How are you supposed to remember someone's voice when you barely remember their face? How are you supposed to let yourself remember them at all when all you can think of is the pain they caused you?
The pain you caused them?
It becomes somewhat of a paradox.
You let yourself think it's okay to forget, because they've probably forgotten you.
You fall into the graces of ignorance and let what you've let go become part of a blurred past.
Todoroki believed in that for over ten years of his life.
He woke up in the mornings, washing his face only to look up into a mirror where he couldn't bear to see half his reflection:
The redness that crept from his hair down and around the blue of his eye...
He forgot his mother.
He chose to forget all about her.
But in that singular moment- in the fight with someone he was supposed to not care about, someone he was supposed to cast aside in order to win, he remembered.
And he didn't remember pain.
He remembered his mother's warmth.
Her voice, her face, her touch, her everything.
He remembered her fire.
Purely lost in himself, as the cold so keen on overtaking his muscles began to melt, he breathed through his teeth in shuttered sounds, his body shaking.
He held onto her words.
Used her fire for his own. Then, his eye, the one that shown blue in lineage he wished wasn't true- it's redness made way to his flames.
And as the world wondered what would happen next, Todoroki's quirk raged and angered through his body, begging to be let out.
When it was, the fire spread around him like an explosion, with power the likes of Bakugo's quirk could possess.
Everyone gasped, able to feel it, the red and yellows mixing and climbing the sky in a spiral.
Your classmates all had to sit back, cover their faces at the sudden heat spreading through the stands. All of them stared, their jaws dropping at the sight, even you.
You who was holding onto the boy at your side just to stay upright.
A smile crept to your lips.
One of the real ones Bakugo admired so much.
You smiled as a relieved sort of laugh left your lips, tears staining your cheeks.
"He wasn't trying to beat him." You said breathlessly, flexing your fingers around Bakugo's hold with a tremor. "He was-"
He was trying to save him.
That's what you wanted to say, looking down at Shoto;
who's flames were raging around his body, the look on his face not one of rage or anger or sorrow, but the same will to win that Bakugo and Midoriya held.
The pride in your heart kept the smile on your lips, kept the relief in your voice.
But you couldn't say the words.
You couldn't say anything.
The bittersweet feeling in your gut wouldn't let you.
It only held one attribute and it was the fact that Shoto would win.
He would go on and so would you.
So what if Izuku achieved what he'd tried and proved that Shoto's words were a result of his anger.
It wouldn't change the fact that Endeavor would finally achieve what he'd wanted.
It wouldn't change the fact that the wedge a decade in the making would finally be driven between you and his son.
