Serizawa had never minded the dark before.

Even when he'd been little he had never really minded the dark. He had never needed a nightlight or anything like that, he had been perfectly fine laying in the dark on his own, maybe because what other people called 'the dark' didn't apply to him…with his aura, after all, it wasn't ever truly dark around him…it could never truly be called 'the dark'.

Not with his aura.

He3 held his hand up in front of his face and watched his colors, his aura, watched it dance and swirl around his hand. Between his fingers. Purple. Just purple this time. He didn't know what else it was that he expected. He was back home now, if this could still be called home, and at home he was the only esper around. No more friends. No more Miss Suzuki. Just him and Mom. Just like it had been before…

No, not like before.

He put his hand down and stared at the ceiling. Mom was up there, on the second floor, in her own room. It was late and normal people went to sleep at this hour. No more TV blaring all night, no one was fighting, no one was playing videogames, no one was smoking and coughing, no one was…doing other things. Things that felt wrong to think about while he was in his house…his mom's house. This wasn't his house anymore.

Because he'd left.

He was left and he should have….should have stayed left. Stayed gone. Then Mom could have been happy. She said that he wasn't a burden, that she loved him, that she had wanted him back for so long…but…but that didn't make any sense. He was…he was…he was himself. He was Serizawa Katsuya. He needed someone to take care of him. That person had been Mom and then Miss…Miss Suzuki…Shigeko…Mob….

He closed his eyes.

He could still see his aura, not with his eyes but with…he wasn't sure what it was that he was seeing it with but he was just aware of the purple around him, just the purple, always just purple from now on. Because he wasn't going back. Never again. He just…he couldn't go back to her. Not after what she had…no, no, she hadn't done anything wrong. It had just felt wrong but that was just a problem with him as a person. She hadn't done anything wrong, nothing that a girlfriend wasn't supposed to do with you, and he…he was just weird. He hadn't ever been able to do anything right before so why did he expect to be able to do something right now.

He had never done anything right before in his life.

He turned onto his side. The couch groaned under him, his side dipping into the collapsed part. Mom had put a pillow there, one from her department store with a smiling Santa on it, but that didn't help much. This was all his fault, the couch, the broken part. He remembered. He'd been five, or maybe four, and he'd been watching TV. Mom had told him that it was time to come to the table and he hadn't wanted to move. He'd sat there and dug his feet into the rug and held onto the couch and Mom…she'd tried to pick him up and he had tried to stay…told her that he was too heavy to move and then…and then there had been a loud crash and he'd been all squished in the couch and then, of course, he had needed Mom to fish him out….

He wasn't a little kid anymore.

He sat up. This wasn't going to work. He was too big, his feet were hanging over the end of the couch, and he was too heavy. All the extra pillows in the world wouldn't be able to fix the broken space. He was too old for this. He was twenty nine years old, he should have been able to sleep in his own bed in his own room. He had been able to sleep on his own for years, since he'd been a little kid, and he…his room…his old room was a whole other story. He had spent so long in his room already and…and he didn't know if he would have been able to come out again…if he went back up there…

He couldn't go to his room.

He reached out with his powers and clicked the lamp on. Light immediately burnt his eyes, real light, not his aura. It was almost like that first day, the day Miss Suzuki had taken him out of his room and freed him from the hell that had been his life, the first day he'd been able to step out into the sun in years. Well, sort of, it had been a grey day. A gloomy, rainy, sort of day…but it had still been more sunlight than he'd seen in years. His curtains had always been drawn, there was no window in the hallway between his room and the bathroom, and the bathroom window was so frosted that it hardly let any light in. The sun had been so bright, so blinding, that he'd had to hold onto Miss Suzuki as she led him out the door and onto the rest of his life.

The rest of THEIR life.

What was she doing right now? They had found her. She was safe and if she was hurt then Fukuda was there to help her. He wasn't such a bad guy when you got to know him. He was actually really nice. He had helped Serizawa escape, after all, he had helped Serizawa find the train station and given him the confidence to ride all the way home…something that he never would have been able to do just five years ago. He had never thought that he would have been able to go out into his own yard let alone to take the train and just…just go. Without anyone, not even Miss Suzuki, though it would have been easier if he'd been with her. She would have held his hand when the crush of people got to be too much, she would have saved him the stress of having to figure out how to buy a ticket, and she would have been able to sit in the end seat so he wouldn't have even had to look at anyone else. She would have been there with him and told him things like 'just a few more stops, Katsuya' or 'it's just a little bumpy right now, Katsuya' or 'I love you and we should have sex, Katsuya'…though maybe that last one wouldn't have happened on a train…

He wondered what she was doing right now.

It was late, or maybe early, he wasn't sure. He and Mom had spent the day just being with one another. Cleaning, mostly, something easy that he was capable of helping her with. Some way that he could make himself useful. He'd lifted furniture for her and moved things in and out of storage and even did the dishes on his own. After she'd gotten tired and gone to bed he'd just laid down on this couch in the darkness and waited for sleep to take him…sleep that had never come. It could have been a minute or an hour for all he knew…he reached out for his phone.

He found the remote.

He turned on the TV, maybe that would give him some clue…oh. The news channel. The time was in the corner. It was early, nearly five, he must have been laying there for a really long time like he had thought…time mattered now, even if it was dark. Before time had been meaningless. Darkness would be there whether it was day or night, he never let the sun in, and it wasn't like he had anything to wake up for…did he have something be awake for now? If he and Miss Suzuki had still been together she would have had something planned. Something to do with running Claw or something fun or even just chores. She always had something for them to do together...he wondered what she had planned for tomorrow, or rather today?

Probably a lot.

He turned the volume on the TV down to as low as he could while still being able to hear it. They were showing the same footage of downtown that they'd been showing all day. Mom had left been watching the news today, she was more interested in this than he was, he wasn't a part of Claw anymore. He had never really cared too much about the President's dream anyway. The President was a nice person but he was no Miss Suzuki. No, he had wanted whatever Miss Suzuki had wanted, been prepared to do whatever Miss Suzuki had asked of him, and that meant 'anything'. Even….he wondered what she was doing now…probably sleeping. Probably alone.

Probably sad.

Because they were a couple, she had decided, and they'd even…he focused on the scene in front of him. He watched the camera sweep over the forest and focused on the green of the leaves, not the milky whiteness of her stomach, focused on the massive pile of rubble where the tower used to be, not the memory of how incredibly soft her thighs had been on either side of him, focused on the sweeping shots of destruction, not the memory of how warm and soft and perfect she'd been…and how terrifying it had been. Because she had been too close. Because she had been too warm. Because every moment of that had felt too wrong. Because his body had decided that it was done listening to his brain. Because his body was smarter than his brain. It would have hurt her, really, if his body had listened to how his brain had been saying 'no' and 'stop' and 'this is too weird'…she would have felt so rejected…and he never could have hurt her like that.

Before.

Fukuda was smart. He was kind of mean sometimes but maybe he was smart-mean, like Minegishi. The best time to leave had been in the confusion after the fight, he had been right, and…and hurting Miss Suzuki by leaving was worse than hurting her to her face. Because he couldn't be a good boyfriend to her. A good boyfriend would have been someone like Shimazaki, a good boyfriend would have been able to do something like that with her without being at war with his own mind, a good boyfriend would have done a better job, too. He hadn't had any idea what to do…he'd seen it done before, there was plenty of that sort of thing on the internet, but in the moment he had forgotten everything that he had ever seen. All he could have done was listen to her. Touch this, kiss this, lay down, move like this…and being told what to do hadn't made it any easier. It had been like she had been reading from some kind of instructional manual, like a set of directions, like the kinds that came with his models only…only…

New news.

He turned it up a little, just a little, so he didn't bother Mom. It was two reporters talking. The Prime Minister was, apparently, unharmed and had decided that it was all over…he was saying something about how they all could stop being afraid, how they could all come together, not that Serizawa knew what they had even been afraid of. Miss Suzuki had won and there was nothing scary about her. Maybe if the President had one it would have been scary, since he had a really bad temper and could be kind of an a-word sometimes, but Miss Suzuki…she was the nicest, most perfect, person that he had ever met in his life and Claw was going to be better under her.

Especially since they had found the President.

An old picture of his was on screen. Him in a high school uniform. They were saying that he was the leader of a delusional criminal organization…which was kind of mean. Claw was neither criminal nor delusional. Claw was just there because the President and Miss Suzuki wanted to make the world a better place for people like them, they had just decided that there were different ways of going about that. Miss Suzuki was nicer and didn't believe in hurting people, the President, did, and that was why they had fought and…and why he should have been on her side.

Why he shouldn't have been scared.

Because he should have had faith in her. There shouldn't ever have been any doubt in his mind that she would have won and…and the whole thing had been so…so…so…he could feel the couch start to float. He immediately put it down, and kept it there, and made sure not to do that again. He had to control his powers on his own now. She wasn't there anymore. He was going to have to control his own powers, he was going to have to get himself up in the morning and get himself out of the house, and he was going to have to pick out his own clothes and he was going to have to make his own meals and he was going to have to-to-to-

-the lights were flickering.

The couch was floating again. Something bumped into the wall. He took a deep breath, and another, and another…and then those breaths got shallower and shallower and he couldn't make it stop. Fast and shallow…he had to…he just…he took another deep breath, tried to make it deep and slow, but it didn't help. He couldn't make it stop! He stared straight forward. He could see the TV and it was that same scene, the same footage, the same destruction…the same day over and over again….he closed his eyes. The darkness was back. The darkness was there and the purple was there, too, so he couldn't really call it darkness now could he? He didn't open his yes. He was used to the dark, this dark, and he couldn't open his eyes because then he would see and he didn't have her to make it better and-

-and something was touching his back.

"Hey!" said Serizawa. Mom gasped…that had been Mom's hand on his back. She took it back. He opened his eyes and scooted away, made room for her, and tried to stop. He just could see the dent in the wall behind the TV, the time he had sent her flying, one of the times…he wasn't a kid anymore. He had to stop acting like this…he had to do this on his own.

Because that was what he was. On his own.

"Sorry….I'm sorry….I know that I shouldn't have yelled at you like that and…and I'm sorry, Mom." Said Serizawa. Mom sighed and put her hand on his back…even though she knew how dangerous it was.

"Don't ever apologize, Katsuya, not for that. I shouldn't have snuck up on you." said Mom

"You weren't sneaking, this is your house, and I…I shouldn't have woken you up." said Serizawa. He couldn't do anything right, could he? Mom worked so hard and did so much and all he did was wake her up and wreck the house…just like when he'd been a kid…so maybe things hadn't changed that much. Maybe he was still the same person he'd always been and Miss Suzuki had just put up with him like Mom had…

"Oh, you didn't do anything, I'm usually up this early." Said Mom

"Oh right…for work, you have work." Said Serizawa. She was going to leave the house…and leave him here. Which was normal, she had always done that, and it wasn't like Miss Suzuki always took her to work with him, just most of the time, and…and he wondered what she was doing today. She was running Claw as president now, not vice president, and maybe…maybe he shouldn't have been thinking about things that had nothing to do with him anymore.

Maybe it was just the kind of thing that…that made him too sad.

"I do, normally, but I called off today just for you." Said Mom

"Mom! But we, you, need the money-" said Serizawa

"I don't care about money, I need to be here for you. Besides, one day isn't going to send us to the poor house." Said Mom

"But…but I shouldn't…I shouldn't be this way." Said Serizawa

"Katsuya, you had better not be planning on calling yourself a burden again, because you aren't. You're my son…no matter what." said Mom. She turned her head and faced the TV for a second before making a sour face and turning it off. The room was darker now but he had always liked the dark.

"And I don't care how much 'what' there's been over the years." Said Mom

"I'm not upset about what happened…I mean I am but it's more about…about Miss Suzuki and…and I don't know what I'm going to do…to do without her." said Serizawa

"Katsuya…how about we have breakfast and then we go from there, ok?" said Mom

"Ok…ok." Said Serizawa as he got up. He wasn't hungry, not really, but he didn't want to leave Mom all alone either…or maybe he just didn't want to be all alone…not again. He had spent so much of his life all alone in the dark that he was…he was both comforted by it but also sick of it. Or maybe he was just spoiled, having spent so much time out in the light with Miss Suzuki, and…and maybe he wanted…maybe he just wanted to go back to that and…and maybe it wasn't even about her…

Or maybe he just wanted to go and have breakfast with Mom for the first time since he was twelve…so he did. After all, it was light out now, which meant that there was no better time to have breakfast.