THE OTHER SIDE / s. todoroki ✓

three. cold soba

HOW CAN SOMEONE BE SO HAPPY WHEN THEY KNOW THEIR TIME IS LIMITED?

Everyone's time is limited, you guess. Even yours, because you know the time with come for you to stop breathing, to stop living (but was this ever living anyway?), and you had dreamt of the day to come. But that could be weeks, months, years. And here, sitting on a bed in front of you, is someone you cannot let go of, but know that her time is limited despite the smile on her face.

The bouquet of flowers feel heavy in your hand as you hold it, but you know their beautiful smell will bring joy to her perpetually dismal face, and mask the odour of death. Because death has an odour, and you have been engrossed in such a morbid thing for years. Was it fascination to revolt at the rotting of the flesh, which decays painfully slowly? You cannot separate your thoughts anymore, knowing that death has mutated into something new for you.

The moment you step into the room, her eyes light up and it's almost as if she's living... not dying. You had parted ways with Shoto in the reception, it was awkward enough that you had scurried away to the nearest lift, leaving the emotionless teenager with his own bouquet of flowers. But you knew at some point you'd see him again, it would just happen, as if fate would bring you together again.

Your mother smiles as you, and her eyes feel warmer today, despite the drained expression that rests on her face. She weakly moves her hand, gesturing you to come closer to her and you do. Being in the presence of your mother was the only time you stopped being stiff and uncomfortable. And seeing her, despite that fact she looks paler than the day before, as if her skin is being washed away to leave those frail wrinkles, makes yourself glow because she is your mother after all. And my god, do you love her.

"How was your day?" You ask, per usual.

It's how all conversation began between you now. But even though you have followed this same dreary weathering routine everyday for literal years, strangely part of it doesn't want it to stop. It's as if you are trapped, stuck in the cycle of watching your mother fade away. But this cycle is all you have ever known, and experiencing something new is totally unfamiliar for someone like you. In fact, that interaction with Shoto had fractured this rhythm of your life; go to school, go home to do work, go to the hospital, go home again, sleep and repeat.

"Ah," Mum inhales, her chest heaves as she breathes and it's noticeable, "Rather boring. Nurse Akira brought me some vanilla yoghurt." She slowly turned to gesture the half-empty plastic cup on the bedside drawer. Your eyes cannot help but linger on how it isn't completely empty, as if your mother didn't want to eat all of it — no, you correct yourself — she couldn't eat all of it. Was she that ill? Vanilla yoghurt was her favourite, and even though looking at the cup makes you increasingly hopeless, you are still fixated on it, drawn to the sadness, because again, did you really know anything other than sadness and despair?

"How about you?" She coos, and you return your attention to her, "How was your day? And don't say normal."

You chuckle, resting your hand on top of hers, "I wasn't going to."

"I think I met that boy you were talking about yesterday," You begin, your mind drawn back to Shoto and the flower shop.

Her face brightens and she follows this with a tease, "Told you he was good looking. Does he also go to U.A? Is he in the Hero course?"

Your mother has this infatuation with heroes, not a borderline obsession but a wistful affection, as if she longs to be a hero herself. She didn't have a Quirk, one of the few people in the world who didn't pertain one. It was her wishes for you to go to U.A Academy, the most prestigious school for Heroics in the country. You following her dream but you didn't care, you just wanted to make her happy.