The Wildcard - Katsuki Bakugou

Sixty-Nine

Costa nodded. Til the right one comes along...

Costa remembered how she almost asked "like you and daddy?" and she couldn't correctly form the words inside her mouth- they tasted wrong, like battery acid. She'd already known at that point that her mom deserved someone better than her father. So, she bit her tongue like usual.

Costa quickly changed the subject, piping up cheerfully.

"Do you think I'll be a hero just like you?" Costa asked her mom with genuine curiosity. Sofia glanced down at her daughter and immediately her eyes softened around at the edges. She chuckled softly, suppressing a grin as she reached forward to ruffle Costa's hair. Costa ducked and shrieked but Sofia only leaned all the way over the table, almost burning her own hair over the heat of the candle to place a kiss on her daughter's forehead and whisper, "I think you'll be even better than I am."

"How?" Costa asked, puzzled, as Sofia slumped back in her seat.

"Because you got a good head on your shoulders and I've raised you to be ambitious." Sofia shrugged, winking at Costa fondly. "Plus you're my daughter, therefore you'll automatically be kick-ass."

"Mom, please don't ever say the words 'kickass' again. It's called being a 'badass'."

"Oh my god," Sofia began to laugh at Costa's criticism, "How about you add smartass to the list?"

Costa tried not to laugh but she did anyway. She saw herself as she was back then- innocent, giggling over Mac and cheese in the middle of a rainstorm, talking to her mother who was already in her last few months of living, she just hadn't known it. And it was all over a cute, little candlelit celebratory dinner.

And although she was stuck inside a memory, the punch to her heart hit hard and Costa had started to cry.

Tears escaped her eyes and fell down her cheeks, landing salty in her Mac-and-cheese bowl. She wept and sniffled, wiping younger, more innocent eyes. She cried and mourned the memory she'd slipped into, the memory of the life she once had- the one she could never look at the same, now knowing the truth.

She expected to continue on with the memory, but something unexpected began to occur.

Costa felt two hands land on top of her shoulders, squeezing her tightly with affection. This wasn't how the memory played out- Costa had really gone to bed happy that night. But the memory seemed to halt in time, in space. Everything paused as she was pulled into a familiar, motherly embrace.

"Shh, I know." Her mother's voice coaxed her inside her ear, and her heart split at the seams. Her mother was right there, in the flesh, and she was holding her. Costa began to brake down, grabbing at her, reaching for her, crying hysterically as she repeated over and over, "Mom, mom, mom..."

She'd prayed to be held by her mother just once more. Just one more time.

Her grief and desperation broke free like a dam that'd been pressing to crack for years. She needed her mom now, more than she ever had. She'd spent months wishing she could really hold her, so she could stroke her hair, and tell her everything was going to be...

"It's alright, Costa. Look at me."

Costa stopped crying as she was taken out of the memory and placed into a room. She was suddenly standing in a completely white room- the opposite of the abyss, which surrounded her with darkness on all sides. This room was bright and completely pristine- like a box made of china. She breathed easier here, felt lighter here, as if the pressure of her life had been lifted.