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Simple piano lead into the song, bright lights fading and leaving only a spotlight of me left on. Tsuyu at the piano behind me opens the song beautifully, tossing my lyrics the needed base for the emotional song.
“Dark as midnight, six-pack Coors Light
You don't look the same
Past my bedtime, blue and red lights
Come take you away”
My father was a man of incredible power and wealth, his image only second to the strongest person the world’s ever known. Yet, that got to his head. Being greater than those around him got into his head and messed up anything inside. It started with my mother.
“Hate to see you like a monster, so I run and hide
Hate to ask, but what's it like to leave me behind?”
Arranged marriages weren’t outlawed or banned, but it was highly looked down upon to get one. That didn’t bother my father when he bought off the parents of my mother and shipped her off to the awful nightmare he lived. He then made her have three children, all of whom he didn’t approve of. I was the forth and the ‘perfect masterpiece’. My mother tried fruitlessly to protect me from my father, but he drove her so near insanity before sending her off to a hospital.
“I won't be, no, I won't be like you
Fighting back, I'm fighting back the truth
Eyes like yours can't look away
But you can't stop DNA
No, you can't stop DNA”
Ever since then, I’ve hated my father. I’ve done everything in my power to break his hold on me and my life. It was only until high school when Midoriya broke down my walls and opened my eyes that things started to look up. My mother was overjoyed to see me again; I began to think his hold was wearing off.
“Twice a year you come in crashing
Nice to see you too
Johnny Cash and backseat laughing
Always ends too soon”
But I was wrong, so very wrong. He craved the lost control and resorted to drastic measures. To sum it up, there is more than one burn scar on my body. My left shoulder, right bicep, right lower torso near my hip, and my left knee all show the discoloration of my skin and the handprints pressed into them. Most are shocked upon sight.
“Hate to say hello 'cause I know that it means goodbye
Hate to ask, but what's it like to leave me behind?”
After those incidents, my siblings were involved. They tried to help me, tried to save me, but only got in the way. He hurt them too, Fuyumi ran like Touya had all those years ago. Natsuo didn’t stay long after that either, I was alone with him.
“I won't be, no, I won't be like you
Fighting back, I'm fighting back the truth
Eyes like yours can't look away
But you can't stop DNA
No, you can't stop DNA”
But something snapped in me at the sight of his violence towards my siblings. Rage boiled like magma inside of me and I erupted like never before. The house burned for hours after our fight and I was taken by helicopter to a hospital, only a few people were granted access to see me.
“Are the pieces of you in the pieces of me?
I'm just so scared you're who I'll be
When I erupt just like you do
They look at me like I look at you”
He took something from me - from my entire family - because of his selfish desires. He destroyed all he ever had and there was nobody left to turn to. The trauma of everything was too much for us to bear, I nearly lost another brother to his own hand. Fuyumi wasn’t better off and barely managed to get us all the treatment we needed.
“I won't be, no, I won't be like you
Fighting back, I'm fighting back the truth
Eyes like yours can't look away
But you can't stop DNA
No, you can't stop DNA”
If there’s one thing that you can take away from all his actions and words, it’s the ruthless cruelty and horrific traumas he was willing to inflict on his own flesh and blood to get what he wanted. Sometimes I’m reminded of our ties to one another and I’m left wishing I could change the very DNA that makes up my mind and body to escape him. Even when he’s gone he haunts me. You can’t truly stop DNA.