Familiarity

Chapter Two

Less than twenty-four hours after your sister's death, Bakugou was found. All Might's sudden retirement was in Bakugou's wake, although it wasn't his fault.

How could it be? There were probably justifications for each argument—whether a sixteen-year-old was at fault or not—but blaming a child seemed wrong. It wasn't like Bakugou was the one who took the last, permanent punch at All Might. It wasn't like All Might didn't want to save Bakugou, either—like he wasn't the one to go after him in the first place.

You heard the news on your Tv when it occurred, as you sat in your bedroom, unwilling to listen to your mother and father fight in the kitchen. Your brother was cuddled up against your side, watching the Tv as his small body grabbed onto yours desperately. He was only five—barely five, as he had only had his birthday two weeks prior—and he had yet to develop a quirk. He was a child. He needed someone to take care of him.

That's why he was in your room at all, and that's also why his heart was crushed for the second time. Your brother adored All Might, and like many children, he yearned to be like the man who saved so many.

But All Might was no longer the tall, muscular man with a large, plastered smile and rigid features. He was thin, with sullen shadows covering most of his face. His hair was shaggy and fell to the front of his face.

Your brother cried, sobbed against your ribs as he grabbed at your harder. You had to bite back a sharp sound of pain as his bottled-up emotions crashed against the sandcastle he tried to reconstruct. His sister was gone. His hero was gone. Everything was being stripped away from

him.

And soon, you would be too.

Heights Alliance was built quickly, a tall building made for you and your classmates to live safely near the school. Your house was far from the school. Really, it would be better for you to live in the dorms.

Walking in the building, however, with suitcases of your things and the unfamiliar smell of a new building, you nearly regret your decision. The room was flooded with a steady buzz of voices and swirling flashes of exciting movement. It was overwhelming, sucked all of the energy from your tired legs.

You began to trudge through the room, your bones were akin to lead, and your eyes were like a curious child's. You watched some of your classmates unpack the bags of groceries that lay upon the countertops in the kitchen, gently opening the cabinets and placing jars inside. Then, you turned to look at the living area and watched Kaminari hug two, unfamiliar faces before waving at them one final time and rushing up the wide staircase in between both open rooms.

You looked where Uraraka and Asui unpacked board games and fun pillows from unlabeled plastic bins in the corner of the room. They smiled and giggled, struggling to reach the highest shelf in the narrow closet they stood in front of.

The images before you almost pulled a sigh from your tense body. They were all familiar faces, their laughter were familiar sounds. But they were foreign at that moment—strange chuckles in the air, alien people.

Still, you began to step towards the stairway, your entire life packed away in the bag hung on your shoulders and suitcase you pulled behind you, like a shadow. Up until that moment, you had lived in the same, single-story house you were born into. You still used the same bedroom with the same cloud pattern on the walls and the same scribbles on the window from when you were three and left alone with markers. You still used the same, wooden desk your parents gifted you when you were ten—a present that was from your grandparents' basement with your mother's name still written on the bottom.

And it wasn't because your parents were unwilling to pay for new things, or didn't want to spend time painting your room a different color. They did ask. They always did. On your birthday they always questioned if you wanted a little change.