✓LIFE SENTENCE|| TodoDeku Au

☆Fifteen☆

~ Third Person P.O.V ~

"Cheek throbs with the pulsing heat of your love, heart aches with the dying promise of infidelity."
—BisexualCricket, Poetry Journal 

"He took that from me Todo . . . He took my will to live,"

Shoto had perennially discovered himself being engulfed by those final words for the past few months, only to slip out of them in the unrelenting fear of dying at their hands. He had never taken the proper steps to actually grieve any of the many deaths that he felt he had caused, especially the latest one. Grieving, mourning a loved one's loss was a concept that was quite anomalous to him — something he would never be caught doing no matter the consequences. Because to him, mourning a death that you held responsibility for was rather selfish; for he felt he could have done more to impede each and every one of them.

However, taking the blame was a notion he understood with great intellect. It was something that came so effortlessly, it was practically child's play to him. He knew it was imbellic of him to do so, for all the psychology courses he had taken taught him so, yet it did not put a halt to it. For now, Shoto finally comprehended why some psychology patients did the exact same thing — but as opposed to learning from their mistakes he fed into them. Again, not the most cerebral course of action on his end.

Alas, his guilt proved to be too strong for him to handle on his own in spite of his knowledge of how to deal with it. How stupid was that? To be in the process of learning to become the very same person who could help himself, yet instead of using the information he knows, Shoto shy's away from it. Shoto had truly become the broken and battered patient he was being taught to provide aid to. 

And while the rational part of him knew damn well there was nothing wrong with that, that he was human and imperfect just like everyone else on this God-forsaken planet. Yet the irrational part had already taken enough damage from all of his past failures and mistakes, he already felt the unrelenting weight of them all — so being 'imperfect' or 'broken and battered' did not seem to be an option.

Damn it, maybe he could have done more to save them . . . his two best friends . . . the two people who had meant the world to him. If he were only there for Dabi a few minutes earlier, he could have taken the hits for him — he was impenetrable after all, unlike his friend. And Shinsou . . .

Fuck. 

All the signs were so damn clear with Shinsou, yet he had been too blind with excitement and happiness to clearly see them. Shoto had made the grave mistake of finally allowing himself to be the center of attention after all these years, and it came and bit him in the ass. He had always put others above himself, it was the many traits he had formed from the blood-curdling fear of losing anyone else. But he wavered, for a fraction of a second he dropped any priorities he felt he had to put first and focused solely on himself for once.

And damn it he was happy. It felt good to concentrate on his needs and wants, his goals and dreams, everything he had set forth to do was just within his grasp. He was too enthralled with visions of his own success, that was his downfall in the end. 

"He took that from me Todo . . . He took my will to live,"

The last words he ever heard from him, still playing on loop. 

Shoto found nearly found it comical — in a sick and twisted way, he truly did. If the sweet melody of death couldn't consume him properly, it'd do the next best thing . . . It would attest dominance over those closest to him until there was nothing left. Hell, if there was a God, the duel-haired man knew without a doubt this was his way of teasing him — mocking him. He could almost envision the haughty laughs of mockery now.