Chapter Text
His alarm goes off at 5AM as usual.
Shouto stares at the ceiling above him, his new ceiling. The sun has barely crested the horizon but the early morning rays have still found their way past the gap between the top of his curtain and the top of the window. Soon, they’ll be hitting his window full on, and the temperature will start rising in his room.
He knows because it has done so every morning during his summer break so far. He knows because he always wakes up at 5AM. He knows because he has to wake up at 5AM, he has to get up early so he can be the best. He’s not allowed to be anything else.
But he’s already finished his homework. And he already knows the signs Yamada and Aizawa has taught him. He can’t go train. His room is clean. He has nothing to do.
He’s exhausted.
He blinks, eyes pulling shut for many long seconds before he shakes himself back awake. He can’t afford to fall back asleep. He can’t afford to fall behind. He has to be the best. He has to prove that he can stay here, he has to earn his place.
He sits up, taking in the room in front of him. His eyes immediately go to the door, to the door handle. It doesn’t move.
No matter how long Shouto stares at it no one is waiting to push it down on the other side. No one is waiting to bust in and catch him off guard. No one burns him anymore.
You wouldn’t be able to stop it if it happened anyhow.
Making his bed takes barely a minute. Getting changed and putting away his pyjamas doesn’t take much longer. He tucks his t-shirt into his shorts, staring blindly at the wall as his fingers work. The cotton fabric softens the pressure on the scar on his hip.
Forcing Endeavour’s hand from his throat takes him almost five whole minutes.
He sits down at his desk, staring at his many textbooks. He might be done with his homework, but he can always revise. He can always revise. His fingers touch the spine of his English textbook, mind immediately going to Yamada’s hand written tips and tricks to try and help him catch up to everyone else with his English.
He’s so exhausted.
His hand lands back down on his desk, the English textbook remaining where it stood. Shouto fists his hand, swallowing down the weird feeling in his chest.
Didn’t you promise Hina to feel them?
He doesn’t have time for this weird, uncomfortable feeling. It’s hardly important. It doesn’t matter what he feels in regard to how far behind everyone else he is in English. Revising and catching up is all that matters. Being the best is all that matters.
But instead of his textbook in English, his fingers make contact with the soft leather of his sketchbook when he reaches for it next. He doesn’t mean to, knows he can’t afford distractions, but he pulls it out from its slot among his many textbooks and places it down in front of him.
This too. He could work on this too. He has to. Natsuo gave it to him because he wanted him to do art. Shouto has yet to barely open it. He hasn’t penned a single line in it yet.
He places a hand over it, eyes so focused on the front he barely notices the fuzz beginning to distort the edges of his vision. Slowly, he hooks his thumb around the cover, lifting it ever so carefully.
The pages creek as he flips the book open, protesting after having been left closed for so long. One by one, they lift up, chasing after the hard cover. Shouto takes his other hand and stop them halfway, distantly feeling the pages gather against the back of his hand as he pushes the cover down against his desk.
Once the book is fully open he gathers all the pages in the middle, barely cognizant of what he’s doing. Books need to be prepped before you read them or use them. They need to be broken in, and once they’re broken in it doesn’t matter how much you use them because they won’t break. If you’re too careful with them, if you don’t do them the kindness of moulding them after how they’re meant to be used, they will become useless in the end. Pages will fall out from the slightest of movements and the cover will fall off. He’s doing it a kindness.
He can’t even remember which one of his tutors taught him to do this, but like everything he’s ever learned in his life, he has learned it by heart. Likewise, he never learned how not to do it, how to question the need for it. So, he does what he should. He goes through the signatures, each bundle of pages being given the treatment it deserves. He ignores each slight crackle and protest of the pages, ignores the way he can tell the book doesn’t want this. The static in his head muffles most of it anyhow.
Once he’s done, the sketchbook lays flat on his desk with the first page flipped open. The pages doesn’t lift up in an attempt to keep closed anymore, the book doesn’t protest. It’s perfect, primed and ready for use. It’s serving its purpose.
There is a small annotation on the inside of the cover. It’s from Natsuo. He hadn’t noticed it until now. You hadn’t even tried looking.
For Shouto.
I hope this is the kind of sketchbook you wanted.
Love, Natsuo
Shouto doesn’t remember wanting a sketchbook.
Shouto doesn’t remember a lot of things. It’s best that way, to not remember, to not know things. It’s best to break in books without remembering how he learned to do it and wake up at 5 AM every single morning despite having nothing to do. It’s best to do as he’s always done. He doesn’t remember how not to.
There is a line for him to fill in his name on the first page. He picks up one of his nicest fude-pens and carefully removes the lid. He grasps it gently, body easily assuming the right posture. It’s all about the basics. It’s all about keeping yourself centred and in control. It’s like fighting.
The character for Todoroki flows easily from the soft brush tip, each stroke practiced and controlled. Perfected. His family name, the first thing he writes on every single piece of paper in school, the crest decorating his formal wear, books and art supplies. It’s the first thing anyone ever sees when they look at him.
It’s the first thing he writes in the sketchbook that Natsuo gifted him.
His hand stills before he can make the final stroke, refusing to move. He stares unblinkingly at the unfinished character, at the name that he can’t seem to escape from.
Would Natsuo want Shouto to write that name in something he had gifted? Natsuo, who bleaches the red from his hair away so he won’t be associated with Shouto Endeavour anymore, would he want that name to brand his gifts too?
But Natsuo wants him to use it, right? Which means Shouto has to fill in his name.
But maybe he should just use his first name.
Shouto quickly writes the two characters for his first name, leaving his family name unfinished. It’s already too late. He’s already ruined it with Endeavour’s name. No matter what he does everyone is going to read the name Todoroki before they read Shouto.
You ruin everything you touch.
He pens the final stroke of his family name. It makes a difference. It makes it worse.
He flips the page over. Natsuo wanted him to paint. He should paint. He should do as he’s told. He can’t ruin the sketchbook with even more things Natsuo doesn’t want to be associated with.
But Shouto doesn’t know what to paint.
That is the really nice thing about sketchbooks though. You can fill them with whatever you feel like. It doesn’t have to be good or purposeful.
But Shouto isn’t allowed to make things that aren’t good or purposeful. Those things are off limits, dangerous, painful. They hurt, bruise, and ache. Frivolous wishes are useless, pathetic, pointless. They leave him floating far away while his body is good and purposeful. Shouto can’t afford to be anywhere but present.
Aizawa would want him to write poems, like Aizawa had done after he had been rescued removed from his mother. That is a good thing to do. If he writes poem, then he would get better. He would stop being stagnant. He would know what people meant and understand how the world works and never again need to tell Hina that he’s uncomfortable.
Will Endeavour’s hand stop squeezing his throat if he writes poems?
But Shouto doesn’t know what to write.
He doesn’t know what to write and he doesn’t know what to paint. He’s not good enough. He can’t do those things on his own yet. He needs to emulate the masters until he understands their genius and then maybe, maybe, he can do something that isn’t a waste of paper.
He doesn’t want Natsuo’s gift to be a waste of paper.
Endeavour wants him to continue with his sumi-e practices. Shouto knows this. Shouto knows what he should do. He’s being stupid, idiotic to not do what he know he should. He’s being unsafe.
Shouto can feel him breathing down his neck, can feel the hand tightening around his throat and burning against his hip. The heat from his flame beard presses down on him, makes Shouto double over on his desk. There is a voice whispering in his head, moist lips millimetres away from his ear.
You look so much Rei. You need to take responsibility for forcing him to send her away.
Endeavour is going to take the sketchbook away. He’s going to take this one away from him too. He’s going to hurt him, hurt them. He’s going to hurt Natsuo again.
“Who gave you that silly idea?”
Shouto doesn’t dare look at Natsuo, doesn’t dare look up from his plate of food. He shouldn’t have said anything. He knows better than to speak up. It’s best if he keeps quiet. He should always be quiet. He just ends up saying the wrong things anyhow.
But Natsuo promised that he’d buy him a sketchbook if Shouto just asked. And his tutor says his art is getting really good. And his chest doesn’t hurt when he paints.
“Answer me, Shouto!”
“Natsuo-niisan said that-“
“NATSUO!”
Shouto gasps, fingers clawing at his neck as he tries to breathe past the blockade. His desk is hazy in front of him, body far away. He’s floating, leaving, giving in to the void. Except he can’t! He mustn’t! He must stay present. He must protect Natsuo and Fuyumi, or Endeavour will hurt them again and it will all be Shouto’s fault. It’s always Shouto’s fault. It has always been Shouto’s fault.
There is something wrong with you.
The sound of paper ripping makes him flinch. Shouto’s eyes quickly focus back on the sketch book he has pressed against his chest, and the way his fingers have torn the paper.
As though he’s watching someone else do it, he puts the sketchbook down on his desk again and observes the damage he has caused. The first few pages are crumpled from how he’s pressed the open book against his chest, and the bottom corner of two of the pages are torn.
He mechanically smooths the paper back out as best he can, careful around the tears. They don’t return to their previous pristine, flat condition. They remain ruined.
It’s almost a relief, if Shouto could feel that, to know that he ruined it all this quickly. He doesn’t have to worry about it now. All that is left now is the punishment, and he knows how to deal with that. All that is left is Natsuo’s anger that looks so much like Endeavour’s How dare he think of Natsuo like that? And Aizawa’s… Aizawa’s punishment. Whatever Aizawa sees fit for him.
He picks up the pen.
It doesn’t matter what he does with it now.
The paper easily soaks up the ink, despite the many wrinkles he’s forced into it. It clings to every single drop, drinking it as though it’s dying of thirst. Each line goes down so smoothly, so effortlessly, as though he has never done anything but this. But he never has. He’s breaking all the rules, ignoring everything he has ever learned. He’s being so careless and stupid, so idiotic and dangerous.
There is something wrong with you.
Shouto knows this. He knows this as he leaves his body be. He knows this as he sits down on his bed and pulls his knees tight against his chest and grabs his feet. He knows this as he watches Todoroki sketch out the sound of Endeavour’s hands against Natsuo’s skin and the anger in Natsuo’s voice, the desperation of Fuyumi’s pleas that never cried for him and the taste of udon that has grown cold as he waits for Endeavour to give him permission to eat again.
He knows this as he ignores Aizawa’s wishes for him to write poems, Natsuo’s want for him to paint, and Endeavour’s orders for him to keep their history alive. Because there is something wrong with Shouto that means he deserves everything bad that has ever happened to him. There is something wrong with him that makes everyone around him unsafe too, that makes him hurt people.
He knows this because everyone else know it too. Why else would they let him continue like this? Why else would they wish and want more and more things of him, fi they didn’t know he would be forced to obey? Why else would they care, if not because they know he’d ruin them all if not kept in line with discipline?
What purpose does he serve if he can’t do what they say? What does it matter what he wants, if he wants to do art or write or keep his history alive? What if he wants his history to die? What if he wants it to disappear, all of it?
What if he could make it disappear?
Shouto closes the sketchbook, hiding the memory and locking it away deep within him once more. He puts the lid back on his pen, places it in his holder, and tucks the sketchbook back in next to his English textbook.
It’s almost 7AM. Aizawa won’t be up for another 2 hours. He should take the time to revise, to do something worthwhile.
He lays back down in bed, faces away from the door despite knowing that it’s dangerous.
He’s so exhausted.
He’s just so exhausted.