The house was so quiet after she was taken away. I wandered through the halls and rooms, a purposeless child without the distraction of school I'd had for the last three days. Weekends used to be fun. My feet carried me to my father's gym. Shoto was sitting on the floor next to a punching bag five times his size, knees to his chest. The left side of his face had just been uncovered. His eyes were narrowed as he glanced over at me. Someone so young should not be able to hold so much anger behind their expression, but I understood it. I slowly walked up to him, it was the first time I'd seen his scar, it was worse than Touya's scars, red and bubbly, and peeling. I felt sick and tried hard not to stare at his face as I sat down next to him.
"I'm so sorry Shoto."
Shoto balled up his fists in his lap, "It's not your fault," his voice dripped with hatred, "It's all his fault, he made her hurt me." I cold chill went over my body although it must have been over 36 degrees out.
A shadow crossed the entrance, "Get out!" My father had come up, his shoulders occupying the whole doorway, arms forever crossed. I ran towards the entrance but he was still standing in it. He reached one of his hands out and I flinched back, tense even when he only put a hand on my shoulder. "Look at me."
"Yes, father." The word tasted bitter on my lips, and it took all my strength to look up at him, not into his eyes, but at his flickering flame beard.
His hand tightened on my shoulder as he began, "Your place is not in the room. You are the only girl in this household now, and a girl's place is in the kitchen. I'm counting on you to clean up after your brothers and take care of them."
I almost screamed his hand was crushing into my shoulder, it hurt more each second, "Yes father." He let go, and I skirted past him and out of the room.
Shoto thought it was all his fault, but he wasn't the one who left me alone, who poured boiling water over her own son's face. I hopped the last stair to the courtyard, kicking my foot into the ground and sending up a cloud of dust. Why couldn't she have been stronger?
Even in the moment I saw the cruelty of even placing a sliver of blame on her, but she had ignored me for months to only care about Shoto, and then hadn't even protected him in the end. I was a horrible child, to think that way about her, she was the victim, she was just a victim. My father had always been distant, but she used to love me, read me stories at night, let me play with her hair, and praised my scribbles as treasured masterpieces. She was powerless.
I stomped in the dirt, eyes stinging for more than one reason. I was just as weak as her, more than anything I feared that I would break like her, lash out because I'd been hurt, and no longer love those that mattered most. I bent over a single flower, pushing its way past the heat and dust to survive, despite it all, peddles muted and damaged but still standing.
"Hey," I turned to see Touya, who had walked up behind me saying, "I'm going to the store, want to come along." His voice still had a slight unnatural rasp behind it, a product of almost being strangled, and he had a fresh burn under his eye.
"Does the nanny know?" I took off my glasses, cleaning them off on my dress.
"What she doesn't know can't hurt, right? We won't be gone for long."
The streets were crowded, and waves of heat shimmered up from the pavement. Touya got some weird looks, and an older man even stopped us.
He pushed his foggy glasses up, looking Touya up and down then turning to me, "Are you ok, child? If you don't feel safe with this boy, you can come with me. Tell me if something is wrong."
Touya sneered, placing one hand on his hip defensively, "Mind your own damn business old-timer. She's my sister and she feels plenty safe with me!"
The old man's face went a tomato red and he cut in, "I was talking to the girl! Stay away from him, miss."
"But he is my brother," I grabbed Touya's hand, hot and sweaty in mine, "Please leave us alone, sir."
The man huffed, "It's not proper for someone like him to be walking around in public."
Touya turned his back on the man, pulling me along with him. I suddenly felt heat on my arm, and yanked my hand away when I realized my brother's arm was flaming, "Touya! Your arm, stop it now please!"
He leaned down, looking me in the eyes, "Why should I have to control it, people will think I'm a freak anyways, cause all this world wants out of its heroes is pretty faces and bulking muscles. They want ugly scared villains, with three heads or snake eyes. They want helpless children in school uniforms to get caught up in the middle of it all. They don't give a shit if a hero beats his wife once he takes off his cape, they just want their gods and headlines." I froze, caught up in how much his eyes looked like father's, his gaze burned too.
"You're... scaring me."
Touya flinched, "I'm sorry," he patted out the flame on his arm, "You shouldn't need to think about things like that. Let's just go to the store."
We walked the rest of the way in silence. I looked up at a billboard of the top ten heroes, my father was up there, forever glaring down at his failures, forever below his ultimate humiliation. I smiled back at All Might, at the very top of the billboard.
Touya noticed my gaze, "Bet he's a horrible person in real life too."
"Why would you say that?" We entered a small convenience store, Touya made a beeline for the snack section, as I grabbed a basket. By the time I caught up to him he already had a handful of junk food, which he unceremoniously dumped into the basket.
He sighed, "It's just that that smile has to be fake, right? He has to have some sort of dark side."
"Why do you always have to see the worst in the world? Please can't you just believe that there's at least one true hero." Touya didn't answer, instead starting to check out, putting the snacks on the counter in large mounds, "Um, Touya. How are we going to pay for all this?"
He pulled out a thick wallet which definitely wasn't his, "With this."
"Oh my gosh, you didn't." I tried to grab the wallet, and he held it just out of my reach.
"Wait, wait," he laughed, "I didn't steal it, it's our old man's, he dropped it a week ago."
I stopped trying to grab the wallet, tilting my head to the side, "That's weird that he hasn't said anything about it. You should probably give it back."
"Why?" Touya handed some of the money in it to a very flustered looking young woman behind the counter, "So he can beat the crap out of me again, no thanks." He opened a package of crackers and handed it to me, taking one out and popping it in his mouth.
I took out a handful and stuffed them in my mouth, "I can take it back if you want."
"No, I'll give it back when he notices," He shoved the wallet in his back pocket, picked up the four bags of snacks and started for the door.
"But that's going to get you in even more trouble." I panted to catch up with him, scarfing another cracker.
"Don't worry about me sis, just enjoy the snacks." I knew he was getting more and more needlessly reckless each day, but he was brave. He still loved me, still would protect us when mother couldn't.
A couple more stares and four empty snack bags later Touya and I were back at the house. I collapsed in the courtyard, freezing my hands and pressing them to my face. Touya took the stairs two at a time to his room and tossed all the snacks through his door before sliding it shut.
He knocked on the door to my room, "Hey Natsuo, you in there?"
Natsuo timidly slide the door open, "What do you want?"
"Come on, sis and I are going to turn on the garden hose and play in the water."
I jumped in excitement, running over to the hose and turning it up to full blast. It whipped around the ground as a powerful burst of water streamed out of it. Natsuo slowly stepped out onto the balcony as Touya barreled down the stairs, straight into the water. He grabbed the end of the hose, impishly grinning as he pointed it straight at me. I wave of ice-cold and soaking wet hit me, almost making me lose balance.
I laughed, "I'm gonna get you for that!" Natsuo came down to join us, splashing down in a newly made puddle, and even smiling ever so slightly.
Touya suddenly dropped the hose, hand going to his back pocket, "Shit." He pulled out our father's wallet, sopping wet. Natsuo's eyes widened in horror. My hand went to my mouth, Touya was already calling for so much trouble, even without destroying the wallet.
Natsuo let himself fall back onto the bottom stair as he said, "That's father's isn't it?"
"Yeah," Touya hesitantly opened the wallet, pulling out a wad of disintegrating cash, "maybe he won't notice."
"Notice what?" Our nanny burst through the kitchen door, mop in hand, forehead beaded with sweat.
Touya ruefully held out the wallet to her, "It's the old man's, kinda forgot it was in my pocket, think you can fix it."
"Fix it!" she threw up her none mop wielding hand in exasperation, "My quirk fixes ripped cloth, not soaked wallets. What were you thinking, boy, stealing from your father like that?"
Touya wrung out the edge of his shirt pointedly staring at the ground.
I opened my mouth but Natsuo cut in, "You weren't thinking ahead because you never do," he stood up, walking through the puddles to stand in front of Touya, his voice quavered, "right?"
Touya let go of his shirt, "Damn right brat."
Nanny chucked the mop at Touya's back, hitting him hard, aim truer then she must have meant it sent him onto his knees, she gasped, but quickly regained herself, "Don't ever speak to your brother that way again!"
Touya stood, trying to wipe the mud off his shorts.
He glanced back at Nanny, "Jeez, ok. Sorry Natsuo, you're not a brat." He picked up the mop and handed it back over to her.
"It's ok." Natsuo fiddled with his hair, trying not to look at anyone.
I put a hand on Natsuo's shoulder, "Help me clean our room?"
"Sure."
Once we were in our room with the door closed Natsuo fell onto his knees, covering his face with his hands.
"Why can't we just be a normal family? I'm so tired of being scared of my own family, but he's so angry like father, they all are."
I was tired of not being able to help any of them, of being useless.
I said, "We all are going through a hard time. I don't think we'll ever be normal, but I'll always be here for you." The walls are thin in our house. In the moment of silence, I could hear our father's voice from the gym, and Shoto crying, an exhausted five year old carrying the weight of his father's fame.
"This is horrible," Natsuo grabbed the sides of his head, "He's going to break him."
