"-AND i couldn't believe it, and if i could then i wouldn't, and even when i did, i didn't.
the world damn for all i cared".
"the hole formed in my heart was too big to acknowledge".
"I would pretend to wake my Shiba and be woken up by my Satou. i would pretend to make their neatly fitted bed and brush their teeth, maybe life could go on for just a little bit more before i would have to stare at the abyss...i demanded that out of the world, at the very least".
"i am only- "
The woman stopped sharply. paused staring at her paper. she took off her glasses, she looked around the room, to the eyes of the curious yet attentive mothers circling her on the colorless folding chairs, all sharing a frown, then to the monotony of the unassuming room. the double stacked smaller colored folding chairs, the adjacent wall filled with the paint of children's hands, the chalkboard with the words "MOTHER'S SUPPORT GROUP".
"supported by the Isaac foundation for young mind's".
finally she looked up at the ceiling and closed her eyes, and yet still all attempts to not cry had miserably failed. a silent glossy pair of tears crossed over her rocky skin, she gave up.
She was immediately surrounded on all sides by warm hugs and 'it'll be okay's.
Inko, a green haired slender built woman wearing a modest white dress shirt and blue jeans sat in the 3rd ring of women surrounding the crying lady. she could only stare incredulously. appreciating the woman's bravery, she couldn't have even known her name yet she'd testify for her in a court of law.
"...Wow-".
She began to clench the fabric of her jeans that covered her knees. Mitsuki, a spiky blond woman wearing a purple suit jacket along with a midnight blue professional skirt sensed her tone shift and placed a hand on her back.
"okay that's enough everyone, breakup".
the mothers dispersed from her physically, but made sure to keep an Aire of hospitality while everyone sat back down.
The woman who called for Recomposure got up and grabbed the microphone in the middle of the inner-most ring.
"I wanted to thank Ms. Koyami again for allowing the space for this meet and greet, and Mr. Koyami for recommending us, i also want to thank everyone that joined in the past week. We've never gotten so many new members in such a period of time.
With that the room responded with a slow tempered applause.
The woman paused for about 8 seconds then bitterly coughed thrice, the room Responded so.
"Remember, we are a space to support all stages and trials of motherhood, the good, bad and the devastating, and with that i want everyone to greet miss. Ishii".
An amber haired woman rose from the 2nd outer most ring and walked with such outward trepidation that each step equated to more of a dance, it was like she forgot how to walk, she found herself in the inner most ring and the woman with the microphone placed it back on its stand.
"h- hi everyone! uh- my name is miss. Ishii but please call me Yua haha so-...uh yea- I'm here today to share with you about the death of-..."
"of my son."
She took a deep breath, then chuckled abruptly. she sounded a mix of winded yet energetic
"no no no no I'm not laughing- its just, that's the first time I've said it out loud! jus- wow!"
The woman paused, a moment to appreciate herself.
"....He died because his landlord refused to maintain the integrity of the pipes in his apartment complex, a gas explosion....my son died in vain. This was 9 years after he left home....the only thing i have to remember him by is his 4 year old daughter....now that i think about it, i don't think I'm allowed here, since its a mothers group.".
she assumed this melancholy smile on her face and looked directly towards the ground.
"haha well I'm sure some of you are wondering, "don't i look pretty young for a grandmother?"
Well I'm 42. My son died last year, he was 27.
i knew him my whole life. i- just...our relationship was quite strange to the outsider. I still wasn't old enough to be alienated from the youth, though i wasn't exactly spring chicken,
We would talk about teenager stuff like we were casual best buds, he could've told me anything.
Of course this came with it's down sides but i loved him regardless, life was to short for anything less. when he left i realized just how unrecognizable my life would've been had i chose to not have him".
The woman paused again, then looked at the crowd.
"Ya know i never asked him, i don't know why but i never asked him if i did a good job. i mean i only had so much to work with, should've asked him how i did.." her voice quieted.
"i-i don't know...well uh that's all i wanted to share to ya, I'll sit now".
She was greeted with a warm applause as she sauntered back to her seat.
The Woman from earlier got up and grabbed the microphone, she waited about 8 seconds, coughed thrice but the room willfully ignored her, if anything the claps turned into cheers.
"Okay okay settle down now" She said.
The room gradually slowed down and came to an abrupt stop when Yua sat down.
"Alright, well last for today, everyone. please welcome miss. Inko".
For a second she didn't even register her being called, she forgot she was here.
"....oh.....well, alright".
As she got up mitsuki removed her hand from her back, Inko looked by at her with a face that screamed "help me!" but for her troubles all she got was a compromising grin and a wave. "How Dare she! it wasn't even my idea to come here!" Inko thought, yet anymore sulking and the stares she was getting from the room would start to gnaw at her.
She had no choice but to comply.
She Walked through the rings, each time she passed one the realization of what she was going to have to share became slightly more apparent. When she got to the inner most ring she looked at the microphone, then stopped, straightened her dress shirt, and fidgeted with her button collar while looking at the ceiling.
"Hi, my name is Ms. Midoriya. you may call me Inko, i am the mother of Izuku Midoriya. he's who I'll be talking about today".
she looked back down at the crowd and offered a momentary grin.
"Izuku..., i don't really know where to start. well, after those two wonderful women i guess i should clarify that he's not dead. and yet regardless i lost him, forever."
She Breathed out a deep sigh, knowing of the journey ahead.
"Maybe You'd understand if you knew what kind of person he was- well actually, maybe i just want to reminisce.
...My life was Izuku midoriya, at the age of four his dad packed his bags in the middle of the night, i woke up by chance and when i confronted him he imploded in my face about how i ruined his dreams of being a rockstar,
that i "should've just fucking aborted like i told you to".....and that he ...couldn't stand the sight of me.
"fucking whore, you and that little piece of shit" and slammed the door. i wish i could say i didn't see it coming but as i turned around i saw Izuku with the widest eyes, mouth dropped to the floor. He was still too shell shocked to even cry. i rushed over to him and hugged as tight as i possibly could, i screamed "IZUKU IM SO SORRY, IM SO SORRY." that's all i could do.
The only thing that kept him going was the possibility of his quirk. He was a huge fan of heroes, particularly Allmight, he use to nag me every single day to buy him the newest toy, this or that- I'd try to convince him to buy the cheaper ones but he'd never budge if it was Allmight, it always was, not that i ever minded. anything- to get him to forget long enough, till he got his quirk.
We would spend hours speculating what his quirk would be.
I could move small objects and his.....-his dad breathed fire so we guessed it would be on some spectrum of hybrid, we would come up with interesting interpretations. He even asked me if his dad would come back if he became a strong hero.
Then the fated day came.
The doctor did confirm he had a quirk, and Izuku was over the moon, he told his friends, he told strangers on the street,
but after 4 months of nothing i was concerned, Izuku was convinced he would awaken it any day now and i didn't want to bog him down, so i framed the trip as just a simple check up.
i told Izuku to wait in the office while i told the doctor of my concerns, all he could give me was a mildly irritated frown along with a "wait right here".
he had us in the waiting room for 3 hours then finally, he called us and told us that Izuku's quirk was most likely dormant, requiring some kind of trigger, usually of emotional distress to awaken. which was the condition for a lot of quirks but the problem was Izuku was 5, the chances of you awakening your quirk goes down proportionally by 60% each year, starting from 4.
...I kept waiting for him to say but, or however, or unless, yet, seeming content relishing in his utter incompetency, he decided to just stare with that same stupid irritated frown.
we both waited for Izuku's reaction but it never came, the doctor was sitting directly perpendicular to me, and Izuku was right by my side.
He never broke from the stare, i couldn't bare to see him cry, so i didn't look down but i just couldn't take the deafening silence anymore.
i tried to asked the doctor if-.
but he raised a hand and said "that'll be all".
He left.
At last, i had been abandoned, i had no more outlets to buy time. i was burdened with the task of looking down.
as my eyes met his I was silently shocked when i met a face of unwavering determination, that 60% figure must've came right out the other ear, no, if anything, it never even entered.
Martial arts,
kendo,
little league everything...
Anything a single mother could afford and a boy could withstand was tested, in any other context a mother would be overjoyed that her son was so concerned with his physical wellbeing.
But there was a tang, really a stench that permeated everything he tried. only i knew of the gradual build up of resentment,
resentment towards society, why did he alone have to Start behind the starting line?
The bullying certainly didn't help, after everyone found out he cried wolf they harassed him mindlessly, Chieftain of this being Bakugo, his old best friend.
Resentment towards himself.
Only i knew of the plague that dominated his heart, the worse punishment god can give to the uninitiated is burden them with agency yet relieve them the path to self-actualization.
The weeks dragged on, the months soon followed and the years washed away.
He was 10.
the Sakura trees started to bloom so the rent raised slightly, each time it would never go back down.
My old colleagues had reached out to see how i was doing, i was between jobs then. they offered me a position as a traveling secretary.
I stopped taking Izuku to Takoba beach, the piling trash became too hard to ignore.
We moved a little south, into this stuffy work apartment.
It was the 17th of February.
There was an approximate 0.3200456256% Chance a particular distressed state of being would cause him to awaken his quirk.....His other ear still wasn't working".
Inko closed her eyes.
"i felt powerless around my own son, i had birthed him into poverty, i had chased away his dad, i couldn't even give him a halfway fucking decent quirk, through one way or another he became the vanguard representation of every single thing i couldn't do right. So as the incredibly mature woman i was, i started to avoid him.
i don't know when it started, i don't remember when it became a conscious effort.
he certainly didn't make it hard, as he was either chasing a new venture on increasingly creative ways to hurt himself, getting bullied, or sulking in his room".
I somehow convinced myself that he should be the one to break the tension. I would play this game with myself, to see what level of negligence i could get away with.
I would return only one fifth of his calls, i missed his 8th birthday because i was overseas, then when he called i dropped it early, because i was fucking my boss.
I cleaned up anything in the house that could be used to reminisce of me, i didn't want to be bogged down by him thinking of me, otherwise he might call.
Of course our relationship could've healed but, honestly, i really didn't care anymore. i told myself I was too busy "basking in the springtime of my youth".
I would tell people that he was in a far-off Italian fancy boarding school if they already knew about him, that's what i planned to do anyway, when he became a spiteful teenager.
Only two of my bosses knew, they had a kink for impoverished single mothers.
Then on the 17th i came home, i was "working" so hard that my bosses needed a break from me. i came to check if he was alive, i went on a bad streak of ignoring his texts and calls. I also needed to grab a few things for a party a few cities over.
As i turned around i saw him, featureless as ever. he was just staring, our eyes locked for a second. i wanted to be the one to turn away but he stole that from me. I didn't want him to have his way with me, searing his judgmental gaze through my soul.
"How dare he! doesn't he know what I've sacrificed??" i thought. I was ready to leave mildly irritated, in the perfect mood to ignore him for a few weeks. In my mind, i had turned him into a Ungrateful monster, never mind what he actually did.
"hey".
"..."
i paused, for some reason i didn't expect for him to actually talk!
"Yeah?"
"i need running shoes, along with some new gloves".
I turned around, expecting a pleading or, at the very least an expectant gaze. To my unbridled fury he had that same, stupid slight frown, that face of indifference! he wasn't asking something of his mother, he simply needed something from his caretaker. he could've justified the gift with the fact that i missed his birthday but he knew i would give them to him anyway, if anything to get him to leave me alone. He couldn't even bother to say please OR SOMETHING ELSE, SOMETHING REAL.
"no".
"why?".
"because i don't want to. say hi to your nanny for me".
As i turned around and began to open the door he decided he still wasn't done bothering me.
"where are you going?"
".....to a friends place, I'll be back in the morning"
I lied.
"...could i come with you?".
At last, my final straw. an ocean of accumulated spite burst out, all i could muster in a barely coherent mess, by the time i slammed the door in his face i was winded. Ithought i could hear a faint cry, but my pure apathy couldn't be captured with words. "he wasn't suppose to actually take the initiative! i had to put him in his place".
I refused to come back home for months.
Though the rage had long dissipated, what was left was a hint of guilt, yet fearing the moral implications i simply partied harder.
But then something happened. maybe one day i woke up tired, tired of the stares i would get from my female colleagues every time i came out of one of my boss's hotels, it had been a few years yet i barely even knew what we did, i was just the happy go lucky personal secretary. Maybe i became homesick and finally just wanted to grow up, realizing my "Springtime" was over a decade ago.
Maybe, i realized i could only live it up for so long before the world came crashing right back down.
I booked a flight for Japan on June 17th, two days after his birthday. i told myself i needed a personal check up on the brat anyway, if he was fed, washed, clothed right, not to mention his schooling.
I was trying to have my cake and eat it too, like i could just weasel into his life anyway.
After landing i contemplated what i would say for three whole days, neither was i granted sanctuary on the 16 hour cab ride home.
I walked into a pastry and ordered one of their ready to go cakes, i smashed green striped candles over the "Sorry for your Loss" font on the Glazing.
I made it all the way to the apartment door before i paused and took in everything i did and everything i was about to do.
"What the hell am i even doing?"
i stood outside the front balcony area of the apartment, the cake on my left, standing on the top of the concrete guardrail.
I was still wearing my sexy school teacher outfit my boss ordered as standard uniform, i put on a simple blazed coat to protect myself from the elements.
There was a slight breeze coming from the left, i looked at the sea of empty parking spots below me, then to the clear starry night.
I was scared.
After 30 minutes i came up with absolutely nothing. i motioned to open the apartment door, The problem was that i tried to grab the cake and search for my keys at the same time.
The cake fell but i managed to catch it before it hit the ground.
It hit the left side of it's plastic panel, the only surviving elements being all the letters needed to form "s-o-r-y" somehow spared from the wrath of the tumbling candles.
i pushed the door open with my leading hand.
The exact same apartment, an eerie atmosphere stared right back at me. I placed the sorrowful excuse for a Liaison on the kitchen counter.
I opened the living room lights, spotless.
The hallway, pristine.
I could see light from the bottom airway on his door.
"Hey Izuku! I know I'm a little late but i came to celebrate your birthday! we can do anything you want for a day- no a week, lets skip school!"
I finally managed to take off my second high heel.
I started hopping to compensate for my throbbing right foot.
"ow- uh so, what do you say? haha."
I tried to open his room, it was locked.
"....I wanted to talk to you about what i said, before i left. also, I've been doing some thinking and i think I'm going to quit my job. I'm getting a little homesick haha...."
I leaned my head on the door.
"....do you still want those running shoes and gloves? we can pick some out tomorrow!.....Izuku?"
" I clutched the door handle.
"I know that even though work's been keeping me away, i haven't been the best mother, if any mother at all".
I placed my whole body weight on the door, still nothing. I started to slide down.
" do you remember Takoba beach? Its been a couple years, maybe they got rid of all the trash".
"...."
"Izuku, please, I'm trying my best".
"........"
"WHAT AM I SUPPOSE TO DO, TURN BACK TIME?"
"JU- JUS-....ya know i knew you'd react like this, that's why i wanted to do this later, because i knew you wouldn't be ready!"
I banged the door.
".....i still had a life to live...please, for my sake, just come out, let me hold you".
I couldn't hold back the tears anymore.
I curled up into a ball, for all the world to snow upon.