Chapter Eleven: Ishi

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Ishi presses her palms against her eyes, the cool, rough skin; soothing in the harsh light. Her nails clicking against her forehead. She can still hear the sirens, the smell of exhaust, and the dark stares of the cops as they regretfully inform her that one more criminal is off the streets.

She'd only barely managed to hold her tongue.

And when they'd left, her boss had sent her home with a grim expression.

Normally she'd have argued.

But with Yokuto locked up—that stupid, stupid man!

Ishi sighs, pulling away to stare down at the scratched wood. The same wooden table they'd say at when they'd first married, where they'd plotted and planned for how they'd move away from this cursed town. They'd find a place that didn't remember they were quirkless, they'd move to one of the big cities, they'd change their names, they'd become anything—everything.

She feels her eyes water.

She swipes at them swiftly, lips thinning, and emotions crawling up her throat.

Then she'd gotten pregnant.

"Mama?"

She stills and breathes deeply. And then, looking up, she frowns at the front door. Silhouetted against the ratty frame, her oldest looks ashen. Tall, thin, and weedy like his father with her own dark eyes. She doesn't miss his dirty cheeks or the busted lip she knows wasn't there this morning.

They watched their father get arrested.

And by a hero too…

She'd never hated heroes before, not the way she had when Kaito had come running into her arms after school. His voice wobbling as he sobbed about the silver figure and Yokuto's unhinged jaw.

"Ryuichi," she says coolly instead. She motions him closer, her red nails glinting under the kitchen light. The paint on her ring finger is peeling, and, idly, she acknowledges that it's probably time to repaint them. A woman should always look presentable, her Mama would say. And chipped nails were for paupers. "You should have been home hours ago."

He snorts, crosses the room, and drops a small bag in hand that looks heavy with food. It thumps as it lands against the table and, honestly, she just wants to close her eyes and pretend it's not there.

She doesn't.

"Where did you get that?" she snaps instead, chin up and nails drumming against the table. "If you stole it-"

"Then what?" he growls, and she can see the fight in his eye. The spitting image of his father with every broken shard of her personality. Heaven help her, he would be her death. "You steal all the time. Hell, you make imouto steal."

"Don't talk about shit you don't understand," she sneers, standing.

Her son flinches. And part of her, the part that wanted this life to be different, that keeps pretending that if she's just patient they can still make it to the city, that tiny part of her hates it. Hate this. She hates the way his face is too thin, the way his clothes will never fit. The bloody lip that all her boys will share. Stuck here in this forsaken town with her dead mother's home and no husband in sight.

She hates that he's right.

If she were any less of a woman, she'd have cried. Instead, she glowers, eyes narrowed until the boy shifts in his spot, expression dark and defiant.

"It was a gift from Mira," he admits, looking away. "Dad was on the news."

That's almost worse.

She sighs, the sounds rattling through her nose, and she steps past him into the kitchen.

Pity.

As if she needed that from some damned quirk children.

"They called him dangerous," Ryu tells her angrily, returning to the door and shoving off his coat. Threadbare and oversized. "I didn't know purse thieves were fuckin' dangerous-"

"Watch your tongue," Ishi snaps, hands reaching for a kettle and filling it with water. "Just because your father isn't here-"

"What, we're going to pretend everything is normal?"

"No," Ishi tells him sharply. Lips thin, she moves the kettle to the hot plate and turns it on high. She watches silently as the black coils begin to glow a brilliant red. "We're going to talk about what you will do if there is an emergency."

She can tell she has the boy's attention. Fourteen and not even in high school. He's far too young to already be burdened with the weight of his father's recklessness. Over a purse. Over a homeless man that will likely never be able to thank them. She wants to throttle Yokuto. She wants to shake him and scream.

You chose some idiot on the streets over us.

You might as well have given us all up.

Because the math will never add up.

She will have to drag her quiet, too-sweet baby through heist after heist if she ever even hopes to keep them afloat. She will have to awaken that terrifying blackness again and again and stare into the dark abyss and tentacles hidden beneath her daughter's skin to even dream about survival.

Yokuto, you bastard, how could you?

Diploma or not, it doesn't take a genius to know the odds of that.

"Emergency?" Ryu repeats.

"Yes, emergency. Are your ears as messed up as that lip?"

The boy flushes and glares and she can't help the slightest smile at his annoyance. It just makes him glower more, his face turning a darker shade of red.

"No. I meant, what kind of emergency? Isn't, you know, Dad going to jail emergency enough? We barely can afford clothes already and you don't get paid shi-"

In a second, Ishi snatches up a spoon and whacks him hollowly in the chest.

"Ow! What the-"

"Boy, I've told you to stop cursing in my house," she says, waving the spoon at him threateningly. "I don't care if your father is in jail or not. You are not too old for my belt."

"Fine," he snarls, rubbing the spot tenderly. "What?"

"If something happens, you have to promise to protect your brothers."

There's a pause and a whistle, and she turns back to remove the screaming kettle. When she moves back, however, she finds two small cups already waiting. Ryuichi, her oldest, her dragon, stares at her oddly silent, tea bags in hand. She pours the boiling water before taking the kettle to the sink.

It sizzles as she places it carefully down.

"Brothers. What about Rin?"

She doesn't answer at once, doesn't even look at him, the emotions rearing back up and closing in her throat. The tiny babe with soft, pale skin and almond-shaped, dark eyes born on the cold January eve. The toddler with the gummy fingers and messy, hair squealing from under the covers. The sniveling child with the oversized hoodie clutching to the tiny flashlight in the back of the car...

Her baby…

"If something happens, it's unlikely we will ever be able to find her again."