Shoto can hear his parents arguing in the kitchen. His father doesn't care about appearances here in the safety of their own home, so he makes no effort to keep his voice down. Even from his hiding spot in the room over, Shoto can feel the heat that rolls off his father in waves. Sweat is beading across his forehead.
He creeps closer to the open doorway. He finds his curiosity about what could inspire such anger outweighing his fear. His mother's voice is soft and even, and much too low to make out any words.
He takes another step forward, inching closer until he is pressed against the wall, hidden only by the doorframe.
"I haven't," his mother is saying. "You're angry for nothing. You do this so often, Enji, and I am tired of it."
The words that spill from his father's mouth have Shoto slapping his hands over his ears, just like his sister had taught him to do. Those are very mean, bad words. She said he doesn't need to listen to them when dad wasn't shouting them at him.
When he uncovers his ears, the shouting has stopped. His parents are speaking quietly, and he peeks around the corner of the door to check on his mom. She is standing tall instead of cowering before his father like she usually would. It makes Shouto want to stand a little taller, too.
"You can't stop me from leaving, Enji."
"Then go," his father hisses.
There are flames that flicker and die around his shoulders and eyes with every breath he takes. His mother nods, short and sharp. She takes a deep, shuddering breath. Her fingers curl into fists to hide the way they tremble, though Shoto can't see that.
"I'm taking the children with me."
The tea kettle begins to scream.
Shoto whimpers as the room explodes into flames in a sudden blinding burst. They are extinguished just as quickly by a blast of cold wind. When he looks again, his mother's dress is singed and her hair is whipping about in the freezing eddies of air. His father advances a step, teeth bared in a snarl.
"You don't scare me!" his mother howls, but the wild eyed stare and the way she stumbles backwards into the cabinets shows she is lying. Shoto's stomach hurts as he watches tears freeze on his mother's face.
"You have no chance in hell of ever taking them," his father says as he advances, step by step, flames growing and wreathing his body as the icy blasts begin to taper off and die out. "You will leave, and once you step foot out that door, you will never see them again."
"They're my children, and you are hurting them," she whispers, hands scrabbling blindly over the counters behind her, unwilling to take her eyes off of her husband.
Shoto takes a step forward, breaching the invisible barrier, the kitchen floor cold against his bare feet even as his father blazes just a yard ahead. For the first time, he sees his father's lips curl into a smile. It is not kind.
"Prove it,"he says, and raises his hand to strike her. His mother screams.
"Don't hurt her!" Shouto cries, rushing forward.
At the same moment, his mother's fingers wrap around the handle of the tea kettle and she throws it with a scream of desperate terror.
There is the sensation of horrible pain, nothing like the bruises and cuts and tiny little burns he has experienced so far in his short life. This is all consuming, and for that moment he forgets what it is like to not be in pain. From far away, he can hear his mother sobbing and his father's roars of fury.
Then, blissfully, his world goes dark.
.
When he wakes up again, it is to the dim lights and pale walls of a hospital room. His mind is fuzzy, but even through that fuzziness he can feel the pain that consumes his left eye. The doctors arrive soon after.
Shoto is seven when he learns that his face will be forever scarred, that he may never regain vision in his eye, and that his mother will never be freed from her confinement. According to his father, she had simply snapped and thrown the boiling water over her youngest child.
Better a wife gone tragically mad than a wife battered and desperate to flee.
He is seven when he learns that his father is worse than any monster or villain he can imagine.