Although, I hope I made up for my hiatus by giving you all a stupid long chapter and an extra Omake at the end that isn't necessary, but cute.
Warnings: smol Bakugou's potty mouth, important reveal?!, painfully real issues with my character, and children's activities.
Disclaimer: Huh Durr, I don' own My Hero Academia. Only my Original Character.
Edited as of 7-9-18 ~ I'm a dumb fuck who can't update on time! haha
・・・・
Text Key:
Italics = Emphasized thoughts/text/dialogue
・・・・
We walked briskly through the obnoxiously colored halls of the daycare, hurrying towards what could potentially be the start of a wonderful or absolutely horrific academic career.
The pressure was on.
The concept of first impressions wasn't my main concern: teachers couldn't make steady opinions this early, and toddlers didn't understand what their interests were quite yet. No, my biggest concern had to be that Izuku, the child that was constantly bullied throughout his childhood, would be thrust into a room full of random children without the proper social skills necessary to survive. If I was being honest with myself, I was sure that he wouldn't even last the day.
With each step closer to the classroom, I could feel the anxiety radiating off of my sibling's body. The poor kid was wringing his fingers out like there was no tomorrow, and I couldn't blame him. I know I had addressed his concern in a lax manner, it was how I addressed nearly everything, to be frank, but it was painfully understandable to see him acting like this.
It really reminded me of my own personal experiences in school: a time when everything was a competition and the only things you cared about were numbers on paper. It was a bittersweet time, and definitely not one I liked to revel in.
I partly wondered how I would spend my time that day. Of course, I wouldn't skip out on the Japanese lessons that they would give there, that was simply a necessity, but I wasn't going to sit around and learn my numbers. I thought that maybe I could do a little abstract planning if I were provided paper or a writing utensil of some sort; I was the type of person that would forget even the most important things if they weren't written down on paper, it was one of my various Achilles' heels. My previous mother used to nag me constantly about it; she was always saying, "Failure to plan is planning to fail" and sticking post-it notes around the house in, admittedly, odd places.
It wouldn't even matter if I wrote in English, I reasoned. If I made the scribbles look unintelligible on paper, then it was highly unlikely that anyone but me would be in a position to decipher what I had composed.
I also thought about chaperoning Izuku, just to make sure that he could at least attempt to make a few friends, but I ultimately decided against it. It wasn't because anyone we met in this school wouldn't be going to UA, but mainly because that would cause him to be dependent on me. As much as I enjoyed taking care of children and guiding them like the lost little sheep they are, I knew that it would be destructive to let such a thing happen. I resolved to keep myself at a reasonable distance, but not too much as to detach myself entirely. Sounds easy in concept, no?
A small part of my conscience urged me to consider otherwise, that I was selfishly trying to utilize my knowledge of the future, but it was decided. Besides, that knowledge was temporary, I hadn't watched that far into the anime nor had I read that much. As far as I was concerned, my current knowledge would last me, at most, until the UA internships came by. The idea of not knowing the events after that terrified me, as well as the notion that I had already shifted the order of things. It only furthered my urge to write it all down so I could catch up to and keep track of my rampant thoughts.
It was only by the time that we had actually reached the door to our new classroom that I realized that my mind was racing a mile a minute, scrupulously picking at every detail I could think of. A brief burst of panic flashed across my face for what could have been a millisecond until my trained 'toddler' mask was slapped back on. I started to wonder whether or not I had given away my thoughts during our walk, or whether or not someone had bothered to notice my stewing during that time.
I duly noted that I would have to work on my poker face, in order to let my 'knowledge' stay the awkward secret that it was.
Regardless, Oka-san told her goodbyes, and I swear that I heard a mini-prayer in there, and thrust us through the classroom door.
Fantastic.
・・・・
Surprisingly enough, the two of us were early for the beginning of class. The only other people in the room were two male and female workers. The room was surprisingly tame for a place that supposedly had children in it for the majority of the day, as there wasn't a speck of grime anywhere or even unintelligible doodles on the wall. I reckoned that they must have determined janitors to keep up such an arduous task, and I quietly thanked them for their mostly unnoticed work.
Immediately, upon eye contact, the two adults practically zoomed towards us and began to speak to us in lulling, babyish tones.
It was at that very moment when I was swept off the ground and cuddled by the caretakers that I understood why Oka-san left us there without so much as a word between the people running the place, and I half-resented her for leaving us to suffer.
Regardless, the daycare people finally put us back down and asked a various assortment of questions. I was graced with queries like:
"You can speak so clearly! What's your name dearie?"
"Are you twins? If only your parents took the chance to give you matching outfits... such a missed opportunity!"
"Do you like drawing? Can you write? Want to practice writing kanji with me?"
"What's your favorite superhero? Do you want to be a hero when you grow up?"
"Did you get your Quirk yet, sweetie? Are you still waiting for an amazing power?"
I could go on and on, but then we'd be here forever, wouldn't we? I tried to answer the questions the best I could, but every time I went to respond to one, the other worker would pop out another question immediately. Is this what hell is like? Maybe my own personal one…
Eventually, the two employees of the fine daycare establishment moved on from pestering the two of us with the never-ending stream of questions. Of course, the only reason their attention was diverted was that other children began to arrive, which was equally horrible in my opinion.
And my world got a whole lot fucking worse when Katsuki Bakugou was shoved through the door by an equally unenthusiastic Mitsuki.
Aeon just had it out for me, didn't they?
・・・・
We were singing songs and I was fairly sure that I wanted my life to end right then and there.
I probably would have been happy with that, just being struck down by a casual lightning bolt in the middle of a daycare and leaving my demons behind. That sounded nice.
Too bad I can't have nice things. That would be too kind.
I absently clapped along with the rhythm while wondering what had led up to this point in my life. On the bright side, it seemed as though I wasn't the only one unhappy with the activities available. Katsuki looked as though he were dying inside, as well as the two goonies he had managed to befriend within the last hour of the daycare's start. At least Izuku was lapping it up. The kid was an optimist, and I honestly envied his ability to have fun in my personal hell. Not many had such a blessed ability.
At some point, the daycare workers drifted towards telling stories while keeping all of the small children hostage within what they had dubbed the 'sharing circle'. God, I was getting flashbacks to my own preschool experiences at this point. I started repeating "This will end" in my head, the mantra itself being an attempt to comfort me with the idea that this was a temporary torture. I'll be frank, it didn't do much to help my mental health during that period.
Finally, after the last story, the two caretakers found it a fitting time to let us go, briefly mentioning that we can do anything inside the room as long as it didn't involve sharp objects. And then all the other children began to scream.
The quality of my life just couldn't stop degrading at this point.
・・・・
At some point, I had managed to smuggle a notepad and writing utensil into the slightly tucked away corner of the classroom. I, the paranoid little bean that I am, checked constantly as to whether or not the other children or the two workers were watching me. Of course, I was more concerned about the two adults, and whether or not they could read English, so I tried to tuck myself deeper into the corner, right where the many bookshelves and toy racks obscured me from sight. As an extra precaution, I decided to encrypt my notes. I had no reason to believe that the workers didn't know the English language, as it was commonly learned in Japan with other tongues. A few choices immediately blew through my mind, but I eventually settled on using a Caesar Cipher, just to sate my steadily increasing paranoia.
Sure, it would be hard to write, but I was sure that I would eventually roll into the habit anyways.
Now, what could I write about? Immediately, I scribbled down a somewhat comprehensible timeline in a flow-chart styled manner, making sure to give brief descriptions at each large dot. As I wrote it down, the constant worry about forgetting ebbed away. Since that was settled, I then chose to start making potential predictions.
In hindsight, there was so much to consider, too much perhaps. After a few minutes stuck in thought, I settled on working in chronological order. It seemed easier that way.
First things first: Quirks. Two different possible routes that had drastically different ends, and it all depended on whether or not I got a good Quirk or not. In my mind, there was no distinction between being Quirkless and having a passive Quirk; they were one and the same to me. Not that I didn't have respect for harmless Quirks, Oka-san's being a shining example of passive yet useful, but they had little to no use in the hero field.
A few seconds of urgent tapping on the paper and I eventually scribbled down "One for All?" on the "Quirkless/Bad-Quirk" timeline. Didn't know how I was gonna convince All Might to share the wondrous Quirk with me, but I was really hoping that I wouldn't have to. I put down another barely legible bullet underneath the question-idea and began to conjure up more ideas. I couldn't figure out much to do in that scenario, so I scrawled "Background Character/Give up". At least if I gave up on becoming a hero, I could really pour my energy into ensuring that Izuku was successful. It wasn't too bad of a way to impact the super-powered world, and I was much more comfortable with taking a low-profile approach to help Izuku achieve his dreams. hell, maybe I could even run his Hero Agency, or be an agent there at the very least.
I had finally moved onto the other timeline, the "Good-Enough-Quirk" timeline. I began to sink back into hypotheticals when, suddenly, a high-pitched, yet somehow gravelly sounding voice pierced through my continuous sounds of pencil tapping.
"Is that dork your brother?"
My head snapped up at the sound, at least I didn't hear a crack resounding from my neck, to find a somehow calm Bakugou Katsuki staring at me with those deathly red eyes. The first thought that came screeching into my head was 'oh lord I haven't interacted with him since I was three months old', and I hoped dearly that the initial panic of recognizing him didn't show on my face. His arm was outstretched, a sole finger pointing at no other than my brother, who was shamelessly 'flying' around the room with an All Might action figure that he had produced out of nowhere. I was sure that Oka-san had stripped us of all toys before we left. Dandy.
"Um, yeah," I said, awkwardly lowering the notepad I had been tapping viciously and looking down straight at the ground, feeling the ever-intense emotion of second-hand embarrassment in addition to the already scorching hot ball of awkwardness that sat unbudging in my stomach. I could feel Katsuki glaring holes into my forehead with his scowl, only furthering my regret in not teaching Izuku some semblance of social skills beforehand.
"Whatcha doing?" the boy pried, suddenly shifting gears from the question asked beforehand. Katsuki tried to peer over the edge of the notepad to sneak a peek at my scribblings. As quick as lightning, I slammed the paper against my shirt, so as to keep its contents secret. It was harmless to show him, I knew he wouldn't understand a lick of it, but it was still suspicious for me to have paper and not be drawing on it. How could I attempt to explain this if he told one of the teachers? It would have been rather awkward for me to explain a timeline, wouldn't it?
"Hmph, then you're a fucking weirdo too," Katsuki muttered to himself, arms crossed and all pouty like. It was weird hearing such dirty words coming from a kid, but I had to remind myself that this was Bakugou we're talking about. Nonetheless, ouch, I was lumped together with Izuku just because I was secretive and he didn't have reasonable social habits. I should probably change that, shouldn't I?
"No, I'm not!" I grumbled back, crossing my arms tightly and squeezing the notepad containing all my secrets close to my body, "You're the weird one, 'cause you're snoopin' in my business!"
And suddenly, there was a silence between the two of us, droning on as I squirmed around in my little corner. Then, out of nowhere, the little devil smiled.
"Oh yeah?" he teased, pulling on an even more devious grin, "Then show it."
"W-What?" I blurted out, confused as to what he even meant. Of course, it was Bakugou. I didn't know what to expect.
"Yeah!" the little Katsuki puffed his chest out, hands on his small hips, "I'm gonna break outta here an' explore the woods with those two back there–" he pointed towards a kid with obvious, red wings and another child who was currently stretching his fingers out at an inhuman length "–So, if you wanna show you're not a weirdo, then you gotta sneak out too!"
I could only stare at him incredulously, mouth hanging wide open as I struggled to comprehend Katsuki's childlike logic. I had only one response for the conceited little ball of anger in front of me.
"No."
"What? Why the hell not?!" his smile melted away in an instant, morphing into an expression that can only be defined as offended.
"Cause, I'm not a dumbass. You can't just expect me to follow you around in the middle of the goddamn woods, that would be stupid," I retorted, giving him a little taste of his own type of rage: the cursing variety. Albeit, I had toned down on the word usage and the intensity of said word usage.
"Uh, fine then!" Katsuki snapped out, the shock of witnessing another cursing child still evident on his face. Oh, it felt amazing to revel in that face, he looked so genuinely surprised. He continued to gripe in distaste, "Then we'll explore and you're gonna hafta hear those dumb songs and stories again!
"Eh, fair enough," I shrugged, giving a careless smile in response to his sad excuse of a threat. If worse comes to worst, I could just brainstorm more ideas and scramble to write them during the song breaks.
"Well, whatever. I'm gonna ask your weird brother to come anyway, not like we need you," Katsuki gloated, trying, and failing, to use psychological tricks on me. I think I was too mentally aware of what he was trying to do to be swayed by such an argument. Katsuki was really just desperate for me to follow him so that he could get the gratification of having another person make him feel like a shepherd, and I knew that this was his intention.
"Sure," I said as I rhythmically tapped my fingers against the cardboard back of the notepad, "It's not like I could really stop him from going, and it's not my job to make choices for him anyways."
Katsuki's expression was hilariously irritated, I couldn't help myself from chuckling a little. With both hands raised in the air, he silently fumed and walked away without another word. At least he knew not to feed the trolls.
Now, back to planning.
And suffering from those songs.
・・・・
The two daycare workers eventually herded the entirety of the toddler population, including myself, into the center of the room to continue with the previous singing activities. Classics including "Mary had a Little Lamb" circled around the room, some of the children not even noticing that our caretakers had repeated a few songs.
I tried to use the time to think, but I probably didn't end up thinking about much with those vexing songs droning on. The sound of the singing, if a chorus of toddler squeaks could even be called that, was suffocating. It was almost as if I were surrounded by the worst orchestra in existence, smack dab in the middle of the cacophony.
What was even worse was that I, in a fit of panic when the workers had rounded the children up, had stuffed the incriminating notepad up my shirt, without removing the cardboard back that made it so stiff. I would have eventually removed the back of the notepad so that I could carry my notes home in a neat, folded manner, but I guess I wasn't thinking when I was pushed back to that singing hell. As a result of my dismay, I was now stuck in a permanently upright state, unable to take more than a shallow breath or even stretch without fear of revealing my contraband through my shirt.
About thirty minutes passed by until the two adults finally decided to end my suffering and put the entirety of the daycare's population to sleep for 'nap time'. This came as a sense of relief to me, as I could finally take out the stiff rectangle that had been pasted against my chest for nearly half an hour.
I shuffled to my respective futon without complaint; I wasn't up for arguing with two adults as to why it was too early to sleep. I snuggled under the skin tight blanket, moving sideways and hastily darting the notepad out from under my shirt. I gave a brief look at the two workers, just to make sure they were attending to other children, and slid the plans under my futon. Anything to keep my activities safe from prying eyes.
I laid sideways, a bad habit I had retained and somehow found comfortable, as I awaited the exit of the daycare workers. They continued to shepherd numerous children into cots, tucking them in as demanded, and after everyone was settled in, they quietly stood back and waited for everyone to 'fall asleep'. I wasn't one to believe that most children actually slept during a nap time, I sure as hell didn't when I was in daycare. I would just pretend to be asleep by closing my eyes and breathing quietly.
So I did just that until the telltale click of a closing door resounded through the room.
I peeked one eye open to see that the room was completely barren, and nobody had dared move from their spots. I scrutinized the room with my one peeper open, finding a pretty obvious security camera nestled between the ceiling and the door. I assumed that the caretakers used it as a catalyst to make sure we weren't getting into any trouble while they were away, and it was a pretty good way to avoid parental lawsuits. The emotionless glass eye of the camera lazily panned left and right, sometimes pausing for a bit when it hit far left; it was a dinky little thing.
I let out a brief sigh and closed my eye. If I couldn't write anything down now, then there was no point in bothering to keep up my work. Might as well try one of those power naps. I never had the time to do them before; I had too much homework to sleep comfortably. I let the incessant thought of going to sleep fill up my head, the mind-numbing effect kicking in almost immediately.
I barely heard the pitter-pattering of small feet or my brother's hushed voice as I drifted away.
・・・・
I didn't quite expect to wake up at home, dressed in fresh pajamas and tucked into my crib. It was, for the most part, disorienting and led to a copious amount of spacing out. I somehow felt even more tired than I had been when I fell asleep, which said something about my ability to successfully nap, so I settled on closing my eyes and resting when I realized that nobody was going to come into the room.
My mind was a stagnant pool of water, just kinda sitting there waiting to be stirred. In my slumberous trance, I couldn't even formulate a coherent thought other than the desire to go back to sleep, but my body starkly refused to let me go that easily. If only my brain and body could agree on things, it would make my life much easier. Maybe if I could shock myself awake, a threatening or stressful thought maybe? I dug through my mind for something, until a pang of familiarity hit me.
Damn, I left my notes at the daycare. I merely hissed in annoyance, but the losses weren't too devastating. At least they were all encoded, it would have been a real tragedy if I hadn't done that. But...
Caesar ciphers weren't necessarily that hard to figure out. My hissing just turned up in intensity.
I continued to quietly hiss out of my mouth, waiting for my lungs to empty out a volume of air before filling back up. The tempered breathing eased my stress on the matter of loss, but the sensation of breathing started to feel weird after a while. It felt as though I were breathing out liquid rather than air, and it was itching wildly in my throat.
I peeped an eye open in curiosity but immediately regretted my actions.
The one thing I saw when I opened them was a stream of flame, the edges of the fire licking at the empty air and the color blinding yellow bordered with a russet-like red. The fact that this was happening threw all orderly thoughts out of my head, as I was currently breathing fire out of my mouth oh lord. I sucked in a breath and the flames vanished, the sudden removal of the fire hazard causing me immense happiness. I let out a sigh of relief, only to have the fire make its unwanted presence known.
It was then that I did the only thing that my riddled mind would let me do.
Shriek.
Omake ~ The Sting
Izuku was shaking in his cot, quietly mumbling to himself as he waited for the door to shut and for Kacchan to start the plan. He wasn't completely sure how he got pulled into this situation, but he didn't wanna let Kacchan down just because he got scared! Heroes don't do that…
So he was going to play along. Kacchan just wanted to go to the park next door, right? That didn't sound too dangerous, and Ichan probably said yes too! Yes, he could even see her sneakily looking around the room!
His hope was snuffed out like a candle in the wind when Ichan closed her eye and didn't move. Kacchan seemed to get up after a while, hurriedly crawling behind one of the shelves and violently shaking Izuku.
"Okay, okay!" Izuku whined, pushing himself out of his futon. He frowned when All Might fell off of his pillow, and immediately plucked his plastic body from the ground and delicately tucked his figure into the futon. Can't have the coolest hero sleep without a blanket! Kacchan started to wake up the other two boys that were going to explore with them, and Izuku quietly snuck to and sat next to the same shelf Kacchan was hiding behind. He didn't really understand why they had to hide behind the shelf, why couldn't they just walk through the door and go? He should probably ask Kacchan why…
"Kacchan?"
"Stop that name" Kacchan rudely shot back at him, "And what?!"
"Why we sittin' here?" Izuku asked, curiosity laden within his words.
Instead of an immediate response like Izuku had been expecting, Kacchan instead dragged him by the arm to the end of the bookshelf and forced his head slightly out from behind the furniture. He didn't quite understand what was happening.
"See the camera?" Kacchan queried, irritated by Izuku's insufficient response.
"..."
"Just tell me."
"Whatsa cam-era like? Din't see one."
"Oh, uh, damn." Kacchan cursed quietly, quickly coming up with a description, "Look where the door is and up. That thing is a camera. It's spies on kids."
"How you know this?" Izuku asked, in a state that was somewhere between awe and utter confusion.
"My hag mom uses one."
"Oh," Izuku responded. Unsure of how to treat such a statement. He wondered what it would be like to be spied on by Kaa-san. No, he couldn't imagine it. It's not heroic to spy on innocent children! Kaa-san was one of the most heroic people he knew! Tou-san too. And maybe Ichan.
Just maybe. He wasn't too sure about it 'cause of all the weird stuff she does when their parents weren't looking.
By the time Kacchan rallied his other friends, Izuku was antsy and excited to go exploring. It was going to be so fun! They could go see all the cool stuff there like the trees, that one creek, and maybe even find a playground!
"Okay, let's go when its head goes that way." Kacchan declared, taking a proud stance in front of the three boys. He peered his head around the corner while Izuku stared in awe; how could someone be so fearless? It was so cool that Kacchan knew what to do! He felt as if he were playing a game of pretend, and they were the heroes sneaking through the villain's base! If only Ichan were here, he always plays heroes with her. It felt almost un-kosher to be playing his favorite game with other kids he just met.
Nevertheless, Kacchan struck him out of his thoughts with a quick jab with the elbow. He put a finger to his lips and darted towards the door, right under the camera. A quick flash of fear overcame Izuku; wouldn't they be seen if they went towards the spying device? Then his fear crumbled away, as he realized that Kacchan wouldn't be doing it if he didn't know how the machine worked. It must be nice to know such useful things, especially when it helped to pretend to be heroes.
Izuku followed Kacchan's example, sprinting towards the door before the camera could look back at the spot they had just left. Kacchan simply waited until they were all underneath the door, which was really tall now that they were close to it, and began dishing out orders again.
"I can't open it, so you do it, Fingers."
The boy with extendible fingers shrugged and had at the door. Within no time, the boy's oddly stretched fingers wrapped around the door handle and slid it sideways, effectively opening the door without a sound. Izuku was in shock, such a cool Quirk! He had only seen Kaa-san's and Tou-san's before, so it felt invigorating to see another person's Quirk in action.
He couldn't exactly describe the feeling that was mounting in his chest as the group slipped outside. It was swift and thundering, as though his heartbeat was hammering against his flighty little chest. Yet, it wasn't quite that either. It was really all around his body, he noted. He sensed it in his fingers, his head, his legs, everywhere! If only he had the name for it, he swore he had heard it somewhere before.
He kept muttering to himself, sifting through his vocabulary to find that one word. Now, what was it? Tou-san mentioned it at least once before. Maybe it was… could it be? Aha! He had found his word, it was–
"Now what are you boys doing out in the hallway?" a sickly sweet voice droned at them, causing Izuku to shrink into his shirt neck and wish he had the ability to disappear. The word, he realized too late, was panic because somewhere deep inside, his instincts were screaming that this would only end in disaster. His brain just didn't get the memo. The feminine voice was coming from right behind them and Izuku just wanted to dematerialize, to do just anything to not exist right there, right now.
He was about to turn to Kacchan, to ask him what ideas he had for this problem, but it seems as though he was the only one left in the hallway. In his own bout of panic, he had failed to realize that the mastermind and his accomplices had abandoned him entirely for their own self-preservation. He felt as though he were about to burst into tears, was he going to get into trouble? He turned around to face her, ready for a furious tone to follow.
Instead, he was greeted with a slight smile.
"Shush, I know that type of face. You're not in trouble." She coaxed him while reaching out a hand for him to latch onto. He did just that, burying his face into her forearm. She continued, "If you were guilty, then you would have run away. Just like that! Though, can you tell me why you're out here, Sweetheart?"
"I wanted ta' go explorin'," he sniffled, not having the capacity to lie to such a merciful woman.
"That's not so bad, is it?" she gave him a pat on the head and had a small chuckle, "The real crime would be not fessing up, but we can talk about this later. It's nap time, alright?."
"Okay," he relented, rubbing his still watery eyes and trying to his shame behind her arm.
Something else began stewing in the back of his mind, but he was too shaken to actually care about it. He just wanted to sleep off the embarrassment. Such a series of emotions within ten minutes was tiring for him, both mentally and physically. The nice lady led him back to the playroom and helped him into his futon. He grabbed All Might from under the covers and snuggled up against the rigid, plastic toy.
He fell into a fitful sleep, and he couldn't shake that growing, festering feeling.
・・・・
Hope you enjoyed folks! I'll now return to the horrific midterms that are coming up, and the next update will probably happen mid-February.
3-8-18 ~ Sorry, that was a dirty lie. Probably this month, but no promises.
7-9-18 ~ Sorry, that was an even dirtier lie. You know what? No more promises, I'll just do it by August.
And that's it. See you all in the next chapter!
