There were a lot of things that the five-year-old Kuroyanagi Kimitsuki didn't understand. She wasn't sure, for one, why she had to be the reason behind her family's passing. All around her, everyone kept telling her that things were going to be alright, and that she was okay. But none of those words reached their eyes nor did they reach her heart. She wasn't sure how those empty consoles were going to fix the strange hurt she was feeling in her heart. And she wasn't sure when she would see her family.
They had taken her away from the unmoving bodies of her family and off to a new place. There had been a lot of questions, and there had been a funeral. Kimitsuki wasn't sure why she was so pitiful.
Everyone, everyone who used to look at her with such adoration were suddenly staring at her with strange uncertainties in their eyes. Kimitsuki wasn't sure what they were trying to tell her.
But something also told Kimitsuki that a lot of the times, it was better not to know what the other person was thinking of saying or doing. She had learned that the hard way, no matter what.
There were many things that had happened in the past few months, and Kimitsuki had started to live in a strange place called the Orphanage with so many other children. They had been nice to her before they found out who she was. They weren't rude to her now, but they no longer talked to her.
It was strange, and the elders at the Orphanage told her that they'll be sending her to a nice school. It didn't take her long to realise that her school wasn't the same as her fellow orphans.
No one wanted to be around her.
Kimitsuki was uncertain as she kept her head down, holding tightly on the blue shirt with a white flower that she was wearing over her skirt – something she shared with everyone in the elementary school. She was also provided with a bright yellow cap to wear whenever she went out so she could be seen easily by the traffic. Kimitsuki wished that she could leave this place quickly.
But then, the teacher who had introduced herself to Kimitsuki earlier as Minami Sensei came back out of the room and gave her a small smile, motioning her to come over with her. She hesitated.
"Come on, Kimitsuki-Chan," Minami said and held out her hand to the young girl. Kimitsuki shook her head and took a step forward, showing that she would rather walk on her own.
Minami led the white-haired girl into the room and Kimitsuki's eyes widened when she saw up to forty different children sitting at nine different circular tables, all of them staring right back at her. Kimitsuki quickly looked away down at the ground in front of her, wishing she had taken the hand.
"Everyone, this is our new classmate Kimitsuki-Chan," Minami said. Kimitsuki noted that she didn't say her last name out. "Be nice to her, okay? Kimitsuki-Chan, you can go sit on that table, okay?"
Kimitsuki looked back up and saw that Minami was pointing to a table with four boys. The only seat open was in the middle of a blond boy who was staring at her while on the edge of his seat and a green-haired boy who was staring at her in curiosity. Both of them had their mouth parted open.
"Y-Yes..." Kimitsuki said quietly to Minami, causing all of the children there to snap out of their daze as they stared at the new girl. They all blushed and looked away from her.
But Kimitsuki was already making her way to the table, curling her hands into fists.
When she was a bit younger, Kimitsuki's mother always told her to imagine that the scary new people in front of her were something that she liked. Right now, Kimitsuki tried to imagine the boys as flowers as she walked toward them. And as she approached the table, the green flower moved.
"Nice to meet you Kimitsuki-Chan!" the green flower introduced himself, turning slightly red. "My name is Midoriya Izuku! You can sit with me!" He motioned to the seat next to him.
"You mean us both!" the yellow flower yelled, causing both Kimitsuki and Izuku to flinch slightly – albeit for different reasons. "You! My name is Bakugo Katsuki! You better remember it!"
"Ka-Chan, you're scaring her," Izuku said uncertainly, looking away when Katsuki glared at him in annoyance. "K-Kimitsuki-Chan, I-I think you're very c-cute,"
"You mean us both!" Katsuki said loudly again, shooting another look full of annoyance in Izuku's direction. Izuku averted his eyes further away.
Kimitsuki, who had barely sat down in the chair between the two, looked at the two flowers in uncertainty as the illusion dissolved away to reveal their real faces. She was shy that they called her pretty, she had always liked that. But she wasn't sure what to do.
"Thank you," Kimitsuki mumbled, passing Izuku a smile. Before she could give one to Katsuki, another boy on their table burst out with the question he had been holding back –
"You look familiar, you know!"
This pushed Kimitsuki down back into her shell as she avoided looking at any of them. She didn't want to tell them her full name. She knew they would recognise her and she didn't... she didn't...
Each and every single one of the children around her were interested in seeing who their new pretty and soft-spoken classmate was, and it didn't take them until the end of the day to figure out who Kimitsuki really was. There was an immediate change in their demeanour, and she earned her first nickname –
"Family-Killer Kimitsuki!"
🤍
Summer Holidays:
"Isn't he amazing, Tsuki-Chan?" Izuku said in awe as he looked at Kimitsuki, whose lilac eyes were trained on the T.V that was playing a video of All Might. "You really like him, too, don't you, Tsuki-Chan?" He and Kimitsuki were pressed against the window of the local electronics shop.
"He's amazing..." Kimitsuki breathed, staring at the way All Might posed. She turned to look at Izuku. "I don't have a computer... I wish I could see him all day long..."
"Oka-San says your eyes get bad from seeing the computer all day," Izuku told her knowledgeably. "You can't hurt your eyes, Tsuki-Chan! You won't be able to use your Quirk properly with glasses!"
At these words, Kimitsuki fell silent and looked back at All Might as he helped people out of the rubble. She wasn't sure if she wanted her to Quirk to remain. Her Quirk wasn't the kind that a Hero would have. It was scary and dangerous... and just not what Kimitsuki imagined a Hero having.
Besides, a person who killed her family cannot be a hero.
It was in the early days of kindergarten when the two of them had been ostracised – Izuku for being the only Quirkless child in their class, and Kimitsuki to be the only kid who had such a villainous Quirk, proven with the death of her family.
"Izu-Chan," Kimitsuki mumbled, turning her head to look back at Izuku, who was looking at her rather happily. She wavered slightly. "Do you think that we will ever –"
"There they are!"
Both Kimitsuki and Izuku turned around to see that it was Katsuki who had called them out, a look that was smug but with undertones of anger etched on his face. With him were his friends – all of them holding onto their sand buckets and balls to play in the local playground that summer afternoon. Kimitsuki and Izuku had been on their way to there to play with them, too.
"I thought I told you idiots that we're not going to wait for you guys anymore," Katsuki said to them, glaring at them. "I'm doing enough by allowing you to come play with us,"
"Come on, Izu-Chan," Kimitsuki said to her friend and Izuku nodded at her with a smile before the two of them started off after Katsuki, who rolled his eyes at them.
The five of them arrived at the playground and started to go around playing with their stuff. Kimitsuki set down the old purple-coloured sand bucket onto the ground. It had previously belonged to someone else in the Orphanage before it was passed onto her. She had scratched off the name of the previous owner and written her name onto it. She reached out and picked up her purple ball.
Kimitsuku turned around to look at Izuku and saw him with his own green ball. Katsuki walked over with his orange one but his friends kept some distance between them due to Kimitsuki's presence.
"Wow, you're amazing at this!" Izuku praised as he and Kimitsuki watched Katsuki play with the ball, managing to juggle it on his elbow and legs. "Isn't he, Tsuki-Chan?"
"This is nothing!" Katsuki said when Kimitsuki took too long to reply. He was embarrassed and annoyed, putting a stop to his juggling. "Why don't you try it?"
"I'm gonna!" Izuku exclaimed and Kimitsuki moved back to give him space. He tried to juggle the ball on his knee like Katsuki but the ball bounced off and away from them.
"There's nothing you can do right, can you?" Katsuki said snidely, laughter at Izuku's pitifulness bubbling underneath. "You really are special!"
"That's not nice, Ka-Chan," Kimitsuki said, frowning as she looked at him. "You shouldn't say such things to anyone," She looked at Izuku. "You'll learn it once you practise it!"
"Kimi-Chan, you don't possible believe that he'll learn, do you?" Katsuki interjected to the white-haired girl. "He hasn't even learned how to write his name properly!"
"What are you talking about...?" Kimitsuki asked, confused.
"Look at this," Katsuki said as he picked up Izuku's sand bucket. "He wrote the last part of his name as 'Deku'!" Kimitsuki looked at it and saw that Izuku really had made a mistake in the Kanji.
"But that is okay, isn't it?" Kimitsuki insisted quietly when all the boys laughed at Izuku. "It really is hard to write in Kanji... I struggle with it, too..." But the boys kept laughing and she frowned.
"You can read that?" one of his friends asked Katsuki, and even Izuku was impressed.
"Well, of course, I can!" Katsuki said. "Deku – that must be what you a helpless loser!" He smirked at Izuku, whose smile fell immediately. "Completely useless!"
"That's mean, Ka-Chan," Kimitsuki said again, moving in front of Izuku as she stared at them, her eyebrows knitted together, and the other boys quickly moved away from her.
"What you did was mean, too, wasn't it?" one of them braved out.
Kimitsuki froze, knowing that it was only one thing that was being insinuated. It had been a while since someone called her out over it again. Her lower lip quivered slightly as Izuku and Katsuki turned to look at the boy at her reaction. But Kimitsuki was done, she snatched her bucket from the ground and started to run off from there, her long white hair fluttering behind her as she wiped her tears. She didn't want to play with them again. She didn't want to look at them ever again.
🤍
First Day Back at First Grade:
Kimitsuki walked with her head down until her long white hair covered her face, and her hands stuffed in the pockets of her shorts as she made her way to the building where her classroom was located. She hadn't played again with the boys for the remaining week of summer holidays. She did not want any one of them to tease her or to see her tears.
Making sure her beat-up silver-coloured trumpet, the one she salvaged from a junkyard, was strapped to her back properly, Kimitsuki had barely looked up when she ran into someone –
"Hey, watch where you're going, kid!"
Groaning and grabbing her head, Kimitsuki looked up to see that she had run into two seniors. Momentarily, the boys were dazed by the girl on the ground, staring at her long silvery white hair and lilac eyes. But then, they snapped out of their illusion when they realised who exactly she was.
"It's that Family-Killer Kimitsuki!"
"N-No, I'm not!" Kimitsuki whispered loudly as she scrambled to get onto her feet, almost tripping and falling from the weight of the trumpet on her back. "D-Don't call me that!"
"You ran into us first and now you're the one who is getting all angry about it?" one of the boys said, though his friend wanted to get out of there before Kimitsuki did something to them.
"I'm sorry," Kimitsuki apologised quickly, feeling flustered. She felt dumb that she had no way to defend herself against such accusations – because she really had killed her family. "I'm sorry,"
"Hey, what are you doing?!"
Kimitsuki and the two fourth grades turned around to see Katsuki stalking over to where the three of them were. He looked between them, noticing that Kimitsuki's large lilac were teary and the boys in front of her clearly seemed to be the ones at fault. He turned to look at them angrily, raising his fist.
"Which one of you did that to her?" Katsuki demanded, pointing to her watery eyes as Kimitsuki quickly wiped at them, embarrassed. "How dare you pick on her?"
"Why are you blaming us for this?" the boy responded. "She's the one who was walking with her head down and bumped into us!"
"If her head was down, you two were looking up, weren't you?" Katsuki retorted. "Why couldn't you step around her when she was walking? If you wanna fight, come at me!"
Katsuki smacked his fist against his palm, making sparks fly in the size of small explosions. Kimitsuki stared at him in surprise as he managed to scare the two fourth-graders off from there. He turned to look at the wide-eyed female and smirked, satisfied with the showcase in front of her.
"You should look up when you walk," Katsuki told her. "What if I'm not there to save you?" Kimitsuki opened her mouth. "Who am I kidding? I'm going to be the most powerful Hero who saves everyone!"
"My hair... got in the way..." Kimitsuki muttered, pushing away her long white hair as she looked away from the boy. "But..." She looked up when Katsuki held something in front of her face.
It was a plain white ribbon.
"Use it to tie your hair back," Katsuki ordered her, rather than simply offering it. Kimitsuki didn't want to go against him and took it from him. "You should stop letting people make you feel bad,"
"Why do you carry a ribbon with you?" Kimitsuki asked him, and noticed the blush erupt on his cheeks. "Sorry..." She blushed, too and tried to smile at him. "Ka-Chan... Thank –"
"You fought against two big fourth graders and won!"
It was Katsuki's two friends, Tsubasa and another that Kimitsuki didn't know the name of – he had always been too scared to talk to her and thus never shared his name with her. They had both come running out to praise the ash-blond male once the seniors had run off from there. Katsuki grinned.
"The most amazing hero always wins and comes up on top, no matter what!" Katsuki replied. He turned to look at Kimitsuki again and stopped when he saw the frown on her face again.
"You got hurt, Ka-Chan," Kimitsuki said, noticing the bruises that were forming and feeling flustered that she had caused him to come rescue her. "I'm sorry..."
Katsuki didn't want to hear that from her. He had expected to smile and hug him in gratitude.
Kimitsuki reached to touch his injuries and Katsuki held his breath as he saw her small, pale hand heading for his face but – the bell indicating the beginning of their class rang and Kimitsuki jumped, turning around to remember that they had to hurry to their classrooms before their teacher came.
"We've got to go now," Kimitsuki said as she looked at the three boys. "See you in the classroom..." She rushed off from there, using the ribbon that Katsuki had given her to tie her hair back.
Katsuki stared after her fluttering silvery white hair.
🤍
Later that Day:
Kimitsuki was in a good mood as she made her way back to the Orphanage that evening, having discovered a lot of interesting electronics in the junkyard to tinker with. She had kept her hair tied back and suddenly found herself a bit shy now that people could see more of her face. But it was a nice change anyhow.
While walking down the footpath next to the local playground, Kimitsuki noticed something going on in there. She stopped and focused on her eyes, realising that it was Katsuki and his friends beating up Izuku. She frowned, rushing toward them, but by the time she reached them, they had finished.
"Izu-Chan!" Kimitsuki called out gently as she reached his beaten-up body, before looking at Katsuki and his friends, who were walking off from there, oblivious to them.
"I'm sorry, he was trying to stand up for me..." a boy said as he rubbed the back of his head, looking at the boy on the ground. Kimitsuki's frown deepened. "... but he got beaten up in response,"
"Why did Ka-Chan beat him...?" Kimitsuki asked to herself. Izuku had been so happy that day because he and Kimitsuki had worked in the woodwork shop together and now...
Finally, Kimitsuki stood up and moved her backpack to the front of her body so she could pull her knocked-out best friend onto her back, grabbing his legs as she started off out of the playground. Izuku's head was hanging on her shoulder and Kimitsuki felt herself start to get all emotional again.
Truthfully, Kimitsuki hated crying all the time, but she was suddenly feeling horrible. She had been so genuinely impressed by what Katsuki had done earlier but now her illusion had been shattered.
Kimitsuki wasn't sure what to make of this. Why were her two childhood friends always fighting?
And how far is this going to go?
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