Chapter Text
The sky growled and poured tears through the window as a gentle voice sung a lullaby, attracting every ear towards it. Eyes opened, brown meeting blue as the infant simply observed the person cradling her. Orange fiery locks fell onto the boy’s shoulders, its roots topping a youthful head, barely seventeen. As thunder struck, the infant started to wail, fists clenching. The teenager’s arms shifted, making the newborn’s face closer to his own. “Shh, it’s okay. It’s okay, Ochako. I’m right here,” the teenager replied softly.
The footsteps of heels slowly approached, as a woman began to murmur. “Lad, it’s time to go.”
“I know, Ane-san. Just, give me a minute. I want to give her a proper goodbye.” The teenager replied, his voice starting to thicken in his throat.
“Adieu, little Ochako. May we never cross paths again.”
*
The alarm clock beeped, making its presence known to the young girl groggily waking up. She silenced it, trying to make her eyes fight the remnants of sleep as she looked at the far end of the room, where a desk sat with a calendar hung up over it. The girl groaned before falling back down on her bed, realizing that it was Saturday and that she simply forgot to turn off her alarm the other night. Her mobile phone made a few sounds shortly after, the beeping noises coming one after another, sometimes overlapping each other.
Ochako let out a soft yawn as she lazily stretched her arm towards the nightstand, retrieving the origin of the noise and turning it on to see various text messages from her class groupchat. Right. They were supposed to meet up at the mall today to ‘prepare’ for their upcoming summer camp in two weeks.
She groggily sat up and slowly dressed herself appropriately for the weather, which consisted of a simple yellow t-shirt, a pair of black leggings, and some light blue shorts. She then headed over to the kitchen, where her mother, ever the morning person, was cooking scrambled eggs. A silent exchange seemed to have been made between the both of them as Ochako sat on a barstool by the counter and her mother broke another egg, adding it to her pan.
They sat in comfortable silence for a while, before she broke the silence. “Hey mom, can I borrow some money for the mall this afternoon?”
“Yes, but I want you to give me back what you didn’t spend. We don’t run on gold, you know.” Her mother replied before adding, “just look for my old purse, it still has a couple of yen bills. I think it’s in the third drawer of my nightstand.”
“Thanks mom!” She then rushed over to her parents’ bedroom, abandoning her now empty plate as her mother sighed before letting out a soft smile. She quietly opened the bedroom door, not wanting to wake her still sleeping father. She slipped into the room and swiftly made her way to her mother’s bedside, rummaging through every drawer.
She paused, not because she had found the purse, but because of the folded paper the purse sat on. She curiously took it and unfolded it, her eyes widening upon looking at its content. She stared at the paper, dumbfounded, as the words ‘Adoption notice’ and ‘Ochako Ozaki’ echoed in her mind.
Time seemed to stop as she processed the information. How was she supposed to react? What was she supposed to think? Her mother, worried of how long she took, came into the room before abruptly halting, staring back and forth between her daughter and the papers she was holding.
She sighed, a slightly sad expression appearing on her face. “..I’ll tell you everything, just.. let’s go back to the kitchen.”
*
And so here Ochako was, sitting at the kitchen counter as her presumed parents stood in front of her, silently communicating by giving each other knowing looks. After a few minutes, her ‘father’ cleared his throat, trying to address the elephant in the room. “Ochako dear, there’s something we should’ve told you a long time ago that we think you deserve to know.”
“That I’m adopted?” The girl bluntly said, a hint of disappointment creeping her voice. Disappointment at her ‘parents’ for hiding such a big thing about her from herself.
“Ochako!” her mother reprimanded her before sighing, “I- yes..”
“We know we should’ve told you, we simply thought it would be best for you to grow up without wondering why you were put up for adoption in the first place.”
“So why was I put up for adoption in the first place then?”
Her parents kept silent for a while, before her dad finally spoke up.
“We… we don’t know. Your real mother probably had her reasons. And there’s no trace of your father on any of your documents.”
The hero-in-training hesitated slightly, debating asking a hurtful question before deciding to.
“I.. I want to meet her. If it’s possible?”
“Are you sure?” Her mother said. “Not that we don’t want you to, but are you sure you’d want to meet her now? I know you’ve been a bit.. err.. shaken by what we’ve told you.”
“I’m sure. I.. I want to meet the person who made me. And I want to ask her why she left me.”
*
So just like that, Ochako was told that Kouyou Ozaki was currently living in Yokohama, the hero-less city. So she cancelled her mall trip with her classmates and planned a weekend-long trip there and booked a small motel room. She packed a rather light bag, only bringing necessities and her birth documents and adoption certificate.
As she waited for the metro to arrive at the station, she looked over at the entrance where her mother was coming from. She wore a solemn expression on her face as she came closer to the girl. Then, she spoke in a soft voice.
“I hope you get the answers you’re looking for.”
Ochako looked over at her with pity, feeling wrong for wanting to meet the one who left her when her parents took her in.
“Mom,” she said. “Whatever happens, blood doesn’t matter. You’re still my mom whether you like it or not.” At that last part, her mother let out a small chuckle before pulling her in a warm embrace. The girl returned the hug, and they stayed that way until the metro came and Ochako got in.