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The deafening silence is loud as Enji slowly sinks to the floor. He almost crumpled to the floor the instant Touya’s ghost left. For the first time in his life, his knees had suddenly felt weak and he nearly buckled into the ground.
His eldest child’s ghost had returned to revisit his home. Enji struggled to swallow his grief at seeing Touya’s ghost. The little ghost had not come to visit him. He had been a footnote in the little ghost’s journey. After all, Touya hardly seemed overjoyed to see him.
Enji can’t help but recollect every memory from the little ghost’s visit and compare them to the Touya he had known. The resentful look in their eyes was familiar. The air had been knocked out of his lungs at the sight of it. The same facial expression was etched in his memory as the last image of Touya before he perished.
Enji attempts to push himself off the floor but stops after noticing mud on the floor. His fingers gently touch the mud as if to make sure it wouldn’t disappear. He breathed a sigh of relief that he didn’t notice he was holding when the mud stayed on the floor. The only proof besides his memories of Touya visiting is mud. It could almost be considered pathetic watching a Pro Hero carefully dust the mud into a jar as a keepsake.
Of course, that is the exact moment Shouto spawns from around the corner with a glass in hand. His youngest child blinks slowly as if taking the whole scene in. He blinks again at the sight of his father carefully dusting mud into a jar as if it was the most precious treasure in the world. It is the exact moment that Shouto’s brain short circuits and he drops his half-empty glass on the floor. The scene has caused Shouto’s body to shut down and go through all five stages of grief at once.
Shouto does not react to the sound of the glass shattering or his father shouting his name. His blank stare seems fixed on the horizon and his older brother’s shrine. Perhaps he is begging his older brother to come and save him from this whole mess.
Enji had pulled Shouto away from the shards of broken glass and inspected his son for any injuries. He nearly sobs in relief at the sight of his unharmed son. Well, if you dismiss the psychological damage that Shouto is still reeling from. Enji frowns, watching his son’s eyes as he is confused by the fact that his pupils have been replaced with film rolling. He did not stop and considered that this is not a normal situation. No, not once.
Mud is getting more affection from his father than his children ever had. It’s a tough pill to swallow that his father cares about this mud. For a second, Shouto wonders if it is some high-quality mud. He dismissed the idea as quickly as an iPhone screen broke. The only logical conclusions were that his father has taken up the art of mud collecting.
Shouto was always worried about being replaced because Touya had been. But he didn’t think he could wrap his head around the fact that he had been replaced by the mud of all things. At the very least, he could have been replaced by a hot pocket that he could have thrown at Enji’s face or cold soba he could eat in front of his father.
Enji wonders what he did to deserve a computer of a son and a son that wouldn’t stop causing chaos from beyond the grave. His living son is standing perfectly still as if he was playing freeze tag. He slides past his son who is now coding within his eyes somehow and picks up the broom from the utility closet. He brushes the pieces of glass from the floor. Enji glances around the room to make sure he hadn’t missed any and groans.
A shard of glass is stabbing his Collector’s Edition poster of Nicholas Cage hanging in the middle of the room right next to Touya’s shrine. Enji silently wonders if it would be considered overreacting if he suddenly burst into flames. Out of the corner of his eyes, he sees Shouto sprout a mouse from his fingertips and decides not to further damage his son who may be on the edge of a mental breakdown from watching his father take a sample of mud.
“Shouto?” Enji snaps his fingers next to Shouto’s ears, looking for a glimmer of recognition. All he sees is his tax forms within Shouto’s eyes. He blinks, wondering why this all can’t be a nightmare. He opens his mouth to comment to Shouto on his tax forms when he decides it is better to leave it be. He closes his mouth and scurries around the kitchen in search of cold soba.
Enji had briefly considered pouring water on Shouto only to remember that a computer cannot have water spilled on it. Not to mention, Natsuo had come over and inhaled all their rice like a vacuum cleaner. Natsuo only came over for the free food. Enji sighs in defeat at the smiley face where the cold soba is stored in their kitchen. The fact that the kitchen was fully stocked two hours ago means it could only have been Natsuo. The note is also another dead giveaway with the misspelled Endeavor sucks written on it. Enji would compare Natsuo to a raccoon with how easily he slipped into their house and ate all their food.
The sole reason Fuyumi had once sold random interior decorations within the house was to pay for Natsuo’s vacuum-like mouth. Enji was down to thirty-five Silver Age All-Might posters, ninety-eight Golden Age All-Might posters, and five Nicholas Cage posters. Fuyumi had only stopped when Enji told her that she only needed to ask him for money to pay for Nastuo’s snacks. Of course, it was done with the promise to not sell any more of the interior design and to contact all the buyers. However, Fuyumi begged him to leave the whooping fifty-four posters with a green-haired gremlin who had paid his lunch money.
Enji had silently agreed and paid back the lunch money with interest after being chewed out by the All-Might fanboy’s mother. The little broccoli had apologized to Fuyumi and was treated with double chocolate chip cookies. Enji just got the stink eye from Natsuo and the cold shoulder from Fuyumi.
The cold soba is noticeably missing from the refrigerator. Shouto had already scruffed through their leftover cold soba from dinner. Enji reluctantly grabs Fuyumi’s coffee jellies and a spoon. He stares at his golden child lying on the floor playing Tetris in his eyes somehow. Enji had thought he had seen it all until he had children.
“Here comes the muffin man, the muffin man-” Natsuo stopped dead in his tracks, taking in the whole scene of his computerized brother with his father spooning coffee jelly for Shouto. Natsuo wishes he was not born into this family for the fifty-ninth time today.
“Fuyumi is going to kill all of us because of her missing coffee jellies,” Natsuo warned. The color drains out of Enji’s face. Even Shouto with his limited capacity to reason had realized that they have fucked up. The three of them were too wrapped up in their mistakes to notice a ghost waltzing into their house.
“You fucked up, old man.” The ghost leans against the wall while lighting his cigarette. With his leather jacket, staples on his face, and burn scars, he looks like the poster child for Hot Topic. Natsuo briefly wonders if the ghost has a tattoo hidden by his leather jacket or his black skinny jeans. If he thought the Todoroki family was bad, talk about walking Daddy issues.
Natsuo silently sends a prayer to the god of coffee jellies and resigns himself to Fuyumi’s wrath. He ignores the ghost to glare at Enji. “Why don’t you go and buy Fuyumi about thirty coffee jellies and beg for her forgiveness?”
Shouto has yet to recover with his eyes still reading only 19% on the loading screen. Enji sighs in defeat like an overdramatic villain before shrugging on his winter coat. He can only handle so much of his two sons who share half a brain cell.
Enji shuffles out the door with his credit card in hand and the ghost trailing after him. The snow crunches under his feet as he leaves a trail of footprints behind him. He tries not to notice the lack of footprints from the ghost beside him. He briefly wonders whose ghost this is. The black hair is obviously botched from cheap box dye matched with dull blue eyes that do not ring any bells for him. He only sees a stranger. The ghost chuckles, unaware of their companion’s growing curiosity about them.
“Imagine the Number Two Hero being bossed around by his teenage children. What a sight to behold.” The ghost stares off at the sun setting on the horizon, lost in their thoughts. Enji ponders if his house similarly attracts ghosts to how unsolved cases manifested Ryan and Shane. He quickly pulled out his Hello Kitty notebook to jot down the note to ask Shouto later. The local conspiracy theorist and the part-time computer would probably know the answer to this question.
Dabi silently stalks after Enji with the quiet resolve to destroy the higher power who decided they deserve to spend Christmas with the Todoroki family. No amount of therapy could fix the dysfunctional mess of a family. It was certainly no gift to see the face of the golden child or the face of the monster in his nightmares.
The door slowly opens as Enji enters the convenience store. Dabi watches Enji as he tries to do something as simple as buying coffee jelly for the teenage daughter who slaved her life away for her family. He doubts his father even knew that she liked coffee jellies before his brother had mentioned it offhandedly. It just highlights how little nothing has changed. It’s a bitter realization that all his words and speeches are all glitter without any substance.
“Hey, Kurogiri, portal me back.”
When Enji exits the store, he sweeps his gaze from left to right looking for Dabi. He dismisses the ghost from his mind as unimportant. Not like the ghost was anything to him. Whelp, time for him to attempt to get Shouto back into a somewhat functioning teenager and replace the coffee jellies.