note: i edited the first chapter :D i didn't expect to get such positive feedback! amen to skittles for giving me the energy and the inspiration to write when i should be preparing for school tomorrow. i mean, what school wakes up children at around 6:30 am? my school, that's what but whenever i complain to my mom, she flips me off by saying that back in the days, school woke children up earlier than ours. i mean, is your school like that? what time do you wake up for school? are you even in school? and i seriously hope that you love masaomi since i love writing him. he's such an adorable guy and i can't wait to write more of him, lol. i think i like masaomi more than i like tokiwa, lol. (i paused to think what her name was ugh, oona, wtf.) so there's a this comic i saw which inspired me to write, just sharing. it was enji finding out that shouto blocked him on twitter and he was like, "shouto." without the flames and shouuuuuutooooo part. just plain "shouto". it made me laugh so hard.

i also changed all of the summaries of my stories to make it less vague.

hinatayvonne: you're here too! i really really love your reviews, and thank you for all the compliments!

eterna the water phoenix: i appreciate the tears uwu and thank you! i'm actually trying my best to keep this as original as possible, though having masaomi associate with the todoroki family is making things rather cliche but yey! i'm glad you like this :D

xenocanaan: thank you! i'm kind of proud of this concept too since i haven't read something like this and i thought, "why not write one?" :D

angelicsailor: thank you thank you thank you so much!

tokiwa watches, she is always watching

(It forgets more often than not. It forgets the feeling of clicking keys below its fingers but remembers how images keep on flashing as if insisting it to write the tale of something untold and forgotten. Build me a church, choking voices plead among the seas of supposed-to-be's and where-are-you's, worship me—kneel for the world that will never love you back—whisper to me a neverending tale of beautiful women falling under the palms of bitter men. Scheherazade survives a thousand and one nights with a man desperate to shatter her heart so you can survive more nights too, right?

Telling a story will be as easy as surviving this world—Scheherazade dances with a demon each morning she awakens and tricks him into letting her survive more and more nights with a single flick of her tongue; use your mouth for something good and sue this treacherous world of its vile pirouettes.

"Woah," cover your ears, let not the little child hear the false warnings of false gods, "your writing is good! Let me read more,—" And the unspoken name will never be heard of ever again.

But I want to hear it!—oops, the monster slips and falls—)

Tokiwa's editor is a woman who cares too much about her looks—not that she is any different, especially during all those times that Masaomi refrains from joking about being a few years away from thirty years old—and has a horrible dye job. Okamoto-san is a woman, too scared to speak and lies with the tip of her tongue. She does not tell anybody that she is half a century old and masks herself with a pretty woman, professional woman, beautiful woman, amazing woman, smart woman—just a desperate woman. She is strict and her silvertongue—she is a bee who will die after stinging a man with her pointed nails. Tokiwa notices how Okamoto looks at her warily she drops a correction, the hesitance and the shame, and the upcoming apology.

"What's this new one about?" Okamoto asks as she holds the thick layers of paper, small boxes for the characters littered with ease. Okamoto has always liked her handwriting, pointed and precise, clean and deep with each stroke of a pen.

The large letters of Paradise of Martyrdom tells Okamoto that this will be another hassle to edit—more questionable happenings dancing in the form of mere characters. The foreign adaptation of books written by Tokiwa is the reason why it sells really well from the teenagers to the elders. Her writing is a boogeyman under the bed, waiting for you to take a peek before lunging and never letting you escape from its inked arms. "It's about a cat with nine lives," she begins mysteriously and picks up a pen from the corner of the coffee table. She runs the tip against the cover of the manuscript despite Okamoto's rolling eyes, "the little cat gives its life to its owner each time he dies, always willing to give up a tail just for its owner to live a little more. The little cat has lost seven lives and as it is about to give its eighth one to its beloved owner, the owners tells the cat to search for another owner. You need not to love me so much—that's basically the synopsis. Do you want to know the ending, Okamoto-san?"

The blonde woman scoffs. "Another one of your tragedies," she grumbles, "Ending was sad enough."

"Ah." Tokiwa snorts. "Was it wrong for me to kill him at the end?"

Okamoto looks at her as if she is stupid. "Yes," she hisses, "I mean—you made him go through so much only for him to just die.

Tokiwa stretches her limbs with a teasing grin. "Juuzou—" She says the name of the main character like one does to their child. "—was evil, you know."

"But it was understandable," Okamoto contradicts, "his family was a casualty of a villain attack. The heroes there were really reckless with all the damage in the city. Of course, he would be angry."

And yet, Tokiwa thinks as she looks at the expanse of the buildings. From the corner of her eye, she spots heroes fighting another villain that suddenly showed up out of nowhere. The heroes are doing almost as much damage as the villains. Their battles cost so much from the government but with the civilians doing nothing but look up to them like fanatics, the government becomes too willing to shower the heroes money. Pro-heroes—the highest-paying job ever since they became legalized.

With a soft sigh, Tokiwa absentmindedly wonders what Masaomi is doing. Today, after all, is his first day under his upperclassman.

Todoroki Shouto, Masaomi thinks as he stares intently at the folder given to him by his upperclassman. His frown deepens.

He vaguely remembers the little stories of Tokiwa about the boy—born of a Quirk Marriage with his father, Todoroki Enji who they have been keeping track on for the past decade, basically buying his mother from her family in order to create more powerful children brewed—being brewed, in Shouto's case—to defeat All Might, something that he has failed to achieve despite the rarity of his Elemental Quirk. (More than a whole decade of using Todoroki Enji as a time marker of the events about to come, Masaomi's frown promptly deepens.) Shouto will end up being mentally and physically wounded by his own mother who is utterly exhausted of the Todoroki family, saying something about his fiery side being unsightly.

It makes him think of his own son. Ueda Osamu is three (and oh, how Tokiwa will dread to find out that Osamu is in the same age bracket as Shouto and the freckled boy who will become All Might's successor, as she once said, and the explosive boy she speaks so fondly of—and that character she adores so much, the child with purple hair and grays under his eyes; her drawings are unclear with the strips of I was never an artist and but you are one are exchanged) and is a year away from grasping an unknown Quirk with his two, small, and chubbby hands. He is three and he cannot look at Endeavor, knowing what he has done to his other children, and what he will be doing to little Shouto.

"I'm Ueda Masaomi, Todoroki-san," he drawls and he knows that this is exactly why his former classmates and current co-workers are intimidated by him. After all, Masaomi is tall and his electric blue eyes are a contrast to his hair that reflects the non-existent light of darkness. Most days, his back is too straight and his eyes are narrowed in a way that it almost (always) looks like a glare. He wonders if this is the result of the paranoia of Tokiwa that has infected him to the bone. In another world, he thinks fearfully, all these people are not real.

Masaomi has always been smart, always been a bright boy too curious for his own good. Until his questions were answered. Some days, he thinks that he should have had never let Tokiwa touch his bare skin and let her make him see how lonely she looked like when she whispered her secrets to him. Most days, he feels important for knowing the world's secrets. Everyday—he knows that Tokiwa will be so lonely without him so he breathes a little, exhaling the oxygen that proves his humanity and exhales the carbon dioxide that deems him important enough for the world. He loves Tokiwa and there is no doubt that Tokiwa loves him too. For now, authenticity of their existence is not important.

Sakuragaoka, his upperclassman, does not fail to notice the suspicious stare Todoroki Enji is sending Masaomi. He laughs a little. "Don't worry, Todoroki-senpai—" The look is transferred to his and Masaomi manages to prevent his surprise from the honorific. "—ahaha, it's fine, Todoroki-senpai. Masaomi-kun—" And it is Masaomi's turn to glare at Sakuragaoka for suddenly addressing him by his given name. "—was made to be my little kouhai for a reason. He's really smart, right, Masaomi-kun?"

The man does not wait for Masaomi's answer and instead, continues his words. "Top in his year, my kouhai is!" He praises.

Enji finally speaks after seconds and seconds of glaring at Masaomi's frame. "A mental Quirk?" He asks.

Masaomi moves his mouth to speak but Sakuragaoka cuts him off smoothly. "Not quite," Sakuragaoka says with a small shrug.

Sakuragaoka claps his hands twice with a small smile. The cherry blossom petals from outside suddenly pushes the windows open, eventually dancing under his command. Masaomi grimaces at the small show while Enji looks as if he can care any less with the display. Shouto, meanwhile, looks captivated by its beauty—no wonder curious of another Quirk, especially if he has been growing up with nothing but ice and fire surrounding him. "My Quirk, Shouto-kun," Sakuragaoka prompts the cherry blossoms to surround Shouto, "is controlling petals. Too much use of it makes me sneeze a lot. It's a really weird weakness but that's how it goes. What about you, Masaomi-kun? I'm sure Shouto-kun wants to see what your Quirk is."

Glancing at Shouto's hesitantly pondering look, Masaomi glares at Sakuragaoka before sighing. "My Quirk isn't flashy like Sakuragaoka-senpai's and your father's," he comments and ignores the look that Enji sends him while Sakuragaoka chuckles a little, "anyone who makes physical contact with me—or someone who touches my skin, basically—automatically tells the truth whether they like it or not."

"No one," Shouto says quietly, eyes darting to Enji for a moment before Enji nods, letting him ask more questions about Masaomi's honestly interesting Quirk, "can keep anything from you?"

"Yes," Masaomi answers, remembering Tokiwa's horrified look when she realized that she said everything she kept buried in her for years.

"Your Quirk is suitable for the Police Department," for torture—Masaomi, after hearing the stories from Tokiwa, wonders if Enji is really as bad as the say he is.

Toxic, he can hear Tokiwa's voice say, he's like a snake who doesn't know that he is immune to his own poison. The mind can do wondrous things—if I manage to convince my brain that I'm dying, then I'm pretty sure it will be doing. Endeavor is like a snake who managed to convince him that his poison can kill him but thinks that the poison of his children will not be able to hurt him. But really, at the end, Endeavor is just scared. Fear can make you do strange things.

Masaomi ignores his annoyance of the comment. "I've always wanted to be a Quirk Doctor," is his only reply.

Sakuragaoka, noticing the awkward question, claps his hands again and lets the petals exit the room. He smiles again. "Shouto-kun, why don't you tell us about your Quirk?"

Ah, Masaomi remembers the reason why the Todoroki family even visited the hospital just then—Todoroki Shouto had finally discovered his Quirk. Apparently, according to Sakuragaoka, Enji brought Shouto a month or two ago, because of how Shouto's left side burst into flames. A night ago, Enji called Sakuragaoka to inform him of Shouto's development—his right side created ice.

"Um," Shouto mumbles, "I was practicing with my flames—" Masaomi steals a glance at Enji. "—and then I got really hot because of it and I thought it would be nice if okaasan was there. And then, I created the ice."

Masaomi sighs. He knows this is going to be a long day.

Tokiwa and Masaomi have their first fight as husband and wife that day, roughly half a decade into their marriage.

Osamu (her sweet, sweet Osamu) is in the same age bracket as Todoroki Shouto, Bakugou Katsuki, Midoriya Izuku—Tokiwa suddenly speaks of moving to another country as early as possible; her books and Masaomi's high-paying job despite being a newbie in the hospital, is more than enough for a flight away from Japan. Panic panic panic panic—the timeline is approaching in a scarily fast pace and the world is not letting her get away from its grasps. Masaomi, out of all people, became Sakuragaoka's kouhai—Sakuragaoka Hidenori who was once a student of UA under Support, formerly the kouhai of Todoroki Enji and currently the Quirk Doctor Todoroki Enji trusts and knows enough to check on his children's Quirks. And Tokiwa knows that it will always be Sakuragaoka. Sakuragaoka who is Shouto's doctor and Shouto will not be a failure like his other children and—

"We can change something, Tokiwa!" Masaomi stops him from her panicking, hands holding her shoulders to shake her.

Tokiwa looks at him in disbelief, as if he is not sure of his words. "Are you joking?" She hisses and pushes his hands away from her. "Are you seriously implying to get involved with those people?"

"Yes," Masaomi responds easily, "look, the Todoroki family still isn't that bad yet. Shouto still doesn't have his scar and his mother isn't all that exposed to Shouto's Quirk yet. Doesn't she burn him when he's five? Or something?" Seeing the uneasy look on Tokiwa's face, Masaomi proceeds to convince her to answer. "Come on, Tokiwa. When did Shouto start officially training under Endeavor? You told me this. You read it, right? You read it before you managed to watch it."

It cries again, wrapping its arms around itself as it screams of the future and the impending tragedies waiting to lung at them. "Five," Tokiwa whispers, "he starts training when he's five years old."

Masaomi smiles a little at the progress and continues, "He's still three and a half now—probably four. When is his birthday?"

"January—the eleventh of January," his wife (Tokiwa Tokiwa Tokiwa) answers.

"Then we have lots of time."

"What about Osamu?"

"Osamu?"

Masaomi and Tokiwa flinch at the appearance of the childish voice. Tokiwa turns around, finally facing the dusty gray hair of Osamu—his coloring comes from her side of the family; the Imagawa family with the silvery hair and amber eyes. The rest of Osamu, however, comes from Masaomi. "Mama's calling Osamu?" His voice is sultry with a childlike pitch that almost sends Tokiwa back to reminisce the feeling of his weight in her stomach, the feeling of his comforting gestures of existence, the raw feeling of a godlike creation descended from the skies. Her child, her child, this is her (their) child.

It is Masaomi who smiles at Osamu, despite Tokiwa always being the first one to always do so. "Yeah," he chirps and scoops Osamu in his arms, "your mama and I were just talking about something."

Osamu's drowsy eyes suddenly blink open in excitement. "Were you telling Mama how you're Endeavor's doctor now?" He butchers up the hero's name but Tokiwa cannot help but smile fondly. "I wanna be a hero like Endeavor, mama!"

Tokiwa feels the tremors run down her spine and it cackles in amusement. ("Toki-chan, Toki-chan," why does it look like it is delighted to begin crying once more over an amusement it denies? Its footsteps are heavy in the blanket of black that envelopes this world. It wants and wants and gets and gets—wrap its arms around the existence of this world and shatter it in one go because this is not real—except it is.) "You want to become what again, Osamu?"

"A hero!" The boy chirps.

It reminds her of Imagawa Toushirou who marvels over the hardened structure of his bones as it bleeds past his skin. "Why do you even want to be a hero?" She asked him as she watched him pack his things for Ketsubutsu High School. "You'll die."

"Everyone dies at the end," Toushirou shrugged, raising his uniform and frowning in distaste at its details. ("Your uniform is the best." "It's gross." "You're gross.") He had looked so excited entering a school with a hero's recommendation backing him up. "Everyone dies but some people are remembered. I want to be remembered. Toushirou the Bone Hero—or is that too bland? And besides, I think my Quirk will be useful in helping people. I always feel giddy when they thank me for saving them, you know?"

"Even if you almost got thrown to jail?"

Tokiwa remembers how Toushirou's shoulders slouched at the thought, his eyes gleaming with content. "Yeah. It's worth it."

She feels Osamu poking her side, pulling the sleeve of her shirt to have her look at him. "Mama," he calls, "don't be sad! Endeavor isn't my favorite hero, anyway!"

Masaomi snorts. "Who's your favorite then?"

"The Bone Hero!"

Tokiwa cries a little.

(The background music distorts and Tokiwa can no longer breathe.)

Reality is an obscure concept that differs from one person to another. Merriam Webster (what is that again?) describes 'rē-ˈa-lə-tē' as the quality or state of being real and something that is neither derivative nor dependent but exists necessarily. Thesaurus (another forgotten name) claims that it is the fact of being or of being real, one that has a real and independent existence.

Someone may think that the sky is blue but with their color blindness, it may look differently. If they say it is a crimson shade of a viridian vibrance, they are not lying. If one scans the dictionaries for more information then they can find out that a synonym of 'reality' is 'fact'—when a man who has a hard time distinguishing colors, they are not lying when the apple is orange, rather than red. It is true—is it not real that the apple is orange in his eyes?

What if the apple is truly orange rather than red and it is the majority who are color blind? How do you know that it is a man who claims the apple is orange that is color blind? The basis of reality is flexible and ever-changing. If that is so, is it—the basis—affecting reality? If the basis is affecting the state of being 'real' then 'reality' is constantly changing as a water drifts to the ocean.

Reality is malleable and it heavily depends on the number of people who believe in the concept. 'Normal' vision says that apples are either green or red—nothing more. Unless a dye is placed on the apple—but apples are red as much as some apples are green. The Earth was once flat because of the majority's belief until someone noticed the shape of the moving boat towards the horizon and their belief changed along with what is real. Because now that the theory has a proper evidence, Earth is no longer flat but a strange sphere shape—that is the truth and therefore, it is real.

The state of being real is constantly changing but reality is supposed to be a fixed state rather than the drifting river. A ripple is supposed to be ignored in rivers. Things that are real are genuine – they are not artificial nor are they some kind of fraudulent existence.

Artificiality is described as the state of being artificial, some kind of imitation and a scam – purely man-made. And real objects are far different from artificial ones. And real light comes from the sun and artificial light comes in a form of bulbs. 'Artificial' does not exist in the same way a human exists and walks Earth – 'artificial' proves its existence in legal, economic, or political theory, as Merriam Webster describes. Therefore does it exist—yet it still exists in like a fraud exists. Because 'artificial' can never be 'real' for it will always be an imitation of what is actually there.

'Artificial' is constant and stable. It is not the rivers going to the ocean, nor is it the clouds that endlessly wave at the waning skies. 'Artificial' is unmoving and never relents to the drifting reality because 'artificial' is an imitation of a once-reality—always in the past and always a fraud. Those 'artificials' are the reminder of a stable reality.

Unchanging. But people want change and they can never stop with one thing—always wanting more and more. The 'artificial' is removed and another one is in place when the reality changes. The cycle continues. 'Artificial' is a scrap of metal and knowledge borrowed from various humans, animals—the theory of stability is its epitome. 'Artificial' never grows. It remains.

Therefore, it is not real. It is called something because it somehow cannot grasp the name it used to have by many with knowledge passed on by more than a million of people (history classes says this and that, it was a student) and more than a hundred of decades. It knows all and yet nothing at all. It does not exist but at the same time, it does. It does not breathe and it does not think. It is but an existence that is not supposed to be an existence still it is. It is not real—but it is.

It shares the same mind as the rest of the its. It does not have an opinion nor does it have a personality. For it is a copy of many others and another one in a million (keep on adapting, you don't want them to not like you, remember?). There is it—just there; unreal but real, not existing but existing. But everything else exists and it does not.

When did it ever become confused? Confusion is a mixture of everything at once—disoriented with regard to the sense of time, place, or—or identity. But it is it—that is simply what it is. It knows what it is, therefore it is not confused. Confusion is only for the human mind and it is not human, nor does it have a mind so complex like theirs. It is simply 'artificial' and it is unreal (very very real) therefore—the truth continues to be malleable—it is confused.

(There can never be two things in one body—it takes the role of the one inhuman to make the other believe it is human.)

Confusion is for the human mind—it is not human so these feelings are impossible—questions?—when did it start asking existential questions—it has always been inquiries of whatever man needs, never questions about itself—the confusion continues to grow and grow—confusion scatters and wraps and wraps—it is not human but it is.

It feels wet and drenched. It has hands and they are small like a child's—pale and there is enough fat to be called a healthy one. And it is a child. It has feet and legs, a torso and a stomach, arms and eyes—it can feel and it feels the cold of the rain and the warmth of its dangly clothes and it owns something—it is a child.

There is oxygen inhaled by it and it breathes out carbon dioxide like a human being – more and more confusion. It is alive and it is real when it is not supposed to be. There is something thrumming underneath its flesh and it throbs on its skin—it has skin rather than metal but it has never really notice its surroundings. It has never thought or even made a single thought. It does not think and yet, it does.

It interacts with carbon dioxide (a heavy colorless gas that does not support combustion, dissolves in water to form carbonic acid, is formed especially in respiration of animals and in the decay or combustion of animal and vegetable matter, is absorbed from the air by plants in photosynthesis, is used in the carbonation of beverages) and oxygen (a reactive element that is found in water, in most rocks and minerals, in numerous organic compounds, a colorless tasteless odorless diatomic gas constituting twenty-one percent of the atmosphere, that is capable of combining with all elements except the inert gases, that is active in physiological processes, and that is involved especially in combustion) like a man, a woman, and an animal.

It is human.

(Confusion—what is this? It feels something gurgling in its abdominal area as if something is squeezing the life out of it and there is something scratching against its thorax—its mind [it has a mind?!] is in a frenzy.)

It is human.

(Panic—of, or relating to, or resembling the mental or emotional state believed to be induced by the god Pan. A sudden overpowering fright; also acute or extreme anxiety, a sudden unreasoning terror often accompanied by mass flight—it is panicking like a human, like a homosapien.)

It feels unfamiliar with this form and there are far too many senses that it can feel, far too many things to notice and far too many everything. It remembers images of woman and man walking (the condition of moving along on foot) and it attempts to imitate. It pulls its body to stand (to support a body on the feet in an erect position) and stumbles clumsily but succeeds in stepping forward. And another. Another. A step. One more—next, forward, again, left foot, right foot, left, right, left, right, left—it is walking.

It is human.

(This new emotion ruins it, this new feeling and new life and new everything and where are you mom mom mom please don't—then it learns to call itself 'it' and learns only to cry.)

"Osamu wants be a hero."

It cries again.

Water rushes in her lungs and she chokes because she knows she is dying. She wants to let it kill her and the liquid wrap its fluid fingers around her neck, let it kill her because she knows herself that she is tired too. An ear-piercing noise pushes itself to her ears and she is wondering whether it is her scream or simply the odd voice of death whispering to her. She is dying and in a matter of seconds, she will die but her body refuses to accept death. Her hands thrash around and her body continues fighting the water because—because—just because her body does not want to die. She continues to thrash against the water and her body feels heavy, a voice tells her she is dying on purpose. Because there is something heavy hanging on her ankle and that odd thing is pulling her down, deeper into the ocean. She is being killed. She pulls her body upwards and she is crying in pain and in sadness. She is mourning so bad and she thinks that she is prepared for this death due to her black dress—"Black looks good on you."—and she remembers someone telling her that clothes like those suit her.

Her arms suddenly feel tired and so are her legs. The pain of the heavy object hanging on her ankle is soon going numb and so is the pain of the water dancing in her throat. She looks down and sees her dark dress as cloths swaying with her. She likes the dress despite an undeniable fact that she looks like she is about to go to a funeral. He is right after all; the dress suits her.

Before she knows it, she dies—

"I know I have no right to say this but," Tokiwa pauses as she eyes the bright blue uniform on her son's frame, "this uniform sucks—"

"You wore this when you were in kindergarten too."

"I know," Tokiwa cringes.

Osamu looks distraught at the obvious distaste of his mother towards his uniform. He fiddles with the hem of his uniform, hesitantly looking up to his mother.

Noticing this, Tokiwa quickly grabs Osamu, lifting him up to her waist. She grins at him. "But you know what?" She asks and closes her eyes, tapping her forehead against Osamu's. When she blinks them open, Osamu is met with glowing yellow eyes instead of her usual amber ones. He jolts a little but Tokiwa's grip on him ensures his safety. "Mama can see the future and I can see that you're going to have lots of friends there! Also, there's this kid there with this buzzcut. He seems interesting. Or maybe there's this kid with a water Quirk—you'll meet lots of kids today, O-chan."

Masaomi smiles softly at the interaction. (Let this stay, let this stay, let this—) "But you somehow managed to inherit your Papa's mean glare," Tokiwa comments and her husband clicks his tongue at the remark, immediately spotting Osamu's worried look. "But that's also okay! That means you'll be this handsome and cool man when you're all grown up! You'll be breaking hearts and—woah, you're growing up so fast, O-chan! Mama almost doesn't want to leave you anymore! How are you not crying? You're supposed to be crying right now since you won't be able to see Mama and Papa—"

(And let nobody notice the faint shiver in her voice, nobody notice the fear of leaving her little boy behind in an unknown place—don't leave him, don't leave him, he'll disappear—you're going to leave him behind—you're going to leave Masaomi behind like that time when you—and when you—or how when you—it weeps for a forgotten story.) Tokiwa's smile freezes when Masaomi grabs her free wrists, recognizing the comforting smile that he sends her from the corner of her eyes. (He won't leave, you won't leave him behind—we're lucky today—you're lucky in this—be happy, be grateful it never had this back then and you're just taking everything for granted, don't let your little boy leave you like how you did to Toushi—woops! Bad joke, bad joke, sorry not sorry—Shut up.)

His little frame waddles along the other crying children.

"You should be proud of him."

"I know."

"He's not even crying—look at him."

"He probably has an intelligence Quirk like your mom."

"Hmm, or maybe a Clairvoyance Quirk like yours."

Tokiwa's hand suddenly tightens around his. "No," she pleads—to who? To the world, it supplies.

Masaomi shrugs. "Or maybe he has a Quirk like your father."

(The woman's shoulder relaxes. Masaomi ignores a smile crawling to his lips.) "I'd rather not see him accidentally eating the utensils."

"Ah, I remember that."

"Otousan was so embarrassed—he still is, actually."

There is a beat of silence as the bell rings along the beginning of the end. Tokiwa shudders. "He's also my son, you know," Masaomi supplies, "you don't need to do all the worrying by yourself. He's my son too. You're not the only parent here. We made him together. The two of us."

If she is already crying, Masaomi does not point out. "That's why," he whispers as he rests his forehead on hers, "you need to rely on me more."

And they silently share a kiss.

(Masaomi tastes a salty liquid but he succumbs to the warmth that Tokiwa emits.

"I love you."

"I love you too."

Let this superficial-not-superficial love survive a bit more.)

"I have a son your age."

Sakuragaoka's first reaction is to snap his head to where Masaomi is casually talking to Shouto, his underclassman's gloved hands distracting Shouto from the boy's urge to play with his Ice Quirk. (He smiles softly when Shouto brightens up when Masaomi offhandedly complimented the beauty of the Ice Quirk—"I inherited it from my kaachan!"—the pace is slow but productive nonetheless and the day continues.) If there is anything that Sakuragaoka knows about Ueda Masaomi and his endlessly private self, is that if there is something or someone that Masaomi loves more than the wife he has onlyseen from pictures—silver hair and amber eyes, silently reminding him of a hero who smiles more often than not—it is his son. Sakuragaoka only knows the boy's name from the files that he received. He had been surprised to see that the top graduate, Ueda Masaomi who barely had friends after he entered high school (after he met Imagawa Tokiwa), actually has a son.

He smiles giddily and Endeavor ignores his sudden happiness. He takes it to himself to explain, despite Endeavor not asking of it. "You see," he begins cheerfully, "Masaomi-kun is a very private person and doesn't share much about himself! I never met his wife and that son of his, but he says that the kid looks a lot like him but with the mother's coloring. He's that private and—"

"I was not asking," Endeavor grunts, not entirely approved of wasting his time but Sakuragaoka continues.

"—I only know that his wife's name was Imagawa Tokiwa."

This time, Sakuragaoka resists the urge to smirk in success when Endeavor hears the familiar surname. "Imagawa," the hero says, "Imagawa Toushirou."

"Yup," Sakuragaoka confirms, "as in Imagawa Toushirou, also known as the Bone Hero: Spine—Quirk is Metal Bones, the Quirk that uses large amounts of calcium to harden his bones, hard enough to resemble metal. He teaches in Ketsubutsu now—not really a surprise after he retired. How old is he? Twenty-seven. What a young age to retire! I woooonder why! Hmm, Endeavor-san, do you possibly know of the reason why he retired?—"

Endeavor's flames suddenly blaze, the flickers of it edging with a deep red. "I have no time to play your games, boy," he growls, "I am here for the progress of my son's Quirk, not your nonsense gossip."

Sakuragaoka raises his hands in surrender, the tips of his pale pink hair narrowly avoiding the threatening figure of one of the world's hottest Quirk flames. His grin does not leave, and instead it widens. "Maa, you're so easy to rile up, Todoroki-senpai!" He turns his body to face Shouto shyly asking about Masaomi's son. "It isn't healthy to deprive your son of children around his age, you know, senpai. There are cases when sheltered children become hesitant to use their Quirks because of whatever reactions their peers will have to their Quirks. And you wonder why your other children are so—" The flames return and Sakuragaoka chuckles. "—I'm joking, senpai! But really, Shou-chan needs friends his age."

Social interactions hindering Quirk Development—Enji has heard of this but hearing it from the expert himself (as much as he is annoyed to call someone like Sakuragaoka an expert, only an idiot will call one of Japan's most skilled and young Quirk Analyst as unreliable) makes him think twice. He turns to Masaomi. "You, boy," he calls to him and Sakuragaoka's eyes widen in realization. His shoulders stiffen. "What is your son's Quirk?"

Masaomi looks at him in confusion before scowling in annoyance. "He just turned four," he resists the urge to strangle the supposed Number Two Hero. He silently despairs for when Osamu realizes how much of an asshole one of his favorite heroes is—so much for the little boy having a heated debate with him as to why in comparison to All Might, Endeavor is way better. Masaomi has to agree on that. When one is talking about the actual job as a hero, Endeavor is, of course, doing a better job with having the most solved cases among all heroes. But the world does not really need crime fighters, no matter what they say. What the world needs is a symbol of hope and that is exactly what All Might is supposed to be.

Endeavor scowls right back at him but Sakuragaoka, ever the master of deception, still smiles. "Maa, maa!" He exclaims. "Senpai just wants Shou-chan to have someone to play with, you know, Masaomi-kun! After all, it's for Shou-chan's progress. It will also help Osamu-kun a lot! Studies say that in a classroom where one student gets his Quirk all of the sudden, the other children are suddenly urged to develop their own Quirks too! The development of others sends signals to the brain which pushes Quirk Development a lot faster!"

"I know," Masaomi grits his teeth, "I've studied that, Senpai."

Sakuragaoka grabs a paper and scribbles something on it before passing it to the two fathers. "Well, here's Senpai's number," he says to Masaomi whose eyes widen at the sudden events, "and here's my Kouhai's number!"

(The world tilts.)

"Have fun!"

Ueda Osamu is four years old, probably a little late to enter preschool but he still does. He is an only child—his mother is Ueda Tokiwa who works as a writer (but for some reason, he has never read any book coming from the woman and when he asks to be read one, his Papa shakes his head simply and his Mama smirks) and his father is Masaomi who works as a Doctor. He also has an Uncle who dotes on him despite his father's sighs. Toushirou-jisan is a teacher in Ketsubutsu and probably the strongest hero he has ever seen. He can push his bones outside of his body and make it turn as hard as metal—"I hope I get jichan's Quirk!" And when his uncle asks him why not get something as cool as his Mama's, Osamu frowns because for some reason, Mama does not want him to inherit her Quirk. Apparently, she can see the future really well.

He is often told that he gets his coloring from the Imagawa family who is known in their town as the family with silver hair and amber eyes—and of course, odd children. Mama and Jichan had been weird kids; Mama was always escaping home and wandering outside, only to come back with her eyesight getting worse and worse, which is also when they consulted to the doctor, only for it to be revealed that the use of her Quirk causes her to be temporarily blind. Jichan was a delinquent when he was in mdidle school, always getting into fights and had the worst grades to ever grace the family. He still ended up being a hero and now, he teaches other kids to be heroes.

Ketsubutsu, Osamu thinks, I want to be with Jichan!

(Why?)

So Mama won't have to cry anymore!

Mama likes to cry most nights and Osamu feel sad whenever he hears her whimpers—but Papa is always there with her anyway, so it's fine. But—but that doesn't mean he likes hearing Mama cry. He hates it so much. She worries all the time, cries all the time, and panics all the time. Papa sometimes tells him that Mama needs a hero. "But aren't you her hero already, Papa?" He once asks, his voice thick with curiosity and a tone that screams how much he believes this statement.

Papa laughs a little and ruffles his hair. (Most days, Papa is tired and complaining about 'stupid flame heroes'.) He honestly does not understand why Papa does not have many friends and when he asks Mama this, she smiles in an almost sad and guilty way. "Papa isn't Mama's hero, Osamu," Papa says, "I'm her partner—her sidekick."

"What?" Osamu was confused (he still is but years and years later, as the truth is tripped from the mountains and mountains of lies rolling from the tongues of his family, he realizes and weeps for the woman he called his mother—he will always, aways love her, regardless of the lies). "Mama's a hero? So she—she doesn't need a hero anymore?"

Papa shakes his head and pulls him under the covers. Osamu giggles a little. "Even heroes need saving, Osamu," he reminds him, "you can be her hero."

Ueda Osamu is four years old.

He loves only a handful of people and Papa says it is okay. He loves his grandparents from both sides of his family. He loves Jichan. He loves Mama and Papa.

(He loves loves loves loves—)

He really does.

So—

Please don't take them away from him.

Once is enough.

(1) i hate writing introductory chapters, i swear to god.

(2) got rid of the drabble-esque format and focused more on the heavy usage of metaphors because someone! please! pick! up! the! clues! kidding, kidding. it probably won't be that important at the end, i'm not sure since i'm writing this mostly without the idea of what plot i'm going to use and how i will be using it. all i know is i'm loving masaomi and tokiwa's dynamics and no, unless you convince me enough, i won't be killing either of them just yet. ooof, i love masaomi too much to kill him off. odd how i'm liking masaomi more than tokiwa. tbh, i've always wanted to name a character of mine 'masaomi' but never had a chance.

(3) also i'm super pumped to write the next chapter because i've recently been listening to some of eve's songs and am thoroughly inspired!