Leave Your Mark | Various!BNHA x Reader

28: Coming Home

"I'm gonna be honest," you sigh. "My older brother is insane."

Shouto turns towards you, visibly confused, while he's in the middle of slurping up his soba noodles. Realizing you're probably about to say something pretty serious-or rather, you already did-he hurries to swallow what's in his mouth, but ends up choking and spluttering behind the palm of his hand.

"S-Sorry," he mumbles in embarrassment. He stops to wipe his face with a napkin. "You surprised me. What exactly do you mean by that?"

"Well, you know how I mentioned before that I'm an aunt, right? Because my adoptive sister had a baby a while back."

"Yeah," Shouto nods.

"I call her my sister because she's the daughter of the nice man that took me in, a long time ago. I lived at an orphanage before, when I was really young, before I got adopted. I wasn't the only one that got adopted, though. Pops took me in, as well as another boy-my older brother, Kai."

"And... that brother of yours is insane?"

"He's unstable. It sounds like he's been stalking me for quite some time now," you sigh again, and naturally, Shouto eyes widen.

"Stalking you?" he blinks repeatedly. "As in-"

"I live with my legal guardian now, Aizawa, but Kai's been looking for me ever since I left the orphanage. I didn't tell him where I was because I wanted him to calm down. It looks like it didn't work, though. It just made him even crazier. Unfortunately."

Shouto's head is spinning. He's not sure how to process this sudden lore drop, and not only that, but up until now, he always assumed you'd lived a normal, happy life. Sure, you did mention before that you used to live with a family at some point, but he figured it was nothing out of the ordinary. Especially since you keep in touch with your big sister and niece.

But now he discovers that your older brother has been stalking you? That doesn't sound normal. Far from it, in fact. That sounds really, really messed up.

But of course, it's only about to get worse.

"My older brother is part of a gang," you continue, much to Shouto's growing horror. "I'm assuming you've heard of the yakuza, right? Yeah, he's one of those guys. I mean, technically the man that took us in, Pops, is the leader of the group, so I kind of just ended up surrounded by gang members and stuff. I want to become a hero, and logistically, heroes and the yakuza don't really go together. So, that's why I left to live at the orphanage instead. I figured it was the best course of action."

Well, it's official.

Shouto is absolutely flabbergasted.

He has no idea how he's supposed to make sense of this. He remembers his very first meeting with you, when you were both ten years old, and he was all cold and standoffish. You were somehow brighter than the shining sun. Naturally, he assumed that you'd never known any kind of misfortune, or hardship, and that your life was a never-ending series of happy moments, one after another.

It turns out that he was sorely mistaken. You don't smile constantly because your life is easy, or because you're spoiled and carefree.

You smile because you're able to appreciate life regardless.

You smile so that others are more likely to smile too.

"I guess you're probably wondering why I'm unloading all of this on you," you chuckle softly. "I'm sorry. It's because I trust you, of course, but also because recent events have taught me I need to be more cautious than ever. I need the people I care about to be aware of the situation. My brother promised he was going to control himself from now on... but I want to be sure that nobody gets dragged into my mess, ever again. His name is Chisaki Kai. He has dark hair, golden eyes, and he always wears a mask. I drew a picture of him as a reference."