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Shouto’s visits to his mother have become a lot more frequent now. They’re both trying to reconnect, to make amends and somehow figure out how to fix whatever had been left broken ever since they were separated.
It’s not easy. It feels uncomfortable sometimes despite their efforts. They both feel the second-handed guilty and regret that still hovers over them, and it’s hard to melt down some of the ice barriers that had been built around them. Everything still feels too fragile, sometimes it still hurts that the two of them are so awkward around each other as if they’re stepping on eggshells the whole time, but they’re ever-improving.
One step at a time .
It’s Rei the one who attempts to melt one of the higher walls that had been built between them all those years ago — affection. Any physical display of it. They’ve been both too scared, always keeping a rather safe distance as they danced around each other.
For Rei, it’s guilt. For Shouto, it’s doubt. They both wonder if it’s okay, but it’s hard to speak up, to say these things out loud.
Rei figures she’s the one who should take this step forward, so she owns up to it and touches his face lightly, tentatively. None of them had gathered enough courage to take that step before, but she had to be the one to do it after all — it’s only fair.
Her eyes are glinting, reflecting the light that comes through the curtains of her small hospital room. It makes her look even more beautiful than Shouto remembers. Though now she looks undeniably older, there are wrinkles on the corner of her eyes, and hints of a fatigue she can’t seem to just sleep off; it seems to be a permanent look on her otherwise stunning features.
“Shouto…” The way she speaks his name is laced with motherly affection, and it’s enough to make his chest feel tight.
Shouto stills there, he allows himself this one tiny moment of delight, reveling in the sensation of warm fingers and the gentle caress that he thought he had so long forgotten — it feels pleasantly nostalgic.
There are too many emotions shifting around their faces, twisting inside them both, but none of them dares to move.
Eventually, her fingertips reach his scar, and they both flinch at the same time. For a moment there, he thought she would recoil but she doesn’t, her movements are ever so gentle when she traces it, and he doesn’t dare to move even though it takes all the might he has in him not to shy away from her touch.
He has an added scar right over his old one, it’s not another burn, it’s a deep, angry cut Stain had gifted him during their fight in Hosu, and Rei lets her fingers run over the scab, the skin there hasn’t fully healed yet.
He could’ve died in Hosu , he thinks absentmindedly and wonders what he could say to his mother if she asks about it because she doesn’t need any added pressure to be dropped on her shoulders, she has enough troubles as it is, and Shouto doesn’t want her to worry about him.
“I did this to you,” her voice is too quiet but it snaps him out of his reverie anyway, he always feels as if he’s always hyper-aware of what she might say. In his previous visits she hasn’t spoken much, only listened to him and prompted him forward with small hums and short sentences, as if she was afraid to say something wrong.
Problem is, Shouto isn’t the most talkative person in the world so it often results in them both sitting there in silence. It isn’t weird or anything, however, Shouto can’t help but wonder if she still sees too much of Endeavor in him, when she looks at him. Now that he’s older he probably resembles him so much more even though he always liked to think he looked just like her.
Does it still cause her pain to look at him?
He thinks her silence makes sense, for all those years she had been brutally chastised for even daring to speak in the presence of that man she had to call husband. Shouto himself isn’t much of a chatter, and this is just one of the too many side effects of his upbringing.
There was a time back then when Shouto was still too young that he, too, considered never speaking again. He tried but this attempt too fell short. It culminated in the same way most things Enji deemed unfit did. Of course, even such a small act of childish rebellion couldn’t last, not on his father’s watch. Shouto still remembered Endeavor’s threats to cut his tongue off so he would never speak again.
“As long as it doesn’t affect your quirk, I don’t care. It would save me a lot of trouble if I don’t have to deal with your tantrums anymore.”
Endeavor was a man that strongly believed in never doing things half-assedly. He told Shouto he should always go all the way through, if there was something he really, really wanted. So if he wanted to be mute so badly, why not thoroughly commit to it?
“You’re acting disgraceful, Shouto. I’m not raising you to be like that.”
It was one damned mixed-signal, a rich statement coming from someone who would tell him to shut the fuck up as soon as he opened his mouth to even breathe a word out in an attempt to talk back.
Right now though as Rei looks at him almost expectantly, he thinks it isn’t the time for silence. He has to say it, he has to let her know that none of it was her fault.
“This…” He tries but the words don’t come out immediately. He exhales, then sighs and shakes his head. “No. It wasn't your fault, mom,” he breathes out a sentence that always seems to be ready on the tip of his tongue.
It wasn’t her fault, it wasn’t, it wasn’t. It was never her fault.
“No, Shouto, listen to me,” she says firmly, shaking her head and averting his eyes for a moment. When she retracts her fingers from his face and resumes to her position sitting by the window, he finds himself missing the warmth and the closeness right away but he doesn’t say anything.
When she looks back, her eyes are tearing up a bit but she looks like she’s still trying to hold back. Her face is perfectly schooled in a somewhat sober expression as she takes a deep breath and composes herself quickly before she starts speaking again.
Shouto doesn’t interrupt her. He gives her all the time she needs.
“Enji... Your father... He can be a lot of things, Shouto,” she pauses. It’s a long one and Shouto thinks she’s not going to say anything else but she goes on. “But this,” she pauses and leans forward, once again touching his face like he’s the most precious and fragile thing in the entire world. It doesn’t make him mad or anything. He finds himself slightly leaning into her touch actually. “This one is on me, Shouto.” Her eyes wander to his scar, though not the one he infringed upon him but the fresher one, the one he’s got from Stain’s blade. “And God, I am so sorry…”
They stay like this for a long while. Shouto doesn’t know what to tell her, because he wants to say none of this was her fault, that she doesn’t have to worry, that she doesn’t have to say she’s sorry and that there’s nothing to be forgiven.
But is that the truth?
Shouto never let himself dwell too much on the subject. Things had always been too simple inside his mind, too black and white, and too rational. It was and always had been his father’s fault. His mother was as much of a victim as he was.
It’s true that once or twice his thoughts wandered to that moment, and he remembered the heartbreak and the pain. Not the physical aspect of it, it was probably the most bearable part, he had worse, much worse under his father’s training. He was quite resistant to physical injury as it was.
It’s the wound that had been opened inside his chest that ached the most, and he had been avoiding it his entire life. He had to. It was easier to blame his father for all of those years than to think that his mother too was capable of hurting him just as much. In order to keep the memories of her pure inside his heart, he had to shift the blame, bring it all out on his father and leave it that way. It was easier that way and he was too much of a coward to face reality as it was.
Shouto doesn’t resent his mother. Even now that he’s old enough to understand things as they are, he doesn’t think badly of her. But he still recognizes things for what they are. All the memories he fought so hard to suppress come back, and they hit him hard. He still doesn’t recoil from his mother’s touch.
“I’ve been here for so long and I had so much time to think, you know?” Rei says softly, her hands now have shifted a little and her fingers are threading through his hair. To the left side of his hair. He pays attention to what she’s saying. “I hurt you. I might have been out of my mind, but that doesn’t change the ugly reality of what I’ve done. I couldn’t…” Her movements still for a moment and he thinks she’s gonna recoil again, but she doesn’t. “I couldn’t stand the sight of your left side, it was unsettling to me… I was scared, I think.” She smiles bitterly, though the gesture seems to be aimed more at herself than at him. “I couldn’t protect you the way I should have, Shouto. I couldn’t be there for you, I was weak.”
Shouto looks away for a moment, taking in her words. Though he understands now, better than he did as a kid, it’s still too hard to acknowledge her own responsibility in everything that’s happened.
“It…” He falters, taking a deep breath before he tries again. “ Mom , it wasn’t your fault…” He insists.
It’s only a second later that Shouto realizes something, too. He has to say it, otherwise, she’ll never know if he doesn’t let her.
“Mom,” Shouto braces himself for it. “It’s alright,” his voice is barely a whisper, but she listens to him carefully. “I forgive you.”
“Oh, Shouto,” her expression is so soft, it carries nothing of that horrible scowl she held on that day. For years, that expression had haunted him. Her eyes are teary, but she’s smiling. Rei wipes a tear away and pulls him into a tight hug. It’s warm and welcoming. Familiar.
He feels safe.
Shouto is ready to replace all the bad memories with this smile she’s giving him right now. He can tell everything is going to be alright now.
It's a fresh start for both of them.