Todoroki Shouto spends a lot of time just… walking.

He keeps seeing a woman with green hair on the sidewalk. She looks lost, standing by the train stops for hours and never boarding. Sometimes he sees her wandering, eyebrows pinched, hands wringing. Sometimes they speak.

"I'm looking for something," she tells him, softly, "Something… Something I've lost. But I don't know what."

He offers to help.

They wander together. It's quiet.

(~~)

"Shouto?" Fuyumi's voice comes out, crackling, through the phone speaker. "Shouto, I can hear you breathing."

"Sorry," Shouto murmurs, "I'm… out of it."

"How have you been? You sound tired. You're taking care of yourself, aren't you?"

He's silent again. Shouto hears her call his name again, but he doesn't speak up.

(~~)

There's a room on the second floor of the boy's dorm that nobody ever goes into. Sometimes Shouto stops in front of the door, a falter to his step, as though he's meant to be here - this is his destination. Sometimes he reaches for the knob and- he never opens it.

Sometimes he sees other people, Bakugou and Kirishima and Tokoyami and Iida, go by and look at it with a furrow between their brows, or a frustrated expression. But nobody goes in. Nobody truly thinks about what's past those doors.

(~~)

Occasionally, when he sees the woman, he sees her walking with a tall, gaunt looking man with blond hair. They seem to be familiar with each other, though unsure as to why. They walk shoulder to shoulder, heads lowered and shoulders slouched, as though they're sharing the weight of the entire universe between the two of them.

Shouto almost wishes he didn't understand that feeling. It's days like these that he avoids the woman, turns and heads the other way, goes to run off his frustration and spiraling thoughts and the nagging who who who.

It's odd, Shouto thinks; he doesn't remember this stretch of the beach being clean.

(~~)

Bakugou is more volatile lately. He snaps at anyone who gets within two feet of him; even Kirishima, who is usually the balance to Bakugou's unrelenting rage, is sent skittering away with a startled expression. The explosive blond is seething and it shows in everything, as though he's more frustrated than usual. He keeps turning around to the desk behind him, as though to shout at someone, but the only one close enough is Shinsou, who sits another seat back.

Bakugou snarls and resigns himself to simmering in his own rage. Shouto, for once, understands him. It's not that Bakugou is angry, per se, it's more of that frustration that something's off and nobody knows what it is.

He's more vicious during training. Kirishima is the only one who dares to spar with him anymore. All Might doesn't try to stop him. His blue eyes are always distant.

(~~)

When Shouto dissociates, he feels it coming. It comes like a ripple in perfectly still water, stealing his breath first, and then the sensation from his fingertips. He feels the way his soul almost seems to detach from his skin and draw away and suddenly these hands are not his and this is not his body. He feels like he's looking through someone else's eyes, at unfamiliar surroundings and with unfamiliar memories.

He stares at his hands for a long time, only distantly hearing his music in his ears, but the words don't process. He hears the rasp of his breath and the steady thrum of his heart, but every time he takes a breath, his chest feels like it's on fire.

With nothing to stop them, his thoughts spiral.

Shouto doesn't sleep that night. He walks on unsteady feet to the kitchen, where he meets Uraraka and Tokoyami, beneath that lone light as usual. As though expecting him, there's already a second cup of tea in his usual seat. Tokoyami nods a greeting and Uraraka offers a half smile, but none of them speak.

They don't return to their rooms until the sun peeks over the horizon.

(~~)

"Tell me not to do it," he keeps telling someone in his dream, someone with artwork of freckles and a smile that melts Shouto's heart.

"Do you want to?" The voice asks, and Shouto recognizes it and his heart wrenches-

He tells them, "I want to do anything that seems like it might destroy me."

The person reaches out, and Shouto wakes up. He hunches over, jaw clenching, and feels himself on the brink of crying for the first time in a long, long time. He can't remember the last time he cried, but he feels the tears prickling at the corners of his eyes. His chest aches, and he can't figure out why. All he can think about is the person in his dreams, soft voice, gentle smile, the touch of lips on lips, and green green green eyes.

"I think about my past a lot," he'd told someone, "all I ever wanted was to be someone who made him furious."

Shouto is sick and tired of dreaming.

(~~)

"Todoroki-kun," Tsuyu croaks, tipping her head at him, "you look more tired than Shinsou-kun."

"I would take offense to that if it weren't true," Shinsou informs her, attention caught by the mention of his name.

"Don't you have anything better to do than ask me about my sleeping habits?" Shouto half snaps.

He doesn't mean for it to come out so mean, but he is exhausted and his mind isn't processing well. At this point, he's running on black coffee and frustration. Tsuyu blinks twice, seems to realize that interacting with Shouto at the moment isn't the best idea, and then lopes back to her seat.

"Oh, boo-hoo, half-and-half is in a bad mood," Bakugou snarls as he stalks between the rows towards his own seat, shoulders curled forward and eyes narrowed.

Shouto's gaze zeroes in on him and he is suddenly, inexplicably, enraged.

"Oh yeah?" He says, voice calm, cold as ice. "Well that's certainly funny, coming from all the sunshine and rainbows you're spitting out."

It all happens in slow motion. The class goes dead silent, gazes focused on the two as the tension between them slices through the air like a blade. Bakugou halts mid-step and slowly, slowly turns to face Shouto, whose gaze doesn't waver, pointed like daggers.

"What the fuck did you just say?"

"You heard me."

Shouto doesn't feel it when Bakugou punches him. All he knows is he's standing and then he's on the ground, ears ringing, a weight on him. All he knows is Bakugou is across the room and then suddenly he's vaulted over the desks and he's here, straddling Shouto and just swinging. The black splotches clear and fill his vision sporadically, and all he can see is Bakugou's twisted face between swings. Briefly, he catches a glimpse of Aizawa's bands shooting out when the teacher rushes into the room, blurred white streaks wrapping around Bakugou.

Ah, Shouto thinks, as Bakugou gets one last hit in and his world goes black.

(~~)

He wakes with a start in Recovery Girl's clinic.

"Izuku," he breathes.

Shouto's head is pounding and his face hurts like hell, but suddenly he knows and he remembers, and oh god, Midoriya Izuku. Shouto half flings himself out of the bed and ignores Recovery Girl's briefly baffled look, sprinting out of the room.

It's All Might he runs into first.

"Izuku!" He breathes, eyes wide, heart racing. "Midoriya Izuku."

It's like a trigger. All Might falters, and the pieces fall into place. He lifts his gaze, hard and determined. "I'll tell your classmates and the other teachers. You go look for him, young Todoroki."

Shouto doesn't hesitate.

(~~)

It's a quirk.

Shouto knows it's a quirk, because it was the fact that Bakugou had knocked him unconscious that had freed him from it. He hates himself for ever forgetting, quirk or not. The first place Shouto goes is his dorm. He flings open the door, struck with the pure nostalgia of the place.

He doesn't find Izuku there.

His phone rings.

"Todoroki-kun," the voice is Midoriya Inko's and he remembers, and somehow he knows she does too.

It's a chain reaction, he realizes. Once one knows, the others begin to remember. She doesn't sound so lost anymore.

"The hospital. They have him in the hospital. He appeared there this morning."

(~~)

The hospital is not Todoroki Shouto's favorite place. It reeks of chemicals that make him think of death and injury. But he bypasses it, mind focused only on one thing. Izuku, Izuku, he repeats, like a mantra. Once he has the room number, he's walking, walking, jogging, sprinting, flying across the ground, up the stairs, through the door-

There.

Izuku opens his eyes slowly as Shouto approaches, sitting up carefully. He looks okay, and relief sweeps over Shouto.

"Shouto?" He whispers, voice hoarse. "Your face… What happ-"

Shouto moves across the room with purpose, takes Izuku's face in his hands, and kisses him hard.

"I never told you I love you."