="Wake up Hijo, It's time to get up!" said Leizcio's mother. She was shaking him while Leizcio tried to sleep peacefully.
"Okay ma, just give me one minute." A slightly younger Leizcio said groggily.
They were off to celebrate Leizcio's 13th birthday. Since Leizcio had a few friends, he'd spend the early part of the day with them. He would get dressed and say bye to his mom and go and be with his friends. His friends were a bit like him, they were quirkless and didn't have many other friends since they feel that they'd reject them for being quirkless.
But that wasn't the case as they had each other. To celebrate their friend's birthday, they took Leizcio to an arcade, a place where they'd go to celebrate each other's birthdays. They'd burn their legs off trying to beat each other's scores at dance-dance-revolution. They'd get filled with anticipation trying to get that rare prize from the claw machine. Try to kill as much as robots as possible in the shoot-em-up machines. It was a nice and relaxing day that Leizcio had with his friends, he took pictures with his friends in the photo booth. As time sped by, it was suddenly already 6 pm.
As the friends parted ways, Leizcio's mom picked him up taking him back home.
"Hijo, how'd your day go?"
"It was good! I managed to get the highest score out of my friends when it came to dance-dance revolution!"
"Haha, nice! You know who has the highest score though right?"
"Heh, of course, you do mom!"
As they were driving back, Leizcio's mom put their favorite playlist on the music player in the car, and they both sang until their throats got raspy from it. The breeze from the outside hit Leizcio's face as he put his head out the window for a second, feeling refreshed.
When they both made it home, they had both gone upstairs and Lavania was there awaiting them, with a much smaller pech in hand.
"Hey Lei, hope you're ready for what I made you!" Lavania said as she had put pech down and went to grab something in the fridge. Leizcio picked up pech, giving him pets and later putting him down.
"Check it out!" Lavania said, putting a cake down on the table.
It was an ice cream cake, but it had 4 little figures on top of it. It was of Leizcio, Lavania, and their mom, and with pech of course. The cake had purple frosting and was decorated with white frosting patterns along its sides.
"It looks great Lav! Thank you!" Leizcio said with excitement on his face. Leizcio knew that this was a rare occasion where Lavania had the time to make anything. So the fact that it was beautifully decorated made Leizcio feel happier.
As Leizcio and his mom sat down, Lavania lit the candles on the cake and began to record them on her phone.
"Happy birthday Leizcio! You're 13 now!"
"Are you ready to make your wish mi Hijo?"
As Leizcio made his wish in his mind, he blew out the candles, and he began to slice into the cake. Lavania stopped the video and quickly joined them. They were all celebrating, congratulating Leizcio on how well he's done. His mother told him how proud she was of him.
It was already becoming late at night and they were all quite tired. As they began to clean up and head into their rooms, Leizcio's mom went up to him and gave him a bear hug.
"I love you mi Hijo okay? I'll always be proud of you." She told him as she let him go.
"Thank you ma, I love you too." Leizcio said as she hugged her before heading to his room.
Leizcio couldn't be happier, he had a great day. He got to spend time with his friends, and he got to spend time with his family. He couldn't ask for anything else.
Over the following weeks, however, his mom seemed to become a bit pale and in pain. Lavania and Leizcio were both concerned and they quickly checked her to the hospital to see what was happening.
As Leizcio and Lavania were waiting outside while their mom was getting examined, they were scared within. Lavania tried to put on a strong face for Leizcio, but she just couldn't.
The door to her room opened, and a doctor came out.
"Alright, we're done with the examination and have results, come in please."
As they both entered with the doctor, their legs were slightly wobbling, unsure of what is happening. They saw their mom on a hospital bed, resting.
"I'm sorry kids, but her quirk has caused her natural regeneration to stop, and she has an illness that is eating her healthy cells. I'm sorry but she'll only have about a month left to live."
As the doctor exited the room, Leizcio and Lavania sat next to their mother, holding onto her hand. They buried their heads, they don't know why this had to happen to her. She didn't deserve any of this. She was always helping others, yet nobody would be able to help her. Both Leizcio and Lavania are yelling in their heads, wishing it was them instead of their mother. She deserved a life of peace and happiness, it didn't deserve to stop so soon.
When their mom did wake up, she also cried, scared of having to let her children go. She didn't want to leave her kids behind as their father did. She wants to see Lavania get married, to see Leizcio graduate from high school and follow his dreams.
Leizcio and Lavania hugged their mom tightly, as all three of them were crying, not wanting to let the other go.
While their mom was scared of leaving their children, she wasn't afraid of meeting her time. She knew that she'd have to meet it at one point. She had just wished that she could be with her children just a while longer.
However, the Esperanza family didn't wait for the day to happen, they still went to create memories with each other before it was time to say goodbye. Lavania already had quite a bit of money saved up from when their father left them money as did Leizcio. The both of them pooled up their money and planned to use it to fulfill whatever their mother had wanted to do before it was time.
They went to Mexico so that their mother could see her family one more time before she had to say goodbye. It was a painful moment to tell, but it had to have been done. Spending a bit of time in Mexico, Leizcio's mother introduced them to many places she knew as well as old friends.
After departing, they went back to Japan, as that is what their mother had wanted.
All she wanted to do from then on is spend time with her children before her time had arrived.
Leizcio had asked in a favor from his old friends to do his schoolwork for a while so he could spend time with his mother, while Lavania would hold off on her business meetings for a bit. They spent the time they could with their mother, continuing life as if there was no timer ticking down.
The final days arrived, their mother still wanted to continue life as normal, nothing crazy. Leizcio and Lavania would find themselves often in their rooms at night crying, unsure when the day would arrive.
"Leizcio, Lavania, mi hijo y mi hija, por favor cuídense, sé que me voy, no quería dejarlos solos pero no hay nada que se pueda hacer, los quiero mucho a los dos. Sigue tus sueños y ponte las pilas. Te quiero mucho y siempre estaré contigo"
These were the last words that Leizcio and Lavania heard the night when their mother was to die.
Right before they went to sleep, their mother told them this, hoping that it wouldn't be true that this would be the last time. As she had fallen asleep, Leizcio and Lavania quietly brought in chairs so that they could sleep with her, ensuring that she wouldn't be alone.
Later in the night, there was no sign of breathing coming from her. Leizcio and Lavania called for medical services, they had to give her CPR in hopes that it'd be enough to get her to wake up again. Once medics arrived, there was nothing they could do.
Their mother had passed away, her soul was no longer attached to this world.
No words were spoken as Leizcio and Lavania held their hand onto their mother's hand, crying with their tears slowly dropping to their hands.
While she may have passed, she was given the calmest and peaceful of deaths.
Passing away in her sleep as her children were with her in her final moments.
...
"Doctors help! It's Leizcio! He's screaming!" A distraught Lavania said as she could hear shouts coming from the room in which Leizcio was being treated.
"Mom!" "Please!" "Please don't leave!" "I still want to make you proud!" "I just want to spend more time with you!"
These were the shouts that Leizcio was saying in his sleep as his body had almost finished healing. He could feel something warm, but it was only the tears rolling down his face as he could do nothing but see his mother laying down with no response.
"Leizcio, calm down okay? I'm here now. You'll be okay." Lavania told him, hoping to wake him calmly.
"Lavania?" Leizcio said in a broken voice, barely able to see with the tears in his eyes.
"Yes, it's me. You're okay now. Just breath." Lavania said, giving him a strong hug.
Leizcio hugged her back strongly, trying to take deep breaths but still sobbing.
When Leizcio had finally calmed down, a doctor had entered the room about to tell Leizcio what had happened.
"Hello there Esperanza, how're you feeling as of right now?"
"I'm doing okay, just feel a bit of pain in my chest area."
"Figures, when you were punched by that nomu, nearly all the bones in your rib cage had broken, and if that weren't enough, you were impaled by a piece of metal as well. Luckily, it didn't hit anything major and you were able to recover well."
"So are there any lasting effects?" Leizcio questioned hoping that there wasn't.
"Considering that your speed healing will continue to kick in at a more calm rate, your torso should feel fine in about 2 days. However, I believe that you might've gone overboard your quirk, as it seems you have a Lichtenberg figure on your back about 30 centimeters long, it's faint but I'm afraid that's going to be permanent."
"Of course, thank you sir."
"Of course, you are free to go when you feel ready."
"Thank you."
Leizcio was curious as to how the scar on his back looked, Lavania quickly took a picture of it and showed it to him. It looked like a bunch of tree branches embedded into his back. Looking down at his chest, he noticed that there was also a mark where he had gotten impaled that seemed to have gotten smaller.
"You were quite brave out there you know? I was told all about it." Lavania said, messing with his hair.
"But who told you that?"
" did, he's getting treated here as well. He told me about what you did for your classmates, and it's pretty amazing what you did. I'm proud of you Leizcio."
"Thank you, can we go home? I think I need to eat a lot of food right now."
"Course, let's go home."
The two went on back home, as they'd decide to take the rest of the day to let Leizcio eat and rest up.
However, there wouldn't be much time left as something big in UA was coming up...
Chapter 14
END
