Chapter Thirty

                                    

                                          
Three Weeks Later
Third Person POV:
The Todoroki family was outside and enjoying the afternoon, after some fresh snow had fallen in the morning. Even Rei was there and was happy to be spending time with her children. Well, two of them.
                          
Endeavor, however, didn't allow himself to enjoy that time, no matter how much he'd been longing to spend it with his family. He felt a bitter ache in his heart, if he was going to enjoy time off like this, he wanted to see his whole family. But he knew that Shoto and Toya weren't there. And likely never would be.
                          
Endeavor felt so much regret for what happened to Toya, it was all his fault, if it wasn't for him getting upset with Shoto that one time, his oldest son would be alive.
                          
Endeavor wished he could see Toya one last time to tell him how sorry he was. Actually, he wanted that for both his oldest and estranged youngest, Shoto. Endeavor didn't want forgiveness. But he wanted both of his sons to know how much he regretted everything that happened to them, and how much he wished that he gave them an at least decent childhood, and life, for one of them.
                          
Endeavor felt his heart ache more, as he remembered the first time he saw both his sons. Toya was more noisy and seemed to understand what life was going to look like from the get-go. Endeavor couldn't say he blamed him for not being super happy. But Endeavor still felt a sense of attachment to him. Especially after seeing how much Toya looked like him.
                          
Shoto however, was quiet, peaceful, and even cuddled up to Endeavor a bit when he first held him. Endeavor even back then felt touched and felt an unmistakable love for the infant he was holding.
                          
Shoto looked like both him and Rei in the best ways, and Endeavor could not understand why everyone else disliked the boy so much, when he was so small and so easy to take care of. He was certainly more grounded in comparison to his other siblings. And he rarely asked for anything other than to spend some time with his family, at that time the main person to accept his invitations was Toya.
                          
Both children were very loving, though, right from the start. Toya would in up and hug his family, Shoto would sometimes crawl into bed with Endeavor and Rei and cuddle up to them. Especially when Toya first saw Shoto, and asked his mother if he could hold him. And after roughly ten minutes of holding his baby brother, it was already obvious that Toya loved Shoto more than anyone else in the family. And it soon became obvious that Shoto returned those feelings.
                          
Even if it wasn't obvious, Endeavor really did love both of them, even back then. But his other goals and ambitions got in the way, and ruined his relationship with his children and his wife.
                          
Even so, Endeavor remembered running into the kitchen that night when Shoto was five, and feeling genuine panic and real, parental instincts kick in as he saw the child crying and screaming in pain on the floor while holding his burning face. Part of the reason he sent Rei away was because he genuinely feared his son's safety. Which turned out to be a valid fear later. Although, that safety precaution came at a cost, his other children's treatment of their youngest brother.
                          
Now there was no fixing anything. His two children were gone, and while he still had the rest of his family, it wasn't the same. He would always feel the holes where Shoto and Toya were supposed to be.
                          
Endeavor would also admit, he didn't want to look Rei, or his other children in the eye. Not after how they treated Shoto, all because of an assumption. What he heard from Rei, from the start, she never even considered him her own child. She burned him on purpose, and threw a vase at him when he tried connecting with her again. Endeavor sighed.
                          
He couldn't completely ostracize them, he knew that would be horribly hypocritical. But at the same time, Shoto was gone, and very few times did they acknowledge it. Maybe it was just his previous obsession with his quirk. But Endeavor felt slightly sick at how little the family cared about the youngest member running away at eighteen years old thanks to how he was treated.