If I Had One Wish

Chapter Sixty One

Chapter Sixty One - Weeping Willow 

(Warning on this one, we have the rerun of history and it's a more in depth explanation on what happened instead of vague 'this and this'. Of course it's nothing overly graphic but it's still somewhat descriptive, so tread carefully and practice self care!)

Out of the hum of the street lights and into a forest

I'll do whatever you say to me in the dark

Scared I'll be torn apart by a wolf in mask of a familiar name on a birthday card

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

I was six, the first time. When it began, I was aware she had made me feel off with the next to nothing conversation she gave, the look she gave foreign as she pretended to be understanding. I was uncomfortable but there was nothing an innocence in her eyes when a cold hand, feeling like pure bone encircling my wrist, pulled me between the trees to help hide, the shrubbery blending out the gold in both of our hair.

"You want to win, don't you?" She had asked, pulling me along with a vise grip that made me want to squirm and pull my hand away. I hated being tugged by the wrist, confined like a cuff, nothing like fingers caressing one's palm to hold hands, this was forceful. There was a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach at this point, the further we got from the loud, excited voices of the kids playing in the playground on the outskirts of the clearing, but I kept convincing myself it was the excitement to claim a win. Too young to notice that gut feeling. "I'll help you. I've built something back here, would you like to see?"

She tugged as she spoke, taking me forward before I even had the right of mind to nod, knowing she wouldn't see it. She wouldn't need a response from me anyway, her mind had already been made up before I even made my way towards her after Deku began to rattle off a countdown for the other kids and I.

I wish now that I had known this was weird, her pulling me away into a forest adjacent to a playground she'd never taken me to before until now. How would she know? Has she gone here before?

Just that morning my mother gave her directions, sitting in my fathers previously occupied office chair, littered with designs of dresses yet to be made. I remember the feeling of her warm fingers brushing back my hair, combing through the messy tangles as she spoke to my aunt, my head laid over her lap. She never asked for hugs, my mother, or touches, or affection of any kind; merely accepting that I'd come to her when I wished for it, something I never quite appreciated until I realized others weren't as kind with personal space as she.

"Right here, I've made a little hiding place." Mazaki tugged at me again, earning a slight spark of surprise from my palm, burning only myself in the process with my hands not yet accustomed to my power that sent a rush of liquid fire through my veins, not yet able to control its subtle destruction. This was before the rough calluses took over the softness of my hands, thick skin developing to handle my quirk.

"I- I don't see anything." I remember growling, through the stutter in my phrasing. I felt like a dog on a leash, she was still looking at me strangely. Trying to distract myself, I looked at the leaves fading into the grass which grew well past my scraped knees, brushing against them in an uncomfortably ticklish way, causing a shift in my legs as if trying to kick off a spider creeping up.

"Come here, sweetie."

She never used my first name often but I thought nothing of it, older women always called me endearing names, lifting me on their lap and praising my mother on how she had raised such a beautiful boy. A strong stubborn one at that. Then they'd yelp when I'd scramble away, awkward to physical touch and my own gangly limbs before any of this ever happened. Had anyone asked, I would've just said I liked being left alone, though I was young I didn't like it, growing out of being coddled to sleep earlier than other children. The truth was as simple as that, I just didn't like it. I was young and I was learning my boundaries, something that'd be taken before I even fully got a grasp on it.