Shouto's insecure yet determined attempts at getting to know Natsuo, #1: getting his number from Fuyumi and keeping it for two days until he gets the courage to text Natsu... and the first text just reads: "hey, it's shouto, fuyumi gave me your number". And he stares at it for a good ten seconds before he adds: "i hope you don't mind".
you’ve got your hands trained in front of you writing something small because you’ve trained yourself to withhold. because you think about him / them / family too much & the tv station / the static / hums its tune out loud. in your veins, your body slow & even / you made a mistake playing a chorus on your head. you’ve made a mistake & your pointed stare sacrificial mouth. glory haunts you like 5 - o - clock shadows, like school yard voices, like a promise you made 15 years ago. something tender / mistaking family for knives / so that everyone forgets you too / were anything other than a smile / lamb to the slaughter / gone.
( nothing rests easy on your mouth, silent nothing / violent nothing. the silence of this room, the pitch of a thrum, fuyumis last texts, the plead in her words: your shaking hands / your graceless hands the restless / restless / restLESS guilt that threatens to eat you whole: natsuo todoroki, 19, never had mothers nature like touya, never held fuyumis gentleness like so. the only boy to fester with your fathers rage & bitterness. the reminder of your mothers love / your disagreements. the word family rests uneasy on your tongue, mixed in with the regret, held at knifepoint a loss, how could you ever make up for that ? )
not moving feels like an act of forgetting, the taste of saltwater in your mouth a mere constant. the blood on your shirt washed out. sorry tastes bitter on your tongue, sorry tastes like the guilt in your blood, sorry tastes like
( they say your life can change in 60 seconds, but the emotions you take in 30 are so fast you’re unsure you’re suffering whiplash. with this aching, aching soul you’re not even sure if it’s scientifically true . )
TEXT - UNKNOWN: hey, it’s shouto, fuyumi gave me your number TEXT - UNKNOWN: i hope you don’t mind
in the end, it always comes back to this. you, a dark glass thing, seawater stuck on your tongue & only kitchen knives for words. guilt curled like a dragon in your mind, all claws & teeth & fire. here, you’d take his hand & let the salt drain behind his ears: both electrolyte & sea. but what’s family, when everything shatters? you’ve always known, somewhere in a locked heart, what it is to unmake your own name, to stitch something new out of hand - me - downs, to call it your own like it means something, & god, you want it to mean something, you want a heritage that doesn’t taste bitter when you swallow, doesn’t stuff black leaves on your tongue & choke you when you try to breathe. there’s alarm bells ringing in your head, but all of them feel like singing. it’s a sound you’ve grown accustomed to living with, this melody of death.
( don’t look at them shouto … your brothers, they belong to a different world to you… )
where is this world ? where is home ? ( it’d be more honest to ask what home is, but all you know is what it is not. home is where the shadows curl heavy, where footsteps have fallen silent. the dead air screams chilling to the bone & the crying to ice where you never could stand being awake without the pain, the sting, the cut of something sharp & reminding of just what you could never stop, you never could ) where is home ? ( home is where the broken games & stifled laughter somehow let you make it through 16 years even when everyones leaving including you. the ending already written, the reminder of an older brother never able to make true on the promises he held for years. who could’ve meant something, which could’ve meant something. ) no, where is home ?
sea things will change with every tide & suddenly you’re grateful that everything regenerates so you never have to be that kid again, that boy again you pull your hunched back firm against your headboard with something of a determined sigh, fingers chilled to the bone:
TEXT - UNKNOWN [ DRAFTED ]: hey, ur more than welcome for my number, mum mentioned ur a fan of writing so we could do that instead maybe cuz then id have more to say without sounding like one of those annoying strangers bc i dont know much [ MESSAGE DELETED ]TEXT - UNKNOWN [ DRAFTED ]: hell yeah u go for it bro! a heroes gotta keep in contact with his family somehow. ure the only number i didn’t have so! ive wanted to ask fuyumi for urs for years but i felt it was inappropriate when i only knew about 2 things relating to you that dont involve him so [ MESSAGE DELETED ]TEXT - UNKNOWN [ DRAFTED ]: hey yeah sorry if i scared you the other night i bet i sounded just like him and freaked u out or smth. u dont deserve that. don’t feel like u have to know me out of pure diligence or so cause u dont i havent told you so much in 16 years but i love you so much and ure gonna be the best hero out there without him i want you to shove it up his ass [ MESSAGE DELETED ]
TEXT - UNKNOWN [ SENT ]: hey!TEXT - UNKNOWN [ SENT ]: i’m kl w/ it, i wanted to ask you the other night but didn’t get the chance.TEXT - UNKNOWN [ SENT ]: i heard ur a man of letters, tho! u should help me in my quest to make mum go modern too 0:) TEXT - UNKNOWN [ SENT ]: we should visit her together soon!! maybe afterwards i can take u out for some soba and u can stay the night if ur skls ok w/ it!
