Fumikage had a sister, once.
The first things he remembers about her were the hand ghosting over his head and ruffling his feathers affectionately that only elder siblings can do, or the way her hair seems to flow with the wind like a black river in winter and how she would show a toothy smile at him whenever they saw each other after school. An air of familiarity even from far away, drawn to each other like stars and the curiosity of a wondering child, asking about the space and the void and what lays beyond. Trying to grab at the far away blinking of suns even if the gap was so greatly displayed.
Smoldering ires and wood, the scent of ash and tearing of flesh, the dark gazes, still and stubborn like wolves—
The world around us changes and revolves from our choices, like a ticking clock every second that passes something happens in the world— wether it be a newborn baby or the promotion of a hardworking person. It could be even something big, the premonition of a war or a newly signed paper for piece and cooperation, although not every day and every second seems to revolve much around those, at least from the point of view from another person's eyes.
He remembers many things about her really, it's just as he tries to find parts where laughter was loudest and the air of excitement among the two of them was at it's highest— he found himself devoid of the feeling of the mirth he was looking for, and instead only seemed to worsen his loneliness if he ever swam in too deep from the blacky waters of anamnesia.
He hides himself from the shadows she once casted, taunting him to think he would come home to feel her presence around the house even if she had not been home for almost a year.
What's left of her belongings were tucked away in her old room, locked up to gather dust as even he himself couldn't manage to clean off. The layers of chaff wailing and weeping as the fabrics torn from hungering moths and the dreadful thievery off other insects that scuttles beneath it all. They wait for recognition, until they are nothing left.
It is something he cannot be truly hidden from if he ever could, as not even the light in their own home could veil him from the lingering whispers from the walls, or the longing space in between spaces. There was an empty feeling whenever he sat down on the dining room table, as the empty seats bothered him to no end, there was a dreadful imitating call of his name whenever he tried to drown all the sounds around him— trying to insult him, intimidate him, lure him, and drown him further in the void of his home. Bait.
He hated it. Hated it whenever he went into the living room just to see the chair she always sat on was empty and cold, hated it whenever he passed her room that was devoid of the smothered snickering within or the clink of jars that held her most prescious mementos; longed for the mess of papers in the living room table and the scattered pens if the elder decided that that was the best place to do her schoolwork.
But every time he hoped for a change, for a shot of the moments even from the far past, there was nothing.
But what did he expect? She was gone.
She wasn't there anymore— she wasn't there in the kitchen counter sitting waiting for the kettle to boil, she wasn't in her chair scrolling through her phone on whatever media she's on, she wasn't there at the other side of the road when they both somehow found themselves walking home at the same time, and she wasn't there on her room doing whatever things she did on her spare time.
Because she was gone.
He always thought to himself what had gone wrong along the way that lead to this, or what he had said in the past that made the puzzle to rearrange and present their fate to a maze leading to a final demise. But at the same time he knows that his elder sibling's end had nothing to do with what he ever did or said, as it could never have lead to this even if that was the case. He had been helpless.
There was algae growing in one of her water plants, placed on recycled clear bottles of wine and old glass jars, neither one of his remaining family members bothered or dared to change it. Some of the plants were already dying anyway.
He or his mother did not touch them, merely changing their locations from time to time as neither one of them knew what she ever did to maintain her plants for living so long. They just kept growing even the water was barely even replaced. One time his mother accidentally dropped one of the smaller jars containing a growing and still healthy fern, it could have been saved so easily, she could have just replaced the jar and put in there, but she just picked it up and threw it away in the trash. Not even saying a word.
Earthly grains rushing like ocean tides, sand flowing in between fingers, rock and silt—
But those had been her plants once, now it's just nobody's. Abandoned and left to slowly die from neglect in fear of change and the devastating course of accidentally scraping away the fragile life that made home in the roots— earth to the waters housing them like crabs underneath heavy rocks. Rushing and flowing and flooding.
So when he returned from school one day, he found that all of the plants were gone.
It was ironic in a way, his mother had stored her belongings away and locked it up so no one else would realize the empty space that had once treaded the corridors, but still sorted them out and gave him her hand-me-downs like newly bought gifts, which were mostly sweaters and jackets and shoes. Nada could have done the same with the remaining plants, but she didn't do it.
He didn't understand why and he had been distraught when he found out— dirt stains on clothes, smudges on arms and faces—, but somehow he understood even he couldn't get himself get over the empty window spaces and cabinets. The house looked blander without the multiple shades of green, even if they were almost non-existent to them without her who tended to them.
Days and days pass on without the other, and as time passes the world continues to revolve around other's choices like it had before. There's a lost sound within the house, always appearing and always vanishing like the ticking of a clock, broken hands trying to find out time's losses and victors— but it's crooked and hidden away in the cramped cracks of the underground. It was always there, even in the night, and there's always footsteps that accompanied it.
Time and time again the air smells of freshwater and earth and silt whenever he steps into the space of his home, but it only always followed him around no matter how much he tries to be free of it.
The sound of tumbling rocks underwater, crashing, thrashing, and the sudden strands of blood, blending, tainting, mixing in the harsh tides of loss and regret; where the crashing walls screamed and the broken rods s c r e e c h i n g. Begging to break, to be let go, to be left behind and rust devour them like the unforgiving torrent did to—
And after it, there is stillness.
Peace was never with them, only stillness and the tranquility of a loving presence, somehow almost like the following gaze of a curious god, hands wrinkling the earth as moss crept from the cracks of broken glass. "I am here" and "I am with you". Like the song of a blackbird in the dead of night, or the silent wailing from the earth underneath the moss and stone, it was there and it was unforgiving, always waiting and waiting until it is time to suddenly reel in the string which connects everything together like heartstrings and harp strings.
It was here, and had been there. Only now that the tranquil is now broken and left behind a void that sat silently within their hearts like a stagnant lone pond in the middle of a burning and cruel forest.
Stillness. Until it is disturbed.
Flowing black hair, the shadows cast upon a laughing and teasing voice, and pale, slightly calloused hands; those were the things he remembers most about the absent contiguity that came and went for years and years with emotionless placidity and a raised voice that could rival a tiger's warning. It followed and the reason why isn't even there, yet the cold still ghosts over his hands and head. Yearning for his attention, begging him, to close his eyes and sleep when he couldn't. An insult for what she was.
Go to sleep go to sleep go to sleep go to sleep go to sleep—
"Don't take things for granted. "
There's murmurations upon murmurations that travel among the daily lingering of cataclysm and devastation. There are words and shouting and whispers that fill the air of growing wrath and deceit, there is the grief that hides behind masked figures and the loss that hangs around cut tongues— taking all the negativity in and replacing the space with continuous function of darkened and silvered altruism to the veracious reality of a tainted world.
There is laughter that stings, with vices laced around their boisterous outbursts and forked tongues underneath sweet honeyed smiles, clinging at the eyes and shining at them with fake promises and the continuity of more things to come. They taunt and they snarl like animals and thieves, even if they themselves cling to those same eyes and words brought to them in silver platters when in behind silken curtains are all just painted masks of freedom and riches.
And when he realized, there was a big empty space left behind by the other similarly to the one in his heart. He felt the emptiness whenever he came home or when he woke up. She wasn't in the next room over, she wasn't waiting for him so they could play the board games both of them liked. She wasn't in the kitchen cooking their breakfast and lunch when their mother left early again, dust gathered around her books that still had their bookmarks in between crinkling pages of lost conundrums in the cabinets, or even the stray jacket on the couch whenever she came home was nowhere to be found.
He looked for what's left of her, small mementos and even the shards left by the frustration and the suddenness of appearance causing those raptures and the haste spurs of spikes and blades. His skin being cut from the collection of the sharp pieces, though he paid them no mind, and put them all in a jar— housing them as if they were ever so fragile and would turn to dust as soon as they were handled wrongly; even if he isn't even sure if the pieces were to ever fragment or become nothing when their creator had been gone.
The sound of hurried steps, thumping and slamming down on the ground with frantic eyes and a tight line plastered on an unmoving mouth—
Where are you?
There were old ribbons and pointless papers with nothings written on them, premonitions and hopes and dreams and the lost wariness accompanying a judgement of denial and the deceit of another's companion. Uncertainty upon hopes and theatrical solemnity plastered and painted on tearing papers. Bold and stubborn, a collection of words he does not understand, ones he cannot connect, random numbers and numerals on scribbled yellow sticky notes. Useless and bound to have been burned.
But he keeps them nonetheless, even if they were a tug at his heart every time he realizes she would have gotten rid of these. Sonder and comfortless.
Nada Tokoyami was their mother, and she seems to be home more than she was a year ago— she arrived earlier from her job, though carried obvious wariness and a jaded air that hung around her like dewdrops on dying leaves, she smiles at him whenever he had the chance to greet her as soon as he hears the door open and close. She was trying to be what she had not for their eldest, she was trying to be enough for him even if he already accepted this when he was younger.
She was enough, and he was always happy that she came home every night.
Two of the four seats in the dining table become occupied, while the remaining seems to be the same as any other time. Although one had been seldom inhabited while the other was more often than not, until never.
His father comes home and he would sit in his place on the four seats, he will always come home from piloting long flights, he will find a way to return to Japan if there were ever an important occasion. Enkaku Tokoyami was their father. He comes home when he can, but the latter no longer couldn't in a sense that were truly there, existent and present and alive.
Enkaku will always be coming home when there's a chance. But this is not the day, so they were once again alone.
There is preparation, there is setting, there is silence, and there is stillness in a way that wasn't peace nor fulfilling.
It's been like this for months, and for most of the time Nada couldn't help but tighten her mouth on a straight line of her features. Human actions. Unforgiving causes.
Tightened grips, scarring hands and frightened red eyes, eyes that l o o k e d right at him before disappearing oh so suddenly, so quickly and unanticipated he didn't have to chance to lunge forward and grab her hands before it had been too late.
Fumikage could not, sometimes, handle change.
••
It's been almost two years, now, and he is 16 years old.
Years come and go and he finds himself U.A, basically the most prestigious hero school in Japan— he was ecstatic to find that he was accepted, but the test at the beginning had been merciless. He hadn't expect much when it was being announced, though the battle was quite the anxiety inducing moment.
But he passed, and that was the only thing that matters.
Nada had helped him pack his things when they moved into the dorms, the woman wary as she stacked boxes upon boxes— she coddled him throughout the day but he knew she was trying to make the most of his last day on their home for the year. He can come back of course, but those options were limited unless they had a vacation.
I don't want to be alone, her eyes says as she hugged him for the last time, I don't want you to go, not after her.
This is change, and he can handle it.
His days in U.A was eventful— he met his new best friend and a couple of companions and so they formed a small group of their own. Training was merciless, but most of the time he stands back up and tries to do it again.
His class was a loud one, he finds, with one of the top students yelling basically every moment of the day or whenever he opened his mouth, then the class president who had stiff arms and continuously karate chopping the air when he called order. A-1 was the loudest class he'd been in, but what did he expect? He's been too used to the silence until now.
There's a blurry image of a ghostly smile, images of faces hidden and shone at by the light, taps of fingertips against wood and doors. There's a brief shout and then nothing.
Fumikage opens his eyes, and he finds himself standing on a platform whilst a bronze medal hung from his neck.
He looks at it with uncertainty and pride, and he hears a rush of water almost muted from the back of his mind, but seemed to close to his ears when he registered it. A feeling of cold that rolled down his arms and his fingers felt numb and stiff.
There comes All Might, the No.1 hero says some advice and encouragement to him and he feels strong arms hug him.
"Don't rely too much on your quirk, if you train your own strength more— then you'll have more options when you fight. " he says.
I know, he wants to say, it's the reason why I'm here.I want grow stronger, I want to be strong and ready enough to save the ones I love. Even if I already lost a sister.
Debris rushed with the unforgiving waters of the roaring flood, taking everything with it and flushing it away as easily as a leaf drowning in the drains. There is a hand reaching out from the murky current, and there are strands of hair that mixed with them.
I want to be strong enough to pull them out, take them and make sure they're okay.
Bloodred eyes looks at him in alarm, she tries to push him up from the tides.
I don't want anyone else to be pulled by an unforgivable fate, sudden things I could've seen if I wasn't so slow. I want to save them.
He gags and chokes at the harsh waters, and he does not notice the breaking rod. Her hand slipping away slowly, the rust slicing through her skin.
I don't want anyone else to die because of me.
She is washed away with a frightened sound, hair sticking to her face and she looks at him right in the eye—
I'm sorry, they say, and then she was gone—
He does not see her a for a long time. But when he did, she was not breathing.
•
•
•
There is change. And he cannot take them sometimes.