You visited his grave every year.

Touya Todoroki: 199— to 201X. Beloved son and brother.

You hated that. Beloved. Like it was simple. Like the fire didn’t crack him open and leave his family holding ashes and guilt.

You were fifteen when they buried the idea of him. And seventeen when you started whispering at his gravestone like he could hear you.

“I didn’t want to go,” you’d say, year after year, kneeling in the dirt. “I never wanted to leave you.”

You told the stone about your new school, your new town, how quiet everything was without him. You left things behind—snacks he used to like, the dumb bracelet he’d tied around your wrist the day before you moved. You’d sit for hours, until the air grew too cold or your throat too raw.

But Touya never answered.

Because Touya was dead.

Until he wasn’t.

⸻

The sky was burning the day you saw him again.

Smoke clung to the streets like a second skin. Screams echoed down crumbling alleys. You’d been evacuating people when you turned a corner and saw him—standing alone in the fire like he’d built it just to keep everyone else out.

White hair. Burnt skin. And those eyes.

“Touya?” you choked out, frozen.

He turned slowly. And when he saw you, something flickered in his expression—recognition, maybe. Regret.

“Well,” he said, voice dry, “you finally stopped talking to my grave.”

You stared, breath hitched. “You were alive? All this time?”

“Alive’s a stretch,” he muttered. “But yeah. Surprise.”

You took a shaky step forward. “I thought you were dead. I mourned you. I—I talked to you.”

“And I listened,” he snapped, a spark lighting behind his teeth. “From rooftops. From alleys. You think I didn’t want to say something? You think I didn’t scream every time you left that damn cemetery?”

Tears welled up. “Then why didn’t you? Why let me think you were gone?”

“Because I was mad,” he hissed. “Because you left, and everything fell apart, and I needed someone to blame, and it was easier to hate you than admit I missed you.”

You flinched. But you didn’t back away.

“I visited you every year. I brought that bracelet.”

He went quiet.

“I tied it to the stone. You remember that?”

He looked away, jaw tight. “I took it. The year you stopped crying.”

Your breath caught. “Why?”

“Because that’s when I knew you were starting to let go,” he whispered. “And I wasn’t ready to be forgotten.”

You didn’t speak.

Not for a long time.

And then, quietly: “I never forgot. Not for a second.”

He looked at you then—fully, for the first time. And his voice broke.

“…I know.”