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Patterns are something that Todoroki Shouto has been following his entire life. Something created by his father, straightforward, repetitive. The lines are ink-black, irrefutable, ash stained and scorched into permanency– just like Shouto. Follow the diet his father made for him. Study in his free time. Train in the evening, hours upon hours, by himself or with his father. Weekends are spent almost entirely in the tatami mat-lined training room, his heart pounding as he waits for the next blow. Nights are spent in his room, curled up, wishing for the aching and burns to go away. Wishing for his siblings, when he was younger. Wishing for his mother to this day, even though he knows he doesn’t deserve to see her.
And they would come, occasionally, his siblings more than his mother. His mother would only ruffle his hair or pick him up the morning after training, offering a cup of tea and a walk in the gardens. Fuyumi, however, would sneak into Shouto’s room on the worst training days, when his father was made of anger and Shouto was never good enough. Her touch was gentle and cool, icing over his bruises and bandaging his burns where his father wouldn’t notice. Natsuo would stand by the door and keep watch, making small sounds of warning if he heard Endeavour’s footsteps down the hall. And Touya was… never around much those days. He was hardly around at all, not even for Natsuo, and certainly not for Shouto.
(“Why doesn’t Touya-nii ever come?” he asked once, back when he was stupid enough to do so.
Fuyumi had smiled a not-smile like she often did, grey eyes skirting away from him as she pulled a bandage tight across his ribs. “He’s busy a lot, out of the house. Like Father. He’s training, too, just… a little differently.” She’d then swiftly changed the subject, voice forcibly brightening as she talked about a few of her classmates)
It took a little bit for the truth to settle in, after Touya had died. After his mother snapped, after his father became even more angry, after Natsuo left. When everything had really truly fallen apart and Shouto was left alone in the aftermath, it hadn’t taken long for him to understand that it was his fault. His brother was dead because of him. His mother was gone because of him, because Shouto is nothing but a mess of tainted blood and twisted flame and his father was right, in the end.
So he’d fallen headfirst into the pattern, allowing himself to be swept away by the relentless studying that left his mind staggering and the training that did the same to his body. In response, his father worked him harder, exhilarated by Shouto’s apparent single-minded determination. In reality, all he wanted was to forget. To lose himself in bruises and strikes and become the nothing he knows he is. All he wishes for now is a way to somehow fix what he’d torn apart.
But he can’t. He knows he can’t, because there’s no way to bring back the dead. Nothing can make his mother return; Shouto knows that even if she had a choice, she’d never go back to Father. It’s the same with Natsuo, who’d left followed by bellows and a heated hand grabbing at his collar, scorching the fabric. He’s almost as big as Father, all the burliness that Touya left behind laced into Natsuo’s broad shoulders. All the anger, too, and Shouto almost admires the way Natsuo had spat in their father’s face back then. Endeavour uses intimidation and anger to gain his power, but Natsuo has years of rage hidden behind his icy grey eyes.
He’d slammed the front door behind him so hard that there’s still cracks by the doorknob to this day. Shouto can trace them in his mind, small, dark things that hint at the larger ones that lay behind them. Natsuo had left almost a year ago now, and he hasn’t come back once. He’s called Fuyumi a few times, though, but never asked to talk to Shouto. It makes sense; Fuyumi and Natsuo are closer to each other than Shouto, and even more so to Touya. His three siblings had some sort of special relationship, Shouto knows, before it all went to hell.
He’s not hurt by this. It’s a fact to him, something to know so he can, in turn, try to understand his remaining siblings better. They’re an anomaly to him, something strange and somehow warm. He doesn’t really understand… anything about them. Shouto can’t honestly imagine being like that, having something like that. It has something to do with playing ball together, maybe, or being able to talk to someone whenever you want. The idea of such a thing, of walking down the hall and just opening someone’s door because you want to talk, and about nothing in particular – it’s weird.
Is it supposed to be weird?
Natsuo and Fuyumi had no problem doing it, back when they both lived at home. Shouto could sometimes hear their chatter from his side of the house. But he doesn't think that's something he can do. He can barely find the words to speak to Fuyumi over dinner, nevertheless seek her out. Maybe that’s another thing he’s broken. Maybe it’s something Father has broken in himself. Father is never gentle, has never been and most likely never will be. Shouto is used to barks of bluntness, to an instant reprimand when he’s failed, verbal or physical. It works, and at least he’s always sure when he’s done something wrong.
Like now, his father’s hand resting on Shouto’s shoulder as he’s guided back to the car after the UA exam. It was a different one than the ‘commoners’ go to, Endeavour had spouted proudly on their way there. This one was for people who have been personally recommended for the school by a hero, so Shouto would be facing the best of the best, the ones that would inevitably become his rivals in school. Shouto would, of course, have no problem with the exam because his father has been so careful in his training of his masterpiece, and was sure to be the best. Because Endeavour accepted no less than the best.
It was a threat, and Shouto knew it. He just couldn’t bring himself to care.
He’d gotten second in the exam. Some kid with a powerful wind quirk had beaten him at the last second, bursting past him and the finish line in one fell swoop. He’d tried to talk to Shouto afterwards, but all Shouto could see was his father’s broad frame approaching through the crowd of parents and heroes. Endeavour’s hand is heavy as it presses down on his shoulder, just slightly too warm to be natural, but Shouto had known as soon as the exam had ended that he’d fucked up.
Endeavour is silent all the way back to their house. His anger radiates off of him like waves, making its appearance through spouts of flickering flame that dance around his face. Shouto curls up in his seat and looks out the window, closing his eyes as he mentally braces himself for the impending bout of rough training that waits for him at home. He just hopes Fuyumi will save him some dinner.
As soon as Shouto’s feet land on the driveway, Endeavour’s hand is around his wrist and dragging. Shouto stumbles at the force of it, struggling to keep his feet under him. They slam through the door, possibly adding to the cracks Natsuo had created there, and Shouto catches sight of his sister emerging from the kitchen. Her grey eyes widen behind her glasses, meeting Shouto’s just long enough to convey her understanding: it had not gone well.
That’s all the time they have as Endeavour continues to march through the house, uncaring of the fumbling mess of his son behind him. He shoves Shouto into the training room, the door shutting behind them with a solid, resonating thwack , and Shouto’s mind goes quiet.
His father stands before him, tall and imposing, flaming forearms crossed. His eyes burn with the same fire, blue instead of red, glaring hard enough that Shouto feels he might burn just through the look. “Tell me,” Endeavour growls through gritted teeth. “why you lost.”
Shouto holds his breath, forcing his hands to lay still by his sides. “I failed to neutralise his strategy,” he says. “I failed to look behind me and account for any approaching threats, and my enemy took advantage of that.”
Endeavour lashes out, fast enough that Shouto doesn’t have time to flinch, grabbing a fistful of Shouto’s hair. Shouto keeps his gasp locked behind his teeth as Endeavour tightens his grip. “I don’t do this training for me, boy!” he yells. “I don’t do it for nothing ! I’ve worked tirelessly to shape you, and this is how you repay me?!”
“I’m s–” Shouto starts, but Endeavour is far past apologies. He throws Shouto to the floor, his fire burning to the pattern of his harsh breathing, making shadows writhe on the walls. A foot plants itself on Shouto’s ribs, digging into his lungs, making him fight for air.
“Get up,” Endeavour spits at him. “Get up and face me like a hero!”
There’s a moment, just like every time, where Shouto thinks he won’t. Where he wants to just lay there and wait, to see what his father would do, to see if he’d get angry enough to just finish it. He doesn’t want to keep doing this, to be stuck in this scorched pattern his father has twisted around him. Again and again, hit after hit, repeat and then repeat again because Shouto is nothing but this ash-stained pattern. Repeat until death.
He just wishes that last part would hurry up already.
Fuyumi finds him afterward. He’s tucked himself away in his room, staring at the ceiling as his body thrums with bone-deep aches. It’s a familiar routine to Shouto; as is the way he grabs onto that pain, letting it worm itself deeper into his muscles. It’s not necessarily a good pain, but it’s real when Shouto feels like he isn’t.
Fuyumi enters food-first, bowl balancing in one hand and a steaming cup in another. She glances over her shoulder before sliding the door shut with her foot. “I made you cold soba,” she says with her not-smile.
She sets the food and tea down on the desk with a gentle click. Everything about Shouto’s sister is gentle: her eyes, her touch, her words, even when they shouldn’t be. He often wonders how it’s possible that she is what she is– he hadn’t thought anything under the semblance of softness could grow in his father’s house. And yet, here Fuyumi is.
Shouto’s mother had been soft, once. He hopes his sister won’t follow in her footsteps.
Fuyumi doesn’t leave immediately. Instead, she lingers by the door, fingers just brushing the frame as she watches Shouto. He doesn’t move, even under her scrutiny, wanting her to go away so he can curl up and fold in on himself.
“Sho,” she says, voice almost a whisper in the silence between them. “Do you want to go to UA?”
Shouto rolls over to look at her then, a tiny kernel of surprise lodging in his chest. What sort of question was that? He’s going to UA. Father has been training him for that school since he was five; how could he not go?
“I am going to UA,” he answers, a little confusedly.
“I didn’t say that,” Fuyumi tells him matter-of-factly. She glances over her shoulder again, like Father might come bursting through the door at any second— which he may. “I’m not asking what Father wants you to do. I’m asking what you want. Is being a hero what you want to do?”
Shouto continues to stare at her. Why is she even asking that? Maybe they didn’t exactly grow up together, but they both know that working towards being a hero is the only thing Shouto has really done his whole life. He can’t just not be one. Father has been waiting for years for him to be able to get into UA; he’s pretty sure his father actually asked if it was possible to get Shouto in sooner, but was denied by the principal. But he’s made it anyway, and school starts in April and there’s no way he isn’t going. It’s just… not an option. Not a choice.
Shouto doesn’t get choices.
“I’m going to UA,” he repeats, more sure this time. “I got second in the exam. Father was angry, but I still got in.”
Fuyumi’s expression smooths out in a way Shouto doesn’t understand, her grey eyes becoming something heavy. She looks at him like he missed a vital question on a test— almost disappointed, but more sad than anything. Right then, she looks even more like their mother than usual.
“Okay,” she says softly. “But maybe think about my question, alright?” she smiles at him, and it’s somehow more not than usual. “Congratulations for getting second, by the way. See you in the morning.”
She disappears back into the hallway, silent as a ghost. Shouto can’t even hear her footsteps as her shadow slides away from the door. It’s something they’ve all learned, he thinks, being quiet. Quiet voices, quiet footsteps, tiptoeing around their father who might erupt at any second. Shouto wonders what it would be like to be loud just because he can, to yell at the top of his voice and stomp down the hallways and laugh as hard as he can without stopping. Natsuo was always loud, and never ashamed of it. He’d shout at their father any opportunity he had, and never quelled his laughter, rare as it was.
Shouto can’t remember the last time he laughed. He can’t remember hearing Fuyumi do so, either, since Touya had died.
He thinks of his sister again as he sits up. He thinks about her careful scolding when Natsuo has gone too far, about how her tea is always somehow better than everyone else’s, about the way the grey of her eyes becomes more of a silver when she’s happy and how they mirror storm clouds when she’s not. Shouto has seen those stormy looks as Father passes her in the hall, or sometimes when she helps Shouto with his post-training injuries.
When their mother still lived with them, she was hardly ever angry. Even when she tried to protect Shouto, even when she yelled at Father, she was always crying.
Shouto has never seen Fuyumi cry.
He knows that doesn’t mean she hasn’t; he believes that Fuyumi has, if only when Touya died. But he wasn’t with her when the news came. He wasn’t with anyone, curled alone in his bed, awake when he should have been asleep. He’ll never forget the way his mother screamed that day.
Fuyumi may look like their mother, may have been born with the same gentle countenance as her, but they are not the same. Rei fell as Fuyumi learned to stand on her feet. Rei snapped as Fuymui hardened. Soft, Shouto realises as he stares down at his bowl of soba, is not the correct word for his sister. She is kind, and that’s not the same thing.
Shouto doesn’t understand why Fuyumi is still here. Natsuo, the one who a fire quirk would’ve fit, the one who hates Father (and Shouto) and isn’t afraid to show it, had left as soon as he could. But Shouto knows Fuyumi doesn’t harbour the same kind of anger; she is cold where Natsuo red-hot, and has never spoken to Father out of turn. For the first time, Shouto wonders if she’s restraining herself, if she feels as trapped in the silence as he does.
(“I’m not asking what Father wants you to do. I’m asking what you want.” )
Shouto picks up his tea, presses the cup into his palms until it burns. He can tell by the scent that it’s jasmine green. His favourite.
He’s not sure he knows how to want anymore.
April comes with the brightness that always accompanies spring, the lingering snow melting off of their gardens to reveal many differing shades of green. The trees are still bare, and there’s still the slightest of chills in the air, but Shouto enjoys this time of year. It’s a crossroads, an edge, the world holding its breath to see if the new will be allowed to form. Shouto wonders if people try to become new in this season, too, or if they can’t be bothered.
(“See, Shouto?” his mother helps his baby hand touch a petal of a softly pink lily that had bloomed not an hour ago. “See how things can become different? This flower isn’t one I expected to be here, but it’s here nonetheless. It fought to be here, and now it can show that fight off to the world. ” she smiles down at Shouto, her hair brushing his face as she leans down to kiss his forehead. “You can be different, too.”)
Today is the first day of UA. Shouto is awake before his alarm goes off, the nerves pinging around his body having ensured a night that consisted of mostly tossing and turning. He’s never been to school before, has no idea how it works. He’s been privately tutored his entire life up until this point, and now he’s going to an elite school with people that will fight him, maybe even physically, for top marks. So he can’t help being a little nervous, even if fighting is something he’s used to.
He’d received his agenda and his uniform and sent in his costume design (his father’s, really– a simple red jumpsuit with a silver utility belt and white boots that keep him steady on his ice). Father had huffed when he’d seen the name on top of Shouto’s class schedule, but hadn’t elaborated as to what that huff meant. The name Aizawa Shouta isn’t one that’s familiar to Shouto, but Father knows him and seems satisfied with the teacher. Shouto mentally braces himself for whatever training the teacher will put them through, if his father approves.
Shouto’s first impression of UA is that it’s big– easily the biggest building he’s ever seen. Its mirrored exterior reflects the blue of the sky, giving the school the same sort of ethereal feeling, like it’s been there long enough to rival the sky. Shouto can taste cherry blossom in the air, the walkway tinted pink by the flowering trees lining it. There’s other students around him, new in their crisp uniforms and nervous voices.
Something inside Shouto has gone quiet and still as he walks up to the school that has haunted his childhood. It doesn’t feel real, the air kissing skin that isn’t his, eyes seeing for some other being. What his father has been aiming for for over a decade is right in front of him, the first step to being the hero Endeavour raised him to be.
For some reason, the idea feels suffocating, wrapping around the base of his lungs and squeezing.
(“Do you want to go to UA?”)
This is where he’s supposed to be. This is what he’s been trained to do, year after year from the day his quirk came in. He was made to be here. To become a hero that can replace his father, to be better than Endeavour, to bring glory to the Todoroki name. That is Shouto’s life, and the real work begins now. His father sacrificed everything for him to be here; he can’t lose sight of his goal, no matter what.
(“You are my masterpiece, the one who will show the world just how strong the Todorokis are. With everything I’ve taught you, you will be unmatched!”)
Touya lost his chance at being a hero, and Shouto is the one who must take up the mantle. If not for his father, if not for his brother, then for the pain he’s caused his family. Everything that had fallen apart has already landed on Shouto’s shoulders, and he can’t imagine the weight of being a hero will be any heavier than that.
He wishes his mom was here to see him. He wishes he deserved to have that, but he knows he doesn’t.
She’s happier now, he tells himself. Just like Natsuo. Just like Fuyumi when she gets out of the house. Just like Touya, gone but never forgotten.
(“You can be different, too.”)
Shouto wants to be able to face them all one day, so he moves forward. And, just for a second, it’s not about his father pushing him, not trying to chase the ghost of his brother, but just himself, by his own choice, taking a step out of the pattern he’d been forced to get used to.
It feels better than he thought it would.