Chapter Text
Their eyes have been getting colder.
All of them have. Her mom is starting to carry an air of anxiety, her dad’s voice is always harsh and scary, and Touya is getting frantic, a jittery kind of energy radiating off of him.
He’s five now, it’s been almost two years since his quirk appeared.
Their dad had told him to stop using his quirk; she’d heard it, even though she wasn’t supposed to. He had said that Touya’s quirk hurts him.
That’s why she isn’t surprised when she hears her dad’s voice through the thin walls—raising again—she knows what he’s talking about.
“Stop this foolish nonsense, Touya. You’re no good to anyone dead. You can’t be a hero, but your brother will be.”
Her eyebrows draw together. Something about that doesn’t feel right. She hasn’t even gotten her quirk yet, but her mom keeps telling her it will come in soon, and it’ll be great. Why isn’t her dad saying she could be a hero?
Touya cuts off her train of thought before it can get much further, screaming his reply on the other side of the wall. “I don’t care! I’m going to do it!”
The sliding door in the other room slams shut, and she can hear Touya stomping off down the hall.
Her brows knit together, and she sets the crayons she had been using down, tears already pricking in the corner of her eyes. Loud noises always scare her, but she knows better than to cry just for that. She’ll get in trouble if she’s too loud, herself.
Touya is starting to scare her a little sometimes, like their dad does. He’s loud, and angry all the time, and he doesn’t always seem like he can control his fire.
She thinks he might be sad, too, though. He really, really wants to be a hero, but he can’t. Not without hurting himself. She would be sad too. Maybe he’d feel better if they played together. They could color in pictures from his pro hero coloring book, and he can give them fire like his. Or they could play pretend he’s a hero, and she needs to be rescued. She doesn’t always like that game, but Touya does, and it might make him happy again.
With that in mind, she heads down the hall, following the direction his footsteps had left in.
Everything seems so quiet nowadays, with her dad working so much, her mom tired from the new baby, and Touya distracted by hero training, she can’t help but be lonely sometimes. Even now, the hallway is quiet and oppressively large, each doorway she sticks her head into revealing an empty room.
That is, until she turns the corner halfway down the hall, and hears the smack of impact, a huff of exertion. Touya must be training.
Sure enough, when she gets to the training room, Touya is kicking a mannequin, then spinning around to slap it with a handful of fire, leaving a new scorch mark on the already marred surface. She expects him to follow up with another kick or punch, but the fire stays on his palm and he stands there, panting, the fire rising higher and higher. He looses a scream, and punches the mannequin again, the flames high and bright enough to catch even the plastic on fire. Even still, his hand blazes, until he looks down at it and hisses, shaking it until the flame leaves. He sniffles, pulling his hand up to his chest protectively, and she moves into the room without thinking.
“Touya, you’re hurt!” Her hand reaches out, clasping his burn, and her eyes widen when a thin layer of frost spreads itself over the mark.
He blinks owlishly at her for a moment, then snatches his hand back, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye with the back of his fist.
“I’m fine,” he spits, “it doesn’t even hurt.”
She gives him a skeptical look, eyeing the angry pink skin on his hand.
“Shut up,” he mutters.
She frowns, crossing her arms. “I didn’t say anything!”
“You didn’t have to,” Touya mutters sullenly.
“I just don’t want you to get hurt.” Fuyumi can feel herself tearing up, and she sniffles, trying to stifle it.
Touya looks up at her, fists clenched and eyes steely. A small flame rises from his fist. “Dad always said heroes get hurt. It’s what they do!” The flame rises higher and higher with his voice and passion, and Fuyumi eyes it warily, but Touya continues on, paying it no mind. “They get hurt when they fight villains, and when they rescue people, but they always get back up!” The flames burst up in a whoosh, and Touya hisses and reels back, shaking his hand to dispell it. It was the same hand from before, now even more raw and tender-pink from the flames.
Fuyumi steps forward, but she halts when she hears Touya start to speak again. His voice is small and lost sounding. “...I just. I don’t know what changed. Heroes get hurt, but they get back up. What makes me any different?” He stares at his injured hand. She’s never seen him look so small, or so defeated.
When a tear tracks down his face, she steps forward, taking his hand in hers again and concentrating to try and get the same feeling as before. After a moment, a thin layer of spiderwebbing ice forms on Touya’s hand, covering his burn completely.
Fuyumi smiles a bit in self satisfaction, looking up to meet Touya’s eyes. He’s wiping the tear away, but looking straight at her as he does, not seeming particularly happy. “Just like mom.”
She smiles, the reality suddenly hitting her. “I have an ice quirk.”
“Great.” Touya says flatly, yanking his arm away. “Good for you.”
Fuyumi reaches out again, stopping her brother before he can go anywhere. “I dunno a lot about being a hero,” she looks down at his hand, trying to speak slowly, her ideas heavy enough on her mind that they might get tangled on her tongue, “but I think most of ‘em don’t hurt like that.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Touya yanks his shoulder out of her grip, spite blazing in his eyes. “I’ll be the best hero ever, no matter what you or dad says,” he hisses. “Just wait.”
Her vision gets blurry as she watches him go, upset and confused with her failure, exhausted already. She sinks to the floor, bringing her knees up to her chest and curling into herself. She doesn’t know what to do. If only her parents could help more. If only she were better at this.
The tears spill over, and she sniffles, trying to stay quiet so she won’t get in trouble.
As she sobs into her knees, she’s unaware of the circle of ice slowly spreading out from her, and across the training room floor.