Todoroki Shouto can't help but feel as though he's forgetting something.

It's a nagging thought at the back of his mind, prodding and murmuring, telling him something's not right. He can't, for the life of him, figure out what it is. There's a feeling, like his world is tilted and jarred, something's not right, something's missing, the third seat of the row closest to the window shouldn't be empty-

But it is. It always has been.

(~~)

In his memories, his mother is always crying.

"Your left side is unsightly," she whispers, voice trembling pitifully, and his heart wrenches, but then it's nothing but pain pain pain.

He keeps catching glimpses of green eyes.

They made you into a weapon and told you to find peace.

"It's your power, isn't it?!"

Shouto wakes in a cold sweat, chasing after a handful of constellations against tanned skin. There's a name on the tip of his tongue, leaving his mouth raw with pain as he fights to spit it out.

(He flings his blanket away - it's too hot, too stifling, he can't think clearly enough to use his ice - and tries to write down everything he can remember about the- the- the person, but it slips through his fingers like sand.)

Shouto doesn't sleep well at night, constantly plagued by memories of blood and fire and fathomless green eyes. He keeps seeing his father's cruel smile, his mother's soft one, someone's- someone's smile, blinding like the sun, and suddenly he feels whole-

Without fail, he always wakes, blood cold as ice. Something is always missing, fingers stretching to curl for something that he cannot find.

Sometimes he sees the sleepless nights reflected in his classmates' expressions, flickering hollow and lost, laughter dying in the middle of a joke. They fight harder in training, more desperately, expressions twisting with something unreadable.

Shouto usually works alone. There's an odd number of students in Class 1-A.

(~~)

All Might tries not to show it, but Shouto notices the way his gaze strays. In the middle of teaching, he falters, gaze flickering and words stalling. His trademark smile fades, just a bit.

Everybody pretends not to notice when his eyes shift to that empty desk.

They're playing a game lately, where everyone's tongue feels wrong in their mouths, too big and tangled, keeping something from their thoughts that they want to put out in the open but can't. Their smiles seem too big, too tight at the edges, voices too loud and cheerful.

Shinsou Hitoshi replaces Mineta Minoru as the nineteenth member of Class 1-A. He frowns at them when he enters, but joins the game all the same. Everyone greets him with a uniform smile. Shouto does not, and he watches the way Bakugou lowers his eyes, expression hooded. He's quieter, lately, but more irritable.

All Might pulls Shouto aside when class ends, spending a long moment frowning at him. Shouto isn't sure how he feels about seeing the number one hero's ever present grin just vanishing like this. It makes his stomach twist and his nerves buzz over the surface of his skin like electricity. He can't tell if his blood turns to ice or if it's just his quirk, frost creeping.

"You've been distracted," All Might tells him, hand coming down over Shouto's shoulder - right - like a weight, "young Todoroki. If you ever need to talk…"

There's static crackling in his ears.

"You're a terrible liar, All Might," Shouto tells him, "don't think we haven't noticed you acting oddly."

All Might laughs that rambunctious laugh of his. "I keep forgetting not to underestimate you!"

Shouto watches the change happen, as though slow motion. He watches All Might's shoulders lower, and his hand moves from Shouto's shoulder and hovers in the air, just a bit lower, as though to rest on someone else's. Just for a moment, he looks infinitely lost again, eyes dark.

"You feel it too," Shouto states more than asks, because it isn't a question.

All Might's hand drops to his side. He seems resigned, somehow smaller. "Yes. I can't help but feel as though something's missing. Everything - everyone - says that nothing's changed, but…"

"You can't help but think otherwise," Shouto finishes.

He wonders if they're all insane. Shouto turns away, leaves All Might to his somber air and slips away.

(~~)

"You keep staring at your hand," Yaoyorozu tells him, fingers pausing where they're halfway done pulling her hair into a ponytail.

Shouto lifts his gaze slowly. The noise around him comes back - they're in the 1-A common room, he's on the couch with a gap to his right, an unnervingly empty space between him and the corner. The space is just big enough for a body. Shouto looks down again, clenching his fingers closed.

"I just feel like I should be holding onto something."

(~~)

Shouto keeps rummaging around in his memory, pulling out images of the slope of a nose and the soft whisper of an indistinguishable voice. The memories draw forth emotions he's forgotten, unadulterated happiness and warmth.

"I love you, Shouto," the person is saying.

It isn't his mother. When he tries to remember, a migraine renders him immobile. By the time it goes away, the memories have slipped away again. Shouto does not sleep that night. He slips out of his dorm and wanders the hall, sometimes wondering if Fuyumi is up and then never sending a message to her or anybody else.

He hears Uraraka Ochako before he sees her.

Just inside the kitchens, he hears sniffling, quiet and soft, as though the person is stifling them. Shouto has to pause to question himself, to wonder if he's ready to deal with the emotions of someone else, but then he hears the distraught, choked noise again and pushes the door open without thinking.

Uraraka's head snaps up. Her eyes are red and puffy, cheeks streaked with tears, like she's been here for a while. There's a blanket draped over her shoulders and tea on the table in front of her, but he can't see any steam coming from it - it looks cold. A little more of her is gone; he can see it in her eyes. When he looks at Uraraka, he always sees this light in her eyes, something bright and determined and strong. Now, he sees only shadows, suppressed sadness, agony.

"Todoroki-kun," she manages, standing hastily, voice cracking pitifully - and god, it reminds him of his mother - and eyes darting to avoid his, "I didn't realize you were up. I'm sorry, I'll, ah, I'll leave-"

"It's okay," he tells her, sitting down across from her and reaching over to curl his fingers over her cup, "stay."

Uraraka watches, eyes a fraction wider, as he warms it. Slowly, she sits back down and takes the cup when he draws his hand back. He watches, wordlessly, as she takes a drink and her shoulders seem to lower.

"Thank you," she murmurs softly, setting it down again.

Shouto merely shakes his head. "I figured you could use some company."

Uraraka smiles softly and- ah, there it is. It's struggling, but Shouto can see that little flick of light in her eyes. She doesn't say anything for a while, seemingly content to sit in the silence. Shouto closes his eyes and eases into the seat. He won't admit it, but he's having a moment of his own. It's one where his hands don't feel like his own and every time he hears someone else take a breath his chest goes tight like he's breathing through them and not through himself. He wonders why this body is his, why it feels so foreign and slow and wrong.

"You're a bad liar, Todoroki-kun," Uraraka tells him, only a moment later.

Ah. Shouto almost smiles. He forgets she's more observant than he gives her credit for.

"So I am," he replies, voice feeling too loud for the silence of the room.

"Sometimes I think I remember what it was like before," she says, staring down at her tea, fingers shaking. "Do you ever feel like you're forgetting something, Todoroki-kun?"

"Too often," Todoroki tells her. "Too often."

Uraraka reaches across the table and takes his left hand in hers. They stay like that for a long time, hands clasped and heads lowered.

They don't speak again that night, but they grow closer. If anybody notices, they say nothing. Uraraka lingers nearby occasionally during lunch, smiles at him in class. Sometimes he sees her in the kitchens again at the dead of night and they sit together in silence. Her tea is cold when he arrives, and he warms it. Sometimes he's dissociating again when she shows, and a soft touch to his shoulder helps bring him out of it. It's easier to suffer together than alone, so they do. Shouto isn't sure when he started feeling open to others.

Perhaps it has something to do with his missing memories.

Shouto resigns himself to gazing out the window, watching the world go on around him.