11Stay and Watch the Snow Epilogue
The sun had barely peaked over the horizon, it would be met with a grey-cloudy blanket across the sky, not allowing for its golden rays to illuminate the world beneath it's glory and remove the wintery aesthetic from the country of Japan after it's intense and surprising storms. However, despite all this difficulty, some rays peered through to signal the time of day to those few who were awake enough to notice, one such early bird was Shoto Todoroki.
The young man was already used to rising so early around this time of year, the flakes of white falling from the sky and showering the earth was always such a pleasant sight to him ever since he was little. This was one of the main reasons that he had chosen to sleep on the family couch the night prior, allowing for his new girlfriend to sleep in his former room, wanting to give her as much comfortability as he could given the on the spot circumstance of her stay at the Todoroki household.
Fuyumi had offered to let the young woman sleep in her bed and she herself take the couch, but Shoto was quite insistent that he be the one to take the living room. His viewing of the early snow fall being an important tradition in his heart, and his want to make Yaoyorozu happy made his determination apparent, so his sister and Momo herself (whom had fought for Shoto's comfortability as well) gave in, the only condition to this being that he stay put on the couch per Fuyumi's order's, this rule had made Yaoyorozu blush due to the implications, and Shoto just simply tilted his head wondering, "Where else would I sleep?"
His obliviousness made his sister chuckle, mentally thanking the heavens that her brother had not a single bold intention in his body. Although, this didn't stop him from giving Momo a goodnight kiss before she went to sleep, something Fuyumi caught but didn't intervene, it had been so long since she saw her brother so genuinely happy. Indeed he was, the smile apparent on his face and Momo's as well, the two couldn't honestly believe how all this could happen in such a small sequence of time, the two's lives brightened with now having someone to hold and share their feelings with, which made the half and half teen ponder a few things as his current gaze was fixated on the window and the snow that obscured any view of the outside.
His thoughts soon being interrupted by the sound of a door sliding open, at first thinking it was his sister, but the speculation soon faded as he remembered, she didn't get up around this time…not anymore, and the voice-
"You're up early," Yaoyorozu quietly muttered, as to not wake up her other host, she had exited the room with the same blanket from the other day wrapped around her shoulders but still draped down to her stomach, the grey of the blanket had contrasted with her quirk made pajama's, a red silk shirt and pants that she had used to wear when she lived with her parents. Her formal nature compelling her to even look proper when she slept, the stark difference between their attire (Todoroki being dressed in a white tank top and ball shorts that hung just past his knee's) was an amusing sight to say the least.
"Same to you," Todoroki replied as he turned to face her direction, the sight of her hair hanging down instead of being tied up in it's usual ponytail style was a pleasant sight to him, a smile finding its way onto his face, one that didn't go unnoticed as she smiled back at him, although averted her eyes from his still a little bashful in his presence despite their status.
"It's expected of me," she spoke softly followed by a long yawn as she stepped further away from the door, "I tutor most of the class remember?"
"What's that even like," the young man asked as his eyes followed the girl's movement from his room to a position next to him on the couch.
"A give and take sometimes."
"How so?"
"Well on somedays I need to kinda hammer in some subjects, on others I get a little too carried away and talk too much and they get bored, or how Mina and Kaminari put it I 'fry their brains'."
"But that's a daily occurrence for Kaminari," the man joked without realizing it, causing Momo to giggle.
"True."
"You still look pretty tired," the young man pointed out as he noticed the small bags under her eyes, "I didn't wake you did I?"
"No, I just wanted to see if my clothes had dried overnight," she replied with another yawn, and then slowly moved her hand from her side to the top of his hand, "That and, well, I just really wanted to be next to you again."
"Oh," Shoto spoke with a hint of surprise in his voice, meeting her eagerness by taking her hand, sliding his fingers between the gaps of her own, "I'm…glad you did."
"I was hoping you would say that," she internally cheered but followed it up verbally with another yawn, this caused Shoto to let go of her hand and scoot to the edge of the couch, leaning his back against the arm rest and back cushions, Momo was puzzled by this but was soon met with Todoroki motioning her to come closer to him. Knowing what he meant, she followed his lead by moving closer to him and laying her head and both her arms down on his chest as her body laid against his as he wrapped his arms around her tenderly.
"Thank you," Momo muttered, closing her eyes and slowly relaxed due to the quiet of the house and the sounds of his calm heartbeat, she had never felt more at ease in her life.
"No problem," Todoroki whispered as he rested the side of his head on hers.
"Sorry if you didn't sleep well because I took your bed."
"I offered my bed though."
"I know, I just feel bad taking your bed in your own home."
"It's no big deal as long as you slept well."
"I did indeed, and I'm very grateful, but is that the reason you're up?"
"No, I'm up because it's…well was a family tradition."
"It was?"
"Yes, I used to never be able to sleep well, and even when I did, I didn't really get enough of it, so as a child I would always wake up earlier than the rest of my family. I remember it always being so quiet and, in a way it always scared me, it made me feel alone and sad not to wake up to the sound of activity in my home…then my mother started getting up earlier once she had first noticed how early I woke up, it got easier after that and I started getting over it as I grew up but I would always try and make it a habit to wake up earlier during winter, mom and I always loved to watch the snowfall."
"It sounds so peaceful."
"It was…until she had to move out…"
"I'm so sorry to hear that Shoto," she placed her hand onto his arm, rubbing it softly to comfort him, "You don't need to go on if it's too painful to talk about."
"I'm alright, it feels good to speak about this to somebody else."
"I'm always here if you need to."
"I know, and thank you. It got harder to do this without her every year, but Fuyumi would purposefully set an alarm so her and Natsuo would watch the snowfall with me, so I wouldn't have to be alone every morning."
"Aw, that was really sweet of them."
Shoto smiled at the thought of one of the very few fond memories of his childhood, even remembering how despite the burn of his scar being fresh in his mind, during those days he could barely feel it. The young man continued-
"It was wasn't it? Overtime though, they weren't always able to get up because of Natsuo having college work to get through, and Fuyumi's teaching job taking over, they would always try their best but after a certain point, it was just me…"
"Well…I certainly wouldn't mind filling that gap for you."
Silence had briefly befallen the room, as Shoto's expression went from somber to shocked at the comprehension of what she offered to him. A piece of his childhood that he had long lost due to unfortunate circumstances, a happy memory he could build again for the future of his life, with the person he had deemed very worthy to share it all with, the person whom he didn't just inspire with kind words but one who inspired him, and one he couldn't let go of in this moment if he tried.
"I…" Shoto fought back tears, his gratefulness for his girlfriend was almost too much to contain, his happiness ever present despite Momo still having her eyes closed, but she could feel it in his tone of voice and his act of holding her tighter in his grip, "Thank you, Momo."
"Anything for you Shoto. Anything."
The two fell silent, their eyes opening to enjoy the wondrous sight of the snow slowly falling over Japan.
1 Hour Later…
Fuyumi had awoke to the vibration of her phone, the elder Todoroki setting an alarm to be up at eight o'clock, since she had to get prepared to look presentable in front of her brother's school, not wanting to reflect badly on her family. Reaching over to get her glasses, she turned off her phone's alarm once she had rubbed her eyes to rid herself of any grogginess, she threw off the covers of her bed and slowly got dressed before exiting the room.
First looking out the window to see if the storm had stopped, happy to see that it did, but soon lamented that she once again failed to remember to wake up early to join Shoto of her own will, he never pressed her about it, but always felt a tinge of guilt as a result of her lack of action. Her lamenting was interrupted however, the sound of soft breathing catching her attention, it wasn't anything that surprised her since Shoto had opted to sleep there but was caught off guard by the fact that it was more than one person breathing. To investigate she walked over slowly, not wanting to barge over and jump to conclusions, an act she was soon relieved about since she saw that the two were merely cuddling, having fallen asleep whilst watching the snow.
Fuyumi smiled, and tip toed over to closet to retrieve another blanket, and slowly covered the two with it, knowing that they probably needed to sleep just a little longer.
She couldn't always be there for him, but she was glad to see that he was happy, having found someone who always could be.
The End.
Author's Note: God it was dumb of me to think this would just be a 1000 words, either way I hope you guys enjoyed this little epilogue chapter I wanted to do for this tale, and hopefully now the title makes sense since I kinda just left this moment out of the previous chapter.
I really hope you all liked this tale I spun for you, and I'm sorry for making you guys wait so long for me to finally wrap this 4 month long story up nice and neatly, from the bottom of my heart I am greatful for all of you sticking with me for this long on not only this story but all my all the stories ive made for the past year ive been doing this, I greatly appreciate your time and I hope you leave a review or comment it let me know your thoughts.
Next Story I wanna do is Todoroki related and was actually inspired by one of my favorite authors Ability King KK in one of his stories so look forward to that, and I really wanna try and update a couple stories I havent touched in awhile like Pranks and The Hero and The Inventor series
Anyway, Stay safe out there, and I hope you have a wonderful day.
