PAPER FLOWERS ( k. bakugou )

chapter 23

‘ waves roaring and raging ’

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Honoka takes her to the beach.

It was a beautiful place, with waves lapping on the shore and the sound of said waves retreating to and fro.

"We literally just escaped your uncle who's probably going to murder me the moment we go back to your house," Kaede says, leans against one of the sheds. "And you went to the beach?"

"Why not?" Honoka asks, jumps up and down in the sand and the summer dress she wore dancing with ocean breeze. "The beach is nice."

She discards the tennis shoes she wore, runs towards the ocean. "Come here Kai!" she yells, waves at her with a smile. "The water's really cold."

Kaede merely shakes her head. She prefers the shade rather than the salty water and the scorching sun. It's not that she hates it. Her skin is just sensitive and it's easy to get sunburns. That, and she can't swim in oceans.

Pools are different. There are no waves that crash against you, or a salty aftertaste, and also the fact that the ocean was full of riptides.

Riptides were dangerous. They suck everything up, carry it into the ocean with a force that terrified the living daylights out of Kaede.

Honoka sighs first, runs her fingers through the sand. "Truth be told, I'm a little bit disappointed in my new family," she says, smiles at Kaede. "I don't want to sound ungrateful, because they did take me out of the orphanage, gave me a beautiful room, provide me with education, but it was just different from my expectations."

Kaede sits on the sand next to her, watches the seagull pecking on the trash found near the beach. "Different, how?"

"Well, there was this one Sister, we called Sister Nozoki, behind closed doors- Sister Nosmile," Honoka giggles a little. "She knew about my parents, the real ones. Told me that my parents didn't want me, because I didn't meet their expectations. I'm okay with that, it's just that my parents this time, they're seldom around. They're in Paris as we speak. I only met them for like an hour."

Kaede cannot fathom how the hell a girl who was probably eight or nine could smile so carelessly at the remarks she was saying.

"Aren't you angry?" Kaede blurts and Honoka shrugs in response answers with, "I don't really remember them that much and everyone in the orphanage more than made up for their absence. I just remembered stuff like my dad had pretty blue eyes and I got my mother's."

"How many years have you been in the orphanage?" Kaede asks, wondering if her parents even had the decency to take her to an orphanage rather than leaving her in the streets, would she still have this goddamn internal turmoil that wrecked her apart?

"Eight, I think," Honoka says, tries to build a sandcastle with her bare hands, only succeeding in creating some sort of deformed hill. "We only celebrate seventh birthdays in the orphanage, so that's how I figured it out. We make up our own birthdays in the orphanage. I had mine in the forth of May. You know, 'cause May the forth be with you?"-catches the guileless look in Kaede's face, shakes her head- "You really didn't get that reference?"

"Was I supposed to?" Kaede asks, plays with the sand, feeling shame creep up her cheeks. Was she missing something?

"God, Kai, you have no childhood," Honoka blurts. "How about Gotta catch 'em all, how about that? Are you aware of that catchprase?"