VOID [Katsuki Bakugo x OC]

Rule #23: Breathe

♪

"Now that Ari's eighteen, I can finally tell you guys everything."

Their dad said it so casually over breakfast the second morning that the Yamaguchis didn't think it was anything ominous or worrisome. Warren wasn't a serious person in the first place, so the joking began almost immediately.

"Are you finally going to confirm that Cade's adopted?" Chord teased with a sleepy smile. Cade's elbow knocked him in the ribs, making him choke on his pancakes.

Even with a mouthful of bacon, Cade stuck her tongue out at him and hissed, "Maybe the adopted one is you, fuck bucket." She kicked him under the table for good measure.

From beside Cade, Katsuki rolled his eyes and sipped his coffee, scrolling his phone for news from home while half-listening to Warren. Everything had been going suspiciously well ever since he left, and he wondered if maybe the people of Japan didn't need him after all.

The thought made him indescribably angry.

"Yams Fam, this is serious and I need you to listen," Warren said, his voice edged with cool steel. His children stopped their bickering, and every one of the bodyguards looked up. Shane stepped from around the counter—where he'd been flipping the last of the pancakes—and he clapped a supportive hand onto Warren's shoulder. They exchanged a quiet nod. Warren spoke again after a steadying breath. "You need to know about what happened between your mother and I all those years ago. The truth."

Cade frowned, setting down her sixth piece of bacon. She said, "You guys got divorced because you went to rehab, I thought?" Katsuki stole the spare bacon from her plate while she was distracted, cramming it into his mouth before she could notice.

Warren flinched at her words as if they physically punched him in the gut. "That's... not the case," he said carefully. "I met your mother when we were just seventeen, not even adults yet. And our agents pushed us to get married, to have children, from the moment we became legal; they claimed the shotgun wedding would make our taxes easier, but I know now that it was all just for publicity. And it was... stressful to say the least."

None of the Yamaguchi children dared say a word as they learned the secrets behind their parents' sordid and tumultuous past. The bodyguards kept quiet too, mostly out of respect for the conversation occurring in front of them.

"Dorian came first, obviously, and barely a year later, we found out Chord and Cadence were on the way," Warren said, now pacing around the kitchen island as he spoke. "By then, I already knew our marriage was doomed. Your mother, well..."

"You can say it, dad. Mom's a fucking bitch," Aria blurted.

Warren chuckled sadly, shaking his head. "No, sweetheart, that's not it. Your mother is... a genius in her own way. But she can also be calculating and cold, so I can see why you would say that...

"When she was young, your mother fought tooth and nail to be treated the same as her friends, her family, her agent, despite not having a quirk, and she did it through willpower and studying. Constantly, she stayed up until dawn, reading and reading and reading. And she read everything: psychology textbooks and how-to articles, self help books and studies done on manipulation tactics. But all of that knowledge came with a price — she forgot about you guys. Not literally, but... you know what I mean."

Cade recalled vague memories of her childhood, ones where Ine constantly had her nose in a book or watched back-to-back documentaries or scrolled her phone incessantly, never mind whatever trouble the children got up to. Never once did Cadence think that her mother was... studying.