⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

SHOTO WAS, HONESTLY, RIDICULOUSLY CONCERNED. Since his eventful mess of a first day at UA (and that didn't include the actual classes themselves), Y/N had fled, disappearing into the netherworld.

For.

Two.

Months.

Not a single whisper came from his ghostly friend, and it gave him time to contemplate. He spent hours on end researching the anchor method, resting by swiping through his camera roll and looking at old and (relatively) new photos of Y/N.

Shoto learned nothing about what the Necromantic process truly entailed, but he did learn ... something else.

"Fuyumi," he asked his sister, waiting for her "hmm?" to respond from where she worked at the kitchen table, marking primary school homework books. "How do you know if you're in love?"

She almost banged her knee into the table in her rush to stand and sit with him on the couch, where he was watching some muted TV-show noncommittally. 

"Why do you ask, Sho?"

He refused to give her a response, watching her smirk out of the corners of his bi-coloured eyes, which he rolled. "There's a girl. I don't know if I like her or not."

"Well, tell me about her," Fuyumi insisted, crossing her legs and holding a frilled throw pillow to her chest, grinning behind her rectangular glasses.

Careful to avoid using the name that his sister had heard for years when a younger Shoto had tried to convince her that the ghost existed, he did his best to describe Y/N in as much detail as possible.

"She's [taller/shorter] than me, her skin is s/c, and she's my age. Her hair is h/l and h/c, and it's often messy, but that's ... kinda cute. And she has these ... these amazing eyes, that are e/c and she never hides anything in them. I like the way she smiles and-" Shoto cut himself off. "Oh. Shit."

Trying and failing to stifle her laughter, Fuyumi poked his shoulder with a giggle. "Okay, you definitely have a thing for this girl. Ask her out, Sho, don't be a coward!"

The younger brother made a face, lost in his thoughts as she continued to tease him. Watching, or, more accurately, listening to, his parents arguing all of his childhood until his father had his mother carted off to a mental hospital, had somewhat put off his desire for romance.

But how carried away he had become describing every beautiful aspect of Y/N awakened a raw feeling inside him, a realisation of three things.

Number one - he really liked Y/L/N Y/N, and had for a long time.

Number two - he hadn't been himself since the day she'd disappeared without explanation, losing the will to talk or do anything. He missed waking up with her right there.

Number three - Todoroki Shoto was in desperate need of someone who loved him. Though he was damagingly traumatised by the toxic relationship that had resulted in his birth ... he'd also seen Fuyumi and Natsuo in various other healthy relationships. 

"Sho~?" Fuyumi called, dragging out the 'O' and waving a hand in front of his face. "You in there?"

He blinked, nodding. "Th-Thanks for your help, Fuyumi."

Standing from the couch, he walked to the door decisively, shrugging on a coat and pulling on a pair of sneakers.

"Where are you going, little bro?"

"Somewhere I need to go," Shoto answered over his shoulder. "I'll be back in a couple hours. Bye, love you."

"Love you ... too," Fuyumi told the closing door, confusion etched over her face.

Is this ... the same Shoto? Who is this girl?

≻───── ⋆✩⋆ ─────≺

Shoto folded his arms, considering the silver plaque on the door with a cool gaze. This place was unfamiliar to him, and yet, he hated it already.

It was confining - the walls may as well have been moving like a trash compactor, the way they closed in, everything the same colour, same texture, same, same, same.

In such a place as this, it wasn't difficult to see how people could lose their minds even more than they already had. There was an indescribable unpleasantness to the entire building, just something deep in Shoto's bones.

"I'm probably just overreacting," he sighed to himself, reaching for the polished silver door handle and twisting it open to step inside the room.

Begrudgingly, he had to admit to himself that it was beautiful, much nicer than the sterile hallway he had come from. 

There was a wide window letting clear sunlight into the room, lighting up the space and making it look that much larger. A glass vase occupied by fragrant cobalt flowers sat on the windowsill, right above a neatly made bed with sheets so snowy-pale they could disappear in the full force of the sun.

Upon the bed sat a familiar silhouette, who turned her frosty-haired head towards him at the sound of the door creaking open. Just seeing her face again divulged an avalanche of memories, laughs and whispers of love filling Shoto's ears along with the flashbacks swirling through his mind.

She looked a little confused, and he raised a self-conscious hand to cover his scar, looking at her only with his grey eye ... the one that matched Rei's exactly.

His mother certainly seemed older, though that was to be expected after ten years of separation. She was dressed in a simple beige cardigan rather than the standard-issue hospital gown - an example of the previous confident rebelliousness she had used to exhibit.

It gave him hope that she was maybe that much closer to the woman - the mother - he'd once know.

"Hey, Mum," he said in an uncharacteristically small voice (for a Todoroki), dropping his hand so that the welted flesh around his eye was visible. 

"I missed you, Shoto," she responded, a small smile making her face seem a little warmer. 

She stood, and Shoto almost choked when Rei revealed that someone had been right beside her.

A ghostly figure, fading in the unblocked light of the room, with the same h/l h/c hair and e/c eyes he'd been describing a mere hour earlier.

"Y-Y/N?" 

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