollow eyes, hatred carved into every word.
“My name is Touya Todoroki.”
Your knees gave out.
You knew those eyes.
The world had finally looked at him.
His family has finally seen him.
But it was too late.
He survived the war.
Barely.
Machines breathed for him. Tubes connected to him. His body was more scar than skin now.
The Todorokis came quietly, one by one.
So did you.
You wanted to held his burned hand, careful, reverent, as if touching something holy.
But you can't.
You can only look.
“You always wanted him to look at you,” you whispered. “Now everyone is.”
He didn’t say anything.
You stayed anyway.
They built an altar for him after he died.
Eight years after the war.
Shoto prayed there sometimes.
So did you.
You placed your hand over your scar, standing before his photo—before the boy who burned too bright and the man the world finally saw too late.
“I always dreamed of being with you,” you whispered, voice breaking. “But what’s the point of dreaming when you’re not here to look back at me?”
The incense smoke curled upward, smelling faintly of ash.
Just like home.
If ghosts exist, you hope he knows this:
Even in death.
Even in silence.
Even when the world finally looked and then moved on—
