Shoto Todoroki Oneshots

Alexithymia

TRIGGER WARNING: forced drug usage

THEMES: Angst, Fluff

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He saw it everyday. Emotion. Something natural yet completely foreign to him.

He saw the way Uraraka laughed at one of Mina's jokes, the upturn of her lips and the joyful sound leaving her chest coming so naturally to her, without a second thought. He saw the way Midoriya displayed so much raw hope, determination, and even sorrow, when out in the field saving those who needed his help. 

He saw the way Bakugou put emotion into everything he did: making extra dinner in the evening, giving his all in both academics and hero training, and then playing video games with his group. He saw the way Denki cracked jokes like it was a second language, and the way Jirou put so much passion into her music. 

He saw, and yet it seemed so foreign to him. Detached, unknown. He felt like an alien most days, walking amongst these people who looked like him and spoke like him and yet felt in a million different ways that he could not. He'd stood in the mirror sometimes, forcing a smile to pull onto his lips, and yet it looked fake, hideous, with the scrunch of scar tissue morphing his face into something grotesque. 

Shoto didn't like to smile. That is, if he even could...

Monday morning, back to school. Shoto woke up to his alarm at 6:30AM and did his usual routine. Stretch, shower, get changed into the UA uniform and then head downstairs to make breakfast. Usually it was something quick and light, his stomach not ready to digest a big meal, so it was some toast or a protein shake and an apple. Then he would make his way to school and read or talk with Iida before class started. 

But he still felt nothing. No excitement at doing civilian rescue practise, no intrigue into learning about the evolving of quirks over time, no anticipating of eating cold soba at lunch time. Sometimes he wondered if he even liked the dish because of the taste and texture, or whether it was something bland or something his father's cruel hands couldn't ruin for him. He just... didn't know. 

Shoto doesn't talk a lot, only offering small comments of support if he truly felt the need, or dry commentary under his breath that rarely the person nearby heard and couldn't help but laugh. He did, however, think. He thought a lot about his quirk, his abilities, his family and classmates, he thought but never felt.

And the reason behind it was the pills he was currently holding in his right palm. They were prescribed by a doctor, apparently, and Endeavour had said they would help his mind and body cope with the duality of his quirk. But he knew that was a lie: for every time he took those pills his mind would blank and body go on autopilot, sometimes leaving him out of touch and numb for days after. 

Endeavour was forcing him to take drugs that induced alexithymia. Severe alexithymia. 

A few pills and he could feel the slithers of emotion run out of him, the smothering indifference to everything and everyone around him, the inability to communicate with his classmates and often sensitivity to sounds or lights that made him recoil inside but remain passive outside. 

Since moving into the dorms, Shoto had hoped he could stop taking the drugs and start living like a normal teenager. But that fantasy was quickly subdued by the slip he was forced into giving Aizawa that let him go home twice a week. His father would notice the signs of change if he stopped taking the drugs, having become used to turning his youngest child into his personal robot soldier, and so each night he swallowed down two pills, choking on the suffocating and twisted hold of nothingness.

It scared him, the inability to feel, to truly feel emotion. But it scared him more if he could. What would it be like to laugh? Smile without force or express anger and frustration and sorrow and loss and hope and fear and determination and-