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Her earliest memories, strangely enough, were of hair.
First it was her own hair, mostly white like her mother’s, but with small drip stains of red like her father’s hellfire. Every morning her hair was briskly brushed and braided by an impersonal maid, red ribbons always tied tightly on the ends. Fuyumi hated those braids; she longed to cut her hair and wear it floating freely around her shoulders. But she didn’t, because that wasn’t what good girls and obedient daughters did. No matter how neat she kept her hair, no matter how impeccably her ribbons were tied, her father always looked at her over the dinner table and sneered. She didn’t understand what she was doing wrong.
Sometimes her mother would sneak into her room late at night, gently sliding those horrible red ribbons off the ends of the braids. The daughter always sighed in relief as the painful pulling finally stopped. She remembered her mother running her slender fingers through Fuyumi’s locks as she hummed a slow, lilting song about a little fish.
Then there was her older brother Touya’s dark red hair, and Endeavor growling, “Get that thing away from me” when her mother held the young boy out for his father to hold and comfort. Touya-nii had fallen in the backyard and scraped his palms; he was crying. The boy cried even harder when their father slammed the front door behind him with a thunderous boom.
Fuyumi didn’t like any of that, especially not her father’s words. Touya wasn’t a thing; he was a brother. She crept out from her usual hiding place behind the couch and held up her own, weaker arms. Her mother smiled, her lovely pale eyes dripping slowly like an icicle, and sat down on the couch. Together they cuddled Touya in their arms, and her mother’s hair fell in a cooling wave over Fuyumi’s shoulder. Touya stopped crying, and briefly Fuyumi was warm.
She was taller and her braids were long enough to be pinned across her head when Natsuo came along. His hair was the same ice white as their mother’s, and Fuyumi was a little jealous. She wasn’t sure that she liked the paint streaks of red in her hair anymore. She didn’t think she wanted anything to mark her as belonging to her father. He never held her gently, like her mother, or admired the poetry she wrote or the tidiness of her room. When her quirk had manifested, he had only groaned and muttered under his breath, “Great, another common ice user. Not even a powerful one, just snow. Useless.” He never held white-haired Natsuo either, which she tried (and failed) to take comfort in. Fuyumi tried to shower this new brother with love even harder, the same way she did Touya, but she knew that it wasn’t enough.
Her mother’s hands shook now whenever Endeavor was around. She didn’t sing the song about the little fish, and her eyes went blank with animal fear when a blue flame leapt from Touya’s fingertips.
Fuyumi was old enough to understand, old enough to think oh, shit when Shouto was born and she saw his hair perfectly halved into peppermint hemispheres of red and white. Her father held Shouto close to his heart with an expression of pleasure that was strangely frightening, and Fuyumi, Touya and Natsuo were even more alone.
Their family didn’t grow after that. Instead it slowly trickled away, like ice melting in the sunshine. With the whistle of a tea kettle and a cloud of steam rising from a screaming Shouto’s face, their mother was taken away from them. Their sole loving, if nervous, parent was gone from their traditional house, and it seemed colder without her, strangely. Except for the hours when Endeavor was home, of course, and then the house was hot with resentment, ambition, and anger.
Fuyumi, Natsuo and Touya were separated from Shouto even more than they were before by the time he got his miraculous dual quirk. In moments of quiet defiance, Fuyumi slunk into his room at night when she could. She ran her fingers through his hair as he sobbed against her and tried to soothe his bruises. She tried hard to remember all the words to her mother’s lullaby, and made them up whenever her memory failed her. She owed Shouto that much.
When she got back to her room, Natsuo and Touya were always waiting.
“We have to do something!” Touya would say, his voice crackling like a woodfire. “We have to tell someone. Surely someone would believe us this time, and help. Did you see the burns on Shouto’s arm?”
Natsuo would sit with a huge blanket around his shoulders, a miserable huddle of anxiety and indecision. “But what can we do? No one will believe us. Remember when I tried to tell my teacher back in second grade?”
Both his siblings winced at the memory. That had been a very bad night indeed; Fuyumi still bore a scar on her back to remind her of the futility of asking for help - and for trying to shield her siblings from Endeavor’s swift wrath. It hadn’t helped in the end, anyway. Natuso had still ended up with a broken arm.
“Father’s a hero,” Natsuo continued, intent on driving his point home. “He could kill Shouto and nobody would even notice, let alone care. He’d just start over again.” His eyes were haunted. “He’d make more nothings like us until he got another something like Shouto.”
“We’re not nothings,” Fuyumi hissed fiercely. Her palm itched to slap Natsuo, to shake him out of his apathy. She held the crimson fury back. That was the Endeavor in her, and she wouldn’t feed it. “We have worth, each of us. We are talented, gifted, intelligent people and I won’t let you forget it.”
“That’s great and all, nee-san, but what can we do about Shouto?” Touya growled, his legs twitching with unspent energy.
“I’m going to keep doing what I’ve been doing,” she replied firmly. “I’m going to be there for Shouto and you two as much as I can. I’m going to try and hold this family together. It’s what Mother would want.”
Touya leapt to his feet, all rage and heat spiraling into the sky. “It’s not what she would want,” he spat. “Mother would want us to be safe, to be happy. We can’t have that with Endeavor. Shouto will never have peace, not as long as that bastard has his claws in him. The next time I see him being mean to Shouto, I’m letting Dad have it. I’m not afraid of him.” His hands crackled and his eyes gleamed. “We’ll see who burns hotter.”
“That’s not a battle you can win, Touya!” Fuyumi cried, her heart beating faster with fear. She reached for him, but he ducked away from her easily. She, for better or worse, had never been worthy of Endeavor's training. “He’s the number two hero; only All Might is better! You...you’re just a kid.”
“Yeah?” Touya said as he turned to leave. She knew she had lost him, that he wasn’t hearing her anymore. “I may be just a kid, but I’m your big brother, and Natsuo’s and Shouto’s. It’s my job to protect you three. None of us asked to be born, but I’ll be damned if Endeavor keeps hurting him. I can’t stand by like some kind of coward. I have to try.”
“Touya,” she whispered, gasping for breath. But he was already gone.
To Fuyumi’s grief, Touya was as good as his word. The next time he caught Endeavor leaving his marks on Shouto, the flames licked ever higher. By the end of his confrontation with his father, Touya was gone, leaving only the cloying smell of burned flesh behind him. Another piece of their family melted away into nothingness, and Fuyumi struggled not to hate. She focused on Natsuo and on Shouto, as much as she could, as much as she was allowed.
“Why does our father hate us?” Shouto asked Fuyumi one day, his voice as blank as his face. They were waiting in tense silence for Endeavor to show up for dinner, and Fuyumi was trying desperately to keep the food warm and edible. “Why does he hurt us? What did we do wrong? ”
“It’s not us, Shouto,” Fuyumi said as she drew him down beside her at the kotatsu. Dinner could wait, at least for a minute. “It’s him. Something’s broken inside of him.”
“Are we broken, too?” her little brother asked.
Fuyumi struggled to be honest, to not immediately cry no! to reassure him. “Maybe we are, just a little,” she said finally. “But we don’t have to stay that way. We can make choices. We can change and be better than we are now. We don’t have to be like him.”
“We could be heroes? The good kind, like All Might?” Shouto said in a trembling voice, his eyes shining with hope for the first time in a long, long while.
She ran her fingers through his silky hair and squeezed him close. “You can. I know you can. I know you can be the kind of hero we really need. Someone strong, yes, but someone who’s kind. That’s so much more important than just being strong enough to beat someone up, you know.” She poked his nose and he giggled, very softly. “You need to be the kind of hero that listens and notices. Father can’t teach you that, but I think it’s something you already have inside you. You could be the greatest hero of all, like I could never be.”
“You notice me when I’m hurt or sad,” Shouto declared loyally. “You’re kind and you listen. That makes you a hero. You could wear a cape and be on tv and everything.”
“Thank you,” Fuyumi said. “But that’s not what I want to be. I want to be a different kind of hero.”
“Like what?”
She smiled, and told him the secret that she had held safe in her heart for years. “I want to be a teacher.”
…………………………
She did it, and she did it on her own. Their household staff slowly diminished as Endeavor became more cruel and demanding, and the chores inevitably became Fuyumi’s responsibility. She read history texts while stirring soup on the stove, she listened to books on tape as she cleaned, and she composed papers in her head as she walked the aisles of the grocery store. She soothed Shouto’s burns and Natsuo’s rage. She threw away the tea kettles that Endeavor kept ordering on the internet and feigned innocence when he couldn’t find them.
Sometimes he hit her in his frustration, or when she wasn’t quick enough with his meals or his laundry, and she grew skillful in hiding the evidence of his rage with makeup. Aloe plants bloomed in a long row along the kitchen windowsill, and they saw heavy use. She was up at dawn making lunches for her brothers and spent the long, lonely nights doing her homework and aching for things that would never be.
The years passed and nobody noticed that she was exhausted and drowning. She missed her mother. She ached for someone, anyone , to notice her and reach out their hand to save her.
High school progressed in this way, slowly and painfully in a blur of dust and dishes and bruises and burns. Meals were always eaten alone, schoolwork done in corners and darkness, her eyes aching from the strain of trying to read just one more sentence before she slept. It was almost all worth it when she held her acceptance letter to college in her hands, along with the proof of her full academic scholarship. Almost.
She lived at home as she went to college. Somebody had to be in the traditional, frightful house for Shouto and Natsuo. She truly feared what Endeavor might do to her brothers if she left. It wasn’t as if he respected Fuyumi’s ability to actually do anything to stop him, but every once in a while he would see the horror in her eyes as he screamed or hit, and would walk away. It was always only a temporary reprieve; he never failed to hit the next time. Natsuo became more and more involved with the sports teams at his school, and was already planning his escape the minute he graduated. He couldn’t understand why Fuyumi stayed, why she didn’t take the place in the college dorms that had been offered to her as part of her scholarship.
“Someone sane has to be here for Shouto,” she said, and placed her feet solidly on the kitchen tile. “Somebody has to be a witness.”
Then Shouto was accepted to UA and was out of the house during the daytime, giving Fuyumi a blessed eight hours of peace where she didn’t have to be on constant alert. She was a senior in college now, and trying to figure out what her next steps forward would be. Whatever her dreams, she couldn’t do anything until her brothers were safe, so she applied to and was accepted to a local master’s degree program in education. Natsuo was accepted to college and moved into the freshman dorms as fast as he could. He started dating a graphic design student named Miko, and was on the rowing and gymnastics teams. He never came home. She couldn’t blame him, although she would have appreciated his back-up on the days when her father growled and shouted and burned. Still, the added pressure on her shoulders from Endeavor’s attention was worth it to see the happiness in Natsuo’s eyes in the pictures he posted to his social media accounts.
Fuyumi breathed a little easier, even in the isolation at home, and started making lunch plans with a few other girls in her literature classes. The outings were done cautiously, Fuyumi feeling akin to a deer always listening for the sharp crack of a rifle, and she scurried home afterwards like the devil was on her tail. (Maybe he was, and maybe he wore a dark blue hero’s uniform and a wreath of flames around his frowning mouth.) Occasionally she went to a movie and laughed quietly at the antics of the comedians, or moved through a store and touched the soft clothes reverently. She thought that this might be what it was like to live without fear. In quiet moments, she imagined a place of her own, small of course, but maybe with a garden and a cat. It wasn't time for those things yet. It wouldn't be until her brothers were safe. But it was nice to dream, to escape her reality for a few minutes at a time.
She made sure to always be home when Shouto was, though. She was largely kept to the other side of the house by her father, especially when he and Shouto were training, but she listened and she waited. She crept into her brother’s room at night and hugged him as long as he would let her, and helped him with his homework. She heard his soft stories of the friends he was making: Midoriya, Iida, Uraraka, Tokoyami, Aizawa-sensei... She learned their names and their quirks and prayed to anything and everything she could think of that soon Shouto would be truly free. For when he was, she would be too.
Then the dorms were built (she mourned the villain attacks that made them necessary and feared for Shouto’s safety, but she reflected philosophically that there was never a loss without some gain). Shouto was only home on the weekends, and she dared to hope that the time for freedom was coming soon. She even got to see her mother again, every once in a while, when Endeavor thought she was at the grocery store or the bank. She started buying newspapers and circling the ads for apartments in purple ink, and she saved the homepage for the local animal shelter on her browser taskbar, and idly perused articles on the best cat names. The best names, in her opinion, were always the food ones. Waffles was her current favorite, but maybe Mochi would be better?
Inevitably, that’s when it all came crashing down around her.
Shouto was home for the weekend, and he and their father were training. She heard the difference in the pulse of the house as the training transitioned from instruction into actual fighting, thin though that margin might be even in the best of times. Fuyumi could tell by Endeavor’s raised voice that Shouto wasn’t giving in to him, that he was holding his ground. Their voices were loud and harsh and for a long minute, she couldn’t move for fear. She wished she could still fit in her old hiding place behind the couch. Her fingers twitched upward in a childish urge to cover her ears, but she forced them back down into a quivering fist under her chin. She had to listen. Please stop , she prayed. Please, please stop.
Then she heard Shouto give a wordless yell, and she crashed from her room and pelted down the hall to the dojo. She flung herself through the door and she saw Shouto down on one knee, cradling a blistered forearm, and a wall of fire shooting from her father towards him.
Everything slowed down. She smelled Shouto’s skin burning, like Touya’s had before. She saw the pain in her little brother’s mismatched eyes, and the unhinged rage on her father’s face. She didn’t think about the last time she’d tried to intervene, and the long ragged scar she bore on her back in consequence. She didn’t remember that she was using a common ice quirk against the blazing hellfire of the number two hero. She just remembered that this hurting boy was her brother, and that she loved him with a depth that blinded her to everything else.
Beyond thought, she threw herself in front of her brother and tried to use her ice quirk to stop the fire. Her quirk was pitiful compared to Shouto’s, and the conflagration barreled right through her screen of snow as if it were nothing. ( She’d always been nothing. ) She smelled her own flesh now, burning and bubbling up, and found that couldn’t scream through the flames in her throat.
It all suddenly stopped, and everything was darkness and silence. She had been drowning for years, so the sensation was soothingly familiar. She wasn’t afraid anymore. She dove down, kicking further into the deep, reaching out her hand to grasp at peace.
Flashes broke through her comfortable nothingness, disorienting her, dragging her back up into light and pain. She saw Shouto’s terrified face hovering over her and felt hands gently lifting her. Then there was the rocking of a fast moving vehicle, the cruel tightness of a mask over her scalded face, and the wail of a siren. There were people in white, and she wondered if heaven was actually real, and if these were the angels sent to bring her home. She didn’t think heaven would hurt this much, though. Purgatory, maybe. Then the darkness beckoned her again, and she slipped gratefully under the waves.
She awoke again, alive and surprised to be so. The skin of her face felt fragile, but it wasn’t heated. She looked around her, as much as her stiff neck would allow. The walls were white, and there were thick bandages wrapping around her arms, ending at her wrists. Her ribs creaked beneath her skin and various tubes were protruding from her veins. Peppermint tresses rested against the soft cotton blanket of her bed, and she struggled, finally succeeded in lifting her hand and running her fingers through the soft mane.
Shouto shot up at the feeling and looked at her, his eyes red-rimmed. “Fuyumi!” he cried out, some strong emotion clear on his face. She thought, perhaps, that it was joy. “You’re awake!”
“Yes,” she rasped. “I guess I am.” Her mind was fuzzy and she could hardly form thoughts, let alone words. “What happened?” she managed to ask.
He scowled at her, but she didn’t fear his anger. It was nothing like their father’s blind rage; Shouto’s anger came from a place of love deep inside him. “You jumped in front of me, tried to shield me. You actually tried to fight Endeavor. What were you thinking? You know you can’t stop a quirk like Father’s!”
She let her hand drop back to the bed, too tired to consider holding it up any longer. “I wasn’t thinking,” she explained with a sigh. “I just couldn’t stand to see you hurting anymore.”
“You think I wanted this? You think I wanted to see you hurt in my place?” Shouto slapped his cheeks, and she saw the glint of a tear as it was flung off his face. “I’m a hero in training. I can take it. You’re a teacher . You could have died, Fuyumi. I was so scared that you were going to die, just like Touya. Don’t you understand what that would have done to Natsuo, to me?”
“Yes,” she replied, but she couldn’t tell him that she was sorry. She didn’t know how to comfort him, how to make her brother understand that he was so much more important than she could ever be. She felt her eyes closing again, and didn't fight it. “But you’re safe. That’s what matters, in the end.”
As she fell asleep, she thought she heard Shouto whisper, “You matter too. Maybe you don’t know, so I’ll tell you. You matter to me.”
………………
When Fuyumi next awoke, there was a lot more noise drifting through the air in her room. A food cart clattered into the room next door. Somewhere near it, out in the hall she thought, she could hear Natsuo talking. He sounded unusually formal, strained and frightened. From the faintness of the voices and the discordant squawks of a radio that peppered the silences, she surmised that it was the police he was speaking to, and hated the thought of it for him. Natsuo didn’t like the police, not since they had failed to protect him when Endeavor had slapped him in public as a child. She thought about calling out to him, to bring him safely back to her side. But then Fuyumi heard the soothing raspy tones of Natsuo’s girlfriend, Miko, and relaxed back into her pillow. He wasn’t alone.
Closer than Natsuo, inside her room, she heard Shouto’s voice, still so young but solemn. He was asking a question, and another deeper tone answered him. That voice she didn’t recognize immediately, but it sounded kind and patient. She smiled faintly, glad that Shouto should have someone like that with him in the stressful environment of the hospital. “I think she’s waking up again,” she heard the deeper voice say.
“I am,” she replied, and she opened her heavy eyes. It was nighttime now, and she squinted to make out who was in her room. Shouto was still at her side, and she smiled at him. “Hello again, Shouto darling,” she said, before frowning as more of her memory returned. “Your arm. Your arm was burned, wasn’t it? Are you okay? Where’s Endeavor? What-”
“I’m fine now,” her brother interrupted, waving a largely unblemished hand in front of her face. “See? I’m okay. The burn wasn’t that bad, and Recovery Girl took care of me. She helped with your burns, too, and your lungs and throat. She couldn’t heal your ribs yet, though, so try not to move around too much if you can help it. She said she’d come back in a day or two, after you’d had a chance to rest, and finish what’s left.”
Fuyumi was puzzled at this information. “Why would your school’s medic help me? I’m not her student.”
“No, but you potentially saved the life of one of our students.” The second shadowy figure in the room stepped forward. She recognized him as Shouto’s homeroom teacher, Aizawa, by the white scarf looped around his neck. He turned on the lamp that rested on the bedside table, and Fuyumi hummed in gratitude. In the soft white glow, she thought that the teacher looked tired, and was glad when he sat down in another chair at her side. “We owe you our gratitude and help for protecting him, not to mention what you’re owed by society after years of abuse,” Aizawa continued. “How are you feeling, Fuyumi-san?”
“Tired, but not in nearly as much pain as I would have thought,” she answered after a quick self-assessment. Her lungs felt a little scratchy, like the after effects of the asthma attacks she’d suffered as a child. Her ribs ached sharply, but only when she moved or breathed too hard, so that was okay. “Please give Recovery Girl my thanks. I’m sure the pain would have been far worse without her.” She gazed into the man’s face, and thought that he looked honest. “Where’s my father?” she demanded again, still afraid despite the presence of the police officers in the hall outside her room. “What’s going on?”
Aizawa sighed, but even through his serious mien, she thought she saw a flicker of amusement in his dark eyes. “You’re just like your brother, aren’t you? Stubborn and impossible to put off,” he observed wryly, and Fuyumi smiled to see the tips of Shouto’s ears turn red.
“First of all, you’re safe now. Shouto called me for help after you were hurt, and thankfully I was nearby having dinner with a friend. Shouto held your father off until I arrived, not that Endeavor fought him very hard. I think he knew that he couldn’t cover things up this time. I was able to ease Endeavor’s quirk once I got there with the paramedics, and get you both out of the house without further injury. Shouto’s wounds were healed relatively quickly, but you’ve been in the hospital for three days, the first day of which was spent in the ICU. Your injuries were very severe, but your rehabilitation shouldn't take very long. Unfortunately , you will bear some scars on your arms for the rest of your life.” Fuyumi nodded; she had expected nothing less, and could only be relieved that the long term consequences wouldn’t be worse.
“As for your father, he is no longer your concern. Endeavor is in jail awaiting charges.” Relief flooded over Fuyumi’s face, and Aizawa nodded to see it. “The school knew something was wrong with Shouto’s home situation, of course, but we also knew that we would need rock solid evidence if we were going to take on someone like Endeavor. We were planning on bringing you in for a meeting next week, to see if you would be willing to help us build a case.”
“Well,” Fuyumi croaked. “I’ve always liked to be early.”
Aizawa gave her a sad smile, acknowledging the humor but not diminishing her pain. “Indeed. In view of your injuries, along with Natsuo’s and Shouto’s testimonies, UA has been awarded custody of Shouto. I’ve applied to be his guardian until he’s of age.” Shouto’s ears turned even redder, but this time it wasn’t out of embarrassment. Fuyumi knew her brother’s tells, and those were his “secretly pleased” red ears.
“I wish I could take care of him,” Fuyumi whispered, and Shouto gently wove his fingers with hers. “But I know that I’m not in the position to give him the structure that he needs. I don’t have a job. I’m still in school. I don’t even know if I have a home anymore.”
Aizawa shook his head. “I don’t want you to worry about that right now, Fuyumi-san. I took the liberty of looking into your situation. I understand that you’re in the last semester of your master’s degree?”
“Yes,” she replied. “In education. Oh, god, I probably missed my finals, didn’t I?”
“Technically yes, but your college and professors are aware of your situation,” he answered. “UA has no small amount of influence in the world of education, and Principal Nedzu was glad to make a few calls. From what he was told, we understand that you’ve already completed and defended your thesis. Your teachers have agreed to reschedule your exams for when you’re released from the hospital, and they told me that they had no worries about your ability to pass them. When your class graduates in a few weeks, I’m confident that you’ll be standing there with them.”
“Oh,” Fuyumi said, faintly. She’d never been given such praise before, and she didn’t know how to accept it. She didn’t feel entirely worthy of her teacher’s faith. “That’s very kind of them. I wouldn’t have expected such grace.”
“You’ve earned it,” Aizawa said wryly, “so perhaps you should learn to expect the consideration that you deserve.”
A hesitant smile drew up Fuyumi’s lips, like a candle flame leaping in the dark. “Perhaps so. It will be interesting to try.”
Aizawa continued speaking, not knowing that every word was breathing life into Fuyumi’s heart. “I also understand that there are several elementary schools that are interested in having you join their staff. Nedzu made a few calls there as well. Based on what he’s told me, I don’t think you need to worry about having a job. Speaking of which, Nezu hopes that you will come by the school sometime and join him for some tea and conversation. He was quite fascinated by your thesis on the role of villains in modern children’s literature, and wants to discuss it further. ”
Tears slid down Fuyumi’s face. Nezu was a genius, and he was interested in her work. There could be no greater compliment. “I would like that very much.”
There was a soft knock on the door, and Natsuo poked his head in warily. “It’s okay, nii-san,” Shouto assured him. “She’s awake.”
Natsuo smiled, and immediately came around the other side of the bed. As Miko followed him into the room and moved politely to speak to Aizawa, Natsuo leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss on his sister’s forehead. “So glad you’re awake now, sis.” His eyes welled with tears. “I’m so, so glad that you’re alive. You scared the shit out of me this time.”
To Natsuo, she could apologize. “I’m very sorry for scaring you, but. Well, I had to.”
“I know,” he murmured. “That’s just the kind of person you are. I can’t be angry at your choice, not when I’d like to think I would have done the same, but I’m very angry that you were in that situation. Again.”
“Is everything okay out there?” she asked, jutting her chin towards the hallway. She could still hear the occasional screech of police radios.
He snorted. “Yeah, the cops were just asking me some follow up questions. You’ll have to talk to them tomorrow, probably, but the attorney general herself assured me that Endeavor’s hero license has been revoked, and that he’s facing a number of charges. He won’t get away with hurting you, not this time.”
“See, Fuyumi?” Shouto said. She’d never seen his face so bright before, and she almost had to close her eyes. “It’s going to be okay from now on. We’re going to be okay. Endeavor’s gone. Natsuo’s already on his way, with his sports medicine degree and Miko. I get to go to school and have my friends and become a hero, and you finally get to live your own life, the one you want. You don’t have to worry about me or protect me anymore. I’m going to be alright. We’re free.”
“Free,” Fuyumi whispered, tasting the word on her tongue and trying to understand what it meant. It didn’t seem possible.
Her little brother nodded, and Natsuo squeezed her hand in affirmation. “Free. No more pain, no more anger or shouting or fear. It’s finally over.”
She fell asleep that night, surrounded by her siblings for the first time in her memory, and she was glad as she ducked beneath another wave. It wasn’t dark and she didn’t gasp for breath. She heard a song about a little fish drifting across the sea, and she smiled.
……………………….
Months later, Fuyumi stepped inside the small apartment that was all her own, and closed the door behind her. She dropped her keys in a swirled blue and green bowl that she had made in pottery class. Her therapist had recommended the classes as a way to learn that fire could be good, that it could make beautiful things instead of causing pain. Shouto even went with her sometimes. Once he had brought his friend Midoriya along with him, and the boys had spent the whole class period making little All Might figurines instead of the cups they were assigned by the teacher. She laughed until she cried at the exaggerated bunny ears on Midoriya’s figure, and quietly rejoiced at the way Shouto looked at Midoriya as if the other boy were something precious and holy.
Her cat, Mochi, stood up slowly from the patch of sunshine where he’d been sleeping and came to greet Fuyumi with a soft trilling sound. Fuyumi pulled the cat into her scarred arms and stroked the little black ears, enjoying the thrum of Mochi’s purrs in her chest. After a moment she set Mochi back down, and he returned to his sunshine, rolling on his back and gazing up at her through his paws. She couldn’t help but laugh.
She walked through her apartment and stepped onto her little second floor balcony, where she had pots of vegetables and flowers growing in rich soil. One of the tomatoes looked ripe, and she pulled it carefully from the vine that was crawling up a trellis. She held the tomato up to the light and idly thought that it looked like the same color as the streaks in her hair. She tried to give the red better connotations now. She was even able to look in the mirror occasionally and think of cardinals and poppies instead of fire and blood. It was slow going, and there were days that were harder than others, especially when her arms ached with the memory of fire and her father’s shouts rang in her ears. Those times were hard, but she didn’t feel like she was drowning in the dark anymore.
Her phone chimed softly, and when she checked it, there was a picture message from Shouto waiting for her. She opened it with a swipe of her thumb and saw a selfie with her stone-faced brother standing in the foreground, covered head to foot in mud. His lips were wry, but she thought she saw laughter in his eyes. Midoriya was standing next to him, looking incredibly guilty. Her phone chimed again, and a text message came through. Midoriya got overly enthusiastic in training again. The dorms are making me insane with all the noise and activity. Can I come over tonight for a while if I bring some of Lunch Rush’s curry with me for our dinner?
Sure thing, Peppermint, she wrote back, not having to ask anyone else for permission or contemplate whether the brief pleasure would be worth the pain afterwards, as she had during all the lonely years of her childhood. I’ll even make a matcha cake for dessert. Just make sure you get permission from AIzawa-sensei. I don’t need him kicking down my door looking for you.
The reply came back immediately. Thank you. He said he wishes he could escape all these brats too, and that it’s fine as long as I’m back by curfew. I’ll be there within an hour.
Fuyumi shook her head, being able to picture poor Aizawa-sensei’s exhausted frustration easily, and slipped her phone back into her pocket. It seemed like she had some baking to do, then. She pulled out the bowls and utensils she needed for her cake with easy confidence. Dumping the butter and sugar in her mixer to start creaming together, she next moved to weigh out her dry ingredients, having memorized the recipe a long time ago.
The apartment was peaceful, and she hummed to herself, glad to be able to do so without any frenzied whispers of “Hush, Father will hear you!” or shouts of “Be quiet, you damn brat!” to disturb her. Fuyumi glanced up at the wall to her right as she stirred. She looked there often as she cooked, where there was a triptych of framed pictures hanging in pride of place.
The first picture was of Fuyumi surrounded by her class of third grade students, clustered around an entrance sign for the Tokyo Zoo. The kids were all mugging for the camera, throwing peace signs or holding up bunny ears behind their friends’ unsuspecting heads. Fuyumi was standing calmly in the middle of the chaos with her hands resting at her sides, but her face was peaceful and happy.
Next to the class picture was another snapshot of Fuyumi, Natsuo, Shouto and Rei as they all piled together on Midoriya Inko’s worn brown couch. Inko had proven to be a steadfast friend of the Todoroki family, and she and Rei now lived together in perfect contentment (and, Fuyumi privately suspected, a slow budding of something rather more than friendship). Rei was attempting to teach her children how to knit with varying degrees of success. Shouto had yarn knotting his fingers together and he glared down at the hopelessly tangled mess with kittenish puzzlement. Fuyumi was holding up her neatly finished pot holder with pride while Natsuo stuck his tongue out at her in jealousy. Rei’s head was tilted upwards in laughter; there was something beatific in the way the light shone down on her white hair and highlighted the wrinkles by her eyes. A blurry green curl at the top left corner of the picture showed that it had been Izuku who had snuck in to take the candid photo of the reunited family.
The third picture was of Fuyumi, alone but not lonely. Her head was bowed in concentration as she formed a bowl at a pottery wheel, the very bowl that now sat on the table in her entryway. Her apron was streaked with clay and her shoulder length hair was wrapped loosely in a bandana, but little wisps had escaped to dance around her ears. There was nothing tight, nothing bound or held back or masked. Her long fingers were pressing softly into the clay, forming a graceful waving lip around the edge. The studio was well lit, and no shadows troubled her.
It always took a moment for her to recognize herself in those images, to realize that she was happy and free to live her life as she wished to. Even more than that, she and her siblings and her mother were safe.
At a particularly loud meow from Mochi, demanding his dinner, she looked back up at the clock, and rushed to get her cake in the oven. Her brother was on his way over to visit her, and she couldn’t wait to hear about his day and tell him about her own.
They were finally free, like the little fish in her mother’s song, and Fuyumi smiled.