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IF THERE WAS ONE THING that Shoto hated above all, it was his father. And if he had to name his greatest fear ... it was becoming exactly like Todoroki Enji.

So, well aware that after Midoriya's straightforward declaration, the most Endeavor thing to do would've been to dismiss him, yell him, say he was crazy, or all of the above, Shoto did the opposite.

"Have a seat."

"Uh- what?" Midoriya stared awkwardly at the bench across from the heterochromatic boy, who rolled aforementioned eyes and gestured towards the seat.

"Clearly we need to talk about our shared friend. Tell me what you know about Y/L/N Y/N."

The other boy finally sat, tucking his hands under his legs in an awkward but apparently comfortable position, staring at the ceiling with a squint of concentration.

"Y/L/N wasn't really my best friend - not really. She just went to the same Kindergarten as me, but she was on a totally different level. Her mother was- is the CEO of Shizuoka Xpress, that hugely popular product company that ships overseas hero technology to Japan, and her dad is a neurosurgeon with a 0.001 failure rate."

"Wow," Shoto blinked. "I didn't know that."

Midoriya shot him a somewhat nasty look that clearly said 'there's a lot of things you don't know', but he continued nonetheless.

"She was always, like, ten times smarter than the rest of us, but I don't think she felt that she really fit in. I was her only friend back then."

The story was obviously getting visibly harder to tell, Midoriya needing to steel himself before every sentence.

"Y/L/N loved her parents and they loved her, but I think they always thought she was older than she was. By the time she was five, they'd leave her alone when they went on business trips, and she knew how to cook breakfast, lunch and dinner. But she was just a kid, you know? She wasn't ready for that kind of responsibility."

"Where is the point to all of this?" Shoto asked, somewhat coldly. 

"I'm getting there." An eye-roll. "Listen, the thing is, she died because her parents weren't there. And I miss her, okay? Can I talk to her, please?"

"How did she die?" the taller boy finally asked. Of all the questions he'd asked Y/N in the years he'd known her, she'd always dodged this one.

He shook his head. "It's really not my place to say."

Frustrated but understanding, Shoto nodded tightly. 

"Can I see her? Please?" Midoriya pleaded, a hint of a scared and sad kid who'd lost his best friend peeking through his teenage exterior. 

Shoto sighed, knowing he could make a hundred different wrong choices here, but there was only one right one. "This is Y/N's choice. I won't make decisions for her."

The green-haired boy practically sagged in relief, standing up. "Thank you, Todoroki."

"Don't thank me yet," was the ominous reply. "I won't let you hurt Y/N, and if you remind her of all those bad things you just said ... let's just say Y/N and I look out for each other. I'm not letting her get hurt."

Midoriya's expression was unreadable. "You really like her, don't you?"

Turning away, Shoto averted his eyes. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Both boys knew a dismissal when they saw one, and the visitor to the lonely table stood, walking away just as quickly as he'd come.

Shoto sighed, almost giving in and burying his head in his arms, which were folded on the table, but he maintained a public composure, attempting to remember the schedule of the day the homeroom teacher, Aizawa-sensei, had been going through.

Quirk Apprehension test, after lunch. 

Good. That left him with some time to go and find his best friend. He abandoned his cold-but-now-colder soba at the table, walking as casually as he could out of the cafeteria, before breaking into a sprint.

Where did you go, Y/N?

≻───── ⋆✩⋆ ─────≺

"Lesson learned," Shoto panted to himself, out of breath from prolonged physical exertion. "Ghosts who know how to turn themselves invisible are hard to find."

He'd swept the entire campus for her, but it wasn't like he could just yell her name. She'd definitely gotten the better end of the bargain being unable to be seen or heard by anyone if she could just  yell carelessly.

Well, that was no longer true, now, he amended mentally. Midoriya could see Y/N too.

What was so special about him, this apparently Quirkless-turned-powerful (he hadn't really been listening to the gossip) boy, that he was now in on a secret just he and Y/N had shared since they were six years old?

Shoto didn't want to admit it, but jealousy was flaring easily in his chest, fuelled by years of loving Y/N ... first as a sister, but now, he couldn't tell head nor tail of his emotions, every feeling in him spiralling and spiralling, drowned by anger and sadness and hate and loneliness-

Drowned out by his childhood.

Y/N had been the light in all of that.

Shoto forced himself to take deep breaths, realising suddenly that he hadn't been running for a while, instead frozen in a corridor, his heart speeding abnormally quickly, the only sound being his rushed breaths.

With a new silence as he calmed, Shoto heard something he should've heard before - a familiar sound he was sadly well accustomed to.

≻───── ⋆✩⋆ ─────≺

Six-year-old Shoto hadn't slept properly for weeks. He couldn't concentrate on his 'lessons', his father getting angrier and angrier, but his insomnia raged and he found himself torn between two worlds in a desperate choice no kid should have to make.

But every night, he never slept, staying up  to be a silent support, as the little ghost girl sitting on the end of his bed curled up and cried. Shoto's heart ripping in two when he properly realised, in that moment, he could never help Y/N as much as he needed to.

≻───── ⋆✩⋆ ─────≺

He could hear those same whimpering sobs now, and he chased them, rounding the corner ...

Bingo.

A [tall/short] girl, faded by the light of the window she stood before, spectral tears running down her cheeks as she sobbed, looking up at the sound of footsteps.

"Sh-Sho?"

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thank you for reading this
book and i hope you enjoy it!
~ jazzi