THE OTHER SIDE / s. todoroki ✓

two. red chrysanthemums, gladiolus', heather lavenders & peonies

THE NEXT DAY, YOU'RE PERUSING THE FLOWER SHOP.

The day is breezy, wisps of clouds flutter in the clear sky and time feels nonexistent as the sun beams down on earth. This particular flower shop was situated towards the end of the street, squished between a popular clothing store and an old bookshop with depleting customers. The outside was welcoming, chartreuse and light, it emulated a very real and fresh feeling. Hence, you felt compelled to enter it. It was the first time you had been to a flower shop, but you wanted to do something nice for your mother.

So you look around, mesmerised by the colours and entrancing smell of the flowers within your reach, decorated in bouquets and adorning the shelves. Each one is infinitely more alluring than one before, and it takes strength not to sink your soul into such delicacies. Their petals are so soft and precariously lofty that you must resist the temptation to lightly pluck them off the bud, as if snapping a neck. What a dark desire, but we all think it, do we not?

You pull out your phone and scroll through the web, pulling up a website from earlier. It details a list of flowers, because flowers are a way of communication. They are in their own sense, a language, and behind the mask of the beauty of their aura, lies a message to every bud, stem and petal. You think this is stunning for such things to hold their own meanings, flowers carry an innocence and a deceptive allure. Meanwhile, you are but a vessel that lives due to blood flow and neurones firing away.

For a moment, you're not sure what to do. What did you want to say to your mother but you couldn't bring yourself to say verbally? How can ou emulate these overwhelming and pent-up feelings in the form of a bouquet?

I want her to get better, you think. I want her to be happy.

More thoughts come into your mind and soon you found yourself looking around at your surroundings, narrowing your eyes in search of your wanted flowers.

You pluck a few red chrysanthemums from their place on the rack and hold them in your hand, your dry hands clasping the thin stalk. The formation of the petals intrigues you, as if the flower is blooming continually, a wave after wave of petals, all circulating the middle. The red makes them even more powerful, and even though you know this flower, like all, will eventually wilt, the beauty of it in this moment breathes something new and exciting into your life. Chrysanthemums symbolise fidelity, optimism, joy and long life. A red chrysanthemum conveys love, your love for your mother.

A few gladiolus' are picked too, their taffy pink colour a beautiful match. These flowers symbolises strength of character, faithfulness and honour, all of which you desperately wanted to convey to your mother, to remind her to keep fighting.

Next, white heather lavenders, which from what you read online symbolised protection and indicates that wishes will come true. Your grip around the stalk tightens as you think about all the birthday wishes in your childhood for your mother to get better.

Finally, you go to reach the peonies when your hand interacts with other. Both of you are reaching for the same flower coincidentally. You look up first and are met with a teenage boy your age.

You cannot help but become breathless just by looking at him. Taller than you, he looks as well to see you. His hair is long, fickle but doesn't pass his neck. And it is parted twice as to not obscure his vision. So you stare into him, as if to absorb the shock of his beauty. Was this beauty?

The nature of his hair draws your mind back to your mother's description of a boy yesterday. Split exactly into two colours, the right side of his hair is a crimson red, a red that you find your in awe just looking at it, embodying fire and fury and radiating this aura you couldn't quite place your finger on. The left side of his hair was a snow-like white, soft-looking too, as if urging your to run your fingers through his hair.

His eyes too were like this, the left iris was a stunning turquoise, reminiscent of waves crashing against rocks violently, they turmoiled with pain and anguish. You wanted to soothe that desperately, because simply looking at his eyes reminded your of your own self, and the personal despair few could ever relate to. The despair of watching someone suffer. The right iris was a somewhat brownish dark grey, murky but warm to look at it.

And then there was that scar, which might have immediately been what some people instantly look at, but you found yourself looking at it last. It looked like some sort of burn mark, and it covered his left eye, but it didn't feel like some sort of disfigurement, although you didn't know what it did feel like.

Todoroki Shoto is the first to apologise, "Ah, sorry."

You've seen him in the corridors, maybe in the corner of your eye as you enter school, but you have never interacted with him. There was never any reason to, he was in Class 1-A and you were in 1-E. That felt like eons apart in U.A Academy. In fact, the only time you were even in the same room as him had to be when he accompanied Midoriya Izuku (a regular at Recovery Girl's office) to the medical room and saw you sitting on the bed, reading a book nonchalantly.

"No worry," You say and look briefly to see his own bouquet in hand.

You cannot help but arch your eyebrows at flowers he's picked; they're exactly the same as yours.

Shoto won't admit it but when he sees you, he recognises you immediately from school. It surprises him to see you here, because he comes here every Wednesday to pick flowers for his own mother, but he's never seen you once. And he takes notice of your bouquet as well, and tries to put two and two together.

"I'm sorry... about your mother," You blurt in the midst of the awkwardness, and immediately you curse yourself for saying such a thing. You wonder if he thinks you aren't actually sorry, that you're just faking the sympathy for him.

Shoto blinks at this, but remains a stoic expression. "Thank you. I'm sorry about your mother as well. I hope she gets better."

"She... She wouldn't happen to be in Toshima Hospital?" You inquire, thinking again about your mother's comment.

Shoto nods, surprised that you know this. "Is that where your mother is?"

"Uh, y — yeah," You nod, "W — Well, it was nice talking to you." And you start moving towards the counter to pay.

Shoto is still standing where he is, but watches you nervously move away, "You too, (Last name)," He says calmly.

The fact that he knows your name makes your cheeks redden even more and you appear at the counter a little more flustered than you ought to be. But when you hand money over to the cashier, your flustered expression turns to down right embarrassment as you realise you're short on money. It's no surprise, money has always been tight anyway, but this... this was a new low.

And you look at the bouquet in your hand and cannot help but sniffle and hold back tears threatening to spill, because you cannot do even one nice gesture for your mother when she does everything for you.

Just then, Shoto appears behind you, and upon seeing your predicament, offers to pay. He stands next to you, and you watch in this state of paralysis as he hands the money over and pays for his and your flowers.

"Are you going to see your mother now?" You ask curiously, as both of you exit the small shop and onto the quiet street. You trail him momentarily, unsure of what is happening.

Shoto turns, but he nods. Though there is this oblivious expression on his face at this predicament.

"Do you — Do you wanna go to the hospital... together?"

You're fiddling with your hands so much you're worried the bouquet is going to spill.

He pauses, as if to think about it for a moment.

"Yes," He says finally and starts walking already ahead of you.

Upon hearing this, you cannot help but lightly smile at this, and spring across the road to catch up with him. And as you walk with him, this person whom you barely know, you can't help but think you are going to become friends at some point.

author's note: sorry for taking so long to upload, I legit wrote this out 7 different times all in different scenarios and different settings until I decided on doing this. mor info on reader's Quirk will be revealed next chapter :") but imma try my best not to make Shoto OOC lmao