Art Credit to Ari Suonpää (Arisuonpaa) on Deviantart.
"I'm ho-"
"No luck job hunting today, huh?" your older brother laughs. "That's sooooo sad."
You glare at him, "Shut the fuck up, you shitfaced degen! Your ass does nothing but live in Mom and Dad's basement, so don't even get me started motherfucker."
He just rolls his eyes, "Whatever, you pussy."
"Will you stop arguing for once?" your younger sister leans against the doorway. "So fucking annoying..."
"Oh come on, you aren't even old enough to be employed!" you huff.
"Well is complaining gonna help?" she sticks her tongue out at you.
"N-no..." you look off to the side.
"Great, now apologize, you two!!" she yells.
"... S-sorry..." you cross your arms.
"Yeah yeah, whatever... Sorry," he spits out.
"Shit eater..."
"Quivering pussy..."
Your sister sighs, "Best it's gonna get... Alright, we got leftovers for you." She gestures to the kitchen. "I'm going to bed..."
Your brother walks back to the basement door, "I got a raid to be at. Like now. So see you tomorrow, bitch."
"Night; bye bitch," you crack a small smile and head to the kitchen.
You heated up your sad little leftovers from today's meal. If you didn't have to go job hunting, you would've had hot food... But if you hadn't had a near-death experience, you wouldn't have met Midoriya. So, there's been ups and downs...
Speaking of, you hadn't actually responded to him yet.
You pull out your phone and quickly add him to your contacts under "Bush Boy" for his green hair.
You: Heyyyy!! Ya, you got the right number
He takes a while to respond, so you eat your leftovers.
Bush Boy: Ohh, I'm so happy I got the right number! I'm actually a littlr nervous right now. I dont' usually talkj to peopkle over the ohone.
You: ... You don have to be so formal yk wwww
You: We're friends, right? u dont have ti try and spell everything perfect or have good grammar all the time, its ok
Bush Boy: I'm sorry! It's a force of havit because I usually onky talkd to my mom so... yeah...
You: hey man its oki! ill getchu used to it, mk mk?
Bush Boy: Thanks! :)
You: *wipes tear* So pure!
Bush Boy: ...?
You: nothin nothin
You: Anyways, so...
...
You spend the rest of your night chatting with the vegetable. You learn that the Sports Festival is coming up soon. You remember you saw it once before. You fell asleep because none of the students were particularly attractive, so you couldn't pay attention.
But things were different now. You have a friend you could go watch. That would be... Fun. You could bring along some of your own friends to go watch the festival together. I mean, technically, your cousin goes to U.A., but you don't know him very well.
Maybe this time, you can finally open yourself to the idea of heroes at all...
After all, it's not really their fault that the people are irresponsible. It's the people's fault for being lazy.
In society, Super Heroes are for fighting Super Villains. The police work with the regular, more petty crimes. Minor theft, assaults, public unrest, stalkers, and the like. But when you have trained heroes just about everywhere, they tend to want to take care of the problem before the police can.
And so the police have gotten lazy.
You remember being 11.
This was a time when you hadn't learned discipline. You didn't know how to smile without teeth, how to bat your eyes to claim innocence, to play dumb to escape suspicion. You didn't know how to stop yourself from singing when you heard your favorite song.
It wasn't like it was loud.
Only one person heard it.
You had stupidly wandered off in the store to look at snacks while your parents searched for groceries. Your brother, 15 at the time, stayed at home. Your sister, eight at the time, was glued to your parents' side. As the middle child, it's only expected that you can easily slip away to your own desires.
You quietly hummed your favorite song - the theme song of your favorite show, which had its image plastered onto the bag of chips in your hand.
You remember the sound of your voice. It was smooth, even to yourself. Soothing, like a lullaby.
You remember the one man who heard you sing.
You remember the look in his eyes.
Desperation.
Obsession.
"I don't care that she's only 11; she's beautiful!! Please, my angel, sing for me...!"
You remember the way that he followed you when you tried to run.
You remember jumping to evade his disgusting, grubby old man's hands.
You remember the way people looked at you weirdly. Not at him, because they couldn't hear his incoherent ramblings over your screaming. They assumed you were just a runaway kid.
You remember the way nobody helped you. You passed two policemen. Security.
You remember how they muttered to themselves, "Someone else will deal with it..."
You remember the way that, after five minutes of heart-racing torture, the man suddenly lurched back.
"Demon!!"
"Seductress!!"
"Temptress!!"
"Witch child!!"
"You lured me in!!"
You remember being scared and confused. Why did he blame you, when he was the perverse one?
You remember being attacked.
You remember the things he threw at you.
You remember the frenzied, angry eyes he had. Not at you, but for you.
Warped.
Twisted.
Something was wrong with this man.
You knew that much.
But you didn't know what.
Or why.
But why did it have to hurt so much?
You remember the way people watched the scene, too afraid to step in.
You remember thinking how pathetic these people had to be.
Could they not see the agony you were in?
Not one person moved to help you. Not even the policemen.
Nobody was going to help you unless you helped yourself.
You remember biting, kicking, screaming for him to go away.
You remember the way he battered your eye black, and the way you clawed at his skin in return.
It felt good.
You remember how badly it hurt until someone finally pulled you off of him.
You don't remember who it was. But you could recognize him as a hero.
You remember relief. Joy. Sadness. Regret. All these mixed and complex emotions you can't put into words so simply.
And then you remember the disappointed look in his eyes.
"What's wrong with this feral child?"
...
You remember the bitter taste of betrayal.
And you had the feeling that this wasn't the last time this would happen.
And you were right.
Not all heroes are the same, you tell yourself. But enough of them are.
Heroes aren't necessarily bad people, but so many of them lack an open mind. First impressions are tough, and so you would always get branded as the villain because of how you would fight back with all your might. It looked less like a fight for survival and more like a rabid attack.
The existence of heroes caused people to start ignoring problems around them because they all assume some hero will come along and sweep it all away. But that's not the case.
You know there are still good people in the world. After all, you've had your fair share of experiences where people will at the very least stand up for you. But they never stay for long. Because they don't really care.
And so instead, you learned to keep your mouth shut. Smile. Laugh with everyone else. Cry and play the victim. Never let people know your thoughts.
Because as long as you know the rules, you can win the game.
You try to fall asleep on your bed, thoughts slowly spiraling out of control.
Heroes, villains, good, evil, fantasy, reality, giving, taking, laughing, crying, attacking, defending, hurting, healing, loving, hating, living, dying, waking-
***
Today is Saturday.
You are going to be visiting your cousin today. His name is Yamanaka Saburo. He goes to U.A. High, but sometimes you wonder how he managed to get in...
His quirk isn't very useful, after all. So you guessed maybe he got lucky.
"Go meet with him at U.A.," your mother tells you. "He'll be at the front waiting for you."
"Okay..." you respond. You were definitely excited to go, since you might have the chance to see Midoriya again.
You ride the bus there and arrive relatively quickly. Traffic was virtually non-existent this late in the day.
As you approach the large (and honestly quite foreboding) building, you felt uneasy. As if you were in a place you weren't supposed to be. After all, your relationship with heroes is... Complicated at best. You feel like all eyes were on you as you strut toward the front entrance.
There, you see your cousin waiting for you, as expected. You aren't particularly close with the guy, but it's not like you had a rocky friendship either.
"Yo, Saburo-kuuun," you yell lazily his way. "I'm here to get you."
"Ah, took you long enough!" he says brightly back. "How was your day?"
"Pretty decent, you?" you reply back.
"Great! The in the hero classes have been training hard for the Sports Festival, but we supports haven't been slacking off either!" he bumps his chest proudly. "I'll for sure do great!"
"I'm... Sure you will," you glance off to the side.
"Whaat?!" he shouts. "Just because I'm in the H class doesn't mean I'm that much of a failure, right?!"
You decide to keep your mouth shut about it.
After all, your cousin didn't quite get a good quirk. You're surprised he even made it into U.A. in the first place.
After all, having a LEGO® for a head isn't really the most useful ability.
Author's Note:
So uh... I accidentally ended up introducing more characters haha...
I had it sitting in the back of my mind to write about that guy with a Lego head, but I didn't think too much about it until I wrote this fic. So uh... Yippee?
I feel like I maybe rambled a bit too long in this one. In trying to create a more concrete base for the Reader, I feel like I accidentally got distracted partway through. So hopefully I can lighten the mood a little next chapter.
I don't have too much to say about this chapter, other than that its purpose was to explain parts of Reader's backstory and why she's become a little... Sour, I guess? But I don't want to make her too angsty because then she might just come off as a jerk. Which I mean, I guess I could go that path but that would take a major character arc to return from that I don't think I'm up to yet.
Aside from that, though, this chapter was pretty straightforward. A little push to spark more character interactions and nothing more.
Please leave feedback here!
Thank you for reading
-Kikyo Yamamoto