The ride back to Shizuoka city was excruciatingly long. It was only about an hour and a half, but throughout the ride I kept shifting in my seat, glancing from the window, to my sneakers, playing with the strings of my hoodie. My stomach was filled with impatient butterflies as I imagined seeing my sister and mother for the first time in years.
As the train slowed to a stop, I had to force myself from jumping up and clawing myself out the metal doors. My foot tapped anxiously before I stood up and pulled my suitcase from the luggage compartment overhead. Once I had stepped outside, the familiar overwhelming smell of green tea filled my delighted nostrils. Shizuoka city was known for its production of green tea,so there was a handy tourist trap set in the train station selling delicious green tea.
I had to stop myself from running over and grabbing a cup as fond memories flooded back to me. As I exited the starion, walking with my suitcase trailing behind me, I noticed the picturesque view of Mount Fuji, Japan's tallest mountain. It was so breathtakingly beautiful in the spring, I hadn't realized how much I missed the sight of it.
"Hana-chan!" My heart skipped a beat. Somebody was calling my sister's name. Was she nearby? "Hana-chan! Over here!" I turned to look and see a young woman waving over at me. Once I had turned, the woman rushed over excitedly. Oh. She must have mistaken me for my sister.
"It's been forever since I've seen you! How are you and your mother?" the lady asked, smiling welcomingly. My mother! This woman knew my mother and my sister! My family was so close and prominent I could almost feel their warmth. "What are you even doing here? It's so weird to have you back!"
"It's so weird to have you back"? Her words repeated in my head. What was that supposed to mean?
"I think you have the wrong person," I quickly interrupted her chattering, waving my hands. "I'm Jikan Ushiromuki, Hana's my sister."
The young woman's eyes widened and she bowed apologetically. "I'm so sorry! I really thought you were Hana. No wonder you look so much younger. I didn't know Hana had a sister..."
It made sense. Hana and I almost looked identical. The only differences were that Hana had a couple beauty marks under her eye and her face was slightly droopier. We constantly were mixed up when we lived together.
"Don't worry! I'm on my way to find Hana right now actually," I began, an uncontrollable smile twitching onto my face. "Who are you, anyhow?"
"Sora Hanako," she introduced herself slowly. Then, it was almost as if realization started hitting her one by one. Each time, her face grew more and more horrified. "... I was Hana's best friend... I practically lived at her house. I always saw you in family photos as a child but they said you were dead and..." Hanako-san gasped before taking a couple steps backwards. "You're not a ghost are you?!"
"No! I'm not a—...!"
Too late. Hanako-san was practically screaming as she frantically ran away. Something about her reaction hurt. My mother and sister consider me dead. They apparently had never thought of the possibility that I might be somewhere else, still alive and safe. I couldn't blame them though. I was only six years old when I first ran away. But, I was now seventeen. I was about to head to my childhood home and prove them wrong.
With a determined expression, I called a taxi and took it back to my house. As the taxi turned through the familiar streets of my old neighborhood, my heart skipped a beat. I spotted a tree I used to sit under after school and eat ice cream. I spotted a playground that my mother used to take me to when I was little.
Then, I spotted a rusted red wagon. Memories of the first time I met Tenko filled my head. His wild, red eyes, his bloodied hands, the screams. I remember when I pulled Tenko around Shizuoka city in a red wagon, just like that one. It probably might even be the same wagon, judging by how rusted it was. I quickly pushed the memories down, trying to avoid thinking and worrying about Tenko. Had he gotten back home from school yet? Was he worried about me? No... Don't think about it.
Finally, finally, finally, the taxi driver pulled up to my house. I slowly stepped out of the car, retrieved my luggage, and gazed up at it. The dull, pink wooden walls. The white trims, the flat gray roof. It wasn't much, definitely broken down and not the prettiest, but it was my home.
To the left of my house was where Tenko's house used to be. Except now, it was replaced by a modern looking home. They must have done this to completely bury the dark past of the previous owners. I buried my thoughts as I looked back over to my house.
I flattened my frizzy hair from travel as I approached the front door. I straightened my clothes, tying my shoes extra tight, before I took in a deep breath and knocked on the door.
Nothing. I bit my bottom lip in anxious excitement. I knocked one more time. This time, I heard clattering from inside, and a woman yelling, "Coming!"
A woman. My mother? It had to be my mother. I hadn't seen her in so long, I hardly recognized her voice. My eyes widened as I heard her fiddling with the door knob. I opened my mouth, ready to introduce myself, ready to tell her I loved her so much and I missed her so much and everything that had happened in the past years and—...
"Who are you?" I was greeted by a woman that wasn't my mother. She was a stranger with exotic, bright pink hair. She was shorter than my mom and plumper, or more stout, with an angry scowl on her face. I couldn't help the falter in my expression, but I tried to hold my smile.
"I'm Jikan Ushiromuki. My family, the Ushiromuki's live here. Are you my mother's friend?" I couldn't imagine my kind and caring mom being friends with such an unwelcoming woman.
"Ushiromuki's? Never heard of 'em. This is my house, she snorted. The realization hadn't hit me until a large man, presumably the woman's wife walked up behind her. I looked up at his burly beard. He almost looked like a bear.
"The Ushiromuki's were the previous owners. Are you the daughter, Hana-chan? Did you leave something here?" he huffed, looking down at me with an angry scowl, just like the pink haired woman.
My heart was beating fast, my breathing quickened and everything seemed to blur from sight. "No... I'm...," I trailed off as I tried to calm the bile rising in my throat, "I'm Jikan Ushiromuki. My mother and my sister live here."
The man and the woman exchanged a confused glance. "The Ushiromuki's moved a couple years ago. They don't live here anymore," the man slowly explained.
I took a couple steps backwards as my legs buckled underneath me and I slumped to the floor, knocking my suitcase over down in the muddy dirt of the front yard. I couldn't collect myself, it was getting harder and harder to breathe.
They were gone. This didn't happen before I regressed. We lived here until my mother died, then Hana and I moved to an apartment on the outskirts of Deika city. Why did they move? How was I supposed to know where they had gone? What if my mother was dead?
"Kiddo! Calm down!" The man's deep voice snapped me out of it and looked up to see him standing over me. "If it's the Ushiromuki's you're looking for I have their phone numbers!"
"Phone numbers?" I gasped, immediately standing upright. "Please! I need them right now! I have my phone right here and—...!"
"Just come inside and have a seat. You seem like you need one," the man grunted, stepping aside so I could enter my old home.
The walls, the floors, the ceiling lights, they were all the same. Everything was the same, but instead of family photos on the wall there was a sign that said, "I make beer disappear. What's your superpower?" The sign was so lame I forgot to laugh.
"House phone's over there," the man nodded at the wall with an old wire phone. I already knew where the house phone was. "Here's the phonebook, Ushiromuki-san's number is in here somewhere." He handed the heavy book to me as he spoke.
I frantically flipped through the pages and found my mother's phone number. My eyes lingered on the numbers for a moment longer before I quickly dialed the numbers into the phone and impatiently waited.
The ringing seemed to last minutes, hours, days. A part of me just wanted to run out of the house right now and find my mother myself. The woman and the man watched me as I waited, biting the inside of my cheek.
A click. A moment of silence. A greeting. "Hello? Who is this?"
YOU ARE READING
Tomura Shigaraki Rewritten (Fanfiction)
Fanfiction"See? You're scared of me." It was then I only felt four out of his five fingers on my neck. He needed all five of his fingers to be touching something for his quirk to work. The moment he put his fifth index finger down, I would disintegrate. "You...
