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Natsuo and Fuyumi kept talking, but he didn't listen to their words.
At that moment, Todoroki realized it could be different. His life could be different.
There were people out there that could understand him, and he decided that no matter what, and no matter how, he will find them again.

•••

Easier said than done.

It didn't take long for Todoroki to understand that his decision was much more complicated than it sounded.
After all, Bakugo and Kirishima were a pair of thieves, the one thing they had to know how to do was to hide so well that the soldiers wouldn't find them.
And he had fewer resources than the soldiers in that matter.

The city was huge, it was the capital city of the kingdom, the one where the king himself lived.
The chances of them running into each other again even if he spends the rest of his life walking in the poor areas of the city were negligible, and Todoroki didn't believe in luck.

When he realized this, he could've given up.
He was yet to start anything, he just sat in his horribly messy room, meeting dead-ends in any direction he tried to think.
It could've been so easy to let it go in that moment and go back to his normal life, before he start investigating and get too caught up to give up later.

But Todoroki didn't even consider that option. He knew without a doubt, that he preferred searching for them years upon years in vain, over living his life as they were for another week.

It's not like he was giving up on something.
He had no great ambitions, or ambitions at all, when he thought about it. He had no friends, not real ones, everyone who talked to him did it because he was his father's son.
He had his siblings, but although their relationship got better in the past few years, they still weren't that close, and they could never understand how it was like to be cursed.
The best they could do for him was to pretend he is normal, pretend he is no different than them.

Todoroki appreciated their efforts, but pretending didn't make him feel any better, sometimes it even made him feel worse.

And he got tired of being so lonely.

So he started to search for the cursed thieves; asking neighbors and acquaintances if they heard of any burglary cases that happened lately, searching the map for abandoned places that had the potential to be used as hideouts, and visiting them.
He even went back to the place he last saw them, hoping they accidentally left something behind, something that could lead him to them. A trail, no matter how small. A hint, no matter how faint.

But as he anticipated from the start, his efforts didn't bear fruit.
It was impossible to find them.
Todoroki stared at the map he wasted hours examining, knowing it was useless. For all he knew, it was possible they didn't even have a hideout. Maybe they were hiding in plain sight, or maybe they were using the basement of some store or a building instead of all the abandoned places he was checking out.

Todoroki folded the map and put it in his pocket. He figured his father will be back from the palace soon, so he decided to go out.

He walked the way he already knew by heart, the streets he once got lost in were now as familiar to him as his own neighborhood.
How long has it been since he saw Bakugo and Kirishima? Three weeks? A month? He recognized the fence he broke when he leaned on it, trying to see the thieves better.
No one fixed it yet, maybe no one cared enough.

Todoroki decided to take a different approach.
He already tried to find them on his own, but so far he got nothing. If he wanted to get different results, he had to try another way.

He looked around, most of the people he saw on his way there kept their distance from him, and all of them, without an exception, ignored him.
He was a noble that wandered out of his place, obviously, they wouldn't want to get involved with him. And there was also the second type of people, the dangerous type, that he didn't want to get involved with them.

But Todoroki had an advantage at his side. He had a magical ability, he could protect himself if needed. Of course, he preferred not using his ability at all and avoiding violent situations, but he couldn't see any other way to get what he wants, so he decided to take the risk.

He knew the thieves' names, well, at least the first ones, and he knew how they looked, well, partly - it was very dark, after all.
Now he just needed to ask whoever was willing to listen, if they knew them.

But no one was willing to listen. They either noticed him approaching and ran away, or shook their heads, quietly and in fear, as an answer to all of his questions.

Whether or not they knew something, no one was going to tell him anything.
They were useless.
He found it funny to think that even the people who didn't know he was cursed feared him, or at the very least, didn't want his company. If not because of his ability - then because he is a noble.

"Shhh! He'll hear you! Oh, no no no. He's turning around, quick, hide!"

Todoroki raised an eyebrow. Although the voice tried to whisper, it sounded high and squeaky - like the voice of a child - and he heard him pretty clearly, so it meant he was close.

He walked slowly, as quietly as he could, to the nearest building and peeked behind its wall.

Three small, terrified kids stared back at him.

"He found us! Run! Run!"

The one who spoke, the tallest, a boy with black hair and extremely thin hands, grabbed the hand of the girl next to him and pulled her as he started to run. The third kid was right behind them.

"Wait!" Todoroki called after them, "I just want to ask you something!"
But the kids were already running for their lives.

"Wait, please!"
Todoroki began running after them, if he couldn't converse with the adults in this area, maybe he could do so with the kids.

"I swear I just want to talk!"

The kids were way faster than he anticipated, and chasing them inside the streets they knew so well was probably another advantage they had to their side.
Todoroki wanted to freeze them in place, but they were constantly on the move, and he didn't have a spare second to concentrate and use his ability.
No, thought Todoroki, even if I could use my curse, it'll only make them fear me more. Not cooperate.

He pulled himself up a metal fence that the kids climbed on simultaneously and surprisingly fast, down a couple of stairs that had no railing, and then stopped before a very narrow passage between two buildings.
Too narrow for him, just the right size for them.

"Come on!" Todoroki panted, who the hell designed that place?

He turned left to surround the building, speeding up so he won't lose the kids.
His heart skipped a beat when he couldn't see them, he could not lose them, not right now. He did not run so much for nothing.

He kept running blindly, his eyes scanning every millimeter of the road.
There. A small leg disappeared behind a peeling wall.
Todoroki hurried after their trail and finally caught up to a distance where he could see them from.
He could feel them slowing down, they were getting tired.

Just a little bit more, and he'll catch them.

That was what he thought right before the three kids stopped in front of a sturdy brick wall, ducked, and crawled inside through a little hole.

"Shit," said Todoroki as he bent over to examine the hole. It was a tunnel that led inside the building, he couldn't see any light at the end of it, so he figured it was long and winding. Not that it mattered, it was way too small for him to enter anyway.

"What exactly are you doing?"

He straightened up. Surprised.
He was so fixated on the kids he didn't notice his surrounding.
Still trying to catch his breath, Todoroki stood up to face the voice. Which, to his surprise again, belonged to a short, young woman.

"I asked, what exactly are you doing?"
She crossed her arms and raised her chin, but for the first second, Todoroki found it hard to take her seriously.
Her short, brown hair was ridiculously puffy, her face round, and her eyes so, so big, as if she was a kid herself.

Then he noticed the way her eyes watched him, with caution and with loath, and she no longer looked tiny or ridiculous at all.

It caught him off guard.
He got so used to people staying away from him in this part of the city, that he didn't even think that someone might actually speak to him on their own accord.

She was the first one to do that.

"I..." Todoroki stuttered, "Um..."

"You what?"

Her eyes were wary of him, he could see that, but that was not fear. She was calculating the danger, the threat he posed, and at the same time looked at him as if she was saying, 'you take one wrong step, and I'll eat you alive.'

"I was just walking..."

"No, you were looking into that hole. What were you searching for in there?"

Think Todoroki, think. He had to come up with something smart, something that will make her less wary, less pissed, then maybe she'll answer his questions.

"N-nothing. I wasn't searching for anything, I was just looking."

"Just looking?" Her eyes pierced him.

Todoroki nodded.

"What are you? A constructor? Looking at holes like that."

"I-"

"Shut up, I didn't finish. This is MY place, and those are MY walls. So I'm the only one allowed to look around. Now stop bullshiting me."

Todoroki frowned in confusion, "Your place?"

He shifted to look at the wall again. It belonged to a small, two-story building. It looked different than the rest of the structures around, not only because it was made out of stone, the construction style was different too.
That building was old, older than most of the city.
It belonged to a different time.

"Yes," said the woman, "this is my ‏orphanage. Now tell me, what the hell do you want from my kids?"

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Your next chapter is:
"The dark little room"