The moon hung low and pale over the villa, casting long, skeletal shadows across the master bedroom.
Shoto wasn't sleeping. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands, the silence of the house weighing more than any glacier he had ever summoned.
The door creaked open.
He looked up, his heart leaping into his throat. (Y/N) stood in the doorway. She looked small, her robe wrinkled and her eyes swollen and bloodshot from hours of crying in the dark.
She looked like she had reached a conclusion-a final, devastating one.
" (Y/N)..." Shoto started to rise, his voice thick with relief. "I was about to come find you, I-"
"Don't," she whispered, her voice sounding raw and hollowed out. She stepped into the room, but she didn't come to his side.
She stayed by the foot of the bed, her hands clasped tightly in front of her. "I've been thinking. Everything is so clear now."
"We can fix this," Shoto said, his steps toward her hesitant. "I'll destroy the papers. I'll walk away from the funding. We'll start over."
"No, Shoto. You don't understand." A fresh wave of tears spilled over her lashes, tracking down her cheeks. "I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry for what I've done to you."
Shoto froze, a cold dread settling in his chest. "What you've done? You haven't done anything but love me."
"I ruined your life!" she suddenly cried out, her voice cracking with the weight of her guilt. She began to shake her head frantically. "I was so selfish! I was so happy to marry you, I was so excited to be a 'Todoroki' that I didn't see the chains I was putting on you. You're a hero! You're supposed to be free! But instead, you're tied to me. You're tied to a contract and a family that views you as a transaction because of my father."
" (Y/N), stop it. It's not your fault-"
"It is!" she sobbed, burying her face in her hands for a moment before looking back at him with a gaze full of agony. "If it weren't for me, you could have been happy. You wouldn't be looking at a 'five-year window' with a woman you were forced to take. You could have been with her."
Shoto's brow furrowed. "Her? Who are you talking about?"
"Momo, did you think I didn't knew about her" (Y/N) choked out, the name tasting like salt and regret. "I saw the way you two looked at each other in the old UA news clips. I know everyone expected it. She was your equal. She was beautiful, brilliant, and she didn't come with a price tag. You probably loved her, didn't you? And then I came along. A 'Hakamada asset' with a bank account, and you had to give her up to save your father's legacy."
"That's not true, (Y/N). Momo and I were only-"
"Don't lie to me to make me feel better!" she said in a hollow voice, her voice breaking into a jagged sob. "I'm dragging you down! I'm the weight around your neck. You could have had the love of your life, a real marriage, a real future. Instead, you're stuck in a villa with a 'biological incubator' who cries and demands your attention. I've stolen your happiness, Shoto. I've stolen years of your life that you'll never get back!"
She backed away toward the door, her breathing coming in frantic, shallow gasps. "I'm so sorry I came between you. I'm so sorry I let myself believe you could actually love someone like me. I'm going to make it right. I won't let you suffer because of me anymore."
"(Y/N), stay where you are!" Shoto commanded, his voice trembling with a mix of fear and desperation.
He lunged to grab her, to pull her into the heat of his arms and silence the lies she was telling herself.
But she was faster, her hand already on the door handle, her eyes wide with a terrifying, self-sacrificing resolve. "I'm sorry, Shoto. I'm so sorry."
As (Y/N) turned to bolt, her heart shattering under the weight of her own perceived worthlessness, she didn't hear the sharp intake of breath from Shoto.
She only felt the temperature in the room plummet.
"I said STOP!" Shoto's voice wasn't an ask; it was a roar of pure, desperate command.
(Y/N) reached the top of the grand staircase, her feet flying over the carpet, but before she could take a single step down, a massive, jagged wall of ice erupted from the floorboards.
It surged upward with the sound of a thousand cracking mirrors, sealing off the stairwell in a crystalline barrier that reached the ceiling.
She spun around to run toward the balcony, but a second wave of frost raced across the floor, freezing the glass doors shut and coating the handles in inches of impenetrable ice.
Within seconds, the entire upper landing was a fortress of white and translucent blue.
(Y/N) was trapped.
"Let me out!" she screamed, hammering her fists against the frozen wall. The cold bit into her skin, but she didn't care. "Let me go, Shoto! You don't have to do this anymore! You're free!"
"You think I'm doing this because of a contract?" Shoto's voice was right behind her now. He wasn't yelling anymore. He sounded broken. He sounded like a man watching his entire world burn down.
She turned, her back pressed against the freezing ice, her chest heaving. Shoto stood a few feet away, his left side flickering with small, uncontrolled flames that licked at his shoulder, while his right side was coated in rime.
He looked monstrous and beautiful and utterly devastated.
"You mentioned Momo," he said, his voice trembling. "You talked about UA. You talked about me being 'stuck.' You think so little of me that you believe I'd let a piece of paper dictate who I lay next to at night? You think I'm that hollow?"
"I know you're a good man!" she sobbed, sliding down the ice wall until she was huddled on the floor. "That's the problem! You're too good! You would sacrifice your entire life to pay back a debt your father owes. You would pretend to love me just to keep the peace!"
"I am not pretending!" Shoto dropped to his knees in front of her, the ice melting where his left knee touched the ground. He grabbed her wrists, forcing her to stop clawing at the ice. "Look at me, (Y/N). Look at my eyes."
She looked up, her vision blurred by tears.
"I didn't marry Momo because there was nothing there but respect. I didn't marry anyone else because I was waiting for something I didn't think existed. And then I met you."
He leaned in, his forehead pressing against hers, his heat clashing with the cold of the wall behind her.
"You aren't dragging me down. You're the only thing keeping me above the surface. If you walk out that door, if you leave me because you think you're 'saving' me, you'll be destroying the only thing I've ever chosen for myself."
"But the contract..." she whispered, her voice failing.
"Burn the contract," Shoto rasped. "I'll melt the villa to the ground. We can live in a studio apartment in the slums for all I care. But don't you dare tell me that my heart belongs to a memory from school or a legal document. It belongs to the woman who tried to learn my mother's recipes today. It belongs to you."
"Don't lie to me!" (Y/N) shrieked, the sound echoing off the frozen walls.
She wrenched her hands out of his grip, her eyes wide and manic with the pain of a thousand deceptions.
"Please... no more lies. I've had enough lies told to me to last ten lifetimes! My father lied about the marriage, your family lied about why I was there, and now you're lying to me just to stop me from breaking!"
She scrambled backward, her back hitting the jagged frost of the ice wall. "You're a hero, Shoto! You're trained to save people! You're just trying to 'save' me from a breakdown right now. You're being kind because that's who you are, but I won't let your kindness be your prison!"
"It's not a lie," Shoto pleaded, reaching for her, his heart breaking at the sheer level of trauma her father had inflicted. He saw now that she had been lied to so often-treated as a product for so long-that she had lost the ability to believe she could be wanted for herself.
"It is!" she cried, a fresh surge of tears blinding her. "Everyone has an agenda! My father wanted power. Your father wanted redemption. And you... you just wanted to be a 'good son' and a 'good hero.' You're playing a role! You're playing the role of the loving husband because the script says you have to! But I saw the script, Shoto! I saw the biological requirements! I saw the financial penalties!"
She wrapped her arms around herself, rocking slightly on the frozen floor. "I can't do it. I can't look at you and wonder if every kiss is a down payment on a child. I can't wonder if you're thinking of Momo while you're holding me because she wouldn't have come with a 'succession clause.' I'm not a person to anyone in this world, Shoto. I'm just a series of terms and conditions."
"Then let's rewrite them," Shoto said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous growl-not directed at her, but at the world that had done this to her.
"You can't!" she sobbed. "You can't rewrite my DNA! You can't rewrite the fact that I'm a Hakamada! I am the poison in your life, Shoto. If I stay, your father's foundation dies. If I stay, your reputation is tied to my father's greed. I am the thing that will destroy the Todoroki name, and I love you too much to let that happen."
She looked at him, her expression one of pure, sacrificial agony. "If you really care about me... if you want to tell me the truth for once... then let me go. Let me walk out of here so you can find the life you were supposed to have before my father bought you."
Shoto stood in the center of the ice-choked hallway, the mist of his own breath swirling around him. He realized that words weren't enough.
She was so convinced of her own worthlessness that his voice couldn't reach her anymore.