Sixty

                                    

                                          



Cherry | 60 | Blossoms 
                          
🌸




                          
"This scar...who do you think you gave it to me?" He covered the left side of his face with his hand, a shadow falling over him.
                          
Y/N grasped his hand tightly. "Shouto, it's okay. You don't have to tell me."
                          
He shook his head. "I've been afraid to open up to you. I want to." She nodded in understanding. "My mother gave me this scar." Y/N's eyes widened at the new information.
                          
"She poured hot boiling water on my left side when I was only five years old because she said that each day I looked more and more like my father," his gaze turned stormy. "I don't know if you know much about arranged marriages, but for people with money it's to unite two families to make even more money, to grow their business. My mother was arranged to marry my father when she was really young. She was a heiress and everything she owned went to him."
                          
He gritted his teeth, his clutch on her tightening slightly. "My father was—is—a bastard. He never treated my mother with respect, he kept her hidden from the world. He almost beat her to death when he found out their first born was a girl. A few years later, my older brother was born, but he didn't fit the image that my father wanted—he wasn't adequate enough to take over the company. He was also very rebellious from a young age, so my father decided he needed another child."
                          
Y/N swallowed thickly. "Was that..."
                          
"Yes," he sighed. "I was—am—the youngest. I'm also the perfect image of the person he always imagined would take over the company. I rarely interacted with my siblings because I grew up learning about the ins and outs of Todoroki Industries, learning foreign languages I would use in the future, meeting people that would benefit me." He glanced at his empty hand. "As I grew older, I started having to meet potential partners I would marry. My father always sent them to me, even without telling me. He always had me under strict watch." He gave her a lopsided, wry smile. "That's why when you approached me at the roof, and multiple times afterwards I thought he'd sent you. I'm not the most approachable person."
                          
She gave a soft, a dry laugh. "You could say that again." 
                          
"I understand why my mother did what she did when I was younger," he continued. "A part of me is grateful; being his son is already hard enough—looking like him would've made me even more miserable. Anyways, he sent my mother away after the incident. I didn't see her again until half a year ago. I also reconciled with my siblings—none of them blamed me for anything. They all knew it was my father's doing."
                          
"Everything was going well, but then one day my father found out I was meeting my mother in secret and that I had become close with my siblings and he completely lost it. He sent her away once more, and he warned me if I ever saw my siblings again that he wouldn't ever let me see my mother." His face was full of anguish. "He has always had me in the palm of his hands, always telling me what to do, how to behave—he had power over me because he had my mother somewhere I couldn't reach her."
                          
"Where is your mother now?" Y/N asked him softly.
                          
Shouto's face was pained. "I don't know. My father disappeared one night and I haven't heard from him, or my mother, or my siblings. The last person that knew from them was Dabi, but even now, I don't know if he told me he took my mother and siblings because he really did, or because my father paid him to do so. I somehow feel like he's punishing me for not following his every wish."
                          
"Your father, he disappeared?" She furrowed her eyebrows as she tried to put the pieces together. "Just out of the blue?"
                          
He nodded. "I know how it sounds. He disappears and then I can't reach my family no matter how hard I try, but trust me, I have a feeling—and I know this isn't his doing. I feel like there's something—someone—else behind this. My father had—has— powerful enemies that hate him because he was always at the top. A part of me thinks..." He sighed, rubbing his face.