Chapter Text
All the lights come on in the house across the street, and it's another beautiful day in Chiba.
A song is being sang, so it echoes through the trees. The birds flap their wings, and so do the bees.
A pink petal flutters and falters to the ground below, where it stays just a moment. Only then to be swept up again into the ever-changing wind.
It's clear and bright and the sky is full of suns and rainbows. Not a single tear falls from it.
"Our hero!"
"Way to go!"
"A-SHI-DO! A-SHI-DO!"
"Oh please," she waves to the crowd. "Being this bright is all in a day's work."
But one face stands out in that crowd. One face catches her eye. Her dark and glowing eye, which is always the talk of the town. And who could forget her complexion, oh so pink! Her wild hair and horny horns. She bubbles forth and springs onto the crowd. She hops and swings and lives at her own pace. The crowd goes wild! Yet still that face stands out against them. His face. She's forgotten about him in, oh, fifty breaths? She staggers and falls at his feet. The crowd doesn't move to help her.
She tries and she tries but she can't see his face. Only his hands. He lifts her from the ground and she dares look up. It's him, clear and bright and dreamy as a bright and dreamy day! His eyes full of suns and rainbows and life and love. Not a single tear falls from his eye.
"Hey," he says. His voice is soft and kind, and it's the only sound she ever wants to hear ever again.
MINA ASHIDO! can't help but to laugh, and feel a sense of creeping dread dead in front of her.
Yet, she speaks…
"If I'm their hero," she says, "then you're mine."
SMACK!
"HAHAHAHAHA!"
Mina Ashido is jolted awake by the slamming of a textbook right in front of her face, right in front of the entire class. The teacher stands above her, the textbook in his hand.
"Enough," his stern voice sends a chill down her spine, and the class falls silent. He turns around and moseys on back to his podium front and center. "And try to keep awake, Ms. Ashido."
Mina turns around to catch a glance of her classmates. All of their faces light up like that house across the street… right, that dream… what was that all about? Is this the crowd she imagined? The one that went walking into dreamland with her as she nodded off to sleep? Their faces all attempted fearful focus in the face of a teacher at the end of his rope with these kids. Third years. She's so close…
But one other thing is bugging her. It's a face. That one face that stood out in the crowd. Does it stand out as bright in this crowd as it does in her crowded dreams?
He's not there. He's in 3-1, not 3-4…
And it's a good thing, too! If he saw that…
"Now," the teacher's voice boomed out and blew out her thoughts, "I will be handing out these career forms for you all to fill out. It's third year…"
Mina looked at his face, at the undeniable relief in his breath at the realization on the tip of his dry tongue. A single bead of sweat dripped slowly down his brow. He walked with a shudder down the aisles, handing out the papers and continuing his dry explanation of the papers' purpose.
She was the first to get her paper, as she was placed in the front of the class with the teacher's podium immediately to her right. They say students falling behind should be placed in the front of the class. They will eventually do better. But that's not what she's worried about! It's the field that calls her name—
"Make sure you prepare for your entrance exams come next February."
The teacher makes his way back up to the front, brushing up against Mina's desk.
"And remember to study up on the requirements for your school of choice. And even if you fail, don't think you can cheat yourself out of high school! There's always a lesser school looking for delinquents like you…"
Mina looked up. Sure as the look on his face, he was looking at her.
She smiled.
"That's not going to happen to me! I'm going to be accepted into UA on my first try!"
She turned around to face the crowd again, and:
Her friends smiled back and waved politely. Some of the girls scowled and turned their heads, while many of the boys turned their shy cheeks and blushed. One girl kept tapping her arm like she was waiting for something. A groan here and a snicker there told her exactly where this class stood: a glowing reception!
"YOU GO, GIRL!"
Content, Mina turned back to the teacher with her arms crossed and her eyes closed.
"I think I made my point."
"Well… don't be surprised when you find yourself staring down the written exam without a thought running through that pretty pink brain of yours."
Another snicker snuck up behind her, and the vein at the side of her forehead was threatening to burst forth, grow limbs, and strangle that audacious heckler!
"I won't be! Now that you told me!"
"Very clever, Ashido. Now, you have until the end of the term to get those forms filled out."
His face is beaten and torn from a long day's sleep, one he's hoping to get back to after he eats. The end of this droll march down hall after hall is just in reach beyond that door. That sunny day behind a glass pain.
He tears the black mop from his eyes and covers half his face behind the door of his little locker, crammed in next to names he can't put a face to. He's surrounded by them. He's… at least none of them share his name.
Eijiro Kirishima.
Though he's not sure he's really the sharp young man he was named to be.
He has a headache, one which persists after a dose of two red pills and a heavy helping of cold water. The sounds of a muffled television blaring echo inside his little head. Hopefully tonight will be quieter. Eijiro doesn't have many hopes, just the little ones. Tonight's gonna be louder. Maybe it'll appear quieter. Or sound—
The sound of metal fills the air as the little lockers open and close. He looks up at the ceiling, at the blank lay in panels. He wonders what's up there, inside the ceiling. It'd be so easy to just peel those panels back to catch a glimpse. All he needs is a ladder.
"Head in the clouds again?"
Eijiro turns away from the locker and finds his friends, the taller Tomoda and the shorter Hiku.
Tomoda wears his usual bored face. Can he ever take it off? Is it glued on? Hiku yawns and smells the air, as if something unusual is abound…
"Or ceiling," Hiku says.
Eijiro looks up again, at the ceiling, at the tubes of fluorescent light. The pale glow, buzzing and tickling his eyes. And how could something so bright be so cold? Isn't light supposed to generate heat?
Maybe his head is in the clouds… or ceiling…
"Yeah," he settles on it, "just… thinking…"
He closes the locker, and follows them out.
…
The cafeteria is noisy and the headache persists. He just hopes that food for his stomach proves just as good for his head.
The full spectrum of colors fly by under white shirts and black slacks and skirts. He wants to make out just one conversation, just one sentence, just one word… yet all he hears is a crashing of waves against the shores of an island where birds lay down for food. He watches as they flap their wings and take flight, to the breeding grounds down south. He begins to envy them… especially her.
"And that's just the way it is," Tomoda says. "But it could always be worse. We could be Quirkless, right?"
Hiku yawns again as he picks the cucumbers out of his salad. They're the only part he eats.
"Right," he says, and furrows his brow at Eijiro.
Tomoda looks over, and finds Eijiro's tray completely empty. He tilts his head up and follows Eijiro's gaze across the sea of squawking birds… to one bird in particular. A flamingo among pigeons. Mina Ashido. She's yapping away about… something… and her friends hang on every word. Her table is full, and the tables beside them long to merge into a single giant table; one begging to be danced upon by her. Tomoda doesn't blame Eijiro for his wandering eye, yet still…
"Give it up, Ei… she's way out of your league. Any of our leagues."
"Yup," Hiku promptly agreed with a swig of his milk.
"I'm not—!" Eijiro turned away from her, a blush barely covered by his long dark hair. He groans in defeat—retreat?—and cradles his face in his hands. His face is warm…
…
"OH MY GOSH, OH MY GOSH, DID YOU—?"
"HEY DID YOU HEAR—?"
"I WAS SO—"
"I MIGHT GO TO UA IF MINA IS GOING—"
"MINA LOOK AT MY NEW—"
"HAHA! WHAT A LOSER—"
"ALWAYS GOT IT GOING ON—"
Mina's focus on something as simple as lunch is shaken all around like a camera trying to capture the action of a car crash. The camera is in the car. The screams and shouts of the passersby dissuade her from her focus and she decides that maybe lunch can wait. She'll just end up losing her lunch from all that shaking—
"Not only is she going to ace the entrance exam," someone said, "but she's also gonna place first on the board!"
"Yeah," someone laughed nervously—why was that? "Ashido's definitely going places."
Yet still, she just can't get enough of it. To hear her name over and over and over again. Mina! Ashido! Mina Ashido! To see their eyes light up like that house in her dream or the fluorescent tube on the ceiling. But Mina doesn't aim for the ceiling, she aims for the clouds! And they lift her there, through their adoring chants and prickly smiles. Their photographs and phone numbers.
There's just one of them that bothers her, and now's a great time to find him.
Mina looks up over the heads of those pigeons in the sea. Black and white, and just a little bit of blue and red…
So many faces, yet still one face stands out. One face catches her dark and glowing eye across the waves.
Why him? Is it because he was nice to her that one time? He never looks her way like the rest of them do. Surely he looks down on her, right? Maybe he's too cool. He somehow managed to nab a starring role and front row seats to the Mind's Eye Matinee last period. Is that his Quirk? That would be a weird one. She doubts it. She's pretty sure his Quirk has to do with making his skin hard as a rock. She wonders what else—god, what is happening today?
Mina hops up with her hands on the table and her knees on the bench. The crowd piques up at her sudden growth, and a medley of wandering eyes threaten to capture her. Yet still that face is the only one that does. His face. Eijiro's face. It's hiding. She tries and she tries but still she can't see his face. Only his hands. He's so cute when he does that, hiding behind his hands… she just wants to walk over there and remove them just so she can see his eyes—
"Uh, Mina? What're you doing?"
A voice? And eyes, once more, big and wide and wild eyes. Light brown hair that barely reaches her shoulders. Hitomi.
Mina looks out again, at the boy from her dream. At Eijiro. There's no choice. She sits back down with Hitomi to her right. Mina crosses her arms and huffs a stolen breath.
"You okay?" another voice asks.
She turns to her left and finds her other friend, Kuromi, with her short black hair and weighed-down eyes.
Mina looks at her tray, completely untouched, the voices of the crowd having long since muted—no, she focuses on them, and they ring through one ear and out the other once again. She taps and she taps and taps at her predicament. Food for thought proves more filling than food for the stomach.
"I'm just… not hungry," she closes her eyes… and opens them wide. "Hey! Who wants some?!"
Mina grabs her unopened milk carton and swishes it around in the air. Little grubby hands wave around to reach for it, and another helps itself to the lonely bowl of rice. Mina chews contently on her invisible wishbone as the vultures peck greedily at her gracious offerings. She'll do just fine in high school. And she'll do damn fine in the business. And she can wait for dinner.
Tomoda cranes his neck, like an owl among vultures, as their slick and slobbery teeth and fingers pick at the carcass of Mina's appetite.
"Madness," he whispers… and turns his head back to his own tray, as if the matter is just a nature documentary he's already seen.
This is how it continues. Faces with names barely holding on open and close over the laminate table which Eijiro's eyes never leave. Once he realizes he has nothing to say, he leaves and puts away his empty tray.
He doesn't know those eyes are on his back. Those dark and glowing eyes.
…
"Sunny days ahead this week, all bright and sunny days. Be sure to get your sunshine while it lasts; you might get a raindrop in your eye! April showers, after all. And May and June, and… oh, buy yourself an umbrella… We have some letters here from our listeners…"
Mina turns her back on the front gate of her school and makes the same left turn down the road she always makes. Hitomi and Kuromi are quick to catch up to her, as they always do. Their shoes click-clack against the quiet concrete sidewalk, as they always do. Their voices pierce the Spring air just a decibel too loud, and Mina wishes she had a Quirk that allowed her to adjust the volume. Or a Quirk that made her immune to headaches. She isn't sure where it came from, but it must have something to do with their voices.
She doesn't tell them to shut up.
They laugh a little, then Hitomi's voice comes down:
"Hey, Mina, you're really gonna try to get into UA?"
She stops, her eyes ahead at the traffic lights at the end of the block. They ping-pong from storefront to storefront, in the valley of storefronts. Plain white blocks with tinted windows. She feels a sound in her stomach and thinks about turning back to that doughnut place on the corner they just passed.
She turns to face them with a wink and a nod and a smile as bright as the days ahead.
"Yep! No doubt about it!" and she turns away again, down that road she always takes.
"Really?" Kuromi asked. "But what about the written exam?"
"What?" Mina rolled her eyes. "Come on, it's just the basic questions about being a hero and all. It's gotta be. It's not like they're gonna make us do rocket science or math or whatever smarty-pants stuff for nerds."
Hitomi laughed nervously. "I guess not. I just wonder if anyone else from our school is gonna try out. I heard some people say they were gonna try getting into UA if you were trying to get in."
"Yeah," Kuromi said, "like boys trying to chase you down."
Hitomi laughed again. Yet this time it was a little more cruel than nervous. Mina laughed along, even as she blushed at the idea.
"That's crazy!" she said through a giggle. "That's not happening! Even if they did, it's not like any of them'll pass. UA is asking for the brightest stars! And none of them burn as bright as I do."
"Yeah," Kuromi sighed, "a lot of the boys in our class are pretty lame. Especially that one with the floppy hair."
"Nobasu?" Hitomi smiled and shook her head. "I dunno, he's kinda funny. Like that one American actor. The little guy with the funny voice."
"Funny?" Kuromi rolled her eyes. "Hey, Hitomi, wanna hear a joke?"
"Hm?"
Kuromi yawned in her face. Mina laughed, it was spot-on. She turned around to see the look on Hitomi's face and… laughed even harder. She could not, for the life of her, pull off angry.
"Well, whatever. Maybe Chiwai is better boyfriend material."
Mina nodded, though she wasn't sure about Tomoda Chiwai. He seemed… something. Then she remembered—
"Anyway," Kuromi shook her head, "I was actually talking about his friend."
Kirishima.
"Kirishima?" Hitomi asked. "Yeah, I guess he is pretty lame. But they're all going to Droid Tech, probably. So Mina probably won't run into any of them."
Mina wanted to sink her head at that. Kirishima. Lame. And from one of her best friends of all people. But she kept her head up. On the sunny day ahead. Sunny day. Good day.
"Mina can do way better than that, anyway. Maybe she'll meet a guy with purple hair or tape for hands or something."
"Ugh," Hitomi hung her head, "I wish I was going to UA."
Mina stopped and turned around, and smiled once again as if she were already a Pro:
"Then let's apply together! C'mon, we'll do great!"
The two girls chuckled like they were hiding some embarrassing secret.
Kuromi waved her off. "Th-that's okay, Mina. We'll hang back."
"Grr, you gotta start believing in yourselves sooner or later!" Mina kept moving forward. "I swear, am I the only one in this school who has any ambitions outside of boys and ponies and… all that light novel crap!?"
She felt herself tense up in the shoulders, against her nerve to take it easy. She stopped for a moment, loosened up, and turned around to face the two of them again. She wasn't sure whether they were shaken or stirred. But they both seemed dry and sour.
"Uh," Mina chuckled, "I mean… right! More for me, I guess."
And she kept walking, even as Hitomi and Kuromi gave each other the look.
"So," Hitomi sighed, "how about that new shop that just opened just down the road?"
"Huh?" Kuromi turned to her. "The one with the keychains and stickers and stuff?"
"I think it's called…"
Mina focuses on the road ahead. The road home. She has to get home to fill out that form and do her homework. But she doesn't feel like having Hitomi and Kuromi over today. She wants to get away from them. She wants to be confined to solitude, inside the four pink walls and ceiling of her room.
"Mina?" she hears one of them say. Though she isn't sure which one of them said it.
She continues, click-clack, down the road home. She doesn't turn back.
"I'm kinda sleepy," she said, "so I'll just go home and do some homework and sleep."
"Okay! That's fine, we can go tomorrow."
"Sure!"
They never asked any more questions of her, and continued at a leisurely pace down the road on a sunny day in April. Their voices pierced the air, and their shoes click-clacked against the concrete every step of the way.
Mina kissed her goodbyes to Hitomi and Kuromi long ago, making the final stretch of her journey home on her own. No one's around to greet her from their gardens. Not even the neighborhood cats. The narrow streets are empty of traffic and empty of sound. Empty of hustle or bustle.
The first thing Mina sees when she rounds the final corner is a garden, pristine and green and overflowing with flowers. A rustic stone gate goes around it, and only reaches up to Mina's chest. She peeks over it and sees that stone pathway. The same one she sees every day. The one that leads up to the front door of the house. A tiled awning hangs over it, the tiles being recently refurbished. She reaches the gate and runs her hand over its ornate and twisting pattern. She marvels at how the sun shines down on it, and makes silver iron effectively gold.
She smiles, holds back her hand, and turns around to her own house, which sits nestled at the corner just across the narrow street. It's a little blocky and a tad shabby and there's a nest upon the roof. Dad scared the birds away last week but with his back he's not chancing to venture up to take the remains of the nest down. He hasn't called anyone to take it down, either. Mina isn't sure why. The old tiles need replacing anyway.
She reaches for the handle and gives it a little wiggle before taking the key from her pocket and unlocking it. She pushes against the door, and then a little more, and opens it wide to an empty living room.
"Mom? Dad? I'm home."
She drops the key in the bowl on the little table to her right, then walks to the kitchen on her left. It, too, is empty. At least the dishes are done.
Mina huffs and sighs and tightly grips the straps of her backpack. She turns on her heel and makes way for the stairway up to her room. The pink door shines brightly in the dark hall upstairs. Mina doesn't even notice the peeling of the paint. She steps in and immediately drops her backpack to the floor.
Four walls and a ceiling. Pink. Just like her. She loves those walls so much. She always has. She looks around the room, just to see if anything is out of place…
A rosewood desk with some books, a drawer with a mirror propped up in place of what should be a vanity. And an array of colorful things, mostly clothes, strewn about like some tornado came twisting around these parts. Mina doesn't aid the survivors, like that stuffed flamingo or loose ballet slipper, and leaves them to rest on the floor and underneath her bed.
She turns to the desk and finds some kind of strawberry and peach lemonade half drinken and sweating condensation. A jar of taffy and bubblegum sits beside it. The glass reflects a tinge of sunlight, which floats her eyes to the windowsill where a lonely rose sits to rot. She forgot to water it. Again.
Shaking her head, she grabs it by the stem along with that half-empty glass and heads down the stairs again. She tosses the drink down the drain and throws the dead rose in the trash bin. She can't remember what day is garbage day but it might as well be tomorrow. On the way out, Mina decides to grab some watermelon punch and a crepe to-go. She throws the crepe in the microwave for about five seconds before heading back upstairs to start homework.
She pulls out her fuscia chair and her magenta pen and finally, finally… begins to settle… settle… relax… relax… slow down… slow down…
But… she can't.
When she closes her eyes, she dreams.
And when she dreams, he's there.
She opens her eyes. Her dark and glowing eyes. She wants to see his. She wants to know him. But she's not sure why…
She blushes. How did she get here? Where is she going?
…
A light shuffle of wood and metal cools her head. It's the sound of something stepping through the front door. Homework can wait.
Mom always gets back home before dad, so it's no surprise when she finds her at the bottom of the stairway shuffling in.
"Hi, mom!"
Mrs. Ashido looks up at her daughter descending the stairs. A look of fright, or something laced with tension, casts a subtle shade on her plain and pale face, subdued by dark hair cascading down her cheeks. It's a look she's given her every day of her life.
"Mina… hi, sweetie… I'm gonna go start dinner in a while, just let me lie down for a little."
She turns down the hall into a room Mina cannot see. She stands there, on the step, taking in the silence again. She waits… and a door closes. She ascends the stairs once more, rolling her eyes as she does.
Her little girl is all grown up. In three years she'll be out of the house and a household name.
The Ridley Hero: Alien Queen…
What an amazing movie. Just drop-dead awesome, with the lighting and the cinematography with that grimy, gooey texture that could only come out of the late '70s. That creeping, droning silence and weight of wait through the first act. The acting is pretty good, too. She's sure a lot of nuance went right over her head so she's due for a rewatch soon.
Mina returns to her room to get started on homework. It'll be a while before dad returns home. She's been meaning to ask him about some new dance moves she's been working on. Something a little more disco, a little more funk. Something a little more 'come and get it, try and beat my ass before I beat yours, and look pretty doing it.'
In fact, homework can wait. It's time to bust a move. Like the flip of some internal switch, Mina flips the switch on her sound system and puts on a playlist of disco, funk, R&B, and good old pop.
She dances until she works up a sweat, then keeps dancing, until Eijiro Kirishima and the house across the street are isolated from the track and turned down to zero. The music that replaces them almost blows out her ears.
…
Eijiro comes home to the sound of a television blaring. He looks his dad in the eye for a moment as the silver in his face changes shape and brightness at the flick of some rather obnoxious sounds.
Mr. Kirishima groans from the sofa, catches himself, then turns back to the TV.
"You're home early," he says, and reaches out for a can of beer on the oddly-placed table next to him. "Mom's still out."
Eijiro can see the can isn't sweating. He watches as his dad takes a sniff, a sip, then downs the thing and goes off to the kitchen for more.
He wanted to say something about today, but he didn't. It's simple as that. No one needs to hear it. Only him, inside his head. He goes to his room and closes the door.
To his left, a bookcase. To his right, a punching bag and two posters to remind him of… something… he isn't sure why he put them up in the first place. His head felt a little fuzzy, but he could see "RIOT" written in English at the bottom of one of them.
And straight ahead was his desk, with a few books and stationary in the neatest of order. Pinned up on the wall, just left of center, was a wide poster of Crimson Riot with his arms crossed and his back to the sun. And a quote:
"As long as you have chivalry in your heart, anyone can be a hero!"
It was enough.
Homework can wait. It's time to get that heart pumping.
Eijiro unbuttoned his shirt, letting the cool air hit his bare, sweat-drenched back. An exhilarating chill runs a marathon up and down his spine. He throws the shirt across the room and drops to the ground. He gives five, he gives ten, he gives twenty.
He pushes himself up and down until a new sweat, a bolder sweat, rains down and soaks the carpet. And then he keeps pushing, until Mina Ashido and that headache are burned away like empty calories. The protein shake that replaces them makes him want to vomit.
…
"Whoa, slow down, kiddo!"
Mina stops, and realizes she cannot slow down. She's just too damn hungry. Instead of setting her utensils down and apologizing, Mina shakes her head and shouts at the ceiling:
"I'm just so hungry!" and immediately faces her mom like a completely different, more mature and polite person: "And it's my favorite, after all!"
Mrs. Ashido smiles weakly, while Mr. Ashido laughs away.
Mina looks up at him, at the way he throws his head back ever so slightly. His dark hair falls lightly over his plain face like a mop on a volleyball. He's pale from being indoors all day, but his hands are calloused and wobbly. There's so many other people just like him, and in so many more ways than one. But… there's just something about his face, especially when he smiles, that makes him different. Maybe it's because he's her dad but if she had to, she could pick his face out of a crowd of millions in less than a split second.
It's too bad he gave up on his dream. Maybe then they could live in a bigger, more spacious house. Like the one—
"So," he said, "how was school?"
"Huh? Oh. Great!" Mina smiled brightly once again.
It was the kind of smile she was being known for around school and around the house. A smile that said that everything truly was alright, and that they could be even better still, if only you let her into your life and smile along with you. Dad had no choice but to smile. But mom wasn't smiling…
She looked at her with that face again. That creeping question of concern just waiting to crawl out of her mouth agape…
"Did something happen at school? Did you not eat lunch?"
"Uh, heh-heh…"
Dad's eyes widened, and he too turned to Mina.
"Did someone—?"
"Nope!" she knew what the question was going to be. "I told you: I know I'm different, and that's okay! No regrets! Plus, it could be a lot worse, right? I just… wasn't very hungry anyway. The other kids were way hungrier. Gotta make sure everyone's fed, right? So what?! Self-sacrifice is the mark of a true hero!"
"…"
Dad mulls over his chin and feels the weight of the okra settling in his stomach. The way he stares so lovingly at it sometimes… Mina wonders if he often sees it in his dreams.
"Well," he said, "just remember that… self-sacrifice… eh, if you sacrifice too much, then it becomes self-sabotage. And you gotta know when you reach that point—before you reach that point, just…"
He brings his voice down.
"Don't sacrifice too much. You'll regret it."
Mom looks at him from across the table, and says nothing. Mina says nothing. They sit there, mulling over boiled okra as they boil in their awkward silence. So, she smiles:
"Hey, I had some new ideas for mixing dance with fighting. Like a new fighting style! I haven't come up with a name for it yet."
"Capoeira," her dad says. "It's a Brazilian fighting style."
"Ugh," Mina deflates, and almost falls out of her chair, "why are all the best ideas already taken?"
"Hey," he laughs, "at least you had a good idea that someone ran with."
Mom turns to her, the concern in her face just building forever like a Shepard tone. Mina certainly doesn't feel like a lost lamb. Sheep don't come in pink—
"You shouldn't fight," she said. "Fighting's dangerous, you know…"
"Pssh, yeah, obviously, but how else am I gonna protect people from villains? A girl's gotta defend herself!"
Mina threw a few punches at the air, each one accompanied by a "HOO!" and a "HAH!" like some cheesy kung fu movie where the main guy is obviously wearing a wig.
"You're really trying for UA?" mom asked.
Mina opened her eyes to her mom. How different they were.
What ever did Mrs. Ashido want out of life? What does she want now? A life? A normal life? A normal daughter with normal ambitions? Certainly she knew the risks. Certainly she knew what made a hero these days. Certainly she knew that's exactly what her little girl was risking and running for. Certainly she'd heard the screams and shouts and pumping music from beyond those four pink walls and ceiling every day and night begging and pleading for a reprieve from this dull and gray evening-morning humdrum attritionous constant death march to the sink?
Is that even a question?
"Yep! Exactly! And I'm gonna be the world's greatest hero just to prove it to you! No matter what, right? C'mon, dad, back me up here!"
"I—"
"Don't answer her," and Mina looks at her mother. She wasn't concerned anymore. She was angry. "If you're doing this for some boy—"
"WHAT? NO! IT'S NOT ABOUT THAT! I'M DOING THIS FOR ME!"
"Then what is it?! What more do you need out of this life?!"
"I wanna help people! That's what heroes do, after all!"
"You'll be killed out there…"
Mina rolled her eyes and tapped the table. "Such a drama queen! Or do you not want me to help people, is that it?"
"Mina, you can help people in other ways—"
"Like what? Cleaning houses? No thank you! Or what about gluing stuff together, huh? No offense, dad."
"I—"
"Mina, listen to me," she looked her in the eye. How different, indeed. "We raised you as best as we could, with all the strength we had. It's…"
She stalled, and sighed sharply, a distant memory or a distant shout making its way to front of her head, just above her eye. She wasn't about to cry again.
"It's not anyone's fault, that's just the way it is. Please, just understand and—"
"It's you who doesn't understand! I just don't get why you're always so—"
"I'm looking out for you, Mina! We're looking out for you. Right now you need to focus on your schoolwork and getting a… a stable job that will help us through—"
"That's exactly what I'm doing, mom! Can't you just be happy that I'm actually trying to achieve my dreams?!"
"Can't you just be happy that you're alive?!"
…
…
Her plate was empty and today was gone. And so was this conversation.
"I'm going to my room now."
So she shoved her chair in, grabbed her plate, put it in the kitchen sink, and retreated back up those stairs to her room. Damn right she slammed her door shut.
…
Mom lay her head in her hands. Dad found that his plate, too, was empty.
"I'll… I'll talk to her—"
Mom stood from the table. And just like her daughter, she showed without any further word that this conversation was over.
…
Mina pulls the career form from her bag, and sets it down neatly in front of her.
"Stupid. Stupid."
Mina wipes the tears from her eyes. Wouldn't want to get those on the printout. She closes her eyes just a moment longer, then holds them in her hands. The lights are on and the walls are pink, as they always are. As she is. As she always was. She isn't sure why she was given what she was given, even before the age of four. She isn't quite sure, even, who she really is or where she came from. Is she really of this world? Is she really for these people? Is she really waiting on a dream her own parents stopped dreaming? Dreams she knows she'll be dreaming tonight when the lights are off and the walls of her room turn gray?
She stares at the blank lines for just a moment, before setting pen to paper. To write down her name and the place she aims to make her name:
"MINA ASHIDO.
U.A. ACADEMY."
She smiles for a moment, before putting her things away and laying her head to sleep.
But for a while she cannot sleep, and not because it's still so early.
It's because the lights are still on.
In the house across the street.