skin and bone.
this is a nonprofit work of fanfiction. my character and plot belong to me. I do not own the My Hero Academia franchise, nor am I affiliated with Kohei Horikoshi.
chapter one.
cumulus
It's a bit chilly outside.
Jazz music fills the air, mixing with muted chatter, radio static, and the gentle snip of a pair of shiny scissors. A chair creaks as it's shifted, the mirror on the wall reflecting hazy, muddled daylight streaming through the flimsy curtains. Dull locks of moist hair make a thump as they fall the the mat beneath them, damp from a recent washing. Their owner, a housewife with a stylish bob, yabbers cheerfully about her youngest's first day at preschool, her voice worn in like an old pair of sneakers, fitting loosely in the quiet salon.
She continues to ramble in varying tones of pride and anticipation, about her son's wild dreams, about the heroes he draws in his picture books, with gleaming grins and colorful costumes, shaped by the smallest of hands and haphazard scribbles.
"You wanted to be a hero once too, didn't you, darlin'?"
The hairdresser pauses, the comb in her hand tugging loose hair and droplets of water. They plop against the floorboards, in a pleasant manner that resembles rain.
"Of course. It's every child's dream, after all."
Distantly, the clock clicks. It's placed next to a photo of a blonde-haired woman and a stout toddler with spiky russet tresses. The glass is cracked, but a colorful band-aid had been slapped onto the frame.
"Can't with my quirk, though." The hairdresser continues, in a jaded sorted way that suggests she had repeated these words many times before, "I can just make hair grow longer—not my own, but everyone else's—what's a hero do with that?"
The woman shuffles in her chair. "'Least it's perfect for your profession."
The hairdresser chuckles half-heartedly, wincing. "It was a real pain getting a license, though."
In the hallway, toes shuffle against the carpet, an inhale followed by an exhale, both so muted they could have been considered a curious breeze. The door opens just a peak, and in peer two wayward eyes, barely noticeable behind a curtain of heavy bangs.
"Well," the woman grins, gesturing towards her bob with calloused hands and a sheepish grin, "I'm sure glad you're workin' here. I've been getting compliments every time I walk out of this place."
The hairdresser laughs, golden locks shifting as she shakes her head, bitterness mixing with old memories. "I'm glad I'm not a hero. It's a bad world, out there."
"'S true." The woman replied, an untraceable understanding laced throughout, "The world takes and gives. The only people who have a say in it all are the heroes, of course."
The hairdresser seems as if she's known this all along. "So," she mumbles breezily, "what are people like us supposed to do?"
Outside, the wind shifts, revealing a bit more of the sky, filling the room with a sort of ethereal light.
"Who knows," the woman shrugs, "but in times like these, I like to think about the good things."
She grins, a crinkled, crooked thing, head shifting in tandem to the radio's gentle crescendo. "It's a nice day out today."
Sorano wakes with the pigeons, as she always does. She wakes with chirps, the honks of nearby horns, the smell of gasoline, and the chill of the fan creaking back and forth in the far corner; with this, Sorano steps out of bed.
She stumbles slightly, her legs sore and lids sagging like old rags. She leans on the creaky mattress, then after regaining her balance, she creaks open her closet and shuffles towards it,, the chill of the floorboards seeping through her worn grey socks.
She stops in front of a mirror hanging on the wall, next to a pile of folded laundry. She met eyes with her plain reflection, used to the dampened features that stared back: her hair, spiky locks shoulder length and full of knots she had given up trying to untangle; her eyes, the ones she had gotten used to seeing in shop windows, the ones that stare back with the same nonchalant look within them, the ones her aunt had given up trying to decipher. Her hair, her eyes, brown. Brown like dirt. Brown like rotten bananas. Brown like the decaying shit you find on the side of the road.
However, Sorano doesn't mind the mud framing her face, nor the mud surrounding her murky pupils. She also doesn't mind the creases on her forehead, nor the scabs on her palms from being tripped too many times in the hallways. Sorano doesn't mind all of that. It is the way it is; there is nothing wrong with the way her body looks, nor the fact that her earthy tresses resemble an overused mop (she is used to being teased for her looks, she can't care less.) She shrugs on her uniform, buttoning her clothing languidly.
Her uniform is worn, the once neat creases in the skirt now limp and lighter and color. The skirt and jacket are navy blue, and the white button-up is meant to be worn with a bow, but instead, Sorano wraps a light yellow sweater around her neck, pausing slightly to bury her nose in the woolen material. It's a brighter hue, and clashes with her hair, but Sorano doesn't mind that, either.
The upstairs hallway is dark in the mornings without a window to supply light. The kitchen is crammed in the corner, a small sitting area on the opposite side, near the staircase. Her aunt's room is empty, the door slightly ajar.
In the floor below, someone laughs. There's the whir of a hairdryer and muffled chatter. Sorano wanders down the stairs like a lost child, her scuffed red backpack slung on one shoulder, the stairs creaking wearily beneath her feet.
Sorano peeks into the salon through the creaky door. Her aunt is chuckling about something, shaking her head, blond locks falling loose from her messy bun. Sorano can't get a clear view of the customer's face, she has never heard his voice before. She decides not to interrupt.
Outside the air is dry, tasting crisp and clear on her tongue. The dawn is syrupy, the sun hanging leisurely on the horizon, hiding behind the skyscrapers stretching in the distance. The path is lined with shambolic bushels of rough leaves, once perfectly round in shape but now overgrown, the branches creeping, leaves browning tips turning to gray as the world prepares for winter.
Upon the leaves sit a hundred beads of water, each one a perfect sphere, brilliant in the morning rays. Each drop sits so lightly, yet together they are enough to cause the each unsightly bush to shine. So clear is the morning haze that even these scatterings of dew are significant, brightening the path like speckled lanterns. Soon the gentle heat of the morning will send them back to the clouds and the leaves will stretch their limbs, calling to the remainder of the spring.
Sorano sighs. She's so tired, sometimes.
Sorano boards the train at seven twenty two. She steps into the crowded machine and makes her way over to a spot by a window. She hears the clank of metal as the train doors squeak shut, and the screech of the wheels that begin pushing the old vehicle forward. Buildings and houses speed past, and train tracks become too numbered to count. Idly, Sorano adjusts her uniform buttons as the train chugs along. The teen glances around her.
Trains are the perfect place for people watching.
Today, there is a man who continuously checks his watch. His third eye is trained on his wrinkly newspaper, while the other two check his arm for the time every second. Nearby, two older woman chat noisily about an upcoming baby shower, one with a lizard head, the other with a scaled, silvery tail. A young school boy whines as his mother levitates his candy bar out of his reach—after scolding him for eating too much.
How it become the norm is unknown , she wonders with mild, distrait confusion, quirks are so weird.
The nicest part about trains, Sorano finds, is that she doesn't have to talk to anyone around her. She doesn't have to know anyone, to understand anyone, here she can just be a stranger; here, Sorano is just another girl riding the train. She isn't 'Corpse' or 'Sorano', she is just a stranger , and nobody knows her.
These are the moments she lives for.
When the rickety tracks smooth out and the chatter of the train grows, she knows she is approaching her destination. Her grip loosens, she lets go of the cool metal ceiling handle and waits as the train slows to a stop.
People leap off like antelope—but Sorano takes her time, fiddling with her backpack straps and stepping off right as the doors swing shut behind her. In the bustle of the station, she begins to walk, noticing the breeze—the sun is a little higher in the sky, gentle rays streaming past bustling figures and shuffling limbs.
The station is not far from Sorano's school. One of the many public middle schools, the one closest to Sorano's home, a wretched place stuffed to the brim with pubescent pre-teens—riled up and ready to live more independently. Sorano is silent still, when the cars honk around her, when people scurry about—she steps off corners, moves swiftly through crowds and clumps of pedestrians, hops on the patterns in the sidewalk.
She gets to school and the hallway is loud, overwhelmingly so. Her teacher is late, again. However, she is late as well, and she wants to run out of the room when her classmates glance her way. She shuffles through the door, and after a millennia of bashful trudging, she plops in her assigned chair, no noise nor greeting coming from her mouth.
Chatter arises. Sorano represses the urge to sigh when a boy sprouts wings and starts to float about the classroom, while his friends laugh and cheer him on.
Sorano soon hears the familiar clink of heels, and their stern teacher enters the room. There is an immediate scolding, and the boy lands swiftly, shrinking back into his seat. However, the chatter does not die away.
"Please," her teacher sighs, interrupting the noisy classroom, "let's all settle and learn for once, alright?"
There is immediate silence—no one feels up to a lecture.
Class begins with the flipping of textured notebook pages and occasional yawns or heavy breaths. Pencil scratching and tapping on paper is a mild noise that relaxes her into a trance. It is quiet and delicate, yet also elicited such a wide range of tiny sounds that it is impossible to grow tired of them. It keeps her amused far more than any app on her phone can as her hand can move the utensil in such a way that shapes or words or numbers take form, in muddled messes all over the page. Sorano sits through her subjects patiently; she slouches and tries her best to pay attention, distracted by her mind and the scrawled drawings of budding flowers.
A paper hits the back of her head, which causes Sorano to jolt forward in surprise, and slump when the crumpled ball plops onto her marked-up desk. She unfolds the note with careful precision, so her teacher won't notice.
CORPSE , it reads. How uncreative. She's heard the name so many times, may it be scratched on her desk or whispered behind her back or yelled at her face, so many times that it shouldn't even hurt anymore.
She drops it in the waste bin on her way out the door, ignoring the snickers that follow.
The school hallway stinks. The smell of the stale urine curls from under the restroom doors, depressing and mixed with deodorant and body odor in equal measure. A typical public middle school on the bad side of town, that has long since stopped "wasting money" on janitors.
Sorano keeps her her head low and pushes her way through the sea of despondent faces. Another day of fatigue rammed down their throats with the keen sting of stress—always the tests, always the reports, always the reminders of the consequences of failure. A classmate tries to push her, yet she shoves past the offending stranger as an aggressive attempt to get to the wall.
The front of Sorano's old locker is covered in scratches and stains of smudged sharpie, with faint remains of graffiti that Sorano had desperately tried to scrub away at one point. Now she has given up on keeping the door clean, and she barely notices the new insults scrawled in red marker, standing out against the navy blue metal.
She unlocks the door and grabs her textbook for her Japanese Literature class. The only thing Sorano has going for her is her ability to memorize, which keeps her in high-level classes; Sorano always makes an effort to ace her tests. At least she is going to graduate, go off to high school in a couple of months with different people who hopefully won't find out about Sorano's disgusting abnormality.
"Move!" Someone demands, and Sorano is slammed against the lockers, breath knocked out of her temporarily. The person who shoved her was already gone when she finally catches her breath, and now her papers are strewn across the chipped tiles, becoming increasingly covered in dirt and footprints as they are mercilessly trod upon.
Sorano stumbles, trying to cling to the belongings that hadn't yet slipped from her grasp, but can only watch as the essay she had stayed up the night before writing is torn to pieces under a stranger's sole.
..Japanese Literature doesn't matter much, anyways.
So here she is again, an eighth grader of skinny stature; she lays sprawled out on her back, gazing up at the clouds, watching, watching, watching. The ground beneath her is rough, scraping against the backs of her knees, uneven concrete digging into her skin. Her scarf spills out around her, tangled with the locks of her muddy tresses. The wind is polluted and tastes of cigarette smoke but the sky is ever so blue, she wants to fly away; she wishes her quirk could turn her into a bird so she can just fly away, but the roof is surrounded by a fence, and the fence surrounds the sky; even if she was a bird she could never get out of their cage; watching, watching, watching.
Her phone beeps in her jacket's pocket, and she pulls it out in a sloppy manner, flipping it open and holding it above her head to block out the sun. The screen is dim under the sky's glaring rays.
[can you pick up some coffee beans on your way home from school?]
Sorano exhales.
[yeah]
She runs her knobby fingers through her hair, but only gets halfway through when her nails catch painfully on a clump of untamed mess. So she leaves her hands there and is still, not caring if she misses the next few minutes of her class because all she wants is to see the clouds float above her, for just a little longer.
The roses seem to glare at her. Peeking out on racks in the convenience mart, they wilt, alone and forgotten, their once brilliant red petals scumming to mold and patsy brown. They are bitter, bitter roses, with brief existences that serve little purpose other than jazzing up the entrance of a store that should've closed long ago. Bitter, angry, short-lived roses. (Sorano knows roses don't have such thoughts, but she is unable to walk past the vases without flinching and looking away)
She finishes her painful journey past the dying flowers, but stops near the sliding door entrance, her dirty sneakers squeaking a bit on the tile. Her gaze meets a scentless flower, one she will see for the last time. It is alone in its state, a single living rose in the miles of brown bushels that seem to stretch out forever down the aisle; one rose just as red as the others might have been, holding onto its short and brief life with such certainty. It is small, beautiful. But just like the others—soon, in a day at most, its petals will fall and it will rot away into dust.
Sorano wanders towards the back of the market, picking up a bushel of bananas and a bag of dark roast coffee beans on her way. In the chilly frozen aisle, a boy with curly hair is searching through the meats, eyes scrunched up in a concentration that seems too intense for such a meaningless choice.
Sorano watches him for a while, before he finally picks out his product, and places it in the grocery basket dangling loosely under his left arm.
"I like your shirt." She states. It is soft and careful and afraid, as if speaking too loud might cause him to actually hear her—
The boy jumps, startled. His eyes, dilated and swirling with hues of forest green, blink at her in utter confusion before his face lights up in a scarlet blush; the two strangers in the market stare at each other in timid silence, afraid that breaking it would whisk away the spell of the moment.
She stares at him and he stares at her—he has a bruise on one of his freckled cheeks, she has bruises under her sagging eyes; they stand in the frozen aisle, albeit chilly, watching, watching, watching.
"T-thank you," the boy stutters finally, before turning and scampering away like a frightened mouse. The aisle is empty again, with only Sorano and the rows of red, red meat. (He looked like he had never received a compliment, and Sorano is sure she had never given one before.)
With this, Sorano hands the sum to the cashier and drifts out the sliding doors, parting onto the sidewalk and moving into the mid-day traffic.
The crowd flows down the wide avenue the same way the river always meets its banks. The mood of the people swirls in unseen currents beneath the dark surface of their faces. The only sound is their feet on the aging tarmac and the howl of the wind rising above them. Every one of them has been feeling the chill of the fall through their tired clothes and worn shoes, stomping across crosswalks and sidewalks, seeping in and out of doorways and alleys.
Such is the bustle of the city. Yet, there is a disturbance in the current, a boulder in the river that traffic fails to flow around or through. Here, a mass of people is clumped together in a blurred, dizzying mess; a strident timbre of collected voice, a cacophony of applause, cheering, whooping, hollering, clapping, stamping of feet filling the air, causing Sorano's ears to ring and buzz while she approaches the blocked path.
There is a woman in the middle of the road, who looks somewhat familiar. She stands as if she could save the world. She grins as if nothing can stop her. She bares the weight of the crowd's expectations, but carries them with such confidence that even the reporters are left in awe. She grins with her triumph and she grins at the people she saved, one leg propped on the tied-up villain pinned beneath her foot, the other keeping her body balanced and stable. Her hands rest upon her hips, she poses as a movie star would've. Cameras flash, reporters shout, the woman grins and grins and grins.
The crowd is squealing as journalists surround the scene. When the unnamed villain struggles to break free, strangers shout the pro-hero's name with triumphant smiles.
"GO, THUNDERBOLT !" they cry, " WE LOVE YOU, THUNDERBOLT!"
Thunderbolt baths in the praise, that is, until, the villain, waking due to the noise, rolls out from under her foot, all the while snickering and cursing her out.
"The finishing move!" someone in the crowd yells, "Do the finishing move!"
The crowd's palpable excitement tingles through the charged air with infectious grins. The yelling turns to a chant, and Thunderbolt laughs heartily, raising her fist. A bolt of supercharged lightning shoots from the clouds, twisting in a heavenly arch and slamming into the villain in the arena of shouting civilians. The lightning crackles and rumbles, the sky around twisting into itself, eerily dark. All Sorano can hear over the roaring of the crowd are the distant booms and surges of thunder.
The crowd shifts in anticipation. The ground shakes. A chunk of cement shears off a building and falls from the sky.
The world is in slow motion. The flashing jolts to a halt, Thunderbolt turns her bright eyes, the crowd freezes, and the rock descends slowly, tumbling through the air, drawing near a small boy clutching his mother in the crowd below.
Sorano runs with a feeling she didn't know she had. The grocery bags fall from her hands and she stumbles, her sneakers scratching against the pavement; she shoves past the people while they scream and scream and scream. She doesn't make a sound; she scampers beneath the falling rock and throws her body over the mother and child; her ribcage sprouts from her back, piercing through her uniform jacket and creating a barred, skeletal cocoon above the family. She feels the weight of the stone vibrate through her bones, sees the terrified faces of the people beneath her, and cringes as one of her ribs crack while the slab rolls off the protective roof of her white skeleton and onto the road next to them.
There is silence.
Then the crowd roars.
Sorano's protective shield retreats into her spine, her ribs repairing themselves, her shoulders shifting and bones moving beneath her skin. The woman she saved stumbles to her feet, showering Sorano with "thank-you"s, sobbing happily and kissing both of Sorano's rapidly coloring cheeks. The boy giggles at her in his mother's arms, gazing up at the teen in admiration, like Sorano is the greatest person in his whole world.
Thunderbolt is suddenly there, standing above Sorano as the exhilaration fades and the teen sinks to the pavement.
The pro hero holds out her hand, smirking as she had on the television so many years before in the UA sports festival ( that's how Sorano recognized her, the teen remembered watching with her, standing unmatched in the arena with a grin as shiny as the stars.)
"You wanted to be a hero once too, didn't you, darlin'?"
"That was amazing, kid!" Thunderbolt voices in a prideful way, her lips splitting to reveal flashy teeth, "You're certainly on the road to becoming a pro hero like myself—you've got the makings of one, after all! Since you helped me in a pinch, I oughta' make it up to you!"
"It's every child's dream, after all."
Sorano is quivering, mouth open like a fish as gusts of air enter and exit her famished lungs. She pushes back the urge to cry, the concrete scratching her bare knees and eyes watering under fluttering lashes. There are too many people, too much noise, and now, everyone knows her for who she is, sees her for what she is—a corpse —but she isn't she isn't she isn't—every breath stings like needles because they are staringandstaringand staring —
The gloved hand grasps her calloused one and Sorano stumbles to her feet, locking her gaze with the bright-eyed pro hero.
"Someone outta teach you how to fake it, kiddo." The woman sneers playfully, "You're too jumpy and nervous; you look like you're shitting bricks just takin' to me."
Sorano is certain not one word the pro hero said is a compliment, yet the idea concerns her. "F-Fake it?"
The woman in front of her smiles, but it is as bitter as the roses and as muddled as the rainy sky; her lipstick is smudged and her eyes are shadowed and for a second she doesn't look like a hero at all but a tired, tired woman who is as watered down as the mud in the cracks in the sidewalks.
"Ever heard the saying, fake it 'till you make it ?"
They are interrupted by the shouting and the frantic paramedics who are struggling to examine the frazzled mother and child. The crowd pulls them in like the tide and drags them both under in waves of noise; suddenly Sorano stops breathing.
The overwhelming and suffocating panic takes hold. Sorano grasps her beating heart, rumpling the fabric beneath her fist as she tries to calm its erratic pulses. Thunderbolt's strong arm keeps her steady, the hero's white-toothed smirk big and showy. Above and unknowing, the pro hero tugs Sorano close as the cameras and reporters close in like hunters. Sorano's lungs flutter and tighten; the teen is blinded by the flashes and deafened by the shouts, so all she can do is breathe.
Somewhere in the crowd Sorano sees a wisp of emerald green, soft and concerned and warm, but it is blurred by the flashing and clicking of cameras.
Breathe in...
"How does it feel," one of the journalists asks her, as his microphone drops near her nose, "to be sponsored by a pro hero?"
Breathe out.
"You're late."
Her aunt stands in the doorway of the salon, waiting. Sorano steps inside and shuts the door behind her; the slam is muffed, she can hardly hear it behind the ringing in her ears.
"Sorry." She states vapidly. "I'm home."
Sorano moves to step around her, but her aunt lashes out, gripping her forearm desperately, nails digging into her jacket sleeve, crinkling it and creasing it around the elbow.
"You—" Her aunt seethes, her face uncharacteristically twisted in rage, "I was worried about you!"
"Sorry," Sorano repeats. The clock ticks.
"You can't just throw yourself into danger like your life doesn't matter!" Her aunt screams, voice warbled, "You're not a hero , Sorano!"
How many times has she heard this? Though subdued, her aunt's hatred towards the hero world and all it entailed, hatred towards quirks, hatred towards the unfairness of it all. Quiet, suffering abhorrence, tucked away into whispers behind creaky doors, jaded smiles and poorly disguised frowns. The quick switch of the radio when the news came on, the absent television, the vacant walls, the strict curfews.
You saved—
How many times?
You've got the makings of—
"But I want to be."
Her aunt reels back as if she has been struck.
The pause that falls is heavy; it feels like there is a weight on their shoulders. As if moving through water, Sorano drifts to the mirror, meeting eyes with her plain reflection. She floats there, asking the girl that stares back at her for answers. The reflection says nothing, only licking its lips. She's bitter. She can taste it.
"I don't like my hair." Sorano mentions absentmindedly. The teen's voice is vacuous and her eyes are foggy. "I want to cut it all off."
Her aunt seems to unfreeze, as if someone has finally hit play on the remote control; her aunt smiles. It's trembling and small and suddenly the woman seems old and worn, bags under her eyes dark and tired. She nods.
A faint whirring fills the air. The device in her aunt's hand is small and metallic, with strange blades at the end that make it seem almost menacing. The noise of it grows louder when it nears Sorano's head, and Sorano almost feels nervous. Yet something doesn't feel right.
"Are you ready?" Her aunt asks, her voice slightly scratchy; a pang of guilt shocks Sorano again.
"No," Sorano blurts—her voice sounds more sure than she is, "I want to do it."
Her aunt pauses, but not a single reply fills the now gaping silence.
The tool is handed to Sorano, who takes it with shaking fingers. Watching the mirror before her, Sorano stands, knees locking as she steps closer to the mirror.
It is surprisingly easy. Swift, smooth, short strokes send the mess of tangled hair and tangled emotions and tangled messes of feelings falling to the floor and swirling down at her feet as if they had never been there at all.
She shears more, and more, she shears it away and she can suddenly see herself, eyes clear and all the more brighter, the same brown mud but shining so bright; her lips are so pretty, she never noticed before, her forehead hits her hairline just right, her bangs aren't covering her face anymore—
—gone is the curtain, gone is the tangled puzzle that could never be solved, gone is that suffocating feeling that everything is pointless and worthless; all that is left is Sorano, her dirt colored hair and her dirt colored eyes, and the words she always wanted to say dancing on her lips—
Do you think I,
"Do you think—"
The locks of her hair engulf her feet as she turns, faltering, fingers quivering minutely, the dull lamp shadowing her face, the bruises on her arms, the cuts near her collarbone.
I want to,
"I could be a hero?"
Her aunt's face breaks and splits and trembles all at once.
In the distance, the street lamp flickers on, artificial light crawling in, shifting once, twice, then settling near their feet.
"Of course."
The ringing in Sorano's ears doesn't cease. The teen leaves the door a crack open behind her and trudges halfway up the stairs before turning around, stiff in place. She steps down them again, silent as a ghost, with practiced ease—
in the hallway, her toes shuffle against the carpet, an inhale followed by an exhale, both so muted they could have been considered a curious breeze. The door opens just a peak, and in peer her two wayward eyes—
and with the terrible fire leaping up her throat all she can do was watch as her aunt collapses to her knees, rocketing with grieving sobs, clutching her face as if stopping to muffled wails; her bones are so fragile, ribs trembling beneath the wispy fabric of her shirt, the thin layer of her skin, so pitifully vulnerable, so piteously frail.
I wanted this, the voice inside her screams.
I wanted this.