Not Yet

?smaerD : VIII

After getting out and dressing, the young Todoroki glanced at the clock hastily, realizing he would be running late if he didn't leave the dorms right away. Therefore he didn't even bother grabbing anything to eat, and left his room to head to the classroom before the substitute teacher's arrival.

*****

This smell. It was something he was familiar with. Yet, he was sure he never had to smell something disgusting like this before.

"G-go!" A familiar voice shouted. His gaze shifted to the ground, and while he was already having trouble breathing because of the heavy smoke, he lost that ability wholly when he saw his father smashed under a pile of huge pillars of wood from the ceiling.

His body froze in its place. Eyes only seeing one thing. Flames.

"EIJIRO!" His mother's cry could be heard from a mile away. She sounded distant. He was not quite sure if she was outside or right beside him.

Although he felt himself getting dragged out, he still couldn't utter a single word. He was just.... empty.

He could hear the firefighters' screams in the background, he could hear his mother's desperate cry, but the only thing he could focus on was his own thoughts.

'I couldn't do anything! I didn't do anything! He's dead! He's dead he's dead he's dead and it's my fault!'

He collapsed to the floor, landing on his knees, and gasped for air repeatedly. He clutched his hurting chest as the look in his father's eyes wouldn't leave his mind.

He screamed. He screamed in agony. He screamed in fear. He screamed in guilt. He screamed in regret.

He pulled at his hair, his quirk activating unintentionally. He scratched and clawed at his face furiously, leaving a deep wound above his right eye that would definitely leave a scar. His mother pleaded him to stop, but it only fell on deaf ears.

Not only he left his father to die, but he was also causing his mother pain. He wasn't a man. He didn't deserve to be. That was something he was sure about.

'You coward! Not a man! Not a man! Not now, not ever'

"EIJIRO! Please stop!" His mother continued, but to no avail. She tried to stop him from hurting himself furthermore by grabbing his arms, she just lost her husband to a terrible fire, she was not ready to lose her son too on the same damn night!

But instead of stopping, he pushed her to the ground, not really comprehending what he was exactly doing. He started coughing violently, the dark smoke still lingering in his lungs.

He felt suffocated. In every possible way. He couldn't breath, and for a second, he really wished he could just drop dead right there.

"Don't....suffer" A faint voice that he couldn't bother lay any remark to said behind him.

After that, him falling to his mother's warm embrace was everything he could feel, before drifting into deep sleep.

*****

Kirishima woke up rather early. Feeling sick and ready to throw up despite not having a cold. What was wrong with him?

He sat up, paying no attention to the pillow drenched in sweat, and got to the bathroom sink in his dorm room to wash his face.

He looked up in the mirror and realized that he definitely didn't look good.

He was sure he had dreamt about something. But he couldn't remember what exactly, he felt awful dread whenever he tried to, so in the end he stopped trying.

But something, something wasn't right, his heart could tell that it was about someone important to him, but he was sure it was not his mother. Then who? The only family he ever knew was her, and he could tell it was not a friend he dreamt about, but family.

Oh God, his mind was acting weird this morning, telling him that someone died. Did he has a nightmare about his mother dying or some shit?

And his body too. Why the hell couldn't he stop trembling?!

He must've caught a terrible cold for sure!

*****

To put it simply, class was chaos. But without Aizawa sensei, it was to be expected. Even the class representative and the most disciplined one was tired from trying to calm the class down.

Uraraka couldn't help but sigh, she was supposed to be the cheerful one, but this was just too much. Especially with Jiro asking Sero to tape a certain someone to the wall, or maybe two.

But she was mostly worried about both Kirishima-kun and Todoroki-kun. They both were super quiet the whole day. And despite it not being too unusual for the class emo, who literally refused to socialize with any of them, always bearing this grim expression as if he's ready to murder someone, Kirishima-kun was not one to be this quiet at all.

Wait was that a cut on Todorokii-kun's face?

And there was one more student acting weird.

Bakugou-kun.

Is it just because he noticed the change in his buddy's behaviour? Or was it something else?

God! Why's this class so weird?! It's as if they were imaginary characters with the weirdest diversity of the most inhomogeneous sample!

"Everyone!" Mina bursted in through the door as if no poor substitute teacher was trying to teach a lesson here.

Everyone's eyes landed on her. Iida wondering how he didn't notice her absence before. How could he be falling behind with his duties as the class representative?! Unacceptable!

"It's Aizawa-sensei! He is in the hospital with serious injuries!" She exclaimed.

And before long, the whole class roared and bursted in shouts and concerns. Some running, some flipping, some slamming, and some jumping out of windows. (Yes, don't ask)

"Let's go visit him!!!" Bawled Mic-sensei's voice from seemingly nowhere.

"Yeah!" Roared everyone in union.

'I'm... I'm quitting this job...' thought a poor, poor substitute teacher, with tears dropping from underneath the shining glasses.....