Every day since the entrance exam, Kaida Kisaragi checked the mailbox almost religiously; and every day she grew more anxious that no yellow package with her name on it had arrived. Surely even if she didn't do the best, UA wouldn't just...disregard her, would they? Or maybe they would, preferring to pretend that someone with a home life as unstable as hers wouldn't have the nerve to apply for the prestigious school.
Despite the constant self-deprecation, Kaida knew she did well in the entrance exam. She had felt like a total badass during the fight and people had stayed the hell out of her way on her robot-killing rampage. She had kept track of her points, knew the number had risen into the triple digits.
That was exactly what Kaida tried to tell herself as she flopped down onto her bedroom floor, hair sopping wet from having to walk home from school in the rain. Frowning, she rolled onto her side, looking in her floor-length mirror at her soggy, sorry looking form.
She pointed at herself in the mirror, the black soulmark across her knuckles stretching with her skin; "you will get into UA because you owned those sons of bitches". She wrinkled her nose, cringing at the words coming out of her mouth.
"Kaida?" A raspy female voice crawled through the hallway, making its way into Kaida's bedroom and breaking the veil of silence. Her face fell, disappointment contorting her features as she shut her eyes, still lying on her back on the floor.
Shuffling footsteps drew closer to Kaida's still form, and she opened her eyes, ghoulish white irises coming into contact with muddy green ones, ringed with dark circles.
"You're meant to be at work." Kaida hated how condescending she sounded, how much her tone resembled a mother berating her child. But that's almost what it was like, wasn't it? More often than not, the mother-daughter roles were reversed.
Mariko Kisaragi twisted her fingers together, scratching at the dry skin on her hands, her long-forgotten soulmark just visible under the cuff of her shirt. "I wasn't feeling too well this morning." She said slowly. "I didn't feel safe going outside."
Kaida sighed, averting her eyes from her mother's hopeful gaze. Mariko knew her daughter wouldn't let her anger show. The fury, the rage, it was always there, resting just behind the intimidating white irises, but despite her mother's constant failures, Kaida was still there. Still assuming the role of her mother's carer even as she choked down the rage tearing at her insides, swearing that one day, it would find an outlet. One day, the anger that lurked in her mind, bound in chains of happiness and denial, would find an escape and come forward with an unstoppable hunger.
Mariko's crestfallen face suddenly perked up. "But I have something exciting to show you." Her scratchy, worn-out voice was now tinted with eagerness as she shuffled out of the room, not waiting for a response from Kaida. luckily, as the white-eyed girl pressed her cold hands to her temples, trying to calm the headache creeping into her skull.
She was well experienced in her mother's acts of show-and-tell now. It was the smallest things, the occasionally happy story in the newspaper, a picture of a puppy she had found online; it was like telling a toddler you loved the hideous finger painting they had done at preschool: cooing and laughing until they were satisfied. But she loved the tiny spark of delight that bloomed in her mother's tired eyes every time Kaida feigned enthusiasm, craved the bony hugs she would receive afterwards.
But it would never last long. It would be only hours before Mariko was screaming and crying, hurling abuse at her daughter, clawing and beating at Kaida's bruised, split skin as she cradled her mother in her arms, trying to convince her that they were safe, that she wasn't going to leave her, that the man who had destroyed them both couldn't hurt them anymore while desperately blinking away her own tears.
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Shadowfire - OC x Shoto Todoroki
Hayran Kurgu[Soulmate AU - in which there is a black stain on your skin where your soulmate first touches you] Why is it that some parents refuse to love their children? At least her mother has the excuse of a dying, shattered mind; but her father was just an a...