#this took.

i am todoroki touya.   the name alone is enough to make her freeze;   it emanates from the room with a purpose,   echoes with a finality.   this has to be some kind of sick joke,   she thinks.   i don’t believe it.   but as she watches this strangely familiar man talk on the tv screen,   hanging in the staff room,   as those cerulean eyes rise to meet the camera,   to reflect her own from across the room,   she knows there is no other reality.   

i am the eldest son of the hero endeavor,   he says,   and she knows this is the truth.   i’ve killed more than 30 innocent people. 

                  i want everyone to know how i came to be such filth.

her ears start to ring.   fuyumi shakes her head and she barely feels her breath leave her,   barely hears the phone in her hand slip from her grip and clatter to the floor.   it’s half - coated in ice.   she takes two steps,   anything to put distance between her and this,   but fuyumi finds herself falling backwards in the middle of the hallway.   she sobs.   it’s broken and small,   so unlike her,   and when her back finally hits the wall,   it’s all she can do to draw her knees to her chest and bury her face into her arms.   she feels dizzy.   her hands are blue.   her lashes stick together with ice and frost cracks and seeps across the tile around her,   climbs its way slowly up the wall,   over the phone dropped to the floor.   

                fuyumi wonders if this is what her mother felt like.   

i'm sorry,   mom,   she  thinks.   i’m sorry.   i’m sorry.  i’m sorry.   it’s a mantra in her head,   calm and quiet.   natsuo’s voice is muffled through the speaker,   still calling out her name.   fuyumi.   fuyumi,   are you there?   fuyumi,   answer me      -     fu      -      yumi      -

yumi,   he says again,   but this time it’s no longer natsuo’s voice.   she whimpers,   and fuyumi is no longer curled up in that hallway;   she is nine years old.   she feels dizzy.   her hands are blue.   her lashes stick together with ice and frost cracks and seeps across the tatami mat around her,   climbs its way slowly up the wall.  

she’s not sure how long she sits in that room before warm hands tug at her wrists.   at first she resists,   hearing nothing but the booming voice of her father in her ears,   fear overtaking her small heart,   but then touya speaks again and she begins to calm.   yumi,   please,   breathe,   he says.   he draws her into his chest and holds her there,   rubs his calloused hands up and down her arm.   you're too cold,   he says,   and she knows he’s right.   she can never bring herself to speak in these moments,   but touya has never minded.   he hold her close anyway,   shushes her short breaths.   tells her that he’d seen the strangest bird in the garden today,   that they should look for it tomorrow.   that natsuo grew again,   and between the two of them,   touya was jealous.   mom’s birthday is soon.   he says.   runs a hand through her hair.   we should do something nice for her.  

he does that,   for a while.   talks.   touya rocks her in his arms,   his chin nestled in her hair,   and just talks.   slowly,   fuyumi does too.   tells him that she’d like that,   that she’d like to try and catch it, some day.   that it wasn’t fair that both of them were taller than her now.   i can bake a cake,   fuyumi says.   

and we can decorate it together,   touya finishes for her.   and we’ll all eat it and tell you that you did a great job,   and we’ll be happy.   just hold out,   fuyumi.   it’ll be happy.