It's not a choice. Not even a thought. One second, his body is locked in place, limp and useless; the next, it moves all on its own, driven by a surge of something wild and primal and sharp-edged. A pulse of heat lances out from deep in his chest, painful enough to feel like he's tearing himself apart from the inside.
The man's scream follows half a breath later, raw and animal, splitting the air of the narrow alley.
Shouto's skin feels like it's being flayed from his bones as his quirk surges to life, wild and uncontrolled, burning through the frozen numbness that's had him in its grip. Every nerve ignites, molten needles threading through flesh that had felt half-dead moments ago.
The alleyway erupts—air twisting, pressure boiling, walls shuddering with the sudden, suffocating bloom of heat and light. For a single violent second, the shadows recoil, scorched away by the intensity of it.
And then—he's falling.
The man drops him, fingers releasing their brutal hold as instinct overrides everything else. The ground rises up faster than he can brace, and when he hits it, the impact blasts the breath from his lungs in one brutal rush. Pain flares bright in his ribs, jagged and white-hot, leaving him gasping soundlessly against the pavement.
For a moment, the world is nothing but fire and ringing in his ears, the distant echo of the man's scream still burning itself into the air around him.
For a moment, he can't look away.
The man thrashes in front of him, his screams tearing jagged through the air, high and raw and filled with a terror that hadn't been there a breath ago. All the arrogance, all the sneering lechery that had weighed down his voice minutes earlier—it's gone. Burned away as if it never existed. Fire clings to him like a living thing, devouring cloth and flesh alike, each flare of orange and white-hot blue throwing monstrous, twisting shadows up the walls of the alley.
The smell hits next—sharp and greasy, searing the back of Shouto's throat. Burned fabric. Singed hair. Cooked flesh. It's thick, choking, heavy in the damp air. And it's familiar. Too familiar.
It drags him back—to earlier tonight, another fire, the dorm swallowed in smoke and heat, classmates screaming and crying around him. The phantom of that memory presses hard at the base of his skull, and bile creeps up the back of his throat. He wants to turn his face away, wants to retch, wants to claw the scent from his nostrils.
But it's not the sight that freezes him in place. Not the smell that makes his stomach twist. It's the feeling.
Because for the first time in—he can't even remember how long—there's no guilt flooding his chest, no tremor of shame in his fingers, no sick rush of fear crawling up his spine. No disgust hollowing him out from the inside. Instead, there's something else. Something dark and quiet and horribly steady.
Satisfaction.
It unfurls low in his stomach, a grim warmth that has nothing to do with the flames still licking at the man's skin. A part of him—the part he's spent his entire life smothering—relaxes, as if some long-held debt has finally, brutally been paid. And that, more than anything, makes him want to be sick.
As the man screams—high, ragged, animal sounds that scrape against the walls of the alley—Shouto feels… good.
Not relieved. Not vindicated. Just good.
The sensation roots itself deep in his chest, alien and familiar all at once, blooming through him with an awful, steady warmth. He can feel the heat still rolling off his body, the lingering bite of flame in his blood and along his nerves, and for the first time in what feels like forever, there's no guilt choking him. No recoil. No voice in the back of his head telling him to stop.
The man begs—garbled, choking pleas for mercy that twist into incoherent wails as the fire eats through his throat. He writhes, thrashes, clawing at his own burning clothes, smearing half-melted fabric and strips of skin across the wet concrete. The sound of it—flesh hissing, popping, splitting—is sharp enough to pierce the ringing in Shouto's ears.
He doesn't look away.
He can't.
A part of him registers the stench—greasy smoke, burnt hair, the copper tang of blood turned to steam—but it doesn't reach him. It's all happening at a distance, like someone else's story unfolding before his eyes.
He can't bring himself to put the other out. Doesn't even try. He's not sure he could even if he wanted to. The fire's an extension of him, wild and hungry, and for once he has no desire to leash it.
So he just… watches. Until the man's movements grow sluggish. Until his screams taper off into broken, wet croaks. Until even those fade, leaving only the crackle of cooling flames and the rasp of Shouto's own uneven breath.
When the stillness comes, it's abrupt. Final. All that's left on the ground in front of him is a charred, blackened husk—skin split and curled, limbs twisted into an unrecognizable shape.
A corpse.
The realization hits him like a plunge into ice water—sudden, suffocating, absolute. A corpse. Not a man. Not an enemy. Not some nameless threat to file away.
A corpse.
The word punches through his skull, hard enough to leave him dizzy. The burnt shape on the ground stops being just a thing, just evidence of his fire's reach, and coalesces into the one truth he can't push away: he killed someone.
He did that.
The weight of it buckles his knees, but his body moves before the rest of him can shut down. Instinct, not thought. Muscle memory firing on terror alone. He stumbles backward, his feet slipping on the wet pavement, and then he's running—shoving himself past the wall of exhaustion in his bones, past the sting of torn soles and blistered skin. Every step sends pain lancing up his legs, but he doesn't stop. Can't.
Because staying there means looking again. Means facing the thing on the ground that used to be alive.
But even as he runs—faster, harder, lungs tearing at the air—he knows the truth: he can't outrun this. Can't leave it behind like an abandoned set of footprints. It follows him, clings to him, coiled tight in the smell of scorched flesh stuck in his throat and the phantom heat buzzing under his skin.
Because the thing chasing him isn't the man. Isn't the body. It's him. He's the monster here. Not that man. Not anyone else.
Him.
By the time his limbs finally give out—by the time the last dregs of adrenaline burn away, leaving only the hollow ache of overworked muscles and trembling exhaustion—he's nearly stumbled clear of the town itself. The roar of the city has faded to a low, distant hum behind him. Here, on the fringe where cracked pavement gives way to dirt and wild grass, the air tastes different—cooler, sharper, touched with the faint metallic tang of river water.
Above him, the smothering gray haze of light pollution finally thins. Pockets of the night sky bleed through—tiny pinpricks of starlight scattered across a vast indigo canvas, with the moon hanging low and bright, pale enough to seem almost watchful. It bathes everything in silver-blue, stretching the shadows around him long and spindly.
Up ahead, something rises out of the dark: the skeletal silhouette of an old bridge, half-swallowed by weeds and time. Its once-sturdy frame is rusting through, paint long since peeled away to bare, corroded steel. The mouth of the entrance is bound in drooping caution tape that flutters limply in the breeze, its warning stenciled in sun-bleached red: DANGER. DO NOT ENTER. The tape sags, brittle with age, as if the world itself has forgotten whatever danger it was meant to keep out.
Shouto slows, but only for a moment. His steps drag, then fall into a pattern again—automatic, unthinking. His feet carry him forward as though tethered by some invisible thread, drawn to the structure with a pull he doesn't understand. Maybe it's the bridge's emptiness, its abandonment, the way it feels just as hollow and forgotten as he does. Maybe it's the promise of the river beneath, a still, endless black that might swallow him whole and leave nothing behind.
Or maybe it's nothing so clear. Maybe it's just instinct—an animal part of him searching for somewhere the world can't follow.
Either way, he doesn't stop.
The wood groans beneath his weight, the old planks creaking and shifting with a sharp protest as he ducks carefully under the yellow caution tape, ignoring its frayed edges brushing against his sleeve. Each step forward is slow and deliberate, but the bridge's weathered surface betrays him—splinters snag into the bare skin of his feet, tiny shards breaking free and lodging painfully between his toes. He barely notices, too focused on moving deeper into the darkness that seems to swallow everything around him.
The faint rustling of dead leaves stirs in the cool autumn breeze, carrying the crisp, faint scent of damp earth and decaying wood. The bridge stretches on in both directions—endless, unyielding. He walks farther, the faint rhythmic sound of his footsteps merging with the quiet pulse of the river flowing far beneath him, the water too dark to see clearly but alive with unseen currents.
After a while, the moon shifts, becoming a steady, silver sentinel directly ahead—its pale light illuminating a wide expanse of river that seems to stretch into infinity, merging seamlessly with the horizon. Shouto pauses there, the emptiness around him pressing in softly, the night holding its breath.
With a slow, deliberate motion, he lowers himself down onto the edge of the bridge, legs swinging over the side. His bare feet dangle, brushing the cold air, chilled by the sharp bite of autumn night. The cold pricks at his skin like tiny needles, but he doesn't pull them back in. He lets the cold settle, grounding him, a small anchor against the storm of thoughts swirling inside his head.
For a long moment, he simply sits there—still, silent—letting the night close around him like a shroud. The river's distant murmur hums beneath him, a quiet counterpoint to the pounding silence inside his chest.
Time begins to warp around him, stretching and bending like the ripples on the river below. The usual sounds of the night—the distant hum of traffic, the rustling leaves, the occasional call of a night bird—fade away until there is nothing but an overwhelming silence, thick and heavy, pressing in on him from all sides. The edges of his vision blur, colors dull, shapes lose their meaning, until it feels as if he's slipping into some endless void where the past and present collapse into one.
And in that strange, weightless moment, his mind drifts, unbidden, to the fragments of the life he's left behind. His family—faces both warm and cold—rise like ghosts from the depths of memory. Fuyumi's gentle smile, always soft but strong. Natsuo's loud laughter, a contrast to the storm inside their father's quiet, stoic presence. His mother's kindness, her careful hands that had once tried to shield them all from the world's sharp edges.
He sees, too, the fragile beauty of small, forgotten moments: the birds he used to draw as a child—simple sketches, but full of longing and hope. Those delicate creatures, with their outstretched wings and soaring flight, had been pinned proudly on the fridge, trophies of innocence and creativity. His mother's eyes lighting up every time she saw them, as if those paper birds could carry away all the pain, all the silence that lingered in their home.
His chest tightens with a sudden ache as he wonders—what would it be like to move like a bird? To leave behind the crushing weight of his own body and his burdens? To feel the rush of wind beneath wings that could carry him beyond these dark bridges and tangled streets? To fly—free, unbound, weightless—cutting through the sky with nothing but the sun and open air ahead?
The thought is both beautiful and cruel, a sharp contrast to the cold stillness beneath him. For a moment, he almost tastes the freedom, the lightness. Almost feels it in his bones. But then the weight of gravity drags him back, and the night closes in once more.
Because that memory—the fleeting joy of those bird drawings, the warmth of a mother's gentle smile—was old. So old it felt like it belonged to someone else's life, a distant echo from a time before everything cracked and splintered. It was a fragile shard of light, long outlived and buried beneath years of cold silence and unspoken truths.
Because above that tender image, hovering just out of reach, is another face. Darker. Harder. Sharper. The face of a mother who didn't just worry, didn't merely question—she was certain. She knew. Knew in the deepest, most unyielding way that he wasn't the child she had once dreamed of raising. That beneath the skin and blood, beneath the hopes she held, lay something broken, something dangerous.
Her eyes held that knowledge like a verdict—unflinching and final. And in that gaze, there was no room for doubt or forgiveness. No space left for the boy who once believed in flying free or the son who had tried to find his place.
Because she was right.
He is a monster.
And that truth settles over him heavier than any chain, colder than the river flowing beneath the bridge, more suffocating than the thickest fog. It claws at his chest with a cruel, unyielding certainty—an icy grip that tightens with every heartbeat, squeezing out hope and filling the hollow it leaves with dread.
It whispers over and over, relentless, that no matter how fiercely he clings to the fragments of memories—the faint light of past love, the fleeting warmth of a mother's touch—it can't undo the darkness festering inside. That darkness that spreads like ink, staining every corner of his soul, twisting what he once was, reshaping what he is, and casting a long shadow over what he might become.
It can't erase what he's become. What he probably always has been.
Because that truth—being a monster—doesn't just hover over his relationship with his mother, isn't limited to the fractured image of her fading love. It seeps in like poison into everything. Into every cracked and fragile thread that still dares to connect him to the rest of his family. To anyone at all.
He thinks of Fuyumi. The one who always tried to be the glue, the quiet peacekeeper in the chaos of their fractured family. The one who looked at them all with a fragile kind of hope, a desperate longing for something normal, something whole. She had always carried the weight of their brokenness in her eyes, the kind of hope that was both beautiful and heartbreaking.
He remembers the sticky note she had tucked between the pages of a book—the small, hesitant message he had written, words meant to reach out, to bridge the silence—the warmth with which she had responded. But he hadn't known how to respond then. And even now, he still doesn't know how. He probably never will.
Because he's not built for connection. For warmth, or joy. Or fellowship between loved ones. He's not built for love at all.
Shouto wonders if she sees it, really sees it—the monster lurking just beneath the surface of his carefully controlled exterior. Does she understand the weight he carries, the poison that stains his blood and twists his heart? Does she catch the shadows in his eyes when she thinks he's not looking? Does she sense the darkness clawing inside, the part of him that's slipping further away with every day?
Does she know that she should give up on him? Has she given up on him already?
The thought tightens around his chest like a vice, squeezing air from his lungs. He doesn't want to hurt her. He wants, more than anything, to protect her—to shield her from the darkness that threatens to swallow him whole. But how can he protect anyone when the part of himself that should be human, that should be loving and kind and real, feels so lost? So distant. So irreparably far gone.
She had tried. She had been there. And Shouto hadn't been able to bring himself to be there too. To try the way she had.
He hates that he feels this way about her. She's his family. She's the one thread of light in the tangled mess of his life. But that thread feels fragile. And he's terrified that if he reaches for it, if he tries to hold on too tightly, he'll snap it clean in two—dragging her down into the darkness with him.
Maybe it's better to leave her. To disappear completely, to cut the thread before it frays on its own. To give her the chance to move on without the weight of him dragging her down. Because maybe that's the only way to keep her safe. Maybe the only way to keep anyone safe—from the darkness he carries, from the monster he's always been, from the destruction that follows him like a shadow he can't outrun.
He wonders if she'd cry. If she'd stand in the living room, stare at the bookshelf and wait for him to come back. If she'd look for him, retracing steps he'd left long cold, checking her phone for messages that would never come. How long would it take before she stopped? Before the ache dulled and she learned to breathe again without the weight of his absence? Would she ever stop blaming herself for not fixing him, for not being enough to keep him tethered?
And Natsuo—he wonders if Natsuo would miss him at all. Natsuo, with his bitter laughter and sharp-edged truths, who always saw their father in Shouto's reflection whether he wanted to or not. Would he mourn, or would he finally breathe easier, relieved that one less reminder of their father's legacy haunted the world? Would his absence make the house quieter, lighter, or would it just leave another hollow echo in a family already full of them?
Maybe Natsuo would be angry instead. Angry that Shouto hadn't fought harder, hadn't stayed, hadn't proven himself different from the man they both despised. Or maybe Natsuo wouldn't feel anything at all—maybe the hole Shouto leaves behind would be just another scar, one among many, fading into the background until even the memory of him stops stinging.
His brother—the one whose anger always seemed to burn hotter, sharper than the rest. Natsuo's rage had been like wildfire, untamed and unrelenting, licking at every corner of their crumbling family until all that was left were singed edges and smoldering ash.
He had never been afraid to confront their father, to throw words like knives, to let his fury fill the space where the rest of them suffocated in silence. Shouto had admired that once—envied the way Natsuo could bare his teeth and snarl back at the man who loomed like a specter over all their lives. That fire had looked like freedom when Shouto was too young to realize it was just another kind of prison.
Now, it only reminded him of how trapped they all were. How every scream, every bitter retort, was just another echo rattling around inside the same locked cage. Natsuo had always fought, but the walls never moved. They were still there. They always would be.
And Shouto—Shouto had been the one who didn't fight. The one who took the blows in silence, who turned inward until even the sound of his own voice felt foreign. He could still see the look in Natsuo's eyes during those moments when the shouting stopped: a mix of resentment and sorrow, a storm that said what words never had to. The silent accusation hung between them like smoke— you gave up . You let it happen. You let him win.
And maybe he had. Maybe his silence, his refusal to meet anger with anger, had carved deeper wounds than any of Natsuo's shouted words. Maybe turning away had made things worse—had left Natsuo feeling like he was fighting alone, that his younger brother had already chosen a side, already surrendered.
Or maybe it didn't matter anymore. Because the damage was already done. Years of it, etched into bone and memory, impossible to undo. No amount of shouting or silence could scrub the stain of what they'd been through.
He wonders if his father would miss him, too—or if even that thought is foolish. If his disappearance would spark anything more than a passing flicker of irritation, a momentary pause in whatever carefully crafted plan the man is currently chasing. Would Endeavor stand in the doorway of an empty room and feel its absence? Or would Shouto simply become another line item in a long list of failures—an inconvenient mistake to shove into the shadows and bury under more training, more ambition, more carefully constructed illusions of control?
Maybe he'd sigh once, clench his jaw, and tell himself it couldn't have been helped. Maybe he'd twist it into yet another story of weakness, a blunder to be excused from memory. Another Todoroki child who couldn't live up to his expectations, who crumbled under the weight he'd demanded they carry.
Would his father even say his name out loud again? Or would it fade into the same bitter silence that had swallowed so many of their family's missteps before? A ghost, stripped of whatever meaning it once held. Shouto Todoroki —just another failed investment, filed away and forgotten.
And yet, a smaller, quieter part of him—the one he hates most—still wonders if the man would even pause long enough to feel something real. Would there be grief, sharp and fleeting like a spark that dies the moment it's born? Would there be guilt? Regret? Or would there be nothing at all?
He feels the weight of all those years—the pressure like an iron brand pressed into his skin, the fear that kept his breath shallow and his steps silent, the silence that choked him long before he even knew how to scream.
He can still hear his father's voice, deep and commanding, cutting through him like a blade that never dulled. It's there even now, echoing inside his skull, shaping his every thought: the endless critiques, the hollow praise, the venom-laced declarations that told him he was broken. Dangerous. A thing to be shaped and wielded, not a boy to be loved. Less than. Always less than.
And the worst part—the part that sinks claws into his chest and refuses to let go as he sits on the edge of that rotting bridge, legs dangling over the void—is that some part of him believes it. Believes it so deeply that he can't tell where his father's voice ends and his own begins. Maybe his mother was right all those years ago when she flinched from his touch and whispered monster like a prayer. Maybe he's nothing more than the weapon his father forged in the dark. A tool born of fire and ice and the bitter taste of ambition.
The thought spreads like poison, corroding whatever is left of him from the inside out. Maybe he deserves this—deserves the loneliness that wraps around his ribs like barbed wire, the fear that makes his hands tremble even when there's no threat in sight, the self-hatred that swells in his chest until he can hardly breathe. Maybe this is the price for existing the way he does: half-boy, half-cursed thing, all hollow.
Because monsters don't get to belong. Monsters don't get to dream about warmth or freedom. They don't get to fly—weightless, unshackled—like the birds he once drew with such careful hands, pinning scraps of wonder to a fridge that doesn't feel like home anymore. They're bound by their own darkness, shackled to the worst versions of themselves, dragging it everywhere they go.
And no matter how desperately he wants to shed it—no matter how much he longs to wake up and find that shadow gone—it clings to him like a second skin. Always there. Always watching. Always waiting to remind him of what he is.
He tries—just for a moment—to imagine himself without it. A Shouto Todoroki who isn't marked by his father's fire, his mother's fear, his own unrelenting guilt. But there's nothing there. No outline to fill in, no shape to take. Just absence. Because he can't picture himself without it.
And that—that's the thought that sinks its teeth in and doesn't let go. The part that twists deeper than guilt, deeper than shame, until it presses against something raw and ugly inside him. Because if all he is—if all he's ever been—is this thing shaped by violence and fear, then maybe there shouldn't be a Shouto Todoroki at all. Maybe there doesn't need to be.
The idea unspools slowly, like a thread pulling loose from the hem of a shirt, and once it starts, he can't stop tugging. He thinks of Fuyumi's tired smile, the way her eyes always searched for something in him that she never found. Of Natsuo's bitterness, the simmering anger that might finally have somewhere to go if Shouto simply… vanished. Of his mother, safe behind hospital walls, who might never have to flinch at the sight of her son's face again.
Even his classmates—Midoriya with his endless optimism, Kirishima with his blind faith, Iida with his kindness—they'd all be better off in a world where they didn't have to wonder if the monster at their side would one day slip, lose control, and hurt them. Better off not having to carry the weight of him, his silence, his fractures, his mess.
A world without Shouto Todoroki would be quieter. Cleaner. Lighter. No more shadow hanging over them. No more ice creeping in where warmth should be. And maybe—just maybe—that's the kindest thing he could give them.
And for some reason, in that moment, his mind drifts—unexpected, unbidden—to Bakugou. To the jagged edges of him, the scorching rage that burned hotter than any fire Shouto could summon, the kind that could sear straight through bone. To the cold, uncaring silence, the one that said just as much as his shouting ever did. To the strange, unexplainable comfort of his presence, all sharp corners and restless energy, like standing too close to a storm and not wanting to step away.
He thinks of the hoodie—Bakugou's—still buried somewhere in the back of his closet, its fabric worn soft from use, the faint scent of smoke that used to cling to it. The one that's long gone now. He wonders if the other boy even cares he has it, or if Shouto was the only one who held onto things like that, who kept pieces of people as if they were talismans against the emptiness.
Would Bakugou be angry, if Shouto disappeared? Would he shout himself hoarse at the injustice of it, call him an idiot for giving up, for leaving? Or would that rage burn out quickly, leaving only a hollow quiet behind? Would he be sad? Would he even have the words for it?
Shouto tries to picture it and fails. He can't decide if Bakugou would miss him, or if he'd be relieved to have one less rival, one less complication in his life. He doesn't know which would hurt more—being mourned by Bakugou or being forgotten by him.
And buried beneath all of it is the smallest, most dangerous question of all: would Bakugou care? At all?
He can almost hear the other's voice in his head—loud and relentless, sharp enough to cut through bone. Yelling, berating, every syllable cracking like gunfire. Telling him to get up, to stop being pathetic, to stop wallowing. Then shifting, in the next breath, to that other tone Bakugou gets—the one that turns cold and distant, words stripped down to steel and ice until there's nothing left to cling to. That voice has lived in Shouto's ears for so long it's almost comforting now, a constant ghost that he's learned to expect.
Maybe that's why it takes him so long to realize it isn't all in his head. That the voice isn't a phantom conjured up by exhaustion and self-loathing. That Bakugou is actually here. That the words aren't memories—they're happening, right now, cutting through the haze that's been drowning him.
For a heartbeat, he doesn't trust it. Doesn't trust himself. His thoughts lag behind the world around him, and for a moment he's caught between two realities—one where he's alone on the bridge with his own spiraling thoughts, and one where Bakugou's voice is real, solid, dragging him back.
It's the way Bakugou says his name that finally breaks through. Todoroki. His real name. No walls, no half-bitten syllables, no barbed edge of Half-and-Half or Icy-Hot like a weapon thrown across the room. Just his name. Simple. Raw.
It sounds strange and unfamiliar coming from Bakugou's mouth—like something that doesn't quite belong there—but not wrong. Not unwelcome. There's a weight to it, a grounding force that cuts through the fog in his head and drags him back into his body. Back into the world where Bakugou is really here, close enough that his voice isn't just an echo anymore.
The other boy is close. Closer than Shouto had expected—close enough that he can make out the rise and fall of his chest, the shallow hitch in his breathing, the way the moonlight cuts harsh silver lines across the planes of his face. The realization hits with a jolt, unsettling and sharp: Bakugou had managed to close that distance—had made it this far—without Shouto even registering it. Without his senses catching up.
The thought twists in his gut, an instinctive unease crawling up his spine. His nerves prickle, caught between the impulse to recoil and the weight of exhaustion pinning him in place. How long had Bakugou been standing there, watching him like this? How many seconds—or minutes—had passed without Shouto even knowing?
For a long, suspended minute, Bakugou doesn't move. Doesn't speak. He just stares—eyes wide and locked on Shouto with an intensity that feels almost invasive. Shouto can't read it, can't dissect and file it away the way he usually does, and that—more than anything—puts him further on edge.
There's something in his expression Shouto has never seen before, something raw that doesn't fit the image he's built of Bakugou in his mind. Not the usual fire-forged confidence or the sharp-edged fury he's come to expect. It's something quieter, more jagged at the edges, and—strangely—familiar.
For a fraction of a second, it almost looks like… fear.
But that can't be right. Bakugou doesn't do fear. Shouto knows that already. He's seen the boy face down villains, explosions, and odds that would send most people running without so much as a flinch. Bakugou isn't weak. He isn't shaken or fragile. Not like Shouto—who can barely hold himself together, who's still fighting to keep his breathing steady and his thoughts from breaking apart at the seams.
And yet, whatever lingers in Bakugou's wide-eyed stare makes something cold and unsettled coil low in Shouto's chest—because maybe, just maybe, the thing he's seeing is fear. And the idea of that—of Bakugou being afraid—is the most unsettling thing of all.
Finally, the other speaks again—and it's not just any word. It's his name. His first name.
The sound lands heavier than it has any right to. Two simple syllables, but the way they roll off Bakugou's tongue hits somewhere deep inside, settling in the pit of his stomach like a spark dropped into oil. It burns and warms all at once, spreading in slow, confusing waves that make his insides twist. He can't tell if he likes it—this strange, unwelcome heat curling through him—or if it makes him sick.
It leaves his face hot, flushed in a way that feels wrong against the autumn chill. His stomach clenches, squirming with an agitation he can't name. The sensation crawls up his throat, a tight, breathless pressure that makes it hard to swallow.
And through it all, the sound of his name lingers, reverberating in his head like an echo that won't fade. No one says his name like that—not clipped and professional like his classmates, not hollow with pity like his siblings, not tinged with expectation like his father. Bakugou's voice is rough, unpolished, carrying something sharp and unsteady beneath it, like he's fighting to keep his own balance. But, it's also softer than Shouto's ever heard it before.
He can't bring himself to look at him. The thought of meeting that gaze, of seeing the full force of whatever is burning behind those crimson eyes, feels unbearable. He doesn't think he could hold it—not right now, when he's already splintering at the edges. He already knows what he'd find there: that cutting, relentless intensity that always makes him feel as though Bakugou can see too much, can carve him open with a glance and leave nothing hidden.
So he keeps his gaze fixed downward, on the warped wood of the bridge beneath his dangling feet, pretending the weight of that stare isn't pressing into him, slicing clean through whatever fragile composure he has left.
And then the other asks him if he's alright.
Simple words, nothing more, but they land like a knife between his ribs. He's heard that question so often these days that it's begun to rot from the inside out, turning sour every time it brushes against his ears. It doesn't matter who asks it—Sero with his careful, tiptoeing worry, Midoriya with his hesitant earnestness, the staff with their clinical, detached concern—every time, it slices him open in the same place.
It carves into his chest like a serrated blade, leaving the edges ragged, torn, leaking something hot and furious that he can't quite hold in. That question—always the same, always so hollow—makes his blood run scalding, bubbling in ways he can't control. Because the truth behind it never changes. They don't want the answer. Not the real one. Not the one that festers like rot under his skin.
No one wants to hear that no, he's not alright. That he hasn't been alright for a long time. That he doesn't even know what "alright" is supposed to feel like anymore.
The words cling like a demand he can't meet, twisting tight around the hollow in his chest, suffocating. It's the same suffocating cycle every time: a question that means nothing, an answer he can't give, and the weight of expectation pressing down until his pulse feels like it might split his veins.
He hates it. Hates the way it forces him to choose between lying— I'm fine —or saying nothing at all. Hates that either option feels like surrender. Hates that the question even exists, because it reminds him that people are still looking at him, still expecting something from him when all he wants is to disappear.
And maybe worst of all, he hates that it's Bakugou asking now. Because with Bakugou, it feels different. The question doesn't come padded in pity or sugarcoated in careful sympathy. It cuts clean and unflinching, and that makes it so much harder to ignore.
It's enough—just barely—to make him turn. Slowly, almost reluctantly, he swings his legs back up onto the bridge's weathered wooden planks, the cold rough beneath his bare feet. The river wind hits him sharp and unyielding, slicing across his back like a blade as it rushes out over the open water. The gust unsettles his balance, a small, unsettling reminder of how fragile he feels in this moment.
He stays rooted there, caught between motion and stillness. He can't bring himself to make another move forward, to close the small distance between them. It's like there's a silent barrier—an invisible wall—holding him back.
But turning his back, moving away from the other boy, feels impossible. Because something inside him demands confrontation, even if he doesn't fully understand what it is. He has to face the other. Has to see him, to hear him, to meet whatever truth is waiting in the spaces between their words.
Though what exactly he's searching for—comfort, answers, forgiveness, or something else entirely—he doesn't quite know. All he knows is that he can't turn away. Not yet.
Maybe that's why the words claw their way out of him, raw and ragged, scraping against his throat like shards of glass. It's the first thing he's said all night, breaking the thick silence that's settled over him like a heavy fog.
"What are you doing here?" He barely recognizes the sound of his own voice—hoarse, uncertain, almost brittle in its fragility.
There are so many answers he expects, rehearsed and ready in the back of his mind. Anger. Contempt. Cold accusations laced with venom.
I came for revenge. I came to hurt you. I came to make you sorry for what you did.
He imagines the other's eyes flashing with fire, the sharp edge of a scowl cutting across his face. The bitter words that would slice through him, sharper than any fist—words loaded with blame, anger, and accusations that would tear him apart from the inside out. He braces himself, muscles tight, ready to parry whatever verbal assault is coming next. His heart hammers in his chest like a war drum, adrenaline coiling his limbs, primed for confrontation.
But that isn't what comes.
Bakugou doesn't rise to the bait. He doesn't snap back with venom or lash out with cruelty. Instead, his face softens, the usual blaze in his eyes tempered by something quieter, something almost fragile. His voice, when it comes, lacks its usual harshness—steady, low, carrying a warmth that unsettles Shouto more than any fury ever could.
And that—God, that is so much worse.
Because Shouto knows how to handle rage. He's faced it all his life, in himself and others. Pain and hatred—they're familiar, raw tools he's learned to wield, masks he can wear or break through. But this? This quiet concern? This softness? This hesitant kindness?
He doesn't know how to handle it.
The way Bakugou looks at him now—no anger, no judgment, just something so carefully held back, as if afraid to shatter under its own weight. The way his voice barely rises above a whisper, yet holds more power than any shout.
I came to find you.
To make sure you're alright.
The words hang between them like a fragile thread, trembling in the cold night air, delicate enough to snap under the slightest pressure. Shouto's breath catches, hitching in his throat, as if the very sound of those words threatens to undo him. They wrap around him, surprising in their warmth, like a soft light piercing through a dense, suffocating fog. For a flicker of a moment, he wants to reach out and cling to that warmth—to believe in it, to let it seep into the parts of him long hardened by pain and regret.
But doubt claws at him like a sharp, relentless claw. He remembers everything—what he's done, what he's left behind, the darkness he can't outrun. The man in the alley, broken and blackened in the aftermath of his heat. The cold, haunted look in his mother's eyes, filled with fear and disappointment. The siblings he abandoned, the family ties fraying until they almost snap. These memories crash over him like a tidal wave, drowning out hope before it can fully bloom.
And he knows—deep down, he knows—that Bakugou doesn't understand any of that. The boy standing in front of him, speaking with such quiet gentleness, doesn't carry the burden of those secrets. He doesn't know the full weight of Shouto's mistakes, the poison coursing through his past.
If Bakugou did know—really knew—there's no way he'd be here right now, standing like this, offering kindness that Shouto's unworthy of. Not with that softness in his eyes, that careful tenderness in his voice. Shouto hasn't earned this gentleness. He doesn't deserve it. And maybe that's why it hurts so much. Because what he truly needs, buried beneath the scars and shadows, might just be something he'll never deserve to have.
He turns his head slowly, the movement stiff, pulling his gaze away from Bakugou and back toward the open sky yawning wide behind him. The night stretches endlessly, a canvas of deep indigo and velvet black, scattered with countless pinpricks of light that seem to breathe in time with the wind. The moon hangs heavy and luminous, swollen to nearly its fullest, its pale light silvering the edges of the clouds that drift lazily across the expanse.
Out here, away from the choking haze of the city, the stars burn with a clarity that feels almost unreal. They glimmer in clusters and constellations, like fragments of some greater whole, and for the first time in months, Shouto can almost make out the faint smear of the Milky Way cutting a pale, ghostly swirl through the darkness. It stretches above him, a delicate band of stardust that seems to hum with some ancient, untouchable life, and the sight sends a tremor through his chest that he can't quite name.
It feels wrong, somehow, that something so vast and endless can look down on him—a boy balanced on the edge of a forgotten bridge, drowning in the weight of himself. Wrong that the stars can shine so brightly while he feels so unbearably small, so swallowed by his own shadow. And yet, for one fleeting second, he can almost imagine what it would be like to rise and join them, to break free of gravity's hold and scatter himself across the heavens until nothing of him remains.
Maybe that's where he'll finally find a place to belong.
He can hear Bakugou shift in front of him, the sound of gravel crunching softly under his weight and the subtle rasp of fabric as he moves. It pulls Shouto's gaze back to the boy standing a few feet away, the moonlight cutting sharp lines across his face. Bakugou's fingers twitch at his sides like they're holding back a thousand impulses—fists half-formed, opening and closing in restless rhythm. His shoulders are tight, coiled as if bracing for something he can't name, and his expression—
That same expression. Pulled tight with something raw and unguarded, an emotion Shouto can't pin down. Fear that can't be fear. Bakugou doesn't do fear. Not the kind that shakes you, that digs under your skin until you can't tell if your heart is pounding from adrenaline or dread. And yet, in the furrow of his brow and the flash of scarlet catching the starlight, Shouto can't call it anything else.
His voice, when it comes, is flat. Matter-of-fact, carried more by the pull of gravity than by any real will to speak. He's not even sure why the words leave him at all. Why he keeps giving Bakugou pieces of himself. Why he bothers to break the silence that has always come easier. Why he cares.
Maybe because if he's really going to disappear tonight, then he needs to know—something. Anything. He needs to understand why the other came, why he's here at all, why his presence cuts through the fog clinging to Shouto's mind like no one else's has. Maybe it's just that Bakugou is the only person left who might give him an answer that feels real.
"I thought you hated me," Shouto says at last, the words quiet but deliberate, scraping their way up his throat like they've been waiting there all along. They hang in the cold air between them, heavy and accusing, but beneath them is a hollow he can't quite fill—a need to know if any of it, anything at all, matters.
But still—Bakugou doesn't give him what he's braced for. No sharp-edged confirmation, no searing "yeah, I hate you" spat with the venom Shouto half expects and half craves. There's no rage to meet his own quiet resignation, no vindictive glee that would make this moment simpler. Instead, Bakugou shakes his head, the movement tight and jerky, his voice rough when it finally cuts through the air.
He denies it.
Shouto blinks, slow and disbelieving. The answer lodges somewhere deep in his chest like a splinter. He still doesn't understand. Not really. Can't make sense of it, can't twist the pieces to fit the narrative that has always made the most sense: that Bakugou should hate him, that everyone should.
And yet… the frustration he expects never comes. No sudden rise of anger, no bitter need to push back and demand an explanation that makes sense. Just… a quiet, strange sort of acceptance that settles over him like falling ash. Because maybe that's all there is. Maybe he was never made to understand—never meant to unravel the tangled threads that tie people like together in ways that don't make sense, that can't.
Maybe not everything needs to be understood. Maybe some things just are, with or without his permission.
Still, the other's face twists with something raw, something almost wounded, and Shouto feels it like a punch straight through the chest. He hadn't meant for this—never meant to hurt him. Never wanted to. Hurting Bakugou has never been the plan, but here he is, watching the flicker of that pain cross his features, knowing it's his fault. It always is. Everything he touches, he ruins.
Maybe that's why the words start to tumble out of him—clumsy, halting attempts at explanation that scrape his throat raw on the way out. He doesn't even know if they make sense, if they're enough to bridge the space between them or just sharpen the edges of it. Maybe that's what he wants: to damn himself with the truth. To make Bakugou see him for what he really is. To give him a reason to turn around, to walk away, to leave him in the cold where he belongs.
But Bakugou doesn't. He doesn't flinch. Doesn't back down. Doesn't leave. He just stands there, stubborn as stone, rooted in place like some unshakable force that refuses to be moved by Shouto's confessions, by the ugliness he tries to push out like poison.
And in that moment, it hits Shouto with brutal clarity—like ice water cascading down his spine—that some people will never leave. No matter how jagged he makes the edges, no matter how deep the cuts, there are those who will keep standing there, bloodied palms outstretched, refusing to let him fall alone. And as long as he's still here, breathing, existing, they'll always be in reach—always in danger.
If he truly wants to make it stop, if he really wants to disappear and take the risk with him, then it has to be him. He has to be the one to cut the cord. To take the step no one else will. To remove himself before he hurts them any more than he already has.
And in that realization… the fear that had been gnawing at the edges of his thoughts dissolves like smoke in the wind. No more trembling hesitation, no more choking uncertainty—just clarity. A stillness so profound it almost feels like peace. For the first time in longer than he can remember, there are no questions clawing at his chest, no doubts weighing him down. The choice stands before him, sharp and simple, the only thing in his world that makes sense.
He lets his body tilt backward, surrendering to gravity's pull, and the movement is almost gentle. No violent plunge, no desperate struggle—just a slow, inevitable unmooring, like drifting off to sleep.
As the bridge and its warped wooden slats slip out of his periphery, his gaze catches on the expanse above him, and a strange, almost detached gratitude curls through his chest. Thankful, in some twisted and distant way, that this—this—is the last thing he'll see. The night sky stretches endless and alive before him, awash in constellations that scatter like spilled diamonds, the faint smear of the Milky Way stretching across the darkness like a brushstroke of pale fire.
For a moment, his arms float outward on instinct, wide and open as if to embrace the sky, and in that second, he almost believes it. He almost feels it—the unshackled weightlessness he's dreamed of since childhood. As though the heavy gravity of his body has finally relented, and he is no longer falling at all, but soaring. A bird freed of its cage at last, riding invisible thermals, untethered by earth or expectation.
The calm blooms deeper, flooding his veins like warm water. The roaring ache of his thoughts, the bitter envy that had made him cling to the Awakening—to Edna—eases at last, replaced by something bright and quiet. He understands now. Understands why she chose it. Why she had let go. And the understanding is every bit as exquisite as he'd imagined—like a truth his body had always known but his mind had been too stubborn to accept.
The world rushes up to meet him, and then his back hits the water. It isn't the violent impact he had expected—just a hard, sudden embrace, stealing the air from his lungs in a single crushing exhale. Cold envelopes him instantly, biting deeper than even the autumn air above, threading into his bones.
Black spots bloom across his vision like ink bleeding through paper, spreading outward until all that remains is darkness.
And then… there's nothing.