𝐊𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐋𝐢𝐞𝐬 || S. Todoroki x Reader

26 - Circumstance + Response = Outcome

Thank you for all the support to the fic recently, it is so motivating!

Also thank you for your patience as uploads become weird, I'm still trying to adjust to my new school.

Remember to drink water,

- Bo <3

—

You'd never met your parents, never had the feeling of a mother's warm embrace, never felt someone hold you tight and utter comforting nothings into your ear.

Though they'd introduced Hawks as 'Papa,' the name had worn down over the years and lost its potency.

Hawks was just... Hawks.

You remember asking about it once.

'Where are my parents, Sakamoto-san?'

She hadn't even looked up from her paperwork. 'It doesn't matter, Y/n. You've never needed them. You have Hawks. And you have us.'

That was the end of the conversation.

But sometimes, when your mind spun and your body shook, you wondered what it would've felt like to have someone like that.

Would you have different memories? What were your parents' jobs? Were they heroes or ordinary citizens?

Did they love you even if it meant letting you go?

***

When your body undergoes an event that you see as stressful or frightening, it will trigger an automatic physiological reaction.

Some called it fight or flight.
You just called it hell.

Whatever glass box that had formed around you and Todoroki in the wake of scarred memories had shattered the moment his hotel room door fell shut. Its sound repeated until you could hear it playing over in the empty sockets of your brain, a never-ending loop of harassment.

After you started pawing through the contents of your bag to find the single piece of your past that might've offered some semblance of stability, you realized your hands were shaking. So much so it was a fight to draw up music on your phone and drown the silence in a sea of strings.

You'd tucked yourself into a corner of the room, the table you'd wrenched out of the way sitting pointless and out of place.

Your hands still shook as one clutched a pillow so tightly that the fabric whined, the elephant charm dancing in your other hand.

'What would Touya do right now?' you thought. 'What would he say?'

The questions were pointless; you already knew what he would've done.

He would've held you close, pressed his lips to the crown of your head, whispered phrases like "It will be okay" even though it was probably a lie, and "Remember to breathe" when your lungs felt a hair's length away from folding in on themselves.

The more you turned over his charm to the beat of the music, the more you remembered that he wasn't here.

If you closed your eyes for a moment, you could fool yourself into feeling his warmth spreading across your arms, soothing the burning cold in your bones.

Your back still tingled with the feeling of muscle relaxant, the memory of Todoroki's fingers pricking the back of your neck.

Would he pull you close? Would he whisper into your ear? Would he—no. No.