Hikari 光 (Todoroki Shouto x Reader One Shots)

fleeting - angst

warning: meta concept, can be confusing?? i sorta just wrote this in 30 minutes during my break at work because i had a dream about it. the quotes in the first part are the exact words shouto uttered to me in the dream :-)

-

"Even if nobody else remembers you, I swear on my life that I won't forget you."

"Every now and then, you slip from my mind. But even the littlest of things can trigger a memory of you. And then I feel ashamed that I had forgotten you just like that."

 :Even though everybody else has a soulmate in this story you had created, I know that I don't. It's because I was created with the intent of having no one, and you were just an entity who came into the picture whenever you wanted to become relevant."

 "That's why I believe you are my soulmate, because we both share that commonality of nothingness."

 "And that's why I'll wait for you. I'll wait for you until you come back. And once I see you, I know I'll recognize you right away. Because you are the only person in this world who I love."

-

Everybody had forgotten all about you. It made him angry, but then again, he suppose he wasn't any better because he, too, had forgotten you as well.

"Who is this person on my phone?" Midoriya asked Todoroki, and all of his friends surrounding him tilted their heads as if they didn't know who they were looking at.

"That's y/n," the red and white haired boy replied instantly, and then everybody's eyes widened as they suddenly remembered that they did, indeed, remember a person named 'y/n'. But he knew deep down that they will forget about you soon. After all, you had made it so that no one will ever be aware of your existence anymore.

Yes, you were the author of this world they all live in. It was a spin-off, or 'fanfiction' as you had briefly described it some time ago. Everybody who Todoroki knew were just characters, concepts that had no free will, or at least that was what you thought. Right now, the characters were just mindlessly waiting here, and nobody questioned the purpose of their existence. Everybody was moving on with their lives, but not Todoroki. He had realized a long time ago that this was all there was left to this world— this figment of your imagination. And there was no way to escape or anything. There was no choice but to follow your concept and story because you were the creator of this world.

The closest thing Todoroki Shouto had ever gotten to realism was when he spoke to you. He didn't mean the real you. He meant the character you that you had inserted into this story. You picked up that pen or keyboard or whatever the you called it, and you wrote yourself into this world. Maybe you had programmed him to fall in love with you, but it didn't matter. It didn't matter because the one thing he longed the most started to exist — free will. Free will existed whenever he remembered you.

Whenever his body would subconsciously forget about you, he would force himself to remember again. He remembered your laugh, your smile, the food you liked to eat. Even during work, the smallest of things would remind him of you, and it would bring him back to reality, out of this consistent, plain life that defined his character. He also would remember how lonely you looked, the sadness in your eyes as you realized that this world was not your own.

He remembered when you had to go back to your world. You had to go back to the 'reality' you had described. He remembered you letting go of his hand at the time, and he was so confused. Your hand had felt so real, so warm and living, that he looked at you like you were crazy. Wasn't this already reality? He asked you, and he regretted it no later because you started crying.

"No. None of this is real, Shouto."

It took him a while to realize what you had meant. It took him a while to realize that you were both from different worlds. That you had created "this" to escape from the reality of your world. And also that you had forced everybody else to forget about you in order to leave completely.

He felt quite empty after you left. He wasn't sure what part of himself was missing, but it felt like something was supposed to be here, and now it's not. It wasn't until Midoriya showed him that picture of you did he remember everything. He felt like an idiot when he realized that he forgot all about you.

You were the one who he fell in love with.

Now, he was waiting. He waited for you to come back, so he could be reminded that he was real, that he wasn't just an empty husk in this fake world- that he had a purpose, even if maybe his only purpose was to love you.

But he was waiting for such a long time. Maybe you had forgotten about this story you created. Maybe you didn't want to return. Or worse, maybe you had fallen in love with someone else. Maybe it was another fantasy character. Maybe it was a real person from your world. That thought stung a lot. But he still clung onto hope.

There were many types of love in this world. There was a family love, a friendly love, a romantic love. An unrequited love. The type of love he had was the most painful though. It was a love that didn't even exist.

So he waited. And waited. And waited. And waited.

And then, as he sat there on the curb, watching the fading sunset that had no particular substance with it, since it was just a made up thing, Todoroki Shouto felt something cover his eyes.

Warm hands. And then your voice.

"Guess who?"

He remembered. And he was glad that you remembered as well.

Even if this was all a mirage, a delusional illusion, a work of fiction, or a dream that could never be. Even if you were to leave again and decided to move on with your life. Even if you never returned and all he became is but a distant memory of the time you felt so lonely that you decided to go into another universe.

It didn't matter. He was going to treasure these last few moments forever. You were fleeting to him, like a paper boat lost out at sea. A petal that drifted in the wind. He was going to love you, and you only. That was his sole purpose anyways. And he didn't mind it.