Chapter Five - A Quartet
A whole night passes with the children all sleeping under the roof of what really is a summer home. It's quiet, but they don't unpack. The adults are still figuring out if camp will be held here or somewhere in the woods. Honestly, Shoto doesn't care right now.
He misses home now, but home wouldn't let him have friends. Home didn't give him anyone to talk to.
He likes having Sero a bit more than having home and he would feel bad about that some other time.
Right now, he is sitting in the sand. He watches the fire, watches his sibling pass stick after stick to each other, like the fire won't dare to touch them. Like it can't burn them like it does him. Like it did him.
His eye aches.
Riki brings him two sausages and a smore. Shoto looks at them with a wrinkled nose and gets a grin in return. "American camp food, sport," he says, winking. "Do I sound it?"
"American?" Shoto repeats. He huffs. "No. You sound dumb."
"So like he normally sounds," Hirose comments lazily from across the fire. "Good to know."
Riki jumps him and Shoto finds himself drawing breath a little too hard, a little too fast and then nothing happens. They just wrestle and get sand in their clothes and Sero laughs at them and nothing happens.
Shoto flushes with guilt and anger and pain.
What… what was supposed to happen?
He doesn't know, he has no idea.
Fuyumi's fingers ghost over his cheek and he leans against her, the coolness of the flesh a balm on his sweaty cheek.
"Eat," she orders gently. "You'll feel better."
Shoto doubts this, but he does what he's told. The marshmallow is sweet, sickly so, on his tongue at first, but it's soft and easy on his injured cheeks. Much easier than All Might's food the morning before.
He almost blanches because that sounds ungrateful. ALl Might had made him food, he needs to just be grateful-
A hand smooths his hair flat. Fuyumi smiles again, sadness and weariness all over her body. "It's better, huh?"
Shoto smiles timidly, nods, and takes another bite.
It is. He feels bad until it starts to taste really good.
The fire is starting to die when another two vans roll up the beach.
Shoto, having been dragged along to kick a ball around in the sand (Ri-nii says it's called soccer but Shoto is pretty sure that soccer has rules and rounds and points and isn't just trying to dodge Hiro-nii's head aiming kicks) doesn't see it at first.
Then Sero starts shouting. He had been the only one to stay by the fire (still brushing sand from his tape dispensers) and was already up and yelling. All three boys look up then rush over.
Shoto is relatively sure he'll be useless, but even if he is, at least he'll be with his family.
Instead of seeing something big and hulking (like a villain! Or an angry cheetah!), instead two girls step out of the van. The first bounces in her tank top and jeans, helping the other down into the sand.
"Told you the skirt was a bad idea, Momochi," teased the first, the earphone jacks in her head dangling about as she moved. Her short dark hair is crusted with pink at the edges and she looks fondly at the other in her little skirt.
"I need the space," the other insists, letting herself be carried down.
"These our last two then?"
Shoto jumps. He had forgotten about the policewoman. She had spent so long lounging in the sand she had practically become invisible. Maybe that's her quirk more than being the part-cat. She slides in front of them in the most feline saunter Shoto has ever seen and it's just so cool. He wants to be able to walk like that someday.
His brothers do something like that when father is home, maybe they can show him.
Before Shoto can quite follow that train of thought, the other girl is dancing about with sound about her heels.
"We're here, dad! You can stop retching now!"
"Your father wasn't retching," they hear, though that voice is fraught with laughter. (Shoto likes that word, fraught. He had seen it in a book once.) "HE was merely showing his dislike of cars."
The girls, even the one in the cute dress, both giggle at the sound. Two bags, big and heavy and probably carrying their money and things, hit the ground with thuds. Shoto is almost jealous until he remembers their bags on the deck of the small building… condo? What is it called?
Eh, whatever. There are more important things.
"Bye dad!" calls the first girl. The second bows awkwardly at the car. People inside presumably wave farewell (Shoto feels that throb of jealousy linger this time) and then the people inside begin to back it out.
Soon, the car is off in another direction and the policewoman is staring at them all. She puts her hands on her hips and tries to look stern. "All right," she says. "Time to head into that cabin. We'll make some real food."
"I thought that was real food," Hirose stage whispers. Riki elbows him right in the ribs.
The two new girls flank Shoto as the children close ranks, looking all the world like they'd known each other for years, despite each, likely, being his age. The cheer that had filled both moments before is replaced by quiet nerves for one and a strange quiet for the other.
Shoto looks between them with discomfort and concern, or what he thinks those feelings are. He's always related them to the rumbles of his tummy and those have yet to steer him wrong.
"Why are we all here?" he decides to ask because just because he's without a quirk doesn't mean he's without curiosity. "Are we hiding from someone?"
His brothers look at each other, not sure what to say but having something to say nevertheless because that is just how they are. They are full of thoughts.
The policewoman answers for them though. "Sorta," she says. RIich families have rich enemies dont they kiddo?"
SHoto frowns. He would imagine so but his father has so many villains who hate him (and heroes and people, and Shoto himself) that some of them would have to be rich. That'd only make sense. His father gets lots of law papers in his mailbox. Before… before, he used to complain about them.
Sero from ahead of him, scoffs. "I'd like to see 'em get to ma." His voice is somewhere between bragging and plain ol' proud. "She can tie people up so tight that their clothes fall off." This last part is a whisper and it makes Shoto's cheeks hurt with the effort of smiling. Because he's trying to imagine Riki's pants flying apart and showing off his All Might underwear that he says he doesn't have but Shoto, who carries the laundry baskets, knows he does.
"Mine aren't particularly noteworthy." Jiro… is that her name…? Waves her hand like she's talking about weather rather than her own parents. Also noteworthy is a weird word. Kids aren't supposed to use that word. Even he knows that. "They're really rock and all, but it's not like they make much money in the hero business. It's just hungry sharks."
Shoto thinks of sharks in the sand and suddenly wants to climb into Hirose's arms and not leave until they reach the cottage. He doesn't do it, but he really wants to.
The inside of the small cottage is nice and cool and the ache in his face that he'd been ignoring makes itself known. So Shoto finds the nearest sink and splashes his face until it stops. It takes forever and by that time the sleeping bags have been moved.
His siblings crowd around him to put the new gauze on now that his burn's been exposed to the air. They're just being careful, he knows, but Shoto still doesn't like the new weight of the gauze. He pouts at them.
They're put into a room where the windows are just one big sliding door and they're all kept far away from it.
Yaoyozoru muffles a yawn behind her hand and looks about, expecting to be scolded, most like. Shoto tries to smile at her because he understands. He knows All Might always smiles when people are hurting to help them and surely he can do that. It only takes six muscles mama had said.
It works a little because while she doesn't smile back, she looks less tense as she lays down in the sleeping bag on his good side. Hirose is on his bad one and that's fine because Hirose can protect him and barely lift a finger. Not that he thinks anyone will really go after him but the idea of protecting anyone himself sounds silly now, with his eye like this.
And no Quirk. Yep, that hurt things.
These thoughts don't concern him for very long, however. He had spent all day in the sun, running around and seeing the water. Therefore, when he crashes, he crashes hard and is deeply asleep within minutes.
His brothers follow soon after.
Fuyumi, seeing this, finally feels her body give.
Everything hurts. Everything feels sticky and burnt and bleeding and she knows why and she doesn't regret it but she couldn't risk-
Tears spill out from her eyes, rough and salty and wet and cruel. Self-loathing. THey had all borne some form of this, why was it so bad?
Someone offers her a sip of water. She takes it greedily, drinking hard and fast. The policewoman places a hand on her shoulder but that's all.
"Don't stay up too late," she says, rather than forcing her to a sleeping bag, rather than making her lay down and still.
Painkillers are left to her side by the time she opens her eyes and the woman is gone.
With nothing better to do, Fuyumi goes outside. Each step is painful, but wallowing inside is so much worse.