Love Like You: Rohan Kishibe and Daughter Reader

The Letter

Late into the night, long after the sun had gone down and all the children of the world were tucked safely in their beds, a small girl no older than nine sat alone in the back of her mother's archaic car as it sped down the interstate. The curtain of raindrops on the windshield ahead held thousands of yellow headlights, still managing to make the girl squint while she faced her reflection in the window next to her.

She was delicate: not delicate like the porcelain dolls loved by little girls around the world, but delicate like the dead leaves of a flower that would wither with a single wrong touch. She was timid: not timid like a child meeting a new friend at a playground, but timid to where there was a cramp in her neck from thinking danger was just over her shoulder. She was completely helpless in such an uncertain world.

But the worst of it all was the bloodied towel wrapped around her eye.

The girl's name was (Y/n). She listened intently to what appeared to be fragments of a song breaking through the static on the radio while tracing a raindrop with her fingertip. The droplet soon collided with another, and she dropped her hand to the side with a sigh. "Where are we going?" she asked her mother.

Her mother tugged at one of the earrings shaped like the tip of a pen dangling from her ear. When a car whizzed by they would flicker gold, and the reflective light would be imprisoned behind coils of black hair. (Y/n) leaned forward slightly and opened her mouth to repeat the question, but then thought, Mama always touches her earrings when she's unhappy, so she clamped her mouth shut and shuffled her knees awkwardly.

"Did you say something?"

(Y/n) perked her head up with great surprise; any answers to her questions were far and few in between. Flustered, (Y/n) dropped her head, watching her feet shimmy as though they were passing an invisible ball back and forth, second-guessing her option to ask the question again.

"Well? Don't keep me waiting."

(Y/n) shot her head up again. "Um...I...I just wanted to know where we're going. We've been driving for a long time..."

Her mother tugged at the other earring and then began to speak. "Before you were born, there was a town I used to visit frequently: it was a lovely town, and though I didn't know too many residents, the ones I did meet had hearts of gold; but there was one man in particular who, upon first meeting him, had the most golden heart of all."

(Y/n) latched onto the rarity of the situation, the mind of an attention-starved child savoring the morsel of information thrown to her, like a beggar to bread. She asked, unknown curiosity pecking on the inside of her heart like a twitching egg, "Mama? Who was the man?"

"He was drowning in riches," she began, failing to mention the man's name, as her memories seduced her in a dream-like state. "Walls of gold, closets packed with fabrics from all around the world...he was an endless supply of happiness...but then, things fell apart."

"Mama, what happened to you and the man?"

(Y/n)'s question lingered in the air like a bad taste in the mouth. The earring was tugged at yet again; silence, aside from the rain.

"Mama?"

Sudden resentment swooped in and perched itself on her mother's eyebrows.

"You know, people aren't always what they seem. One moment they act sickeningly loyal and loving, and in the blink of an eye they turn it all around and leave you behind."

"Oh." (Y/n) didn't know what else to say. Her mother continued her rambling.

"You share secrets under the moonlight; those secrets become weapons against you. You cry in the candlelight, yet your tears can never extinguish the fiery rage of betrayal; and after the last drop of love is squeezed dry from your heart, they toss away your husk of a soul."