The Wise Child (BNHA x OC)

6. Wrong

(Mentions of Abuse.)

I was twelve years old when I learned I had a sweet tooth. That’s what Miss Megumi called it. She said that it was a sign of a kind person. When she said that I felt a little warmer, but also cold. It was a strange feeling. A good one, but not. 

I set down the lemon bread I had been eating, more messily than I should have been, and examined her. Her afro pulled into a low bun, and her wide eyes, sunken into her face, tilting downwards at the corner. They looked sad. But they looked kind. 

“What is kindness?” I looked down at my fingernails, long and sharp, The ones my father wouldn’t let me bite or cut because that was an ugly thing on a woman. Of course I knew what kindness was. The definition at least. ‘A quality found in positive people.’ But how would one know to find it? How was it seen? Was it truly through liking sweets? Or was that more so a symptom?

She hummed thoughtfully, leaning forwards in her chair, staring out the window, “I don’t know. I think it is when someone concerns themself with the wellness of others.”

My hands flexed and unflexed. Fingers tapping my leg under the table. And I thought of my family. 

“I suppose my father is kind.”

The woman’s face dropped, I saw it in the reflection of her plate. The anxiety, even, possibly, anger in the lines across her forehead. She wanted to say something. I could see it in the way she gripped her hands against her napkin too tightly. 

“Why do you think so?” she asked, her voice level, but searching for something. 

“He is very concerned with my family’s wellness.”

“With your wellness or your image?” her voice was rushed, as if someone would steal the words from her lips. But as soon as they had come out she had frowned and moved away from me in her chair. “I apologize. Forget I said that.”

She stood up and grabbed my plate. Her hands were shaking, something she did when she was uncomfortable. And when she stood up she forgot to move slowly, and I watched as the prosthetic leg she relied on buckled and bent out.

The glass crumbled on the floor and she had barely caught herself before her fall. 

Sitting backwards, she looked down at the metal with disdain, now it being fully revealed under her long skirt. 

I was quick to move. What if he heard somehow? He wouldn’t be happy. Mistakes were an effect of carelessness, and carelessness was to be punished or it would grow and turn into laziness. 

Footsteps from upstairs. Or were they just pipes? Better to assume the worst. My hands scraped the glass into them, I didn’t bother worrying about being too careful, I didn’t want Mrs. Megumi to be in trouble. She wasn’t like me or the others. She couldn’t stand strong in the same way. 

“Oh no, no, don’t do that,” she pleaded, struggling to move upright. “I’ll get you a broom, don’t hurt yourself!”

I shook my head, “That would take too long.”

“We’re in no rush, please, I would feel horrible if you got nipped.” She barely managed to gain her balance as she made the prosthetic move properly again after a good whack. 

I opened my mouth to argue, to explain that I heard his footsteps and we would be yelled at, before taking a moment to wonder how he hadn’t come already. When I looked around more questions came, and with them the realization of my stupidity.