Chapter Text
His list of people to avoid had gotten longer with each week that passed.
Well—technically, that was a little misleading. If he were being completely honest with himself, the list hadn’t so much grown as it had crystallized into something sharper, clearer, more deliberate. It wasn’t that more people had earned their way onto it. The truth was, Shouto had always wanted to avoid everyone. Always. From the start.
The idea of closeness—of letting someone step into his orbit, share his air, breathe his name—felt wrong. Alien. Dangerous. It wasn’t a balm, the way it seemed to be for others. It wasn’t comfort. It wasn’t warmth. It was confinement. A cage disguised as company.
Being near people—really near them—meant pressure. It meant weight pressing in on all sides: their expectations, their stares, the shifting weather of their moods, brushing up against his skin until he couldn’t tell where he ended and they began. The gaze alone was suffocating. He could feel it—hot, constant—searing like fire against his back, even when no one touched him.
Existing alongside others meant performance. Calculation. Anticipation. He had to be careful with his words, careful with his silences, careful with his face—because any of those things, used wrong, could become a weapon. Or a weakness. Or an invitation he didn’t want to give. It was exhausting work, to hold that balance every second of every day.
It felt like balancing on a wire stretched tight over an endless abyss. The kind that yawns wide, black and hungry, swallowing sound and light alike. One wrong move, one miscalculation, and he would go over. Free-fall into nothing, into a shattering that would strip him bare.
He couldn’t afford that. He couldn’t afford the weight of hands trying to pull him back up, or worse, the look in their eyes when they realized he was broken beyond repair. So no—his list wasn’t longer now. It was the same list it had always been.
But even avoidance took strategy. It wasn’t as simple as turning away. Not here. Not at UA, where the walls felt thinner, where the spaces were too small and the people too persistent. He had learned quickly that some people required more effort than others. Some didn’t just stop at the barricades he built. They didn’t take the hint when he laid down silence like a minefield. They didn’t leave when he made himself sharp-edged and unwelcoming.
They knocked. They circled. They scraped at the mortar with restless fingernails, picking at the weak points, patient and relentless. Some pressed their palms to the glass and peered inside, fogging the surface with their breath, leaving smudges he couldn’t scrub away no matter how hard he tried.
And with their presence came heat. Warmth that wasn’t gentle but scorching—too much, too close. Heat seeped through the cracks, curling into the hollows he’d carved out for himself, filling them against his will. He had no tolerance left for burning. Not from the outside. Not from anyone else.
So he adapted. He learned to prioritize. To triage.
He was grateful for how simple his classmates made it. Grateful in a way that felt like breathing room in a life that rarely gave him any. Most of them had quietly, almost mercifully, given up on trying to interact with him after those first few weeks. Whatever curiosity they’d carried into the start of the term—the wide-eyed interest in the prodigy, in Endeavor’s son—had burned out fast, smothered by the weight of his silence and the frost of his indifference.
Now, they mostly stared. Sometimes whispered behind his back when they thought he couldn’t hear. He always could. The words were soft, brittle little things, fragments of speculation that skittered across the edges of his awareness like dry leaves in the wind. He didn’t mind. That kind of attention was tolerable. Familiar, even. It was background noise—easy to filter out, easy to ignore.
What wasn’t tolerable—what made his skin crawl—was when they tried to close the distance. When they spoke to him. When the voices weren’t floating behind him in hushed tones but aimed directly at him, sharp as arrows. When the air between them felt too thin, saturated with expectation.
That was the part he hated—the expectation. The silent insistence in their gazes, the weight of a question hanging like a blade over his head: Answer. Participate. Be part of this thing you never asked for. Every time, it set his nerves on fire. A slow, insidious burn beneath his skin, like an itch he couldn’t scratch. It crawled up his arms and across his scalp, tugging at the edges of the walls he’d built so carefully, so desperately, to keep himself contained.
The list wasn’t formal, of course. No names scribbled in the margins of a notebook, no secret notes tucked under his mattress, no encrypted digital files locked behind layers of passwords. Nothing so tangible. Just a quiet, meticulous accounting—mental, invisible—etched into the architecture of his mind. A hierarchy of hazards. A catalog of the people most likely to breach the fragile perimeter he’d built around himself. Those who posed the greatest threat. Those who had the power—not just the strength, but the persistence—to knock him off balance, to pry open the seams of his carefully manufactured neutrality.
At first, it wasn’t even a list. A single name doesn’t qualify as a list. It was just one. One person who loomed so large in the shape of his new world that even trying not to think about him felt like trying not to see the sun.
All Might.
The Symbol of Peace. The number one hero. The man whose name drew entire cities into his orbit, whose smile was so bright it burned. The man everyone loved. The man Endeavor hated. The man Shouto had been raised to surpass.
He’d wanted to avoid him long before he even set foot on UA’s campus—not because he disliked him, but because he couldn’t afford to look at him for too long without feeling the weight of every expectation ever pressed into his bones. Avoidance, in this case, wasn’t just self-preservation. It was survival. Because every time his eyes landed on that towering frame, every time he heard the booming cadence of that voice, he felt his father’s shadow crawling up his spine. He felt his own inadequacy humming like static in his veins.
He had never actually met the man in person, and truthfully, he had no desire to. All Might existed on a level that felt almost unreal—more legend than human, more myth than man. Everything about him was too big, too bright, too loud; a towering presence that filled every room long before he stepped through the door. To Shouto, All Might was the embodiment of everything Endeavor despised. A shining beacon of hope that clashed sharply against the harsh, grueling standards his father had set—a reminder of the ideals Shouto was both expected to embrace and resist.
All Might wasn’t just a person; he was a symbol. A living, breathing icon wrapped in layers of bright colors and an unyielding grin so wide it seemed almost too forced, too rehearsed to be genuine. Behind that smile, Shouto suspected, was something more complicated—something carefully hidden. A shadow in the shape of a person, cast long and impossible to outrun.
And yet, this symbol—the very definition of heroism to the world—had been reduced to a schoolteacher. A position that, on its face, should have felt grounding, normal. But to Shouto, it felt like the cruelest kind of irony. The universe’s twisted sense of humor.
When he first heard that All Might would be teaching at UA, it hit him like a punch to the gut. The man who was supposed to inspire, to lead, was now standing in the same classrooms, walking the same halls, sharing the same spaces as students like him. It was as if the universe was laughing behind his back, much like the snickering whispers of his classmates. A joke at his expense, a cosmic joke where the mighty symbol of peace was now just another face in the crowd—yet one impossible to ignore.
Shouto went out of his way to avoid All Might like the plague. Thankfully, that was easier than initially expected—because outside of class, the hero was practically nonexistent. More myth than man in the hallways of UA, All Might was like a ghost, slipping in and out of the school with the fluidity of a shadow. Always gone on some urgent mission, some critical rescue or crisis that only he could handle. He was rarely seen except in fleeting moments—arriving to greet the students with that overwhelming smile, or stepping back into the shadows just as quickly, leaving behind nothing but a faint echo of his presence.
Yet, even when he wasn’t physically there, All Might’s presence seemed to permeate every corner of the building. It was like the air itself thickened around the spaces he frequented, as if his reputation and sheer force of will pushed the atmosphere aside like parting a sea. The very idea of him was enough to bend the energy of the school, an invisible gravitational pull that weighed on every student, teacher, and hallway alike.
Shouto could feel it, even when the rooms were empty—an almost tangible pressure, a silent expectation hanging heavy in the air. It wasn’t just All Might’s physical presence that was imposing; it was the legend, the symbol, the impossible standard he represented. The space he occupied wasn’t just measured in feet and inches, but in stories told in hushed reverence and unspoken challenges. The aura of a hero who had saved countless lives, who had shaped the very idea of what it meant to be a symbol of peace.
And Shouto, despite himself, found that weight suffocating. It pressed on his chest like a storm cloud, a reminder of everything he was supposed to be and, more importantly, everything he was expected to never become. So he kept his distance, avoided the hallways where All Might’s laughter still seemed to echo, and tried not to let the shadow of the hero creep into the corners of his own mind.
Then came Aizawa. His arrival into Shouto’s mental list of people to avoid was swift and almost instinctual—an automatic response that settled deep and fast after their first Foundational Hero Studies class together. It wasn’t marked by any grand showdown, no explosive confrontation or fierce shouting match that would have been easier to process. Instead, it was subtle. Quiet. A confrontation without noise, without spectacle.
He had been summoned to Aizawa’s office—not for punishment, not for praise, but for something far more unsettling. The kind of meeting that leaves no room for argument, just a slow, suffocating sense of being measured and found wanting. Aizawa’s gaze was calm, but it was sharp and unrelenting, like a blade sliding beneath skin to cut something out. It wasn’t the fire of anger that blazed in his father’s eyes, but the cold, precise chill of disappointment that settled in the room like a heavy fog. That quiet stillness that followed a storm, the eerie calm after the wreckage.
In many ways, it was worse than his father’s yelling. Because it wasn’t loud—it was a weight pressing down on his chest, a silent judgment that left no space for defense or retaliation. It was the kind of quiet that screamed. Shouto found himself unable to look away from those steady eyes, the slow burn of Aizawa’s attention fixing him in place, weighing him down. If fear were something that could take shape, he thought maybe it would curl itself like smoke in the stillness of that office, tangible and suffocating.
And just like that, without a word raised above a whisper, Aizawa had earned a place on Shouto’s list—another person whose presence he would dodge, avoid, and brace for, just like he had with his father.
Kaminari followed soon after, but his approach was different—softer in delivery, yet somehow just as piercing in its effect. Where others wielded sharp words or cold indifference like weapons, Kaminari’s presence was a slow, insidious erosion of the barriers Shouto had spent years building. Their training match in the midst of that unforgiving blizzard had stripped something away from Shouto—something he hadn’t intended to show or even admit existed.
It wasn’t pain in the traditional sense. There was no sharp edge or sudden flare of agony. Instead, it was a gentler, far more dangerous sensation. A vulnerability that crept quietly beneath the surface, unassuming but relentless. It was softness—a fragile, tender thing—mistaken for connection. Warmth mistaken for weakness.
He hated how effortlessly Kaminari had burrowed beneath his defenses, how he’d been there when Shouto faltered, catching him with no hesitation, pulling him back from the edge like he was fragile, like he needed saving. That moment had twisted something inside Shouto, leaving an ache that wasn’t quite pain, but wasn’t far from it either.
The sheer unexpectedness of it all unsettled him—Kaminari’s easy laughter, the casual kindness he showed without expecting anything in return. It was a kind of soft brutality, tearing through Shouto’s cold armor not with force, but with persistent warmth and presence. And Shouto wanted nothing more than to slam those walls back up, to shut it all out. He hated the vulnerability Kaminari had drawn out of him. Hated how it unsettled his carefully maintained isolation.
Not to mention the way he had felt after touching the other boy—how his skin had instantly crawled and sparked, as if a colony of invisible fire ants were burrowing beneath the surface, gnawing and stinging with relentless ferocity. The sensation wasn’t just physical; it was an assault on every nerve ending, a burning itch that refused to be scratched, a maddening buzz that seemed to crawl deeper with every passing second.
He had barely made it to the shower before the heat beneath his skin became unbearable. The water ran hot, but it barely dulled the torment. He scrubbed and scrubbed, over and over, desperate to wash away whatever unseen poison had taken root in his flesh. When he finally emerged, his skin was rubbed raw—pink and tender, dotted with angry red marks that cracked and flaked like the pages of a burned book left too long in the sun. Each movement sent fresh waves of sensitivity racing beneath his skin, and he kept his arms wrapped tightly around himself, as if to shield what felt like a battlefield.
He was pretty sure—no, more than sure—that the other boy had used his quirk on him. But why? That was the question that gnawed at him just as relentlessly. He knew well enough that all of his classmates disliked him, but he hadn’t thought it would go this far. He hadn’t believed the animosity could manifest in such a direct, physical attack. Was it a joke? Some twisted prank meant to unsettle or humiliate? Or was it simply because the other boy could—because sometimes, people hurt others without rhyme or reason, just to remind themselves they had power.
Shouto had learned that lesson early on. People didn’t always need reasons to inflict pain. Sometimes cruelty was just a fact of existence—a cold, biting reality as unavoidable as the air he breathed. And yet, even knowing this, the sting of the attack lingered far longer than the physical marks, settling deep into his bones like an unwelcome reminder that in this world, vulnerability was a dangerous thing.
Bakugou was the most recent addition to the list. He hadn’t been there at the very beginning—no, that was reserved for people like All Might or his father—but over time, Katsuki had carved a place for himself in Shouto’s cautious mental ledger.
Shouto had certainly noticed him before. How could he not? Bakugou was impossible to ignore. He was loud, brash, and unapologetically aggressive in a way that tore through the ambient noise of the classroom like a storm. The other boy’s voice was always just a bit too sharp, a bit too commanding, and his presence filled any space he entered with a kind of combustible energy.
And yet, beyond the noise, there was undeniable competence. Bakugou’s power was raw and flashy, explosive in the literal sense—both figuratively and physically. His quirk was the kind that demanded attention, the kind that left scorch marks on the battlefield and lingering echoes in the minds of those who faced him. His strikes were fast and brutal, and his tactical mind was sharp beneath the bluster.
His temper was notoriously short, flaring up at the smallest provocation. His words came out fast and sharp, often cutting more than they intended, his mouth a constant barrage of insults, challenges, and defiance. But it wasn’t just anger or bluster—it was ambition. Pure, unyielding ambition that radiated off him like heat from a furnace.
There was something too loud about him, too volatile—like a firework blazing brightly and dangerously, but destined to fizzle out. Shouto preferred to keep his distance, to observe quietly and precisely rather than engage with the chaos Bakugou seemed to embody.
But as weeks turned into months, and the subtle battles of rankings and reputation played out day after day, Katsuki Bakugou grew more than just a blip on that mental ledger. He became a presence, a force—a puzzle to be reckoned with, if not yet understood.
Still, despite all of that—his overwhelming presence, his explosive power, and that relentless drive that seemed to burn hotter than anyone else’s—Shouto hadn’t really paid him much mind at first. Bakugou was, in many ways, just another blustering classmate, loud and aggressive and impossible to ignore but ultimately predictable in his volatility. He was the loudest storm in a sea of students, but one that Shouto thought he could simply navigate around without much effort.
Until recently.
Somewhere, slowly and almost imperceptibly, something had shifted. Between the start of the semester and now, Bakugou had transformed in Shouto’s eyes. He had gone from being just another overly aggressive boy who yelled too much and threw himself at everything with reckless abandon, to something… different. More precise. Sharper. Focused in a way that cut through the noise and reached directly toward him.
It wasn’t just the general atmosphere of Bakugou’s intensity—it was something more personal. Something aimed at Shouto specifically. Shouto couldn’t say when exactly it started, but over time, he became painfully aware of that burning, watchful gaze that seemed to linger a little too long. The subtle narrowing of Bakugou’s eyes when they crossed paths, like a predator sizing up its prey or an opponent who refused to be ignored.
He didn’t know why.
Bakugou never made it easy to understand his thoughts or intentions. They never spoke unless forced—only the bare minimum of words exchanged, mostly during those mandatory team-ups where circumstance rather than choice drew them together. Even then, Bakugou’s words were clipped, impatient, and sharp, as if he were perpetually annoyed at having to waste breath on someone who wasn’t quite fitting into his expectations.
What made it worse was the way Bakugou never seemed satisfied with Shouto’s performance, like he was trying to solve a puzzle that both fascinated and frustrated him. It was as if Shouto was this quiet, inscrutable equation that Bakugou had been forced to confront and just couldn’t figure out how to break down. A problem he didn’t want to waste time on but couldn’t quite stop himself from obsessing over. And Shouto hated how much it unnerved him.
Lately, that scrutiny had become impossible to ignore. It settled over Shouto like a shadow, thick and unyielding, pressing down on him with the weight of a storm just on the verge of breaking loose. It wasn’t subtle anymore—no longer the kind of casual, half-attentive observation one might expect between classmates. It was heavy. Irritated. Relentless.
Shouto felt it in every moment they shared—whether they were sparring in training or sitting silently in class. It was there in the way Bakugou’s gaze burned into him, never wavering, like a predator circling its prey just before the strike. That storm cloud of attention hovered constantly at the edges of Shouto’s awareness, crackling with an unspoken promise of thunder, waiting, watching, weighing him.
But it wasn’t just that Bakugou had begun to watch him more closely—it was how he watched. There was no casual curiosity behind those sharp, calculating eyes. No mere idle rivalry or distant respect. Instead, it was something harsher, rawer. Judgment. A fierce, feral kind of judgment that felt like it could sear through flesh and bone even from across the room. It was the kind of stare that made Shouto’s skin prick and crawl, as if he were being dissected alive beneath the weight of those relentless eyes.
Every time Shouto dared to glance in Bakugou’s direction, his gaze was already there—like a trap snapping shut. Pinning him down, breaking him apart piece by piece with cold, clinical precision. Searching. Always searching. Looking for any crack in his armor. Hunting for weakness.
And maybe Bakugou wasn’t wrong to look.
Because the truth was, Shouto did have those cracks. They were hidden beneath the controlled exterior, beneath the carefully measured words and neutral expression. Vulnerabilities he kept locked away—weaknesses carved out by his past, by the unbearable weight of expectations, by the parts of himself he refused to show.
During their sparring match, everything that had been simmering beneath the surface finally boiled over. The tension between them wasn’t just a quiet undercurrent anymore—it was a raging current, impossible to ignore.
Bakugou’s movements were something else entirely that day. They weren’t reckless or wild—far from it. Instead, they were razor-sharp, precise, and charged with an intensity that made every strike feel like it was powered by more than just raw muscle or quirk. There was a fire behind each blow, something fierce and dangerous, something that went beyond competition. Hatred, maybe. Or something even more complicated: a desperate, gnawing anger that clawed its way out with every snap of his fists.
The look in Bakugou’s eyes—his smoldering gaze locked onto Shouto with a ferocity that was almost painful—brought something unwelcome and raw to Shouto’s mind. It was a look he recognized all too well. It was the same look Natsuo wears whenever he’s allowed to see his brother. That same haunted glare, filled with a brittle mixture of pain and fury, like Shouto’s very presence was enough to rip open old wounds.
That look—like grief barely held together by the jagged shards of fury. Like every piece of it was raw and festering beneath a fragile skin, threatening to burst open at any moment. It was the look of someone who was trying to make sense of loss and confusion by setting something else ablaze—trying to burn away the ache by burning someone else down in turn.
Natsuo had never been able to hide his feelings, not for a second. His emotions were worn openly and unapologetically—like a suit of armor forged from raw rage and heartbreak. Every word he spoke seemed soaked in bitter frustration, every glare cut sharper than any blade, and every slammed door echoed like a thunderclap announcing the storm inside him. Even in the quietest moments, when his jaw clenched tight or when silence stretched thick between words, the weight of his pain and resentment pressed heavily in the air around him. Whenever Shouto was near, even if Natsuo didn’t voice his anger outright, Shouto could still feel the heavy undercurrent of resentment pulsing just beneath the surface, like a low hum vibrating through the walls.
Bakugou’s rage was different—not the same kind of grief, but it carried a brutal intensity all its own. It was sharper, more focused, but no less dangerous. It was an obsession that burned bright and aimless all at once—a relentless hunger that sought an outlet, even if it wasn’t always clear why or where. That kind of rage wasn’t unfamiliar to Shouto. He recognized it, not because he shared it, but because he had been the target of it many times before. That cutting edge of fury, aimed so directly at him, was a language he knew all too well.
And during that sparring match, he felt it again with brutal clarity. It was like being slammed headfirst into a raging current—a raw, unforgiving force of anger and hatred funneled so intensely that it felt as if it could shred him apart. It was like being caught in the stream of a pressure washer, the relentless spray hammering against his skin, pushing him back with a force he couldn’t easily resist. That unyielding, burning rage wasn’t just around him—it was focused on him, seeking to overwhelm, to dominate, to erase.
In that moment, Shouto wasn’t just fighting Bakugou’s fists or tactics—he was facing the weight of a raw, elemental fury aimed straight at him, a tide he had no choice but to endure.
He didn’t even know why.
He’d turned the thought over once or twice, considered it in passing, like a sharp stone rolling around in his pocket—uncomfortable, but not enough to hold on to. Maybe Bakugou hated him on principle. That kind of thing wasn’t new. It happened a lot. Existing as himself was usually enough to earn that kind of resentment.
But the reason didn’t matter. It never mattered. Shouto didn’t need to understand something to avoid it. That was his rule. His method. His survival tactic. Avoidance as preservation. Distance as a shield. Pretend the fire isn’t real, and maybe you won’t get burned. Ignore. Divert. Disappear.
So, yes. Bakugou had made the list. Quietly, inevitably, like a storm cloud shifting into place on the horizon. Avoiding Bakugou wasn’t about fear—not exactly. It wasn’t hatred either. Shouto didn’t have the time or energy for something as consuming as hate. No, this was simpler. Cleaner. It was about self-preservation.
Because Bakugou wasn’t just loud. He wasn’t just volatile. He was heat. Raw, blistering heat. The kind that burned whether you touched it or not. And Shouto had spent his entire life trying to escape fire.
It was looking more and more like Kirishima, too, would have to be added to that list.
That realization settled into Shouto like a stone sinking through water—slow, inevitable, heavy enough to leave ripples in its wake. He didn’t want it to be true. Kirishima had always seemed… simple. Not in an unkind way—just uncomplicated. Bright where Shouto was shadow. A voice like sunlight, all warmth and blunt sincerity, with nothing hiding underneath. Or so he thought.
But lately, there had been something else in Kirishima’s persistence—an edge Shouto couldn’t quite define. Not sharp, like Bakugou’s jagged rage. Not invasive in the way Kaminari’s warmth had been. It was softer than both, but no less dangerous for it. Because softness was unpredictable. Softness seeped through cracks you didn’t know you had until it was too late.
Kaminari, at least, had backed off. Whether it was because he’d picked up on the signs, or just lost interest, Shouto didn’t know—and didn’t care enough to question. His absence was a relief. Bakugou, on the other hand… Bakugou’s cutting anger and sharp-edged fixation had almost become familiar by now. Like a background hum, irritating but predictable. Shouto could manage predictable.
But the thought of adding another name to the mental list—another person to watch, to anticipate, to navigate around—left a deep exhaustion in his bones. The kind that sleep didn’t touch. The kind that settled in his joints and weighed down his steps, like gravity had found something extra to cling to inside him.
Avoidance took energy. Planning routes, calculating exits, parsing tone and intent before a single word left his mouth—it all demanded something of him. And he was so, so tired of giving pieces of himself away just to keep the world at arm’s length.
The more time passed, the more Shouto realized how little he had understood about the other boy. Kirishima’s presence was deceptively smooth, like a current running under still water—unseen, unnoticed, until you felt the pull against your legs and realized you were being dragged somewhere you hadn’t agreed to go.
At first, he had seemed harmless. Safe, even. Kirishima was loud, yes—but not in the same way Bakugou was. Not like an explosion detonating in a confined space, not like something that shook you to your bones and demanded all your defenses at once. His energy wasn’t jagged. It didn’t slam into Shouto’s walls like a battering ram. It slid through cracks instead—quiet, almost lazy in its persistence.
He didn’t press with sharp elbows or barbed words. No aggression, no snapping teeth. Kirishima didn’t fight his way in. He smiled his way in. And that was worse. So much worse. Because Kirishima was… too nice. Too easy. Too friendly in a way that felt like a trap. And Shouto hated traps.
Kirishima’s attacks weren’t attacks in the usual sense. They were different. Subtle. Underhanded. No shouting, no threats—just warmth, layered over patience, offered like a hand you didn’t realize was pulling you forward until you were already halfway through the door.
There was a cleverness in that, even if no one else saw it. A sharpness hidden behind that open grin, that easy laugh. A kind of patience that didn’t feel natural. It wasn’t the restless, reckless energy of someone who spoke without thinking. No, Kirishima thought. He waited. He chose his moments like someone setting snares in the dark.
It had to be intentional. It felt intentional. The way his words always landed just soft enough to sound sincere, the way he never pushed too hard—but never stopped trying, either. That wasn’t randomness. That was a pattern. That was control.
It was manipulation. Maybe not in the obvious way—no threats, no guilt, no overt demands—but in something quieter, stickier. In the way he created warmth and then offered Shouto a place in it, as if that were something Shouto wanted. Needed.
There was nothing in Kirishima’s behavior that could be categorized as outward hostility. Nothing sharp, nothing that could be pinned down and called aggression. On the surface, it was all smiles and good intentions—warmth packaged in something that looked safe. But underneath that softness, Shouto sensed something else. Something stubborn. Something that refused to let go.
It wasn’t kindness. Not really. It was persistence. Relentless, grinding persistence that came dressed as concern, wrapped in casual jokes and effortless laughter. He would corner Shouto in the hallway under the guise of a friendly chat, blocking the path with his easy stance and his stupid grin that didn’t seem to waver, no matter how flat Shouto’s responses were.
He hovered over his desk during breaks, leaning against the wood with elbows planted like roots, like he intended to stay. His voice would cut through the dull classroom hum, pulling Shouto into conversations he never volunteered for. Sometimes it was harmless small talk. Sometimes it was jokes, little bursts of brightness that made everyone else laugh—even Bakugou, once or twice, against his will.
And then there were the invitations. Lunch in the cafeteria. Training together after class. Hanging out in the with the others after school. Always phrased casually, like it didn’t matter, like Shouto could say no. But when he did, the requests didn’t stop. They never stopped. That was the part that got to him—the insistence. The sheer, maddening consistency of it.
It wasn’t just that Kirishima was friendly. It was that he didn’t back down. He didn’t take the hint. He didn’t flinch at Shouto’s silence or turn away when his answers were clipped and cold. He just… stayed. Again and again, like a tide wearing away at a cliff face.
And Shouto could feel it. That slow erosion. The way every knock on his walls echoed louder than the last. The way every joke, every laugh, every invitation felt like another drop of water against stone—small on its own, but over time, powerful enough to carve through.
He didn’t understand why it bothered him so much. Maybe because it felt calculated, even if it wasn’t. Maybe because it worked—because lately, Shouto found himself answering, sometimes without meaning to. Found himself listening when he should have tuned it out. That wasn’t safety. That wasn’t friendship. That was a trap.
It wasn’t a loud kind of intimidation. Kirishima didn’t stomp or shout or snarl like Bakugou, didn’t barrel through walls or shove his presence down your throat until you couldn’t breathe. No—Kirishima’s version of intimidation was something subtler, something that worked its way in like smoke under a door.
It was warmth. That was the part that unsettled Shouto the most—that creeping, clinging warmth that slid under his skin without permission. It didn’t burn, not like fire. It smothered. Wrapped itself around his ribs until his breaths felt shallow, until every word he didn’t say tasted like guilt.
Because that’s what Kirishima did—he made silence feel wrong. Made rejection feel like cruelty. Every time Shouto ignored him, every time he cut him down with a clipped answer or stared blankly instead of smiling, it was like throwing a stone into water and watching it ripple out across that unwavering grin. Kirishima never looked hurt—never frowned, never scowled—but the possibility that he could, that one day he might, settled like lead in Shouto’s stomach.
And that was the trap, wasn’t it? That unspoken expectation. That quiet pressure to be something he wasn’t. Always being watched, always being measured—not in the harsh, blazing way of his father, but in something softer, more insidious.
Shouto didn’t understand it. Didn’t understand why this boy, of all people, insisted on pushing against walls he should have known were there for a reason. Was this calculated? Some kind of strategy to get him to lower his guard? A trick to make him pliant, so that when the strike finally came, Shouto wouldn’t see it coming?
It sounded paranoid when he thought it like that, but paranoia was survival. He knew what came after smiles. He’d seen this tactic before—too many times to count. Soft smiles. Gentle hands. Voices so warm they could melt frost. Until they didn’t. Until that warmth coiled tighter and tighter until it wasn’t a blanket anymore, but a rope.
A scarf turned noose.
He had plenty of experience with false kindness. It was a language he’d been fluent in since childhood—a dialect of smiles sharpened into blades, of gentle tones laced with poison. He had seen it before, over and over, from people far more dangerous than Kirishima could ever dream of being. People who wore kindness like a costume, every word and gesture stitched together with bright thread to hide the black rot beneath.
He knew the signs. He remembered. A hand, warm and steady, reaching down to help him up after training—only for those same fingers to curl into a fist, swinging down, splitting skin and leaving purple blooming across his jaw. A soft laugh, an arm looping loosely around his shoulders—before it tightened. Tightened and tightened, until it was a vice, until his ribs ground together like gears in a broken machine and he couldn’t breathe no matter how hard he clawed at the grip.
And worse, so much worse, was the way the warmth always came first. Always lured him in with something soft, something that felt like safety. Like a sunbeam breaking through frost. Until it burned.
Until it blistered, hot-hot-hot, searing through the layers of control he had wrapped around himself like armor. Until it turned cold, so cold, freezing him in place with the knowledge that he had been fooled again. Trapped again. That no matter how hard he tried to anticipate it, no matter how high he built his walls, it would always come.
A mother turned to fire. Burns. Freezes. Hurts. Hurts. Hurts— He could feel the echoes of it even now, crawling down the backs of his arms, prickling in his fingers like frostbite and fire sharing the same space. That was what Kirishima’s persistence tasted like. Not warmth. Not kindness. A promise. A warning. A ticking clock. A screaming kettle.
He had learned—burned, branded into his memory—the hard way that warmth was never free. There was always a cost, always a hook buried in the soft flesh of it, waiting to rip. Kindness wasn’t a gift; it was a weapon. A lure meant to draw you close, lower your guard, make you pliant and open. And then—when you were soft enough, trusting enough—the strike came. It always came.
It didn’t matter if it was real or not. Genuine kindness could still kill you. Maybe that made it worse—when it was real. When it felt so good you let yourself believe, even for a second, that you deserved it. That it wouldn’t vanish like smoke or turn sharp and cut you to ribbons. That maybe this time was different. He’d been that fool before, and the scars still glowed every time the memory touched him.
So now, when he saw warmth, he didn’t feel comfort. He felt teeth.
And Kirishima… Kirishima was all teeth behind a grin, whether he knew it or not. The way he reached out, the way he smiled like sunlight breaking through clouds, the way he refused to let go no matter how many walls Shouto stacked between them—it was wrong. It was familiar in a way that made his stomach knot and his pulse stutter in his throat. That persistence, that relentless optimism—it was a slow-acting poison disguised as sugar.
Shouto wasn’t going to drink it. He wasn’t going to let Kirishima pull him close just to watch him break. He wouldn’t be fooled again. Wouldn’t be dragged back into that old game of warmth and ruin. He’d been there once—felt it in his skin, in his bones, in the places where his mother’s love had burned red, then iced over blue until he couldn’t tell which part hurt worse.
He would not let history repeat. He would not let Kirishima trick him the way his mother had.
Distance. That was the only safe choice. Stay on his side of the glass, where no one’s hands could reach in and tangle him up, where no warmth could slip past the cracks in his armor and spread like infection. For his own safety, he would keep the line. And if that meant being cold, distant, cruel—then so be it.
He just wished the other boy would take the hint.
For as long as Shouto could remember, his father’s presence had been the only constant in a world that otherwise shifted like sand beneath his feet. It wasn’t the gentle steadiness most children might imagine when they thought of a parent’s presence; it was a harsh, blistering kind of constancy—unyielding, merciless, as consuming as wildfire. His father’s demands had filled every corner of his life like smoke in a sealed room, choking out anything soft, anything free. The weight of it was crushing, yes, but at least it was there—a structure, a frame, a rigid spine he could brace against.
And now? Now it was gone. Vanished so abruptly it was disorienting, like stepping off a stair that wasn’t there. One moment, that searing force pressed down on him, shaping him with every word, every order, every expectation—and the next, it had slipped away like smoke curling from a dying flame. No grand departure. No warning. Just absence. An emptiness so sharp it felt wrong.
The sudden quiet of it made his ears ring. The silence wasn’t relief—not in the way he’d thought it would be. It was something stranger, something colder. A hollow ache that stretched wide inside his chest, echoing in places he didn’t know existed until they were empty. It was like someone had stripped the heat from his bones, leaving only frost in its wake.
For years, that heat—scalding, oppressive, inescapable—had anchored him. It had told him who to be, what to want, what to hate. It had been unbearable, but it had also been purpose. A brutal, relentless sort of purpose, yes, but purpose nonetheless. And now, without it, he felt unmoored—adrift in a vast, indifferent ocean with no land in sight. No father’s voice to steer him, no suffocating presence to rage against. Just emptiness. Just cold.
After everything—after all the years he had spent wishing for freedom—he couldn’t even recognize what to do with it now that it was his.
Before Shouto had ever stepped through the doors of UA, his life had been ruled by ritual. Not just a schedule—a doctrine, something carved into his bones so deeply that it no longer felt like choice but inevitability. The routine wasn’t just structure; it was survival. It was certainty in a house that offered none. It was the only constant in a world where everything else was sharp edges and sudden firestorms.
Every morning began the same way. Before the sun. Before the birds. Before the world even remembered how to breathe. The alarm would blink its harsh, crimson glow across the dark room, each number bleeding into the next— 5:00 AM , unwavering and merciless. The first time, years ago, that number had felt monstrous to him. It was an hour made for shadows, not for waking. Back then, his small body had ached for more sleep, for softness, for anything warm enough to cling to. But over time, the ache had dulled. Sleep became a weakness, a thing for lesser people, and he was not allowed to be lesser.
He learned to rise at that hour without hesitation. Learned to fold away exhaustion like another layer of clothes he didn’t need. The darkness stopped feeling heavy; it became familiar. A second skin. The cold of the floorboards beneath his bare feet stopped biting and instead became grounding—a reminder that pain was normal, pain was fine, pain was safe if it meant progress.
He memorized the house at that hour: the silence so thick it felt like glass, the faint hum of the refrigerator in the distance, the creak of his father’s steps pacing the hall like a metronome to which Shouto’s life kept time. There was a rhythm to those mornings, a cadence carved from discipline and demand, and Shouto learned to match it perfectly. Wake. Dress. Stretch until muscles screamed. Push until lungs burned. Ice, fire, ice, fire—control, control, control until nothing slipped.
The world before dawn belonged to them—him and his father—and in some twisted way, that had been a comfort. The routine was a leash, yes, but it was also a lifeline. It gave him a purpose so consuming there was no room for doubt. No room for questions. No room for… anything else.
They would sit together in the study for breakfast, a room that never felt like a room meant for living—too pristine, too calculated, like every inch of it had been designed for control rather than comfort. The air was always too still, almost brittle, like one wrong word might make it shatter.
Even there, even in that forced proximity, there was a distance so sharp it felt like a blade. They didn’t speak. They never spoke—not really. The silence wasn’t companionable; it was suffocating, thick with everything that went unsaid. Every breath felt measured, every small sound magnified: the scrape of cutlery against porcelain, the soft clink of a teacup meeting its saucer, the faint rustle of newspaper pages as they were turned with methodical precision.
And always, always that current of expectation—taut and humming—pressing against his skin like static. It wasn’t loud, but it was relentless. An unspoken command to sit straight, to eat neatly, to be perfect without being told.
They never ate the same thing. Never shared food the way other families did. There were no passing dishes, no casual requests, no overlap. It was segregation disguised as civility. His father’s plate always heavy, full of protein and power—meat seared dark, steaming rice, greens dressed with something sharp. A soldier’s fuel.
Shouto’s was different. Always the same. His own ritual, carved out like a small island in a sea of control: one slice of multigrain toast, plain, and a single boiled egg perched like a pale stone on the plate. No salt. No butter. Nothing unnecessary. It was simple, predictable—utterly devoid of indulgence.
And he clung to that simplicity like a talisman. The repetition grounded him. The blandness was a shield. It was something he could control when everything else in his life was dictated by someone else’s will. The taste never changed—dry toast that crumbled at the edges, the faint sulfur bite of egg yolk. It wasn’t joy. It wasn’t even comfort, not really. But it was familiar. Familiar was as close to comfort as he could allow himself.
The study’s clock ticked like a metronome through it all, marking the seconds of silence, until breakfast was finished and another day of training—or punishment, or both—began.
His father, on the other hand, never settled for the bare minimum. His meals were lavish affairs, as carefully curated and commanding as everything else he did. The aroma of his food would drift into the room like an unspoken announcement—thick and intoxicating, a warm, rich promise that teased Shouto’s senses but was never offered to him.
There were thick, juicy steaks, seared just right so the edges curled and caramelized into a perfect crust, the scent of sizzling fat mingling with hints of rosemary and garlic. Stacks of golden pancakes, fluffy and inviting, would be piled high, their surface glistening with melting butter and syrup that pooled like liquid amber around their base. The sharp, smoky tang of bacon crisped to perfection cut through the sweetness, a contrast that made the whole table smell like indulgence itself. Eggs scrambled in decadent butter, creamy and rich, seemed to ooze luxury from the plate.
Each morning, the scents wove through the air, filling the study with a kind of richness that Shouto was painfully aware he was barred from tasting. His mouth would water involuntarily, and his stomach would tighten, growling quietly—an echo of longing and hunger he dared not acknowledge aloud.
Yet, despite the hunger and the tantalizing smells, Shouto remained silent. His hands steady, his jaw clenched, he nibbled on his slice of plain multigrain toast, every bite dry and unremarkable in contrast to the feast before him. He did not speak. He did not complain. He simply watched. Watched his father eat with a detached sort of enjoyment, the kind of self-satisfied ease that came from absolute power and control.
His father’s presence at the table was as commanding as his meals—calm but authoritative, the way he cut his food precise and deliberate, savoring each bite in a way that seemed to mock Shouto’s own sparing existence. That silent, unyielding control made Shouto feel even smaller—like a shadow tucked away in the corner of a room meant for kings.
It made a harsh kind of sense, really. His father was a hero in the truest, most tangible sense—someone who bore the weight of responsibility on his broad shoulders every single day. The kind of hero who fought villains in the streets, saved lives teetering on the edge of death, and faced dangers that would break most people. His strength wasn’t just physical; it was endurance and focus, honed over years of brutal, unyielding effort. His father’s life was a battlefield, and every victory was carved out with sweat, pain, and sacrifice.
He had earned everything he took—every lavish meal, every sharp glance of authority, every inch of respect and power. There was no question about that. It was as natural and inevitable as the sun rising.
And then there was Shouto. What had he earned? What had he done to deserve anything more than the cold crumbs left in his wake? He was still just a boy. A boy stumbling through expectations so colossal they felt like mountains crushing his chest. A boy whose very existence seemed to be measured against an impossible standard, one crafted by the unrelenting hands of his father.
No matter how fiercely he pushed himself, how many hours he spent training alone in the cold, how many times he forced the flames within to roar and obey—nothing ever seemed enough. The flames faltered; his control slipped; the power that should have been his birthright betrayed him time and time again.
He was flawed. Incomplete. A failure in the eyes of the man who mattered most. His efforts, no matter how unyielding, were never more than half-measures compared to the relentless perfection his father demanded.
His father’s work was important, and so too was the reward that came with it. The meals his father ate, rich and abundant, were tokens of a life earned through sacrifice and glory. And Shouto? What did he have? Only his training—a ceaseless cycle of flawed attempts, the sting of unmet expectations, and the bitter taste of failure that clung to his skin like ash.
It was a daily, unspoken reminder of the vast, yawning gulf that stretched between them—between the towering expectations laid upon his shoulders and the meager achievements he could claim. Between the raw, undeniable power his father wielded with effortless authority, and the quiet submission Shouto felt compelled to embody. Between the man his father was—unstoppable, revered, commanding—and the boy he was expected to become, a mere reflection forged in the shadow of impossible standards.
Of course, the man deserved larger meals, richer meals, the kind of sustenance that fueled legends. The disparity was obvious, painfully so: his father’s plate was piled high with thick, savory cuts of meat, golden stacks of syrup-drenched pancakes, and crispy bacon sizzling with the promise of indulgence. Meanwhile, Shouto’s modest slice of plain multigrain toast and solitary boiled egg felt like a token, a small offering from a world he was never quite allowed to fully inhabit.
The divide wasn’t just in the food—it was in the space between them during those quiet mornings. The sharp contrast of their worlds settled heavily in the silence that enveloped the breakfast table, thick enough to suffocate. Yet, in that silence, Shouto learned to mask the turmoil within. He forced himself to accept the gulf, to shove down the gnawing ache of inadequacy, and endure the cold sting of knowing that, no matter what, he might never be enough.
He learned to swallow the bitter taste of failure with the same mechanical precision as he chewed his bland breakfast. After the last bite, he rose quietly, without a word, collecting their plates with deliberate care. His movements were practiced, fluid—always without so much as a glance toward his father, always without any hint of acknowledgment. The weight of unspoken rules pressed down on him, heavier than any spoken rebuke.
His father, in turn, would finish his meal and leave without a word, his departure as routine and expected as the rising sun. No goodbyes. No parting advice. Just a silent exit, an unspoken command that the day had begun and it was time to fulfill their separate roles once more.
The routine was rigid, unmoving, carved into their lives like stone. And Shouto had long since learned that in this carefully choreographed dance, words were unnecessary. They were replaced by an understanding forged in cold necessity—the understanding that distance, both physical and emotional, was not just a space but a boundary he dared not cross.
They both knew what was expected of Shouto in his father’s absence, though no words were ever exchanged to articulate it. The expectation hung heavy in the air, an unspoken command etched into the fabric of their daily lives. It wasn’t something that needed to be said aloud—both of them understood perfectly well what the routine demanded.
Shouto moved toward the kitchen with the quiet inevitability of a clockwork mechanism, his steps measured and unhesitating. Washing the dishes had become more than a chore—it was a ritual, a steady rhythm that he had come to depend on when everything else in his world felt disordered and uncertain. The hot water splashing over his hands, the sound of soap bubbles popping, the rhythmic swish of his arms scrubbing each plate and glass—it was a tangible sequence that grounded him, tethering him to some semblance of order amid the chaos of expectation and disappointment.
There was no emotion in the task. No room for bitterness or sorrow. Just movement. Just action. The familiarity of the motions carved a protective barrier around him, a shield from the swirling currents of judgment and unspoken resentment that filled the house. This was something he could control, something he could accomplish without faltering.
He wasn’t good enough in his father’s eyes. He wasn’t the perfect son or the ideal successor. He was a flawed, uneven piece in a puzzle that never quite fit. Yet here, in this simple act of washing dishes, there was a quiet victory. At least the plates were spotless. At least the glasses shone with clarity. At least something in this fractured household was clean, whole, and unbreakable. In this small task, Shouto found a fragment of dignity. He wasn’t good enough. He wasn’t what his father had wanted. But the dishes were clean. At least he could manage that.
Once the dishes were cleaned and the table cleared of all remnants of breakfast, Shouto would retreat silently from the kitchen, moving with the same mechanical precision that marked all his actions. Without a word, without hesitation, he made his way to the training room—a small, austere space tucked away from the rest of the house, where light filtered through high windows and the cold air was tinged faintly with the scent of burnt embers and sweat. It was here, away from prying eyes and spoken expectations, that Shouto faced the relentless demands his father had set before him.
The room was sparse but functional: a worn training dummy scarred with countless strikes, a mirror that reflected every flaw in his stance and every twitch of tension in his muscles, and the bare floor where he traced the movements again and again until they became instinct. He moved into position, his fingers curling slowly as he summoned the flame that always seemed to burn just beyond his full control. Some days, it was nothing more than a timid flicker, a hesitant dance of heat that barely warmed his palms.
But on those rare days when his focus sharpened and his body remembered every lesson burned into him, the flames would come alive—bright and steady, curling around his hands like obedient serpents. He could feel the power surge beneath his skin, that familiar heat that was supposed to be his strength, his legacy. The flames would snap forward in precise arcs, cutting through the stale air and hitting the intended targets with satisfying accuracy.
In those moments, there was a flicker of something rare—a fragile hope—that he was moving closer to the impossible ideal his father demanded. Every successful strike, every perfect burst of flame was a step toward mastery, toward earning that elusive respect and approval that always seemed just out of reach.
But even then, the progress was tentative. The fire could still falter, sputter, and die out unexpectedly, reminding him that despite his efforts, perfection was a distant goal, always slipping further away. Still, Shouto practiced with quiet determination, driven by the unspoken need to prove himself—not just to his father, but to the part of himself that longed for acceptance, for validation, for the warmth he had been denied.
When his father returned home in the evening, the very air seemed to shift with his arrival. His presence filled the doorway like a looming shadow, stretching across the room and swallowing the light. Even before the heavy footsteps crossed the threshold, Shouto could feel the weight of his gaze descending upon him—a silent, piercing scrutiny that cut deeper than any words ever could. His father’s eyes moved with a surgeon’s precision, sharp and unforgiving, as if he were not looking at a son but at a project, a problem to be analyzed and reshaped.
That look wasn’t warm or kind; it was clinical and exacting, as though every small detail of Shouto’s posture, his expression, the faint tremble in his fingers, were being cataloged for failure or success. In those moments, Shouto felt less like a boy and more like a specimen on display in a laboratory—something to be examined under harsh light, picked apart for imperfections, something to be fixed, molded, and perfected according to an impossibly high standard.
The intensity of that gaze was suffocating. It crushed whatever flicker of confidence or hope he had managed to nurture throughout the day. As his father’s eyes swept over him, the fire within Shouto—the small, stubborn flame that had given him even a shred of warmth or purpose—would instantly sputter and die, leaving behind a hollow, aching emptiness. It was a familiar void, one that had taken root long ago and grew deeper with every encounter.
That emptiness was not just physical, but emotional—an echoing hollow inside his chest where pride, comfort, and self-worth should have lived. Instead, it was cold and vast, a cavern where dreams went to suffocate. The crushing silence that followed was heavier than any words, a quiet that spoke volumes of unspoken disappointment and unattainable expectations.
Shouto would stand there, motionless and small, as though shrinking away from the shadow that was his father’s presence—waiting, enduring, knowing that this was the price of belonging to a legacy he both feared and longed to inherit.
Unfortunately, words alone were never enough for his father. No matter how much Shouto pleaded ( argued , his father would say), how fervently he tried to explain the progress he had made, how sincerely he defended the small victories, or how passionately he promised to push himself harder—the response was always the same: cold dismissal. What Shouto considered proof of growth was met with skepticism or outright refusal. His father didn’t want to hear about progress in vague terms or through secondhand accounts; he demanded to see it with his own eyes, to witness the strength and mastery that he believed his son was capable of achieving.
He never did.
It was unpleasant for both of them.
The cycle repeated itself day after day, a rhythm so steady and predictable that it had become the backbone of Shouto’s existence. Every morning began the same way—the cold, relentless alarm pulling him from restless sleep, the quiet shuffle to the kitchen, the mechanical act of eating breakfast in silence, the solitary cleanup, the hours spent in training—all of it carved into his life like grooves worn deep by constant use. It wasn’t a happy life by any measure; far from it. There was no joy in the repetition, no warmth in the ritual. But there was contentment—a cold, quiet contentment that came from knowing exactly what to expect, from living within the bounds of something safe and familiar. That routine was his refuge, a fragile shield against the chaos of a world that often felt too large, too loud, and too demanding.
Within those rigid patterns, Shouto found a measure of control, a sense that even if nothing else in his life was certain or kind, he could at least count on this. The routine was predictable, and that predictability was a small mercy. It was the foundation that held him steady when everything else threatened to unravel.
Then UA came along, and everything changed.
Suddenly, the familiar rhythms that had grounded him were shattered. The early mornings with his father, the silent breakfasts, the long hours of solitary training—those anchors were ripped away, replaced by a barrage of new faces, unpredictable social dynamics, and expectations that felt both overwhelming and alien. The structure he had clung to for so long was fractured by the relentless pace of classes, team exercises, and the unspoken pressures of fitting in or standing out.
The safety of his routine was gone, vanished as if it had never existed at all. In its place was uncertainty—chaos disguised as opportunity—and Shouto felt himself adrift in a sea that offered no familiar shores. What had once been a predictable, if cold, certainty was now a swirling storm of unknowns.
He wasn’t just lost. He was unmoored. The absence of routine left a hollow ache inside him, an emptiness that no amount of training or new challenges could fill. The world beyond his carefully constructed habits demanded things he didn’t know how to give—friendship, openness, vulnerability. He had no blueprint for this new life, no map to guide him through the shifting landscape of UA. For the first time in years, Shouto was forced to face a truth that he had never truly been prepared for: that comfort and safety were illusions.
Now that Shouto was enrolled at UA, the distance between him and his father had grown wider than ever. His father barely spared him a glance these days, his attention consumed by bigger battles and loftier ambitions. Where once there had been a shared morning ritual—a silent, almost sacred time spent sitting together at the breakfast table—now there was only absence. The small, tangible connection of eating side by side, of sharing the quiet moments before the day’s demands took over, had been erased. It was a subtle thing, almost easy to overlook, but its loss cut deeper than any harsh word or punishment ever had.
Despite the change, Shouto’s body refused to adapt. His internal clock, forged by years of relentless discipline and rigid expectation, still jolted him awake at exactly 5:00 AM each morning. It was an ingrained reflex, a programmed response his mind and body clung to even when the meaning behind it had vanished. He would lie in bed, staring at the ceiling in the dimness before dawn, feeling the familiar hollow knot in his chest—the silent reminder that the man who once stood beside him at that hour was no longer there.
Shouto still went through the motions: rising, dressing, preparing himself for the day ahead. But the ritual had lost its warmth, its purpose. The kitchen was quiet in a way that felt unnatural, the air heavy with unspoken words and absent presence. No longer did the clink of his father’s cutlery punctuate the morning, no longer did the faint steam rise from a plate set across from his own. The absence was a sharp void that seemed to expand with each passing day, reminding Shouto of what had been taken from him—not by words, but by neglect.
That simple act of sharing breakfast—a moment so small and ordinary to others—had once been a lifeline, a fragile thread of connection amid a sea of cold expectations. Now, it was gone. Taken away silently, without fanfare or explanation, leaving Shouto alone with his thoughts and the gnawing emptiness that came from being so close, yet so utterly distant.
The first time Shouto attempted to sit down at the breakfast table after starting at UA, he was met with an icy, cutting glance from his father—so sharp, so heavy with unspoken contempt, it felt like a blade twisting deep inside his chest. That single look spoke volumes, louder than any harsh words could have been: he was not welcome here. His presence was an unwelcome disruption, a reminder of some inconvenient truth his father wished to ignore. The warmth that had once lingered, however faint, was utterly gone—replaced by a cold dismissal that radiated from his father’s eyes like a frozen wind.
Shouto didn’t argue or protest. He didn’t even hesitate. The message was undeniable, clear as crystal, and it crushed something fragile inside him. So he withdrew silently, his movements small and careful, as if trying not to disturb the brittle stillness that had settled between them. Instead of joining his father at the table, he collected his breakfast from the kitchen counter—simple, unadorned, like the routine itself had lost its meaning—and retreated to his bedroom. The door closed behind him with a soft click, sealing him away from the cold distance of his father’s disapproval and the heavy weight of unspoken rejection.
Sitting alone in the quiet of his room, Shouto felt the loneliness press in on him from all sides. The meal, eaten in solitude, tasted bland and hollow. There was no shared silence, no mutual presence to anchor him through the morning. Instead, there was only the echo of absence, a stark reminder that the fragile connection they once had had been severed.
Yet, even in this quiet exile, there was a small, begrudging acknowledgment. His father still left his dishes for Shouto to wash after breakfast—an indirect recognition that, despite everything, Shouto was still present in the household, still expected to carry out the mundane tasks that maintained its fragile order. It was a cold kind of validation, but validation nonetheless. At least that much remained constant in a world that had already shifted beneath his feet.
Even though his father no longer appeared beside him in the training room, no longer lingered to watch or offer critique, the crushing weight of expectations remained firmly in place. Shouto kept to his routine with quiet determination, moving through each exercise with mechanical precision, as if by sheer force of will he could pretend that nothing had changed. The rhythms of training—the flicker of flame in his palms, the controlled release of heat, the endless repetition—offered a fragile thread of familiarity in a world that was shifting beneath his feet.
But beneath the surface, everything was different now. The absence of his father’s presence was not a relief; it was a wound that throbbed with quiet pain. Without the watchful eyes, the sharp instructions, or even the scolding disappointment, Shouto was left alone with a silence so loud it swallowed every flicker of hope. That silence wasn’t peaceful or empty—it was deafening, thick with neglect and the unbearable weight of abandonment. It pressed down on him, suffocating and cold, far harsher than any harsh words or angry rebukes ever had been.
His father had stopped caring. More than that, he had stopped pretending to care. No more false encouragements, no more empty promises of belief. The pretense that Shouto was making progress, that he was still worthy of his father’s attention, had crumbled like brittle ice. The look in his father’s eyes whenever they met was vacant now, void of the spark that once demanded excellence but at least acknowledged his existence. Instead, there was only the unmistakable weight of resignation.
Shouto felt that resignation settle deep inside him, twisting his insides in ways he didn’t have words for. It hurt—more than he could say, more than he could allow himself to admit. It was a quiet ache, a hollow space inside his chest where something essential had been stripped away. He wanted to scream, to fight back, to demand that his father see him, recognize him, believe in him. But instead, he bore it alone, swallowing the pain with clenched teeth and a stiffened spine. The man who had once been the axis of his world had turned away, and in that turning, Shouto’s world tilted dangerously off balance.
At night, dinner became yet another stark reminder of how profoundly alone Shouto had become. The upstairs study—a place of gatherings and shared moments—felt like a cavernous space, echoing with absence. His father was never there; usually off somewhere else, absorbed in work or training, leaving Shouto to silently retrieve his plate from the kitchen. The weight of solitude settled over him as he carried his food, each step heavy with the knowledge that this was his existence now—a solitary routine devoid of warmth or connection.
As he moved past the doorway to the dining room, the faint murmur of voices would spill out like a current—Natsuo and Fuyumi’s voices mingling effortlessly, rich with easy conversation and laughter. Their words wove together in a tapestry of familial intimacy that was so natural, so unforced, it only underscored Shouto’s own exclusion. The laughter sounded like a melody from a distant world, one where he had no place, no role to play. It was a warmth he could hear but never feel, a comfort that only deepened the hollow ache inside him. In those moments, Shouto felt painfully aware of his status as an outsider—an invisible ghost haunting a home that was not truly his own.
Sometimes, perhaps when his footsteps were louder than intended or a floorboard creaked beneath his weight, they would notice him. A sudden silence would fall over the room like a drawn curtain, a pause so sharp it cut through the easy atmosphere. He would catch a glance flicker toward the doorway—brief, hesitant, filled with a quiet recognition tinged with discomfort. The voices would falter, conversations abruptly ending, replaced by the heavy stillness of unspoken thoughts. That silence lingered until he was already out of sight, having rounded the corner and begun the slow climb up the stairs, retreating far, far away from the warmth and light he was never meant to share.
In those moments, Shouto’s heart clenched—not from anger or resentment, but from a profound loneliness that settled deep into his bones. He wasn’t part of their world. He never had been. And the echo of their laughter, the softness of their voices, was a constant, painful reminder of the distance between who he was and who they were—between the family he longed for and the isolation that had become his reality.
His bedroom sat directly above the dining room, and on the nights when the loneliness felt heavier than usual—pressing down on him like a weighted blanket—he would sometimes find himself lowering his plate to the floor, setting his ear against the cool wooden boards beneath him. The grain of the floor would bite faintly against his skin, but he didn’t care. If he stayed still, if he held his breath and strained hard enough, he could catch the faint hum of voices rising up from below. Soft murmurs, laughter now and then, the delicate clinking of cutlery against porcelain plates—all the fragile, intimate sounds of a family he had never truly belonged to.
If he focused, really focused, the murmurs would begin to take shape. He could almost hear their words, though they were often fragmented, smudged at the edges by distance. Sometimes it was just the cadence of their conversation, the lilting rise and fall that spoke of comfort and ease—of love freely given and received without condition. Other times, he would catch actual words: Natsuo teasing Fuyumi about something trivial, Fuyumi’s soft laugh in response, the kind of laugh that felt like it could warm the entire house. Those sounds would seep through the floorboards like heat from a fire, curling into his cold room and setting something aching deep in his chest.
And it hurt. It hurt so much more than he ever let himself admit. To feel so close, and yet so impossibly far. To know that no matter how much he longed for it—no matter how fiercely some broken, starved part of him craved that warmth—he would never truly be invited into it. Not really. Even if he walked downstairs right now and sat at the table, even if they smiled and said his name and pulled out a chair, it wouldn’t change the truth. They would never speak to him the way they spoke to each other—with that casual, unthinking companionship, that easy intimacy forged from years of trust and safety he had never been allowed to share.
He would always be different. Other. The reminder of everything ugly that had burned through their lives and scarred them all.
And still, he couldn’t bring himself to stop listening. Even as his chest tightened to the point of pain, even as his stomach knotted and tears—silent, searing, relentless—slipped from his eyes and traced down his cheeks in delicate rivers he hadn’t even known were still possible for him. Even then, with his throat thick and raw from holding back sound, he pressed his ear closer. He drank in every word, every laugh, every small, ordinary sound, like a starving man clawing for scraps at the edge of a feast.
Because even scraps were better than nothing. Because even if he couldn’t have it, even if it gutted him, it was something. And through it all, through every second of that quiet, private agony, one truth circled endlessly in the hollow space of his chest.
He just wished his father would look at him again.