Facade | Suicidal Todoroki x Bakugou

28 | Breaking Down

Shouto Todoroki

Stop crying, Todoroki inwardly vilified as his grip on his breathing steadily unraveled. Why are you like this? You're pathetic. You can't get up, you can't go a day without medicating, and you can't even stop yourself from crying. He felt like his tears had welded together into the lump in his throat.

"Why? So you can go cut in the bathroom?" Unvarnished and gruff, Bakugou's words were bullets fired through Todoroki's head at point-blank range.

Stifled sobs began to drip from Todoroki's mouth, but he was unable to choke a response out of himself. Do you understand the weight of just one sentence? It takes less than even a sentence to shatter someone's trust. Someone's day. Someone's life. Without the indifference you took from me, I'm...nothing. Without the pills you prevented me from taking yesterday, I'm constantly sad. Without the blades you tried to get rid of, I'm unstable. He felt a warm, familiar weight on his shoulders. I don't want to be dependent on these things to keep myself in check and keep going, but I don't want to go back into those dark times again with just the hope that I'll make it out with a genuine smile.

"I'm sorry..." Bakugou whispered as he gently lifted Todoroki into his lap.

Curled into the warm arms of the person showering me with nothing but love and kindness, and yet, I feel cold, empty, and alone. Todoroki attempted to still his jagged breaths, but his body pulverized those breaths with undulating tremors of sorrow. Why won't the tears stop? Why won't these feelings dissipate? Why can't I...

As Todoroki's body was ensconced by the warmth of Bakugou's arms that he simultaneously adored and abhorred, he could feel his own breaths seeping into Bakugou's shirt. "It's fine..." he replied in a hushed sigh.

"We can go out when you're feelin' up to it." Like flecks of dust drifting through a stream of sunlight, Bakugou's voice gently evanesced into the shadows. "And I didn't mean to say what I did. I'm sorry, Shouto." A soft sob trembled across his chest from Todoroki. "It's all right... I'm here..." His sonorous whispers slowly soothed Todoroki's mental entropy as a few minutes transformed into thirty minutes.

This is what I am without my pills and my indifference... Todoroki realized as a wave of drowsiness and an all-encompassing exhaustion besieged his body. I'm...so weak. I don't mean a thing. All I do is cry and sleep. Everything else...is too much to handle. Why bother picking myself up? Why do anything? Why keep living? There's...someone I don't want to let down. Someone I choose to spend so much time with every day. Someone I know that loves me and smiles because I'm here. And yet, I do nothing to tell him about how grateful I am for him.

"We can still go today," mumbled Todoroki; his voice interwove with the threads of Bakugou's shirt. "I just... I don't know. I feel better now." Although his bruised body rebuked him for his actions, he embraced Bakugou with the majority of his dwindling strength. "I love you, Katsuki..."

...and that's the truth. I denied it for too long. I was afraid to say it, but now that I have, it feels so right. It's not just another part of my lies. I know I lie to everyone and even myself, but this isn't a lie. Or, if I'm just lying to myself, I think that's my best lie so far.

A sheepish chuckle rather than a conceited snicker whistled from Bakugou's throat. "You don't know how fucking happy I am to hear that... I'm proud of you, Shouto, and I love you more. Tch. Look at you, gettin' me to say this cheesy shit."

After their snug, mellow hug had become a warm, fuzzy memory, Todoroki and Bakugou soon found themselves venturing to the mall. The previous day, Bakugou had drawled on about how Todoroki was almost out of everything in his dorm, and thus was the destination of their excursion conjured up.