Chapter Text
A regular day at your home.
That meant distant shouts were echoing through the walls, and occasional cries of pain pierced the air as bangs and thuds vibrate through the house, whilst neighbours shut their blinds and turned the lights off, pretending to ignore the conflict, or at least trying. Out of sight, out of mind.
But your bedroom was a safe space, free from them. No, him. His voice, which grated against your ears and made them want to bleed. His hands, rough and capable of inflicting so much pain, and his eyes—lacking warmth,always on alert. Always ready to twist into an emotion larger than anger itself at the slightest change.
Blue light from your phone screen illuminated your face as you put your headphones on, turning the volume up the furthest it could go. Scrolling through Spotify, trying to find a song loud enough to drown out the shouting. Tonight was worse than usual. You had come home from school late, making your mother worried and your father angry. Although everything made him angry, so it wasn't that much of a surprise that the second you came home, rough hands grabbed your wrists and shook you violently whilst two voices flooded your ears at once.
"Where the fuck were you?!? You're three hours late, i better get a damn good explanation for this shit!'
"Put her down, shes 13 for gods sake! Probably just lost track of time with friends. She's safe, that's all that matters."
Yeah right. Safe, in this house? At the time you had to hold a smile back from tugging at your face, but now it just felt sad. That your mother still had hope in this family. Her belief of you having friends was still funny though, warranting a half scoff, half chuckle out of you.
The last real friend you had was in year 4, a sassy girl who always wore her hair in pigtails and didn't listen to teachers. You admired her defiance, she admired your self control (more so fear, but that didn't matter).
But the next year was when the abuse from your parents became noticeable to others — bruises littered on your skin, aversion to playing any games with shouting or running, and the 'crybaby' personality you had. As all children do, the class started to isolate the 'weird kid' and began their first step to growing up: finding their people. The pigtailed girl with an attitude quickly left your company to join other like-minded girls. And over time, everyone found people they fit in with. Apart from you.
This continued into middle school, and now here you are. Alone on a Friday night, bruises and brand marks littered on your skin from the 'teasing' at school.
The only thing that changed was your ability to take care of yourself. You washed your own clothes, learnt how to shower properly, and used your unrestricted internet access to learn how to behave in social situations. Even simple things like slang were never accepted in the house, so you never really caught up with regular speaking until the age of about ten.
Once you found a song good enough to drown out the noise of the argument downstairs, you started to change out of your school uniform into pyjamas, avoiding the bruised spots on your arms and torso.
This was nice. In your room, ignoring the chaos of the world, escaping reality with music. But you were so bored. You had nobody to talk to. No friends, family, or even acquaintances. Self isolation and wallowing in your own pity was nice for a while, but now you itched for human interaction. Hell, even an online friend was better than this! At least you could hide your appearance then. That seemed to be the first factor in people hating you, personality and rumors coming close second.
So, you booted up your now-dusty gaming console… or was it a PC? You never had an interest in gaming and technology, only playing occasionally. The only reason you had this thing was because of your birthday from years ago, back when dad was less hostile, but still didn't bother about your interests. You watched the screen turn on,and picked whatever multiplayer game you could find, hoping it wouldn't be too hard as the loading icon slowly faded away into a title screen.
It asked for a username, and you thought about it for a few seconds before typing it in.
'Opalescent'
Simple, but it wasn't taken yet, and it was cute enough to signal you weren't some greasy old man.
________________________________________________
Tomuras room was a mess. Energy drink cans were scattered across the floor, mixed with old bandages, dirty clothes, and takeout containers that were probably considered bio-hazards at this point. He didn't bother to clean anything nowadays, it was a waste of the little free time he had.
Slouching, he got up from his bed and walked carefully to his desk, watching his footing in order to not step on something sharp or gross. He sank into his chair, and began playing a first-person shooter in an attempt to cure his boredom, mindlessly shooting at enemies without much thought. Whilst exploring the map, even though he'd done this multiple times already, he noticed a new player. The game was relatively unknown, so he knew most of the frequent players by their avatars. It wouldn't be a problem, however this player sucked. It was almost comical how bad they were, they could barely aim the gun.
He decided to talk to them to cure his boredom. If they learnt how to use the controls, they might be fun to play with. Maybe.
Chat log:
Xx_DustedEternity_xX: 'r u new to the game or smth?'
Opalescent: 'yeah why??'
Xx_DustedEternity_xX: 'ur shooting at nothing. Plus, you have the default avatar.'
Opalescent: 'oh'
Xx_DustedEternity_xX: 'the controls are in the menu, and the avatar customisation is on the title screen.'
Opalescent: 'ty, i'll check it out'
Opalescent left game
That went better than expected. He managed to avoid insulting them, and they took the advice well.
'maybe i could make a friend…'
He quickly shut down his line of thinking, bringing his hands up to scratch at his neck. He needed to be clear of distractions. Senseis orders. Friends are complicated, messy, emotional. And he was supposed to be straightforward, clear minded, and a blank slate. His mission wasn't a multiplayer, he couldn't afford distractions.
He started thinking about how odd the players name was. 'Opalescent'. His vocabulary was fairly limited, as he spent little time actually learning nowadays, his schedule overloaded with brutal training that left his head pounding and his limbs weak. But he was sure that word felt familiar. Sensei wouldn't mind a solo intel mission, right? Tomura just needed to find more information on them.
________________________________________________
Whilst customising your character, you realise that the game was pretty much fully male-centered apart from a few 'girly' outfits and about three hairstyles and faces that weren't super manly. After a little bit of fidgeting with the settings, you got a character you were…okay with. It didn't resemble you at all, but it was good enough for people to tell you were a girl.
The argument between your parents had died down a few hours ago after your father had driven away to 'blow off steam' which you knew meant he was either going drinking or cheating on your mother. Either way, it left your mother unable to do anything but go to bed and pray her husband came back in a good mood tomorrow.
The silence of the night was only interrupted by the clicking of your keyboard and the soft chirping of birds outside, a gentle reminder of the approaching sunrise. You had stayed up all night without even realising it, the fatigue hitting you head first the second you laid down in bed. As your eyes fluttered shut, you thought about the person who gave you advice earlier, hoping that somehow you'd cross paths again tomorrow.
Glaring sunlight forced your eyes open, the morning sky invading through the windows into your room. You had only gotten about five hours of sleep, the remnants of last nights bad decisions coming back to haunt you as you crawled out of bed into the bathroom.
The bathroom was a mess, bloody tissues and bandages overflowing from the bin, and towels everywhere to stop the constant leaks. You had the money to renovate the house- i mean, your father worked in the hero industry. But he refused to fix anything- it was his way of silently ruining your quality of life in every way he could.
Leaning over the sink, you splashed cold water on your face, the shock waking you up almost immediately. Dad wasn't home yet, if he was you'd hear him. And mum was passed out in her room. You could live in peace today- or at least this morning.
Wandering downstairs into the kitchen, you pondered what to have for breakfast, eventually settling on cereal. Boring, but it tasted better than some bullshit 'healthy' yogurt bowl.
The crunch of the cereal against your clashing teeth was deafening, so much so that you hardly realised the sharp 'ping!' of your phone. Who could be texting this early?
Wiping off the milk dribbling down your chin with your sleeve, you checked your phone. It was an unknown number, and the text was just 'hello'. Could it just be a wrong number? Either that or your bullies harassing you again. You set your phone screen facing down on the table, deciding to leave that problem for after you'd properly woken up, and had the capacity to deal with it.
A list of chores was stuck to the fridge with a flimsy magnet, and you quickly sweeped it into your hands to read properly.
The list read: wash dishes, hoover the floors, clean windows, wash and fold laundry.
So much to do, and you only had- you checked the time on your phone, reading 9:30- about six hours to do all of that and sort out the mystery of who the fuck was texting you.
Starting with dishes, you put some shitty netflix show on in the background and zoned out with the repetitive motions. Soak, scrub, rinse, dry, repeat. After about one and a half episodes of the show, the dishes were clean, stacked away on the side ready for use like soldiers prepared for war.
'ping!'
Again? What was this dudes, or ladies, problem?
'respond'
They could've said please. Besides, you were busy. This could be handled later. But now, you pushed the curiosity to the back of your mind, turning the volume on the TV up as the show went on.
Next on the list- hoover the floors. Straightforward enough, wasn't it? You struggled to get the hoover out of the broom closet, but after getting it out and plugging it in, it only took another two episodes to do the entire house. The characters were running from something now, the group of teenagers racing through the woods with faces coated in sweat and eyes full of fear.
'ping!'
Can this person just go away?!
'i know you can see my messages'
Creepy. But you still had responsibilities, and they can't stop for some troll trying to get a reaction from you. That's all it was, surely.
Next up, clean the windows. Under the sink laid a basket of cleaning supplies, and you grabbed a cloth and disinfectant. That's what you use to clean windows, right? You never really knew what you were doing with this stuff. About three more episodes later, the windows were so clear you worried about people seeing inside at night. The characters were hiding now- from a monster or something of the sort. You didn't pay much attention, using the show as background noise to distract from the thoughts in your head.
'ping!'
Why couldn't they just leave you alone???
'please respond'
Yeah right, no way.
The last thing on the list- laundry. It took about four episodes to wash all the dirty clothes, fold and sort them correctly, but it was done now. You could relax.
'ping!'
Oh my god, why aren't they getting the hint??
'ping!'
A sigh escaped your mouth as you checked your phone.
'stop ignoring me'
'i need a response'
Yeah like that wasn't creepy at all. They had to be a troll, no way someone would genuinely do this, especially to a random stranger.
Your curiosity won over logic, and you found yourself typing a response.
Unknown number
Unknown number: 'hello'
Unknown number: 'respond'
Unknown number: 'i know you can see my messages'
Unknown number: 'please respond'
Unknown number: 'stop ignoring me'
Unknown number: 'i need a response'
'who is this?'
'hello???'
'you can't ignore me after that!'
Your messages cannot be sent due to the users privacy settings.
They blocked you?! Right after begging you to respond? If this was a prank, it wasn't funny. You secretly hoped it was just someone from school trying to scare you, and not some psycho stalker.
But for now, you just wanted to forget about all this, and enjoy the rare free time you had.