𝐊𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐋𝐢𝐞𝐬 || S. Todoroki x Reader

17 - Strings

Warning: Explicit Language used in the following chapter.

***

Sunlight felt different Outside than it did anywhere else.

In the big black car The Lady had led you into, the sun managed to peek through the tinted windows as you passed by building after building. Your eyes stayed glued to looking out the whole way.

There were just so many people!

You'd read about people in your books, you'd seen the important people in their lab coats with their clipboards as they checked your body for anything and everything.

But this... you'd never seen so many people before!

And no one knew each other, they just kept walking down the street to wherever their destination was.

It was the furthest you'd even been from the HPSC building. Ever. Ever ever.

The skyscrapers are even bigger than he'd said they were.

They stretched so high you couldn't see the top poking out past the clouds. People in fancy clothes and black suits walked in and out of the palaces made of glass, briefcases their weapons of choice as they strode down the cobblestone sidewalks.

You didn't blink for the whole first block, terrified you'd miss out on something and never get to see it again.

"Where are we going?" you asked, still people-watching from your seat. The cushions were black and made of leather that stuck to your legs. The second you'd sat down it felt like the car was swallowing you.

"We're going to see your new house, Y/n, Remember?"

You looked over at The Lady, blinking for the first time since sitting into the maw of the car's backseat. "New house, Sakamoto-san?"

She smiled that pleasant smile.

The kind you give at funerals and graduation parties, Toya used to say.

You didn't tell her you thought her smile was for funerals or graduation parties though because she'd know it was from him. And they didn't like it when you talked about him. Not after—

"Well, we can't have you living with us for your entire life."

"But, why not?" you said, fumbling with your possessions. The old fox, color faded and stuffing molded to your arms. And the elephant charm, shoved deep in your palm, covered with your fingers.

Although it was you and your fox's first time outside the walls of your very own palace of stone and lots of white tile, the old charm had seen these streets, it knew the Outside from living in it.

You gripped it tighter as memories of him passed through your mind like a broken record, playing the same loop over and over to infinity.

Look, Toya. Skyscrapers, I've seen skyscrapers that reach up past the clouds, just like you told me, you said to him.

He probably would've laughed and pulled you to his chest, ruffling your hair and planting butterfly kisses all over your face.

He probably would've said something that would make you smile.

He would've tamed your wild heart, beating against your chest like the dull thud of a hammer.

But he wasn't here anymore.

And you'd wasted enough tears for a storm on the echoes he'd left.

You gripped the elephant charm tighter, burying his face where all his memories festered: somewhere deep in your soul, slowly turning your insides brown with rot.