『 Chapter 37 』
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It's been two days.
In the period of forty-eight hours, time has flowed both equally slow and equally fast. Despite how much has happened, it all was over so quickly.
The candle of heroism had flickered, a sweeping pass of wind threatened to stifle the golden fog that had swarmed a hero-centered society; however, the fog had still not yet lifted, but it had thinned. All Might's shining reign over Japan had been lost in the night—an Empire that had been built over years had fallen in a single day.
But the world moves on. New castles rise in the molten brick of the ones that had just been toppled, new ideas spread over the vast space as the old ones only remain on paper, and new domain is carved by those so ambitious to rise in the span of the ruinous cycle of space and stars.
And so, it took only two moonrises to absolve the tension All for One left behind.
The sun is cold on her cheek, beams of fluttering light piercing through her blinds and resting on her skin. Despite her layers of long sleeves, she shivers. Bumps rise on her arms, chicken skin hidden under cloth. Y/N is practically unmoving, her bare hands resting at her sides and fingers playing with her bedsheets. There is no warmth.
She hasn't felt this way in a long time.
It's been months. Y/N's sheets feel very different from the scratchy linens of the hospital bed; but even their familiarity doesn't bring her comfort or a sense of belonging. The hospital after the Sports Festival was prim and clean, everything in that room had meaning. Now Y/N finds herself in a similar situation, but instead in a place where she should feel, well, better (she doesn't).
A hollow gap tore through the left side of her chest. It came with a sudden pang and was followed by an overwhelming nothingness. For forty-eight hours it's been there, two sunrises and two sunsets, two thousand eight hundred and eighty minutes...but she shouldn't really lie to herself like that—it's been there for a long time.
Too long, she supposes. Age five is the day she collapsed on the ground as her chest twisted and ripped, muscle and arteries pumping harder than they ever had to before. The muscle had reshaped to include a mutation, an anomaly. But what was left was not an excess pump on the heart, but instead an overwhelming sense of loss and dejection.
Y/N stands from her bed, body unable to be connected to the mattress any longer. The sunlight is freezing, and she shivers once more. She pulls the string to flip open her blinds, but the temperature drops a few more degrees after that. It's August, it shouldn't be this cold.
The overhead light isn't on, not washing out the room in the artificial yellow glow from the cheap lightbulbs. Streaks of light slash through the room, and an eerily calm serenity falls over Y/N as her eyes follow the particles of dust in the air.
The household is very quiet, and Y/N's room is no different. She takes in a deep breath, stretching out her lungs; the sound of her chest expanding fills the silence like a rumbling thunderclap. Hidaka tries so desperately to take in something that will fill the hole in her chest (in her heart) but air cannot complete that job.
She hears the tires of a car rumble outside her room, pebbles getting caught in the rubber. Y/N huffs and closes her eyes. Her arms reach over her head and she stretches her body from the tips of her fingers to the ends of her toes. Y/N's back cracks a few times, a breach in the silence.
When she reopens her eyes, her gaze lands on the easel in the corner, only a few meters away from her. Her dad crafted it himself in the garage, the wooden legs unrefined (and the back one was a smidge too short). There was dust on the front edge, a blank canvas sitting on the floor next to it. Her paints were in a bucket beside it, her brushes and tools in their cups.
Her stomach feels warmer and her lips twitch into something a little short of a smile. Hidaka hasn't painted since school has started.
Y/N's legs move on their own. Before she knows it, she's sitting on a rolling stool and pushing up her sleeves. Her forgotten palette lies on the floor in mock sadness, the residue from past projects stain its cleanliness. The sunlight on her back doesn't feel frigid anymore. Her heart beats calmly—the palette needs to be peeled.
It's natural in her palms, the palette, but it feels new in a weird kind of way. The tube of (favorite color) paint she picks up isn't brittle, and she molds it to her liking. The untouched white canvas glares at her, begging to be colored, desiring to become something better, something more.
Y/N smiles. Ideas are flying behind her eyes. People, places, stories, feelings, the world is in her subconscious and she craves to become one with art again. It's been so long, she thinks, maybe I can paint some of my friends...
Her fingers reach out, just millimeters away from the paintbrush—
A knock sounds from the front door.
Hidaka stands up roughly, the tube of paint and palette falls from her grasp and clatters on the floor ungraciously. She drops them as if they were on fire, first layer of skin burning and blistering by now.
Her chest coils and it's harder to breathe. Y/N doesn't know why she feels so embarrassed for holding the means of her greatest artistic talent, she reacted as if someone had caught her doing something heinous.
Y/N doesn't move when she hears the door swing open, nor does she even react to the voices and conversation going on out in the main room of the home. She's relatively still, chest rising and falling quickly, but without heavy breaths from her lips.
"Y/N, sweetheart, can you come out please? We have a few guests here!" Her mother's voice rings aloud.
She takes a moment before nodding to herself, even though the action added nothing to the situation.
Roughly pushing down her sleeves, Y/N snatches the closest pair of gloves on her nightstand and slips them on with precision. Twisting the doorknob, Y/N departs her room once the sunlight leaves goosebumps on her skin yet again (how frigid, how stiff and uncomfortable the sun is). She leaves her palette and paint on the floor, left to only collect more dust.
The wooden floor does not creek under her feet when she moves down the singular hallway and into the living room. It's less silent now that she can hear the shuffling of multiple pairs of shoes and short conversation. She wouldn't use the word loud in this situation, nor the word quiet, but instead occupied.
She didn't know who the guests were, and oddly enough, her parents didn't call them out by name. If it was Hitoshi and his parents, her mother would yell The Shinsou's are here! and if it was one of her classmates she would yell their name (Y/N's parents made it their goal to learn the names of their daughter's friends).
The guests that are here, however, are not people she would expect.
Y/N's father, Hayato, looks down at All Might with a warm smile—something that contrasts his intimidating stature. His height, large and slightly pudgy build, thick eyebrows and bushy beard tend to scare off most people, but his two full sleeves of colorful tattoos push away the majority of the Japanese population. While her father is doing that, her mother is welcoming Shouta into the home.
The four adults, including both of Y/N's parents, All Might, and Aizawa, are seated on the couches. When she enters the room, all four heads turn to her. She's stunned for a moment, feet rooted to the floor.
Seeing two of her teachers in her living room with her parents should be cause enough for concern. That's not a scenario you ever, ever, want to happen. This is even more concerning when you realize that one of the teachers was gravely injured a few days ago—and the other one you just, simply, fucking despise.
She wonders what she could've done to warrant their presence here. Was she not performing in class well enough? No, her grades were great. Had she been rude to one of her fellow students? Probably, but nothing serious enough to cause their presence to arrive. Was she about to get expelled? No—wait, that doesn't sound too outside of the box.
I mean, she had broken countless rules (and other students' dreams), defied the seniority of her home room teacher, used excessive profanity in front of adults, and gotten herself into a myriad of helpless situations.
Both of her teachers are too nicely put together. All Might is wearing a dress shirt, slacks, and a tie. Despite the sling his arm is in and the bandage around his forehead, he looks polished. Aizawa is the same, with the formal clothes and a clean-shaven face. His hair is pulled away from his eyes into a half-bun, the scar below his pupil on full display. Y/N can't bare to look at it.
"Why are you here?" Y/N's voice comes out raspy and hoarse. She has barely spoken a sentence in the past two days, but this one felt important to say.
Y/N's mother, Kana, and Hayato do nothing to correct their daughter's bluntness and unprofessional tone. They're in their own home, they can speak how they like and respect the way their child handles conversation—a link of understanding and trust they've established with their children.
"They're here to talk about the dorm system," Hayato says, tapping a lone chair beside the couch for Y/N to sit, "remember that notice we got in the mail yesterday? Did you read it?"
She sighs with great relief about not being suspended or expelled but then nods her head, taking a seat across from her teachers and beside her parents (albeit, she was on another couch, separated from her family as she always was).
"I did." Y/N's voice raises an octave.
There's a notion in the air that both Hayato and Kana are waiting for All Might and Aizawa to speak. Y/N's mom is waiting patiently, but her fists are clenching her jeans; Hidaka's dad seems less anxious, but he refuses to look at Aizawa's side of the couch.
"Before anything, I wanted to start with something else," Toshinori says as he turns to Y/N, his body leaning slightly forward in his seat; his eyes are kind, "how are you doing?"
There's a pause.
"Unwell." Y/N shudders as she speaks, clearly uncomfortable with the question and the situation that All Might is underhandedly referring to.
He shouldn't have expected a different answer, but, with his heroic naivety, he did. Hidaka has always been upfront about herself (oh, if he only knew the scale of the depravity and dishonesty she hides under her skin and bone), and this reply is truly on-color with what she should answer—but the single word extinguishes a small light in his beating heart.
The answer devastates her parents. Her mother pushes the heel of her hand into one of her eyes, seemingly to stop herself from crying. Kana's chest shudders as she breathes. Y/N's father has to bite his lips to keep himself from sniffling. His lips are bruised—he's been doing that a lot these past few days.
Colder, the room grows colder; it's like ice is clawing up the walls and pounding at the windows. Frost builds up on the back of Y/N's teeth, her tongue like an icicle, too slick to melt it off. She wants to throw up (why has she done this to her parents? why why why why?).
"Now for the dorm system," Aizawa interrupts when he sees that Toshinori is pursing his lips shut, at a loss for words, "we're here to discuss how it will work and to ask for your consent to participate in it."
Aizawa speaks, and a lighter is sparked within the roaming gas cloud that is Hidaka Hayato. Y/N's dad grumbles angrily under his breath, but he keeps his arms crossed over his vast chest. If he opens his mouth he knows he will say something stupid, and the last thing he wants to do is embarrass himself in front of his wife and daughter. But self control is hard to find these days.
Hidaka's father doesn't like Aizawa either, just his existence in this home puts a sour taste on his tongue. The things Aizawa has said and done to this family (to Hayato's own brother) leaves him ostracized in a household who hates him (why do you think Y/N hates Aizawa? She follows her father).
"Go ahead then," Y/N says, filling in the silence where her parents would not speak.
Looking over them for a second time, Y/N realizes that they are livid. Her father is physically shaking, jaw clenching and unclenching, his chin bobbling and lips quivering. He can barely keep himself together. His hands dig into his ink-stained skin, nail shaped crescents embroidered within the shapes and patterns tattooed onto him.
"The dorm system is divided by classes, so all of 1-A will be in a separate building from other students," Aizawa begins, "the students will have full amenities, all of which are provided by the school. Full kitchen, paid grocery bills, a private half-bath, communal showers that are regularly upkept, separate—"
"What about safety?" Hayato interjects. "Is there any alarm system or surveillance? I have to ask, as you are putting all of our children in a single and targeted spot."
"The dorms will be on the school's campus. We have protective gates around the entire perimeter, a camera system that is staffed 24/7, and we have sidekicks from professional agencies—" All Might begins to explain but he too is cut off by the vexed father.
"Is that even enough? Hell, reporters broke into your school at one point. How can you guarantee the well-being of my daughter when UA has exhibited such a lack of care—"
"Hayato, that's enough." Y/N's mother silences her spouse from saying anything more. "If you aren't going to be productive in this conversation, then you can leave."
There's a finality in her tone. Y/N doesn't want to speak, let alone move. She wants to sink into the colors on the wall, become one with the drywall and simply exist in space as long as the walls remain.
"Gladly."
The spite dripping from his teeth is more like blood rather than saliva. It's not supposed to be there, out of place for a man as kind as he is. But sometimes kindness must take the backseat when riding alongside fatherhood.
He stands up from the couch quickly, and Y/N can't even bring herself to watch him as he walks out the front door and slams it shut. Her knees are pulled up under her torso, fingers picking at the cuffs of her gloves. The room is freezing, cold sun from the blinds splays over her back and nestles in her hair.
"Thank you for that." All Might says. "I feel awful that this isn't going as smoothly as I had hoped, but I appreciate that you—"
"I don't agree with you, you know." Kana says. "I called out my husband because he was being rude, not because I disagreed with his sentiments."
She thought Iida was a serial interrupter, but Y/N now recognizes that most people she knows have that trait (including herself, on some days). Her mother doesn't let All Might speak next.
Her mother is controlled, but her (eye color) eyes are a sharp with lupine furor. The corners of her mouth do not twitch up or down, her pupils situated straight ahead at the two teachers. She's unwavering, one leg crossed over the other with her hands in her lap. Sometimes muted anger is more unforgiving than thundering fury.
"He's right, Yuuei has been lacking in their duty to protect their students." Kana says, an exactness and neutrality in her tone. It's as if she's been waiting to say these words for a long time. "Y/N, how many times have you been injured, hospitalized, or threatening due to something you've done at the school or because of the school?"
Her mother doesn't even look at her when she asks the question. The retired hero's eyes are trained on the two teachers, her head slightly tilted to the side as if she doesn't already know the answer to the question she asked. Kana is a tired woman, fed up with so much of the hero system she had grown up in.
Y/N doesn't want to speak, she feels that this part of the conversation is redundant. She knows her decision on the dorm system, so what's the point of extending the conversation to cover topics like this? All it does is make her uncomfortable. But, nevertheless, she listens to her mother and starts to count.
"Five times."
Aizawa bites his lip and stares at his hands, bringing his fingers together in a fist to muffle everything that he is feeling. He cares so much about his students, how could he live with himself knowing he failed to protect this singular girl five times? Aizawa doesn't even know how to react, a dark and morose consciousness opens in his chest as he wrings his hands so viciously that his skin starts to turn red.
"Does that include the time you were threatened at the mall with your friends?" Kana's voice isn't like a smartass, but instead a mother who is tired of seeing her child suffer.
"Sorry...six times."
Before Aizawa can say a word, All Might breaks into the speaking role.
"Sorry? Sweetheart, why are you sorry?" Toshinori questions, leaning towards Y/N and placing a few lone fingers on her knee to attempt to comfort her, but he's so wrapped up in her expression he fails to notice the way her muscles flinch underneath his touch. "We are the ones who should be apologizing to you."
All Mights expression is sorrowful. A man of golden halos and sunshine droops into a moon-dipped valley of solemn sadness. The clouds around him steal his radiant light, a sullen, self-sacrificing angel heartbroken at the idea that he could not save another human being. Toshinori is a good man, but his seraphic nature falters with time and age.
"We failed you." Aizawa adds, and Y/N has never heard such humanity woven in his tone.
Shouta has as much control over the quirks of others as he does his own emotions. He is a lock-box made from iron spun clasps and wood solidified and hardened by time. There seems to be no key to unlock it (him, to unlock him); however, Shouta knows better than to lose the key to his perceptions. He keeps the small key next to his heart, right where he keeps his students.
Y/N's mother is reticent. Her head stares down into her lap, her fingers playing with her wedding ring as a distraction. Nobody says a word. The atmosphere is like a dense fog, stifling and whole.
A sniffle refracts through the smog like a beam of light, and, once again, Kana is overcome with emotion. All Might retracts into his seat, taken aback by the abrupt feelings that Y/N's mother is experiencing. Aizawa still does not move.
It's been a long time since Hidaka has seen her mother cry.
She cries without much of a mess; the whole ordeal is muffled and muted. With her emotional burst, the lights in the house flicker on and off for a moment, bulbs dimming and shining in unpredictable patterns. As she starts to calm, the lights fall into their regular luminosity once more.
In complete honesty, Y/N hasn't been spending much time with her mom or her other relatives. School is too much. It's all day, the homework, the exhaustion, the after school training, the isolation, the summer camp, the kidnapping—Yuuei has stolen her time with her mother. And now she is here, crying in front of her daughter, and Y/N can't bring herself to do anything.
"You...you have some nerve, Toshinori, Aizawa," the mother chokes out, wiping crystalline tears from her chin, "you speak openly about your flaws as protectors yet you ask me to place my child in your protection?"
"What? Mom?" Y/N says, sitting up straight like a rod with an accusatory tilt in her voice. This was not what she was expecting.
All Might and Eraserhead don't speak. They should've known this was coming; and, more importantly, that should've known they deserved it.
"God, I hate heroism, I hate hero schools," Kana sneers, pushing her hair away from her slowly drying eyes; the lightbulbs flash brighter, "it makes you all so fucking arrogant, so entitled."
Y/N is at a loss for words. The room grows colder, and she's shrinking into the back of her chair.
"I'm sorry, Kana, but how can you say that when you were a hero yourself?" Toshinori says, his tone dripping with genuine curiosity and confusion. "You were in the top 20 in your prime, you even attended Shiketsu High. How can you suddenly now disapprove of hero institutions? How can you denounce the heroism itself?"
Kana takes a heavy breath into her lungs, shaking her head softly at the blond man as she recalls her time as a protector, as a symbol of justice, as a hero.
"Because I got married, Toshi, and I had my family." She laughs dryly. "I had taken a break to marry the love of my life, a quirkless man who the world didn't view to be worth the effort nor time. Japan had mocked me, turned their back on me, and had the gall to call me selfish for taking a break, to put a pause on my hero duties. It took a toll on my relationships with other heroes I was friends with, it weakened my reputation with the people I was trying to protect, and it destroyed my mental health."
Y/N's mom had lived a lifetime of memories before she had even been born. Kana had storybooks, libraries, filled with stories and lessons from the world she had patrolled as a hero. However, she told very few of them, snipets here and there—but she had never once divulged this much about her fall from heroism.
"I had devoted myself, every part of me, to them. I gave them all that I was because that's what they wanted. And then, when I didn't bend to their will one time, they had taken so much from me.
"I spent my whole life being selfless—and so I finally decided to be selfish. I left heroism for good and I created a family that I love."
"Mrs. Hidaka," Aizawa says, trying to steer the conversation back to neutral, but the lights and appliances around the house were whipped into a frenzy, the electricity of the home going haywire, "we didn't—"
Kana doesn't listen to the teachers, and Y/N wants leave (it's been two days, why are they yelling? there's no need to fight, it's already been forty-eight hours. the league isn't shoving needles into her arms anymore, it's hardly been two thousand eight hundred and eighty minutes. two sevenths of a week have passed and now she's not going to die anymore. hidaka has her cold blankets in her cold room surrounded in cold sun with frosty gloves and a clip of pink bubblegum in her hair, see? one fifteenth of a month later and she's already falling back into her patterns. she's safe here now, two sunrises later. two moon falls in and she's back at her house and next to her mom and why are they yelling they shouldn't be yelling two days have gone by and she's fine now can't you see y/n is totally fine sitting back into her lone chair because she cannot even exist near her family and her knees are pressing into her chest which is totally fine by the way as she's never heard her mother talk like this why is she taking like that does she not understand that her daughter d̶̮̈́̿o̷͚͐e̸̤͓͛̄s̷̢͙͋̊n̴̖̋́'̸̼̜͌̐t̷̙̠͂ want to be a hero it's all she's ever wanted really because it is what ryou has been telling her since she can remember because she really wants to be a hero and make him proud just like he said well it's hard to make a dead person proud but she's going to try anyways because his voice is still in her head telling her that she's not heroic enough and that she needs to be better and give up her friends and that she doesn't feel the things she feels because heroes are strong and she is weak and it's been two days two days two days two days two—).
"And now here you heroes are again, trying to take away the only selfish thing I've ever done for myself—my family. You put Y/N in danger all the time, how do you expect me to place her in your care again when all you have done is proven how awful you are at that job? You even said it yourself, you failed her."
It's only when the lightbulbs in the ceiling whir and shake that Kana silences herself. She realizes how much her emotions affect her quirk, and how that quirk affects the electricity in her surroundings. Her chest is heaving, there is sweat on her brow and her lip, a dewiness resting on her waterline.
This is when Aizawa rises from his seat with impassioned drive. His hands rest to his side, barely even leaving a wrinkle in the finely pressed fabric he was wearing. Suddenly, he leans forward in a deep bow, his face staring directly into the wooden floor.
"We cannot take back what we have already done and what we have not done. However, if you allow us to watch over Y/N, we can promise we will help guide and raise her into a fine hero, and a good person." Aizawa speaks with firm sincerity, he truly believes in this system and it's future. "Please lend us this opportunity, in which we will atone for our mistakes in the past and work together to achieve a better future for your daughter."
Hidaka uncoils from herself, leaning forward with her hands on her knees. Y/N's mother rolls her eyes and brushes baby tears away before they start running. Standing up, she waits for Aizawa to rise from his bow so she can look him dead in the eyes (she was just barely taller than the erasure hero, after all).
"It's not my decision, it's Y/N's," Kana says with simplicity, "Y/N knows what's best for herself, she knows what she wants in life, and she can make her own verdict on this. While I may not agree with her decision, as her mother, I will respect her choice and help her with anything she needs."
She steps away from her daughter's home room teacher. And while Shouta is a controlled man, his expressions give his shock away. He hadn't expected her to come to this conclusion, not with everything that she has been through. Something is his chest warms, however, knowing that Y/N has a family that cares and respects their children unlike many families he's seen so far.
Looking over her shoulder, Kana looks at Y/N with the same (eye color) eyes that she has; everyone has always said they look so much alike. Her mother smiles, mouths I love you, sweetheart, walks down the hall and into her bedroom, and closes the door softly behind her.
It's a slightly awkward transition to now, in which Y/N is left alone with her two teachers. Her dad left with rage in his heart and her mom left with the past on her mind. The world is a complicated and cruel place, and heroism is a topic that has been toxic and polar for years.
While staring at Shouta and Yagi, Y/N wonders if this has been the most difficult moment for her teachers all day—as she's making the assumption that by this time in the day they've already visited other families from class 1-A. Maybe they knew this visitation would turn out like this, maybe they didn't.
With the newfound quietness in the room, All Might seeks to finish this meeting with what he and Eraserhead has desired to do in the first place.
"Hidaka Y/N," the strongest hero in Japan starts (but with the sling and the bandage around his head, he looks like a thin shell of a hero), "do you want to become a hero?"
Y/N's fingers dig into her thighs, but with the barrier of her gloves and her sweatpants, her nails barely leave a scratch. She stares into those sunken cerulean eyes of his, bright and vast like the open sky. Justice, power, knowledge, growth, and understanding swim through his eyes like fish do the sea. He is a boundless galaxy of grandiose and intrepid faultlessness.
"Yes."
All Might smiles, and Y/N tries to.
"Would you like to join your fellow classmates and participate in the Yuuei Dormitory System?"
"I would love to."
Leading them out the door is less terrifying than she thought it would be. They don't ask anymore questions, they don't dawdle in the home any longer, they don't ask her about the accident or her parents, they just, well, leave.
Shutting the front door behind them, Y/N stands rooted in place. Coldness overruns her, bathing her in sunlight akin to a waterfall. She shivers under her layers of clothing, her heart slamming in her chest.
It's been two days, she should just move on. Y/N should count the two thousand eight hundred and eighty seconds on her fingertips and then forget her number halfway through, progressing onto something else in her life—but she can't. Her neurons keep firing and are replaying the same scene over and over again, rewinding it infinitely behind her eyes.
The apology All Might spoke of never did come, did it?
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Rua- māori. [two]