Recap: "I... I didn't..." Natsuo stammered, his voice failing him.
^ • ^
(Y/N) reached out, her fingers trembling as she caught the sleeve of Shoto's jacket. She didn't pull him back with strength, but with a fragility that stopped him more effectively than any wall of ice.
"Shoto, please..." she whispered, her voice barely a thread in the heavy silence of the hallway.
She wouldn't look up at Natsuo or Fuyumi; she couldn't bear to see the confirmation of her own fears in their eyes. "It's not their fault. Don't be angry with them."
Shoto turned to her, his jaw tight. "How can you defend them after-"
"Because I understand," she interrupted, a fresh, hot tear sliding down her cheek. "I understand why Natsuo is angry. I understand why they don't want me here. You... all of you have suffered enough. For years, you've been fighting to be a family again, to heal from the scars your father left behind. And then I arrived. A reminder of everything you hate. A contract in a silk dress."
She finally looked at Natsuo, her eyes hollowed out by a grief that went deeper than just tonight. "You don't have to apologize to me, Natsuo. You were just protecting your brother from another cage. I'm the one who's sorry. I'm sorry I'm the reason he's standing here yelling at you. I'm sorry I'm the reason the peace in this house is broken again."
She turned her gaze back to the floor, her shoulders slumped in total defeat. "I understand my place now. I'm not a part of this family. I'm just... another debt. Please, Shoto, let's just go. Don't make them say they want me here when we all know it's a lie. They've been hurt enough. I don't want to be the one who hurts them more."
Natsuo took a step forward, his mouth half-open.
The sight of her-not screaming, not defending herself, but quietly accepting the blame for a situation she didn't create-seemed to hit him harder than Shoto's anger ever could.
He saw his own mother in her at that moment: the same quiet endurance, the same belief that her own pain was a secondary concern to the "peace" of the family.
" (Y/N)..." Fuyumi's voice broke. She moved toward them, her hands reaching out instinctively. "That's not-it's not like that. We don't-"
But (Y/N) flinched away from the touch, her breath hitching in a way that signaled she was on the verge of another breakdown. "Please... I just want to go. I just want the noise to stop."
Before Shoto could respond or Natsuo could find his words, the sound of a door sliding open echoed from the back of the house.
Rei Todoroki stepped into the room. She looked at the ice-melt dripping from Shoto's clothes, the guilt on Natsuo's face, and finally, at (Y/N), who looked like she was trying to disappear into the floorboards.
"Fuyumi, Natsuo," Rei said, her voice a calm ripple in a storm. "Go to the kitchen. Shoto... You go too."
"Mother, I'm not leaving her-" Shoto began, his voice defensive.
"Go," Rei repeated, her gaze shifting to her son. It wasn't an order; it was a plea from one protector to another. "She cannot hear what she needs to hear while you are all standing over her like judges. Give us the room."
Reluctantly, Shoto stepped back. He looked at (Y/N) one last time-his heart visibly breaking-before following his siblings into the kitchen. The door closed, leaving the room in a heavy, ringing silence.
The moment the men were gone, the tension holding (Y/N) together snapped. She collapsed, her knees hitting the tatami mat, and she burst into tears.
These weren't the quiet, thoughtful tears of the car ride; these were the jagged, ugly sobs of a woman who had reached the absolute end of her strength.
"I'm sorry," (Y/N) gasped between sobs, her forehead pressed to the floor. "I shouldn't be here... I'm a mess... I'm ruining everything..."
Rei didn't stay standing. She lowered herself to the floor with a grace born of years of quiet endurance and pulled (Y/N) into her lap.
She didn't tell her to stop crying. She simply held her, stroking her damp hair as the girl's grief spilled out.
"They told you that you are a debt," Rei whispered, her voice vibrating against (Y/N)'s temple. "They told you that your only value is what you can provide for the future. I know that voice, (Y/N). I lived with that voice in my head for more then thirty years."
(Y/N) shook her head in the Rei's lap. "But Shoto... he deserves better. He deserves to be free of this. He could have had a life... he could have loved someone else..."
"Listen to me," Rei said, "You speak of Shoto as if he is a victim of you. But do you know what I see when he looks at you? I see a boy who finally stopped looking at the floor. For years, Shoto walked through this world like a ghost. He was cold, (Y/N). Not just his Quirk-his soul was frozen shut. He did everything out of duty. He became a hero out of duty. He visited me out of duty."
Rei reached out, wiping a stray tear from (Y/N)'s cheek. (Y/N) sat up, searching for the truth in Rei's eyes.
"But then he started talking about you. At first, he was cautious. Then, he was curious. And lately..." Rei smiled, a small, sad, beautiful expression. "Lately, when he comes to see me, he doesn't talk about Endeavor or the agency. He talks about how you take your tea. He talks about the way you laugh at things that aren't even funny just to make him feel comfortable. He told me, just last week, that for the first time in his life, 'home' didn't feel like a place he had to escape from."
(Y/N)'s breath hitched. "He... he said that?"
"He loves you with a desperation that scares him," Rei said firmly. "Not because of a contract. Shoto hates contracts. He hates mandates. If he didn't love you, he would have found a way to break that paper months ago, consequences be damned. He stayed because for the first time, he found someone who didn't want anything from him but his heart. You think you are his prison, (Y/N), but to him, you are the only door that leads out of it."
(Y/N) Looked away slightly, her face pale and her eyes wide with a lingering, frantic disbelief.
She looked at Rei, the woman who had lost her youth, her freedom, and her health to a marriage that was nothing more than a transaction, and felt a wave of nausea roll over her.
"He doesn't really need me," (Y/N) whispered, her voice trembling so violently it was hard to understand. "He's Shoto Todoroki. He's powerful, he's a hero, he's... he's everything. He's just being kind because he knows I have no one else. He's taking pity on me."
She clutched her stomach, leaning forward as if the physical weight of her guilt was twisting her insides. "I feel like I might throw up. The air in here... it feels like it's full of lies."
She looked at Rei with a desperate, searching gaze. "Don't you hate me? Please, just be honest. If I were you, I would hate me. I'm the girl who trapped your son. I'm the reason he's tied to a legal document. I'm the reason he's back in the middle of these political games when he should be free. You went through so much pain in a marriage you didn't want... how can you look at me and not see another version of the thing that broke you?"
Rei didn't flinch. She didn't pull away from (Y/N)'s frantic energy. Instead, she took (Y/N)'s hands which were cold and clammy and held them firmly against her own chest, right over her heart.
"That's are not the thing that broke me, (Y/N)," Rei said, her voice like an anchor in a storm. "Enji broke me because he looked at me and saw a tool. He looked at me and saw a way to surpass All Might. He never saw me."
She leaned in closer, her eyes locked onto (Y/N)'s. "I don't hate you. I look at you and I see the person who did the impossible: you made my son feel like he was worth more than his Quirk. You think he doesn't need you? A man can have all the power in the world and still starve to death because no one has ever truly seen him. Shoto was starving until you came along."
Rei reached up and brushed a damp lock of hair behind (Y/N)'s ear. "If Shoto didn't want this, he would be cold. He would be silent. He would be the boy I used to see the one who did only what was required. But he isn't that boy anymore. He's a man who looked like he was about to die because his wife's heart was hurting. Does that sound like a man who is trapped? Or does it sound like a man who is terrified of losing the only real thing he's ever had?"
(Y/N) let out a long, shuddering breath, her head dropping against Rei's shoulder. The nausea was still there, but the sharp, jagged edges of her panic were beginning to dull.
"I'm so scared," (Y/N) breathed. "I'm so scared that if I believe you, and it turns out to be a lie, I won't survive it this time."
"Then don't believe me," Rei whispered. "Believe him. Because he hasn't moved from that door for a single second."
As if on cue, the paper door trembled slightly. Shoto was leaning his weight against the other side, his presence a constant, radiating warmth that even the thick wood couldn't block.
Rei stood up slowly, her movements graceful and deliberate. She walked to the sliding door and pulled it open.
Shoto was there. He wasn't the untouchable "Pro Hero" or the stoic heir to a legacy. He was leaning against the doorframe, his shoulders slumped, his face pale and lined with an agony that mirrored (Y/N)'s own. He looked like he had been holding his breath for a lifetime.
Rei gave him a single, meaningful nod and stepped past him into the hallway, closing the door behind her to give them the one thing they had never truly had: privacy without a contract watching.
(Y/N) sat on the floor, looking small amidst the traditional tatami. She looked up at him, her voice a fragile whisper. "Is it true? What she said? That you... you actually talk about me?"
Shoto didn't answer with words at first. He walked toward her, his footsteps heavy, and sank to his knees. He didn't try to pull her into a hug this time; he simply sat in front of her, closing the distance until their knees touched.
"I don't just talk about you," he said, his voice raw. "I look for you. Every time I finish a patrol, every time I'm in a crowd, every time I wake up... I'm looking for you. Not because I'm checking on an 'asset.' But because the world is too loud, and you're the only thing that makes it quiet."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, crumpled piece of paper. It wasn't the contract. It was a polaroid photo, slightly bent at the edges.
It was a picture of (Y/N) from a few weeks ago, asleep on the sofa with a book on her chest and a smudge of ink on her cheek.
"I carry this with me," Shoto confessed, his eyes fixed on the photo. "When things get bad... when the villains are too much or the pressure starts to choke me... I look at this. I remind myself that there's a home waiting for me that has nothing to do with being a hero. There's a girl who likes spicy soba and worries about the flowers in the foyer."
He looked up at her, his heterochromatic eyes burning with a sincerity that was impossible to fake.
"You asked if I was trapped. (Y/N), the only thing trapping me is the fear that I'm not good enough for you. That my name is too heavy for you to carry. If you want to leave because you hate the Todorokis, I will help you pack. I will give you half of everything I own and I will never bother you again."
He took her shaking hands in his, pressing them to his cheeks.
"But if you're leaving because you think I don't love you... then you're wrong. I love you so much it hurts to breathe. I love you more than my career, more than my father's approval, and infinitely more than any 'biological heir' they want us to produce."
(Y/N) stared at the photo, then at the man in front of her. The "Momo" ghost, the "Factory" label, the "Five-Year Window" they all felt like shadows flickering out in the face of his warmth.
For the first time, she didn't see a hero doing his duty. She saw a boy who had been lonely his whole life, finally finding his person.
"I don't want to leave," she sobbed, finally leaning forward and burying her face in the crook of his neck. "I just wanted to be real to you."
Shoto wrapped his arms around her, pulling her so tight there was no space left for lies. "You are the only real thing I have," he whispered into her hair.