Play Nice (Tomura Shigaraki x Reader)

Chapter 9: Warmth

She didn't always live in Tokyo. The first place her family lived in was actually a rural little beach town in the Tottori Prefecture. Although, to be honest, even town was a generous word for it. It was a tiny port village where squid fishermen outnumbered non-squid fishermen by about two to one. A quiet place where everyone knew everyone and there were only two schools — a combined elementary and middle school and a high school.

As far as the town itself went, she loved growing up there. Her dad and his siblings had been born there, and their parents before them, and so on. Family was everywhere and barbecues were a weekly occurrence. She loved running up and down the beach to her grandpa's general store every day — the flagship of a small but successful chain that had even started to spread into Shimane Prefecture.

She loved catching stag beetles and spending the cold days making little terrariums in their mason jars. She loved playing hard in the sun and swimming in the ocean until dark. There was a lot about this little town that she loved and she looked forward to showing her soon-to-arrive baby brother all of it.

But of course, there was a lot that she didn't love as well.

"Expelled?! She couldn't have been expelled! Are you sure they said the word 'expelled'?"

She sat in the hallway, just around the corner from the living room where her father was assembling moving boxes. And where his father was trying to stop him.

"Pretty sure, Dad." her father answered, punctuated by the tear of packing tape.

"Well, let me go talk to the principal. I've got some pull in this town, maybe they'll overlook it!" her grandfather insisted.

"She hit the principal's son with a chair," her father sighed, "They aren't going to overlook it."

Her Grandfather went silent, definitively put in check by that information. But not checkmate. He was quick to bounce back.

"Just because she got expelled, doesn't mean you have to move. She can go to school in the next town. Or even somewhere else in the prefecture."

"And what about when she comes home from school? When those kids see her around town or shop in the store?" her father demanded, "This isn't just about the expulsion. This place isn't good for her."

"Fine — then you move to Yonago. Or somewhere in Okayama even! I just don't understand why you feel the need to run all the way to Tokyo!"

He yelled louder and louder, the anger and betrayal building in her grandfather's voice with every word. She was pretty sure that she would've heard it even if she had been up in her room like she was supposed to, instead of hiding on the other side of the wall, eavesdropping. It was bellowing and desperate — filled to the brim with emotion. For a long moment, it seemed to even silence the cicadas outside.

"...I think the change will be good for her," her father finally breathed, "For all of us."

She could practically hear the tightening of her Grandfather's fist, the cold severity of his glare as he rose to look down at his son.

"I don't support it," he growled, "If you go to Tokyo, you're on your own. Don't expect any help from me or any of your siblings."

Her heart dropped, chest swelling with confusion and distress. What did that mean? Was she breaking up the family? It couldn't be. Her grandfather couldn't mean it. Her father couldn't possibly accept it.

And then, even louder, she could hear the sad smile in her own father's voice as he said, "I won't."

"Hey."