Atonement [Bakugo Katsuki]

🤍 Prologue 🤍

There were a lot of things that the five-year-old Kuroyanagi Kimitsuki didn't understand. She wasn't sure, for one, why she had to be the reason behind her family's passing. All around her, everyone kept telling her that things were going to be alright, and that she was okay. But none of those words reached their eyes nor did they reach her heart. She wasn't sure how those empty consoles were going to fix the strange hurt she was feeling in her heart. And she wasn't sure when she would see her family.

They had taken her away from the unmoving bodies of her family and off to a new place. There had been a lot of questions, and there had been a funeral. Kimitsuki wasn't sure why she was so pitiful.

Everyone, everyone who used to look at her with such adoration were suddenly staring at her with strange uncertainties in their eyes. Kimitsuki wasn't sure what they were trying to tell her.

But something also told Kimitsuki that a lot of the times, it was better not to know what the other person was thinking of saying or doing. She had learned that the hard way, no matter what.

There were many things that had happened in the past few months, and Kimitsuki had started to live in a strange place called the Orphanage with so many other children. They had been nice to her before they found out who she was. They weren't rude to her now, but they no longer talked to her.

It was strange, and the elders at the Orphanage told her that they'll be sending her to a nice school. It didn't take her long to realise that her school wasn't the same as her fellow orphans.

No one wanted to be around her.

Kimitsuki was uncertain as she kept her head down, holding tightly on the blue shirt with a white flower that she was wearing over her skirt – something she shared with everyone in the elementary school. She was also provided with a bright yellow cap to wear whenever she went out so she could be seen easily by the traffic. Kimitsuki wished that she could leave this place quickly.

But then, the teacher who had introduced herself to Kimitsuki earlier as Minami Sensei came back out of the room and gave her a small smile, motioning her to come over with her. She hesitated.

"Come on, Kimitsuki-Chan," Minami said and held out her hand to the young girl. Kimitsuki shook her head and took a step forward, showing that she would rather walk on her own.

Minami led the white-haired girl into the room and Kimitsuki's eyes widened when she saw up to forty different children sitting at nine different circular tables, all of them staring right back at her. Kimitsuki quickly looked away down at the ground in front of her, wishing she had taken the hand.

"Everyone, this is our new classmate Kimitsuki-Chan," Minami said. Kimitsuki noted that she didn't say her last name out. "Be nice to her, okay? Kimitsuki-Chan, you can go sit on that table, okay?"

Kimitsuki looked back up and saw that Minami was pointing to a table with four boys. The only seat open was in the middle of a blond boy who was staring at her while on the edge of his seat and a green-haired boy who was staring at her in curiosity. Both of them had their mouth parted open.

"Y-Yes..." Kimitsuki said quietly to Minami, causing all of the children there to snap out of their daze as they stared at the new girl. They all blushed and looked away from her.

But Kimitsuki was already making her way to the table, curling her hands into fists.

When she was a bit younger, Kimitsuki's mother always told her to imagine that the scary new people in front of her were something that she liked. Right now, Kimitsuki tried to imagine the boys as flowers as she walked toward them. And as she approached the table, the green flower moved.