i hate you. (Bakugou Katsuki x OC)

15 | Interlude

Exactly forty-nine days after my mother was declared dead, Father went back to work.

I think he would have returned much sooner had our family not observed the mourning period – I don't think Father does well without a direct purpose. When Mom was alive, she was his purpose. Bending to her whims and playing house with her was his first priority.

When that purpose disappeared, though, my father did as well. He did not entertain guests or sit down for meals. The only time I saw him leave his room during that time was when I convinced him to visit Mom's grave. It was a defined goal to complete. We would bring lilies and sit in front of the stone for hours, listening to the nearby river trickle. When we were finished, he would retreat to his bedroom.

Going back to work gave him purpose again. Keeping his clients happy, his designs magnificent, and our home provided for was something that he could feasibly accomplish.

Sometime early last year, he tried to find some semblance of balance. Ms. Itsumi had been complaining to him about how "lonely" I was for a few months at that point. It didn't last long, but for a few months, he'd hole himself up in the living room with different designs or host meetings in the kitchen instead of at the office. Once, and only once, he even worked on a project from start to finish from home.

The day he brought Tensei Iida home was what my grief therapist had dubbed a "robot day". He was always doing that, giving these terrible symptoms of grief clever names as if it made them any less miserable. Like, "robot days" were days I had to disassociate just to complete mundane tasks.

I had ghosted through school and then a trip to the mall just to come home and find the blue-haired, pointy-eyebrowed man sitting in the living room, successfully blocking off the TV. By the time I even registered I should be escaping, he had turned around with an excited grin.

"Hey there, tiny human."

His voice was warm, almost too warm, like the way the sun feels after you've been out in it for too long. I stood there, like a piece of ice, unsure of how to respond. My brain, on autopilot, tried to pull up the appropriate script for social interaction, but all I could manage was a small nod.

I'm not sure what part of my response did it, if it was the awkward nod or the "deer caught in the headlights" vibe, but he was invested. During the six weeks, my father spent perfecting Tensei's hero costume—who, as I later discovered, was the pro-hero Ingenium—Tensei made it his mission to win me over.

Every time I came home from school and found him in the living room, he had something new up his sleeve. He started with stories about hero work, and when that didn't get much of a reaction, he switched to tales from his time at U.A. He'd ask for my thoughts on my father's designs before approving them, or he'd show off different pieces of armor my father had prototyped. At one point, he even resorted to bringing a sack of Halloween candy he'd swiped from his younger brother, who was the same age as me.

It almost became a routine. I'd come home, and Tensei would be there with some new way to try to get me to talk, to engage. And slowly, very slowly, I started to thaw. I found myself looking forward to his visits, even if I didn't always have the energy to participate.

When his costume was finally finished, and he was ready to debut the new Ingenium to the world, it didn't hurt as much as I feared it would. Even though Father went back to working at his office after that and I never saw Tensei again, I couldn't help but feel like maybe, just maybe, there were a few things still worth living for.

I had fewer "robot days" after that.

I'm not entirely sure when I decided this, but I despise hospitals. With a burning passion, at that. The smells, the sights, the sounds. Everything. If you have to walk into a hospital, it means that something has gone horribly wrong in my life. My mental health screening after Mom's funeral, Luciel after the attack, and now...