Collateral Damage| bnha

chapter ten| my mother told me

"You wanted to see me?" I said unpleasantly walking into Aizawa's office. He simply gestured for me to sit.

This should be good.

I've heard the name Shota Aizawa more times than I cared to admit. My mother never liked reminiscing about her youth, I always got the feeling that something else happened to her back then that even after all these years it was too painful for her to admit. But what was even worse than her keeping all these secrets from me, and denying that she had a past all together. It was that I always had an underlying impression that it was my fault. Call it trauma, call it overthinking, whatever that sentiment was, I always had the hunch that somehow.

I ruined my mother's life.

But that was just a hunch, because in retrospect. I never knew much about my own mother to even make those assumptions in the first place.

She had mentioned before that she lived with her father and her brother, that she and her brother never got along, and that her father was extremely strict. Other than that, I never knew much. She never talks about her father, I just knew he died sometime after I was born, which was the direct reason as to why my grandmother came into my mother's life again.

My birth, and my grandfather's death were the only reasons my grandmother found the courage to come back. My mother hated this of course, but not much was said, at least not to me. As my mother did wanted me to have my grandmother in my life.

My mother also mentioned that she attended UA and she was part of the support course. Because of this I spent the earlier days of my youth wishing to also attend this prestigious academy. I never cared much for being a hero, I was just genuinely interested in walking the same hallways my mother did in her youth.

Maybe that way I could understand her better.

My mother never truly agreed with this idea, but she didn't disagree either. However, after I was adopted by the Sone my dreams of attending UA were completely crushed, because no longer I wanted to walk the same path my mother did, no longer I wanted to embark on a road that will lead me to leave my own daughter, no longer I wanted to understand why she left me. UA was nothing more than a fading memory of my childhood, along with those other fading memories I tend to keep in the back of my head collecting dust.

The dream of UA appeared again, different this time, that is, after the whole incident I endured that unfateful night. But that is a story for another day.

What I do remember about UA however, is the mention of my mother's closest friends. A group of three guys that she dearly nicknamed the "dumbigos of UA."

Hizashi Yamada, Shota Aizawa, and Oboro Shikamuro. She was extremely vague and brief when talking about them, especially the latter. She never mentioned how she met them, why they became friends, why they stopped being friends, much less where they were right now. I never knew their quirks, nor faces, nor any way to pinpoint them, just their names. I always assumed she did this so I wouldn't go out of my way to find them or ask them for help when my father hitted her. And I couldn't blame her for doing so, because that sounds like the exact sort of thing I would've done.

One afternoon while watching the television I heard the name Hizashi Yamada, "Pro hero Present Mic to be teacher at UA high school" was what the news reporter said after doing a story on Present Mic's latest hero work. My mother seemed pleased by this news, yet seeing her friend on tv reminded her of something she tried to bury.

That same day I heard her and my father arguing. I couldn't really tell what they were talking about or why my father was so angry at the prospect of my mother thinking about her old school friends. The only thing I heard was my father shouting at my mother something along the lines, "He is long gone for a reason." As he smashed a flower vase into the ground. One of the nannies whisked me away after that because it was "grown up talk." She led me back to the nursery where my brother was basically torturing his pet ants, and when that wasn't fun enough, he dispersed the ants all over the kitchen making our staff deal with his mess, as he usually did.