The Wise Child (BNHA x OC)

32. Burn

(TW!! There will b like two lines talking ab throw up so proceed w caution if that effects u))

Touya POV

"Reading again?" I asked, staring over Yae's shoulder. She was squinting her eyes at the small text, curled up on one of the chairs in our living room that unspokenly belonged to our mother. Everytime she left to get groceries, the only time she left the house at all, Yae would steal it. "You know mom doesn't want you touching her books. They're important to her."

She looked up guiltily, gently closing it and looking down at her frumpy socks with little giraffes on them. "I'm sorry. I just wanted to look."

I sighed, moving towards her and plucking it from her hands. "Y'know that these are real important. Ma would probably die before letting someone hurt them."

"I wasn't hurting them. I just wanted to read." She responded, her voice dim, arms crossed, and her eyes avoiding my own. That's what made it hard to scold Yae, she already felt guilty.

I looked down at the cover, smirking a little at the name, No longer Human, in sprawling letters across the front page. "This isn't for kids. Wait ten years and then mom'll let you read it. Besides, you can barely get through Chirri and Chirra."

At this she scowled, reaching for the book, "Please give it back. I can read it. I'll prove it!" I held the book up out of her reach watching as she scrambled upright to grab it. "Touyaaaaa"

She groaned, trying to jump a little on the chair as I easily pulled it from her reach. Even for most five year olds she was short, so it wasn't difficult.

"Nuh uh, Ma won't be happy if she knows you've stolen it. Maybe I'll go and tell her." I couldn't help but taunt watching as she instantly stopped clawing for the book.

"Please don't tell her. I promise I won't do it again. I'm sorry. Please don't say anything."
I instantly felt guilt hit me as her eyes went big and her lips trembled. Sighing, I moved back and tapped her on the head with the cover.

"How about this, I'll go grab one of my books and I'll read you that instead. Okay?"

She bit her lip and looked away.

"Another one of your action ones?" Her voice was gray and her face was scrunched up in disappointment.

"You're right, maybe I ought to go and tell ma afterall-"

"No-no, it's okay. I like action. It's... fun?" She said the last part like a question and I let out a small laugh. Standing up, I ruffled her hair and moved to put the book back in my mother's room.

***

Years. At least that's how long I could remember since I'd returned. Returned to the same house I wished more than anything to burn down. Of course I couldn't, not yet. Not when all it would do is paint that monster as a martyr. But I stood still, looking through the much too large yard, staring at it through the night sky. God. It was depressing being back. I couldn't remember why I came, but the sultry taste of whisky from that damned barman was still hot on my tongue.

Yeah, drinking made me nostalgic. Or maybe spiteful. I'd decide in the morning.

Taking a large swig from the flask in my pocket I let it burn my apprehension away. My eyes turned to a pretty, well kept flower bed nearby, and out of spite I walked towards it. Looking around, I quickly set about sowing the seeds with whiskey, grinning as they gurgled the shit down like a stripper with her last paycheck.

It was the petty things that got me through the day.

Slowly, I stumbled upright, grumbling under my breath. What else could I destroy, I wondered, without making it too obvious someone had been to his perfect fuckin' house in his perfect fuckin' neighborhood. My eyes wandered, but the answer came quick as my stomach churned uncomfortably. Looking for an out of the way, but attractive nonetheless, flower bush, I let my guts poor out.

God I was disgusting. Not like there was anyone there to care enough about it.

Standing back up, I rubbed my mouth on my sleeve, when the familiar sensation of eyes fell upon me. I looked up, finding blueish gray eyes glaring at me through a window of the blasted place. My mind flipped through the possibilities, but I faintly remembered the twins' old room being there. And of course, I knew Yae was the only one of the two with such a mixture of our parents.

Slowly a dim warning flashed through me, and I stumbled behind the bush, hoping she'd play it off as nothing. The whole family excelled in the matter.

I peeked my eyes back, and saw that she had turned away from the window, but her light remained off. That seemed right. Besides, who would be ballsy enough to break into the number two "hero's" house.

Other than fuckin' me of course.

***

I didn't know what I expected, but it wasn't this. After that bullshit event, basically children fighting each other for entertainment, wonder where I'd seen that before, I couldn't help but come back. Back to the house I hated. The house that had once chained me to an idea of justice. The house that I knew more than anything deserved to burn.

And I came back not to burn it, but to find something.

The results of the festival... surprised me. I had expected my younger brother to come, praised like the god he was made to be, the perfect prodigy. But Yae. No Yae wasn't supposed to be there. It didn't make sense. At all.

She was like us, the ones he'd disbarred, the ones who didn't serve a purpose to the old man's twisted agenda. And yet she was there. Not only was she there, but she was winning. Even against the prodigy.

Why did she let Shoto go? Let him move forwards? When it was so clear her power surpassed his own. Was it pity? Or the vise of the old man's wishes.

So there I was. Sat on the side of the house, staring at the front door. Watching the silhouette of my father and sister in the kitchen, clouded by a curtain.

I wasn't certain, in all honesty, what I was looking for.

But after a long while I'd simply forgotten to leave. Waiting for something. An invisible hand kept me there, strangled by the bounds of my past. Until, eventually, a figure emerged from the front door. Yae, not the one I knew, but the one she turned into.

She'd changed. Her hair, which used to be straightened, well tamed, but played with by the careful hands of my mother, had changed. It hung around her face, curls dampened, frizzy, uneven. Her eyes had deep bags underneath, and it was made clear she was the one who had seen me before.

But the worst part of it all. The part that caused my stomach to churn, was that she wore my old jacket. It would have consumed her, as a child. As short as she was. It would have been better suited as a large blanket. But now. Now she was tall. Taller than most girls her age. And it fit tightly around her, as if it were too small even. God. There was something very wrong with that.

She began to walk towards me. I was hidden, well enough, or at least I thought so. But her eyes fell on my own.

I gulped, unsure of what to say, screaming in my mind to run. But the hand that led me there, kept me there, would not let me leave.

"Go away!" Her voice was hoarse when she said it. And I stared at her bewildered. It felt as though she knew it was me. Through the dark, through the scars, and the years I spent away. "I won't! You ruined me! You made me think I was something! But you burned me to the cinders and grinned at my ashes, and I will never forgive you!"

I stopped. I couldn't say a word. But she crumpled into sobs, and I realized it was time to leave.
So I ran. And the wind screamed in my ear the profanities of fear, and the uncertainty of what was to come. But one thing was certain. Yae knew something. And I had to figure out what.