Father is furious. He doesn't say anything to Shoto, but he yells at his mother for a long time, and Shoto realizes that it is because of him. But why - does not understand. What is wrong with the fact that a quirk has awakened from him, all the more so, the same as that of the elders, like that of the mother? Only very weak, with his left hand, Shoto cannot even freeze a drop of water.
The brothers say that the father was probably offended that of the four children, no one inherited his flame. Perhaps they are right, and his father really was very offended, because he no longer talks with Shoto and does not pay attention to him at all.
They have a nanny, Ota-san, an elderly smiling woman with a very beautiful fiery quirk. The quirk is weak, only colored lights rise above the palms of any shape that the nanny desires. They are not even hot, but a little warm, if you touch them. Shoto loves to watch these little dancing lights with her elders when the nanny tells tales, and her quirk is better than any cartoon.
Shoto laughs when Ota-san places a fiery hare in his palm, as funny and almost as real. Having forgotten, Shoto is trying to create the same hare in his left hand, only ice, but instead of ice his hand covers a flame, hot and red, and the brother sitting next to him screeches backward, freezing the charred bangs.
Mom runs into a screech, followed by her, displeased and gloomy, her father appears at the door, and Shoto, looking at him, forgets about the fire that has already covered his whole arm.
The father smiles broadly, almost squeals, in the bestial and unkind. Shoto never saw him so pleased. Mom pinches her mouth with her palm, without saying anything, but her bright eyebrows rise high on the bridge of her nose, and she looks like she is trying very hard not to cry.
Shoto is three and a half years old, he does not understand what happened, but he is no longer allowed to play with his brothers and sister.
Father does not explain anything, but training begins almost immediately.
* * *
Training with your father is not at all like children's games. Shoto hurts when the ice begins to cover it with a shiny crust, it hurts when the fire burns through his skin, it hurts when he does not manage to evade his father’s attack. It hurts when she sees mom’s face - because she can hardly restrain herself from crying, but her father forbids her to intervene.
Training takes up almost all of my father’s free time, and all of Shoto’s free time from training with his father is required to do it on his own. It's hard. It is unbearable. And why - Shoto does not understand, and his father does not consider it necessary to explain.
Father generally does not consider conversations as something necessary, limited to dry demands and orders. You can hear more than a few words from him only when he is angry and shouts at Shoto or at his mother, when Shoto, seeing nothing from tears, falls after another blow.
Mom says nothing. She answers less and less, more and more often she blindly stares out the window for a long time, walks around the house in the shadow, not noticing either people or things. Shoto seems that very soon he will forget her voice, and this is very scary, worse than the anger of his father.
For the first time in a long time, Shoto hears her mother say when she cannot sleep at night for a long time - he still freezes after training - and goes to the kitchen to warm milk. Mom speaks on the phone with her grandmother, and her voice sounds so unusual - inconsistent, torn, rattling - that Shoto does not immediately pay attention to the words.
It turns out that mom’s eyes can be even crazier than her father’s.
* * *
Behind the wall is only Shoto himself, training and father. Ota-san occasionally appears, but it does not affect anything at all. Ote-san is allowed to help Shoto dress for formal occasions - he still does not know how to tie a tie - is allowed to bring medicine when he does get sick, but she is strictly forbidden to speak with Shoto.
My father hires private teachers, so Soto does not go to school. Father considers this a waste of time, which would be worth spending on training. Teachers tell their father that Shoto is very gifted, he is mastering the curriculum with astonishing speed. Shoto himself, they are not gov
They shout a word beyond the necessary material.
Shoto seems that soon he himself will forget human speech.
Shoto would very much like to talk with his mother, but it’s impossible - they don’t let anyone into the hospital, and also his mother went to the hospital because of him, so she probably won’t want to see him at all.
Shoto has something to say to his father. But to speak with him there is neither desire nor sense. Shoto tries not to spend a single extra minute with his father.
Shoto would like to talk with his brothers, but if they accidentally intersect with his eyes, they bend as if they saw a cockroach. Father does not approve of Shoto’s attempts to communicate with them, he says, "they are useless and jealous, because you, unlike them, will be a good judge." Soto really does not like to agree with his father, but he cannot argue with this - the brothers are jealous.
Shoto really wants to talk at least with his sister, but his father forbids. It forbids them both, Shoto - because "nothing should distract you," Fuyumi - because "do not dare to distract him."
Shoto would like to talk at least with a cat, a which the sister fed two years ago, but cannot, because the cat escaped when an inadvertently released flame singed her mustache.
Shoto would very much like to talk, at least with someone, at least about something, at least ...
But there’s no one to talk to.
Shoto would like to scream into the void to hear at least an echo.
But even emptiness does not answer him.