Beach, Musutafu.

The day I unlocked my quirk, I fell apart, and that isn’t a metaphor.

“When is Nanami getting here?” I asked, voice quiet.

“They won’t be here for another half-hour,” Aunt Hayami said, “You might as well go for a swim now if you don’t want to wait—I’m sure they won’t mind.”

I eyed the expensive paper fan she used to cool herself with, wondering why I never saw anyone else use them. Thinking carefully about my response, I tried to figure out what I should do. If I went for a swim now, Nanami might be upset with me for not waiting for her and the last time she was upset, she had cried for almost ten minutes straight. I couldn’t tell if that was a lot of crying compared to most people because Nanami was really the only person I had seen doing it with any regularity.

Like the time I heard about an evil monster that hid inside closets and came out at night to steal little children away. I’d thought it was an interesting story—mostly because if something like that happened enough for rumours to start spreading, then why wasn’t there ever anything in my closet when I checked—but when I asked Nanami if she had ever found one of them in her closet, she’d burst into tears. There was also the incident in which I told her I would wait to watch the latest episode of ‘Warrior Woman: Moon Ninja’ with her the next time she came over, but then I ended up watching it on Hayami’s computer later that night. Nanami had been even more upset that time, even after I promised to watch it again with her, and I still wasn’t sure why.

Once, I asked Uncle Sajin why Nanami cried so much more than everyone else, and he told me that I was looking at the entire situation in the wrong way. Apparently, everybody cried and for all sorts of strange reasons. I’d asked him why I didn’t cry like everyone else, and he’d told me that I used to cry when I was still a baby. Uncle Sajin didn’t like lying, so I was pretty certain that he was telling the truth about that. Still, I couldn’t actually remember crying about anything, not even once, and when I’d asked about that, his response was that some people felt things far more strongly than I did, so they were more likely to feel overwhelmed or sad.

Uncle Sajin didn’t like crying either, so at his request, I promised him I’d try not to make Nanami cry anymore, and since he would be watching to make sure I didn’t break my promise, I had to take it seriously. That meant that in order to keep my promise to Uncle Sajin, I had to avoid going for a swim now because it had a high likelihood of making Nanami cry after she arrived.

“I’ll wait until Nanami gets here,” I decided, “That way, she won’t cry—”

—my fingers crumbled without warning, falling into a million grains of sand that settled amongst the rest of the beach. My arms came next, my shoulders, my neck, and then the rest of me. My eyesight shifted as the effect reached my face, fracturing into an overlapping mess of perspectives. Aunt Hayami’s raised eyebrow turned into an expression filled with terror as I disintegrated before her eyes—and then I was on the ground, or perhaps I was the ground.

Everything looked strange, as if I was looking in a million directions at once, each dot of sand a new point of view from which to observe the world. It was far too confusing to understand what I was seeing, and soon, I found a way to reduce it several times over until every small clump of sand was a new perspective. With this new and more cohesive net of vision, I got to watch from a thousand different perspectives as Aunt Hayami went mad—she crawled across the sand without any of the decorum she usually carried herself with, clawing at and flinging around what I was starting to realise were parts of me as she tried to uncover where I could have gone.

“Hisoka—Hisoka?” Hayami cried, “Don’t panic—it’s going to be alright—just—just—don’t move.”

I couldn’t really understand where my body had gone—that was, my real body, with my arms, my legs, and everything else that made it a body—there was just a wide net of pressure spread out amongst the beach that grew, shrunk, twisted, and shifted with my attention. My attempt to respond to her panic with something didn’t really accomplish anything more than a splash of sand rising up off the beach before dispersing again—how strange this all was.

“Hisoka—you’re just like Uncle Sajin, okay? A little bit worse, maybe—it’s going to be alright,” Hayami managed, “You just need to pull yourself back together; you can do that, can’t you?”

Could I? I felt around with that pressure, finding it oddly similar to the feeling that usually let me know where my hands or feet were. It was in a lot more places than it usually was, but I could still feel myself, even if all of the parts I was used to had changed shape. Starting with what I could get a mental grip on, I started collecting more of the pressure, a task that sent more formidable puffs of sand in Aunt Hayami’s direction.

“That’s it.” Hayami spluttered amidst the minor assault. “Keep doing that.”

The wealth of feedback I got from those attempts at movement helped a lot in distinguishing what I had to actually do in order to access myself, and within a minute, I was moving as much of myself into a lump, condensing that pressure down directly next to Aunt Hayami.

“Very good—now, you need to—to—to shape the pile?” Hayami tried, still not quite herself. “Remember what you look like, Hisoka—you’ve got two arms, two legs, and a torso—”

The process was growing easier as I grew more familiar with the control mechanism for shifting the sand, and soon, I was a vaguely human-shaped lump of sand standing beside her, featureless and barely more than that of a blank mannequin.

“Perfect—that’s perfect. Now, you need to put a proper head on your shoulders.” Aunt Hayami breathed, “That’s it—that’s it—eyes, nose, mouth—the details are already coming in.”

It was getting more comfortable by the second, and the closer I came to a shape that was like that of my previous self, the simpler the task actually became. There was some kind of automation to that returning process because I didn’t have any of the real control needed to make such fine edits to the detailing—and then, at some point, it took nothing more than a twitch to shift from a statue made of sand into the short, black-haired boy, Hisoka Higawara. Aunt Hayami and I were both silent for a long moment as I blinked several times. My body felt almost normal, except for the fact that I could now see in every direction at once, including from the beach itself.

“Oh my god, Hisoka,” Hayami cried, dragging me into her grasp, “You scared me half to death.”

That didn’t feel particularly fair when I hadn’t meant to do anything at all, and the entire situation had been just as much of a surprise to me as it had been to her. There had been several discussions about quirks since they had first taken me in, so it wasn’t entirely bizarre, though, or completely unexpected. Both my father and Uncle Sajin could transform their upper bodies into sand, and Aunt Hayami could do the same with stone. It was never their complete bodies, though, which made me wonder if that was a choice they had made to avoid having to put themselves back together like I just had or if this was just another facet of my life in which I would be different. Even though I was facing Hayami, I could see—from the back of my head—that a small, familiar silver car was in the process of parking somewhere behind me.

“Sorry, Aunt Hayami,” I said before pausing. “Nanami is here.”

Within moments of the car coming to a complete stop, the back door was open, and Nanami was rushing down towards the beach to meet them. Hayami seemed unable to really process what I had said; instead, she simply held me at arm’s length for a long time, staring at me as if to make sure I really had returned, and once she had finally managed to trick herself into believing it, she rose to her feet.

“I’m going to go speak with Hiroshi and Kana,” Hayami managed, taking a shaky breath. “Don’t go anywhere, okay? Just—stay right here.”

“Okay, Aunt Hayami.” I agreed. “I’ll stay here.”

Nanami sped straight past my Aunt, barely taking the time to say hello before she hopped to a halt in front of me with her arms held out to each side as if she sought to secure the entire beach and all of the ocean beyond it within her grasp.

“Hisoka.” Nanami said, voice bright, “You waited for me.”

“Yes,” I said, nodding. “Nanami, I learned something new—do you want to see it?”

“Duh—of course I do,” Nanami said, planting her hands on her hips. “Show me.”

I fell apart into a million grains of sand, and then Nanami immediately burst into tears—sorry, Uncle Sajin, It looks like I broke my promise already.

#

Medical Clinic, Musutafu.

“Come in, come in.” Doctor Mimi said, “I’m sorry it’s taken so long to get you an appointment; there has been a surge of quirks this month—apparently, it’s a very popular time of the year, if you don’t mind me saying.”

The two women exchanged an amused glance over my head at the words, but I couldn’t understand exactly what had caused it or why this particular part of the year would be more popular than any other—had there been a holiday that I had missed? I would have to ask Nanami.

“I bet it is,” Hayami said, laughing. “This is my nephew, and I’m his Aunt Hayami—say hello to the nice Doctor, Hisoka.”

I made sure she had no ring visible on her hand before speaking up, because the last time I had made that mistake I’d received a particularly nasty remark from the woman in question.

“Hello, miss,” I said, nodding at the word. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“My—such manners.” Doctor Mimi said, her tone pitched as if she couldn’t believe I could even exist. “It’s a pleasure to meet such a polite young man.”

Oddly enough, Aunt Hayami was preening at the words, and once again the cause of exactly why that was the case eluded me.

“He scared the life out of me the other day by bursting into a pile of sand right in the middle of a sentence,” Hayami said, shaking her head at her own words, the motion sending her long hair swaying about behind her shoulders. “Of course, sand is very on theme in our family; his father, uncle, and grandfather all had a similar quirk.”

“That’s not uncommon amongst families,” Doctor Mimi said in agreement, “His father must be that hero who can turn the top third of his body into sand. I think I’ve seen him on television before.”

“That is actually his Uncle, but yes, his father had much the same quirk,” Hayami said, “I’m afraid his father is no longer—around.”

Aunt Hayami sent a furtive glance down at me for just a moment near the tail end of her sentence, and I could only assume that it was in response to the subject of my father being brought up—I studied her face from a point of view that emerged from near the top of my ear.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Doctor Mimi said, ducking her head slightly at the words. “Hayami, may I ask—do you have a similar quirk as well?”

“Yes, I’m able to accomplish much the same as my brothers, except with stone—no sand for me, I’m afraid, but I think I got the better deal,” Hayami said, apparently far more comfortable with talking about herself than my dead father. “I’ve made quite a living making sculptures, you see—statues and busts in particular—my quirk is quite applicable in that area.”

“Ah—I believe I have actually seen some of your work as well,” Doctor Mimi said, looking interested. “It is quite something to see.”

“Yes, yes, that’s sweet of you to say,” Hayami said, eyes sparkling. “Thank you, darling.”

I’d never seen her look so vibrant before, and I wondered how a stranger who had only just met her could make Aunt Hayami look at them that way with nothing but a few short words—was this a gift that all doctors possessed, or was she just particularly mighty?

“Well, let’s see to Hisoka, then, shall we?” Doctor Mimi said, tone stretching into that high register again as she ducked down a bit to speak with me, “Can you tell me about your quirk, sweety?”

The odd tone drew my attention far more than the content of her words, but the expectation to answer her question that hung in the air was enough to direct me towards thinking about her question. It was broad, but it must have needed to be because she didn’t know anything about me before today. I spent a long moment making sure that my answer would be relevant to what she was asking, and then when I was sure I wouldn’t make a mistake, I spoke up.

“I am able to turn into sand and also control sand,” I said before pausing. “I can make more sand as well.”

My own words sounded odd and clumsy, the repeated use of the word ‘sand’ throwing it off entirely and sending my mind into a spiral of how I could have worded it better—I frowned in the aftermath of my mistake, wondering if she would let me try again.

“That’s wonderful, Hisoka.” Doctor Mimi said, smiling, “Does it hurt at all when you change?”

I studied her face, wondering if she thought my poorly worded response was wonderful or if it was my quirk that she was more interested in. It wasn’t obvious to me which she had directed the comment at, and she was already waiting for the next answer, so I was forced to move on before I could ask for clarification. I considered the question. It was difficult getting used to seeing in every direction at once, but it had never hurt, nor was it particularly taxing. Falling apart didn’t hurt either, but when I’d fallen over and scraped the skin off my knee, it had hurt—at least until I’d replaced my leg with a new one, after which it had been fine.

“No, miss,” I said and then took a risk. “Do quirks usually hurt?”

“Unfortunately, some quirks do.” Doctor Mimi said, her tone still pitched high. “Although I’m very glad to hear it’s not the case with yours.”

It was obvious now that she was changing her voice every single time she spoke to me and then back again when she spoke to Aunt Hayami. The reason she was doing it wasn’t as obvious, but now that I’d noticed it, it was suddenly impossible to ignore, and after that, I found myself frowning. I had learned not to ask people about things like this in public because most people didn’t like answering my questions and also because I didn’t want to make Aunt Hayami feel uncomfortable. Doctor Mimi leaned all the way in and then covered her mouth with her hand like she wanted to tell me a secret, but when she spoke, it was easily loud enough for Aunt Hayami to hear, which seemed to ruin the whole purpose of it.

“Have you been using your quirk very much?” Doctor Mimi asked.

“Yes,” I said, “I filled my room with sand last night.”

“You did—” Hayami said, “I didn’t see any when I woke you up this morning?”

“I made it go away before you came in,” I said, nodding. “That’s why you didn’t see it.”

“How did you make it go away?” Doctor Mimi asked, “Did it vanish, or can you—uh—absorb it?”

I’d heard the word ‘absorb’ before—notably when Moon Ninja tried to defeat stop an attack from blowing up the earth—but I didn’t think I had a good idea of what it meant. I didn’t want to say something that was wrong because that seemed like it would be very close to lying, and I had promised Uncle Sajin I wouldn’t do that. I also wasn’t sure if I was allowed to ask what it meant or if this was part of the quirk examination—I would wait until we went home and then look it up.

“I don’t know where it goes,” I decided.

“That’s very interesting, Hisoka,” Doctor Mimi said, voice taking on that strange quality again, “I have some more questions to ask you, okay?”

I frowned.

#

Park, Musutafu.

Nanami Kureta was my very first friend and, for a long time afterwards, my only one—we had met for the first time at this very park when she had come up and spoken to me without any kind of hesitation. Nanami had planted her hands on her hips and then asked if she could use the swings—of which there were two, and where I only occupied one—I had thought the request was odd at the time, considering she could have taken the other one that was free and because I had no personal ownership over the public playground, so she had not needed to seek permission from me.

I had nodded to her request, left the swings entirely for her to use, and then sought out the flying fox—only, Nanami had then decided she wanted to use the flying fox as well. So once again I left her there by herself, returning to my previous location at the swings, not realising that Nanami hadn’t really wanted the swings, nor had she wanted the flying fox, what she had wanted, was to play with me.

That would mark the very first time that I made Nanami cry—but I didn’t even know her name then, so I liked to think it didn’t count. I didn’t really know how to deal with her at the time, nor did I know how to make her stop crying, but she promised to stop if I played with her—and so I had. Somehow, in the aftermath of that day, Aunt Hayami seemed to develop a particular interest in going to that specific park. The frequency at which I encountered Nanami Kureta would continue to grow until we were there almost every other day, and then after that, Hiroshi and Kana Kureta would even start to appear at Aunt Hayami’s house—I wasn’t sure when exactly it had happened, but at some point, I began to look forward to it.

“It’s not fair,” Nanami complained, kicking at the bark. “I’m two years older.”

I was almost positive that Nanami wasn’t talking about her age specifically but rather the unfairness of having someone two years her junior unlocking his quirk when she hadn’t had quite the same results—it was a common theme, and as we grew older, I would come to learn that Nanami could be very impatient.

“You will get your own soon,” I said before pausing. “Although it is possible you won’t get one at all.”

Nanami’s face scrunched up in a very familiar way, and I stared at her, realising in the aftermath that I had once again said something to upset her.

“I’ll absolutely get one.” Nanami managed, “It will be something amazing, too, like flying horses.”

“I think so, too,” I said with great care. “But what’s amazing about that?”

Did she want to become a flying horse? Maybe she wanted to make flying horses? Or perhaps she just wanted the power to command a flying horse should she come across it. I wondered why she wouldn’t want a creature that already possessed the ability to fly.

“Um—well, horses don’t usually fly, right?” Nanami said, waving her arms about, “So it would be pretty cool if they suddenly started zooming around in the air.”

I tried hard to picture it, but I couldn’t quite see the magic that she could, so instead, I turned my attention down to my hand. I generated some sand from my palm, compressing it down into the shape of what I thought a horse might look like—and then I tried again until I had something that didn’t look like a blob with four sticking out of it—once I was sure she would associate my creation with the horse it was intended to be, I sent it limping forward through the air.

“See?” Nanami said, clearly excited by the construct. “But, Hisoka, you didn’t give it wings.”

Was it supposed to have wings? I’d never seen a horse with wings, and I doubted a horse could lift itself off the ground even if it did have them. The weight and shape would make that impossible, wouldn’t it? I focused a bit more, adding two vague wing shapes to strike up out of its back—the winged blob gave a flap of its great sandy tentacles and then exploded.

“Oh,” Nanami managed.

Recognising the signs immediately, I took action to safeguard my promise to Uncle Sajin before I could break it once again—I leaned all the way in, just like Doctor Mimi had, and covered my mouth with my hand.

“I’m not very good yet, so I’ll make sure to practice it for next time,” I said at a completely normal volume. “Okay, Nanami?”

Nanami’s smile brightened at the promise, and I nodded at my success—I wasn’t sure why it had worked, but there were some things that adults did that were just like that, and by mimicking them, I had found a way to harness it for myself. Happiness restored, Nanami returned to destroying the general area and sent another splash of bark flying with her shoe.

“Everyone else in my class has one already,” Nanami started and then frowned. “Haru made fun of me too—he’s such a jerk.”

Haru was a villain in training from her class, or so I had gathered from how Nanami spoke of him. Many of her stories involved the other boy saying something wrong and making her cry. At first, I had felt a kind of distant kinship with the other boy, considering just how often I seemed to accomplish the same thing by accident. But the more I heard about him, the more I realised that we weren’t really alike at all, and I was starting to think the reason she kept bringing it up was because she wanted me to do something—I just wasn’t sure what it was.

“Do you want me to make him stop?” I asked.

I’d heard how many times Haru had been in trouble, and it was very clear that the teachers had spoken to him before, but nothing that had been tried so far seemed to have worked. Maybe if I tried hard enough, I could find something that would work.

“No way.” Nanami laughed, “He’d beat you up for sure.”

I wasn’t really sure what that meant or if Haru was the type of person who would do it, but Nanami knew both of us, so I could probably take her word for it.

“Okay, Nanami.” I agreed.

Instead of soothing her—like I had thought it would—my agreement seemed to have the opposite effect.

“Hey, don’t give up so quickly,” Nanami said, planting her hands on her hips. “You’re supposed to say you’ll beat him up for picking on me anyway.”

“Oh,” I said, “Do you want me to beat Haru up for you?”

“I don’t want you to beat him up because I asked you to, dummy,” Nanami said, crossing her arms. “I want you to want to beat him up because he’s mean to me.”

The way she said it made me think she was repeating something she’d heard from someone else back to me. I thought about what she was asking, trying to figure out what she actually wanted me to do. I didn’t really want to beat Haru up, partly because I still wasn’t sure what that was but mostly because I didn’t really want anything at all—with perhaps the singular exception of making sure Nanami didn’t cry. I didn’t get what she was telling me, not really, but I thought that maybe she wanted me to take action without being asked to do it first. Whatever good Nanami found in that, I wasn’t sure, but I suppose I didn’t really need to know in order to do what she wanted. Everybody had such strange rules they wanted me to follow. It seemed like every single day, I would uncover a new one. Sometimes, it was just so hard to keep track of them all, but I thought I might be getting better at it—besides, Nanami was my friend, and Uncle Sajin told me I had to protect those.

“I’ll do it properly from now on,” I said, “Promise.”

Nanami’s smile was radiant.

#

Higawara Manor, Musutafu.

“Hey, buddy,” Uncle Sajin said, “Enjoying your birthday? It’s not every day that you turn six, you know?”

You didn’t turn any age every single day, and I couldn’t imagine a situation where that would be the case—what a strange thing to say. Despite not really knowing what he had meant by it, I found myself smiling anyway.

“Uncle Sajin,” I said, “You got the day off.”

“I did,” Uncle Sajin said, “Almost didn’t happen, but I pulled a few strings—now, what’s this I hear about you turning into sand, huh? Taking after the handsome side of the family, I see.”

I’d seen the family pictures of my father, Uncle Sajin, and Aunt Hayami together when they were younger—all three of them had blonde hair and blue eyes. My father, like Uncle Sajin, had a sand-related quirk, but my mother had a quirk that involved mist. I knew from memory and from the pictures of my mother that sat on the mantle place downstairs that I looked far more like her, with dark hair, eyes, and a pale complexion. From what I could tell, both sides of the family were handsome, but he had made the comment in relation to my quirk appearing—which left me having absolutely no idea what Uncle Sajin meant or which side of the family he was talking about.

“I scared Hayami,” I said, taking the safe bet. “Nanami, too, afterwards.”

Uncle Sajin cracked a smile at the words, the large, bushy moustache wiggling about above his lip as his face transformed from the expression—he had those lines in the corners of his mouth that Nanami said came from smiling a lot.

“You made her cry again, huh?” Uncle Sajin said, shaking his head. “It’s like clockwork.”

Unable to help myself, I ended up mouthing Uncle Sajin’s catchphrase under my breath, at which point he reached down and patted me on the head.

“I’ll try to do better,” I promised.

“That’s all any of us can do, Hisoka,” Uncle Sajin said in agreement. “Keep that mindset, and you’ll know I’m proud of you—okay, buddy?”

It wasn’t the first time he’d said something like that, and I still wasn’t really sure what it meant, but somehow, I knew that it was something that I wanted—I wanted him to be proud of me, and if trying to be better was all it took, then I would do it.

“Okay, Uncle Sajin,” I said.

“I’ll have to set aside some time every day to show you the ropes,” Uncle Sajin said, “There are a few things I’ve learnt about my quirk that I wish I’d started on when I was much younger—have you tried anything with it yet?”

“I filled my room up with sand,” I said, “But Aunt Hayami told me not to do anything else until you spoke to me.”

“The whole room? That’s a lot of sand for someone just starting out,” Uncle Sajin said with interest. “Do you think you could make more than that?”

I thought about the question and what I’d seen so far—there had been so much sand at the beach that I was sure that I could affect far more than what I had managed to squeeze into my bedroom, but I wasn’t sure I had the control to make sure it did what I wanted.

“I think I can make a lot more,” I said.

“Yeah?” Uncle Sajin said, scratching his chin in thought. “It’s your entire body, isn’t it, not just the top half?”

I nodded at the words, and Uncle Sajin hummed in the back of his throat, eyes searching the rooftops stretching out in front of us. The voices from inside the house grew louder for a moment, and I sent a glance back at the glass sliding door, certain I’d just heard Nanami—when had they arrived?

“We’ll make a trip to the beach out of it in the next couple of days,” Uncle Sajin decided. “Now, why are you out here, anyway—wait, let me guess, there were too many people in the house.”

“I was going to—” I said.

Nanami’s voice rang out from inside the house as she called out at the top of her lungs, the noise passing through the closed balcony door without fading even a fraction—it was so loud that it came out distorted, and I could only guess that she was saying my name.

“It’s like clockwork,” Uncle Sajin said, laughing again. “Come on, you better not make her celebrate your birthday on her own, or she might start crying again.”

#

Higawara Manor, Musutafu.

Nanami’s voice floated up the stairs and under the gap beneath my bedroom door, the excited twist to her voice heralding her arrival. The voices I associated with Hiroshi and Kana followed a moment later, quieter and without quite as much excitement but still oddly energised. I began absorbing all of the sand I had spread out throughout the room at the sound of the furious footfalls progressing up the staircase, already knowing their destination. I moved to stand in the middle of the room, ready to wait for the door to burst open—Nanami almost stumbled as the door swung inwards faster than she had intended, but the almost mistake did nothing to sap her energy.

“Hisoka,” Nanami said, beaming. “Guess what?”

Considering that her quirk appointment had been scheduled for today—something I’d heard about multiple times since she had found out herself—and that she was so obviously excited, the most reasonable explanation was that her previously unknown quirk had finally been identified. I almost spoke up, but then I considered a future in which I made her cry by upsetting her intention to reveal it to me.

“Hi, Nanami,” I said before pausing. “I don’t know; what is it?”

Nanami preened at the question, twisting her hands behind her back as she rocked back and forth on her heels.

“I found out what my quirk is,” Nanami said, her smile bright. “Finally.”

It was a rather timely occurrence, given that the school year would be starting again in only a couple of days. Now, at least, she wouldn’t have to feel bad whenever someone asked after her quirk. This also meant that my own start of school was arriving, and for the first time, we would be attending the same school together, something that Uncle Sajin had made clear to me already—namely, to make sure that I understood that because we were in different age groups, we wouldn’t be sharing the same classes or teachers. I wasn’t sure Nanami had realised that part yet, but perhaps that was why he had told me, so I could have more time to prepare for the eventual realisation.

“Congratulations,” I said, “What does it do?”

My interest in the question was entirely genuine because quirks were far more interesting than most of the things I had interacted with—she had been right; flying horses were cool, but the reason for that was because they could do something that was unusual, uncommon, or even unique—either way, Nanami beamed at the interest.

“It’s an amp—li—fi—cation quirk,” Nanami said, the clearly rehearsed word coming out in a steady staccato of syllables. “Pretty cool, huh?”

I’d never heard the word before, so I didn’t really know if it was cool or not, but my interest in the topic grew further—reading was good, but finding out the meaning of new words was better.

“Very cool,” I said, “What does amplification mean?”

Nanami pouted as I repeated the word back to her without breaking it up into its component pieces.

“It means that I can make other people’s quirks better—that’s what the doctor said,” Nanami said, turning her nose up. “He even said that I’m going to become really popular in the future.”

I would accept that the meaning of the word was what she said it was, but I would have to look it up later just to make sure because there had been several times when she had been wrong about things like this.

“I think you’re really popular now, Nanami,” I said, “I’m glad you got your quirk.”

I was glad because it had seemed to be a very sore topic for her and one that had frequently ended with her crying.

“Thanks, I’m super lucky to get such a good one,” Nanami said, planting her hands on her hips, “And—and—and one day I’m going to use it to become an amazing hero, just like your uncle.”

“Do you want to become a hero, Nanami?” I asked.

“Yes,” Nanami said, beaming. “You have to become a hero too, and then we can make a team—we’ll become super famous and save the whole world together, okay?”

The whole world sounded like a rather large place, and I wondered what we would save it from or if it even needed saving in the first place.

“Okay, Nanami.” I agreed. “Let’s save the world.”

Nanami’s eyes sparkled.

#

Higawara Manor, Musutafu.

I pressed into cracks, gaps, holes, and every other space that I could find across the entirety of my bedroom until there was nowhere left to fill. Then, I removed a column of sand from the very centre of the space. A mass of sand rose up within it, slowly shaping itself into something I had been trying to figure out for several days. I studied it from every angle and from within, using the pressure as a guide to help with the details—after several long minutes, my twelfth attempt to make a Nanami was left standing there. It wasn’t anywhere near as detailed or accurate as the one that Aunt Hayami had created two nights ago when I had first asked her for help. That wasn’t exactly unexpected, considering that Aunt Hayami was a world-class artist and a self-proclaimed perfectionist.

Uncle Sajin had even given me some tips, but he seemed to think that making full-scale models was unusual and that I should simply stick to figurines until I had a better handle on it. Aunt Hayami had told me so many things about how to structure the face that I wasn’t sure I remembered more than half of them, and of that half, I could neither implement them nor, or in some cases, even notice the distinction she had been trying to point out. I was currently terrible, but Uncle Sajin seemed to believe I possessed the potential to be just as good as they were or maybe even better, as long as I continued to practice every single day—the Higawara family motto seemed to come up a lot of times during those conversations.

“Strength and perseverance,” I said.

I let the statue fall apart and then immediately started on a new attempt—today would be my first day at Musutafu Elementary, and according to Aunt Hayami, they enforced a strict dress code. The school uniform that she had brought for me was folded neatly on the bed—currently buried underneath a mass of my sand—and I would need to put it on before going. Nanami had complained about the uniform on more than one occasion, but I didn’t find myself nearly as bothered by the colours, the style, nor the fact that it was unfair that boys got to wear trousers or shorts, but the girls could only wear skirts.

I was far more interested in seeing the faces of the people who would be there and then matching them to all of the names I had been hearing so many stories about. Uncle Sajin had accurately predicted the outcome of Nanami realising we wouldn’t be in the same class, and in order to make her stop crying, I had been forced to make a promise—to do so well on the tests that my teacher would have no choice but to put me in her class. I wasn’t sure if the teachers could even do something like that, but Nanami had seemed pretty certain at the time. We weren’t supposed to use our quirks at school, but maybe, if I was particularly careful, I could send some of my sand to sit with her during class. That way, I could see all the faces and names in her classroom first-hand—the Nanami standing in the middle of the room crumbled as I lost concentration.

“Strength and perseverance,” I said.

I started the process all over again, the sand rising up into the now familiar shape—Nanami was still my only friend, although there had been several attempts by Aunt Hayami to change that. None of them had ended up working nearly as well, and each time, I had simply returned to sit with my Aunt. Nanami, who had been there for several of those attempts, had managed to get along with everyone, and all of the other children seemed to have liked her.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like the other children or that I hadn’t tried to get along with them. It seemed more apt to say that they hadn’t liked me or that there was something about the way I acted that seemed to put them off—I was too different. I asked too many questions. I took too long to respond. I used too many words. I was too silent. I wasn’t fast or energetic. I stared too much. I asked difficult questions. I grew bored too easily. I used big words. I asked stupid questions. I said the wrong things—it was the first time that I really noticed that there were distinct differences between how Nanami interfaced with the world and how I did. I couldn’t yet understand what those differences were or what they meant, but now it seemed as if I could see them everywhere.

The newly rebuilt Nanami stood in the centre of my room. The face was wrong, the eyes too far apart, with eyelids protruding far too much. Her mouth stretched too wide and sat too high on her face. I flattened the face and started again, this time focusing on the smaller details first, but it didn’t end up much better than before. Aunt Hayami could make an exact replica of a person after seeing them only once, a skill that had taken her years of her life and a dedication to creating artwork to accomplish. Uncle Sajin could build multiple figurine-sized models in the palm of his hand before having them engage in a brawl—a level of hard-earned control over his quirk that he had obtained after almost twenty years of being a professional hero.

Even my father was supposed to have been creatively inclined, although I’d never seen anything that he had made or contributed to. The Higawara family all seemed to share some form of creative talent or outlet, and I found a great discomfort in the knowledge that I might somehow fall short of that expectation. Just last night, I had watched Uncle Sajin sweep his arm out to the side and leave a picture-perfect copy of me behind in no more than the space between blinks. When I had attempted to match the feat and create a copy of Uncle Sajin, they had both laughed at the massive moustache I’d deliberately covered the figure’s face with in order to avoid having to figure out the details of his face—the statue of Nanami in the centre of my bedroom had somehow developed a very familiar moustache.

“Strength and perseverance,” I said.

I destroyed and then reformed the Nanami construct once again, paying particular attention to the shape of her eyes, nose, and mouth, ensuring that there was no sign of erroneous facial hair. The hyper-focus led to what was—self-reportedly, at least—by far the best attempt I’d made, but it was also missing both eyebrows and one of her ears.

“Hisoka,” Hayami called from somewhere downstairs, “Come down and eat already, or you’re going to be late for your first day.”

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Nanami collapsed, and all of the sand that was filling the room surged inwards, vanishing back beneath my skin. I slipped a single thin tendril into my uniform before reforming my body inside of it until I was sitting on the bed, fully dressed—it was time for my first day of school.

#

Principal’s Office, Musutafu.

Yukiko Sarada slammed her hands flat onto the principal’s desk, her voice coming out in a hiss of furious noise. I had seen people cry, yell, and laugh, and all sorts of other things, but I couldn’t remember ever seeing anyone nearly as angry as she was right now—despite the fact that I was most assuredly in a lot of trouble, I couldn’t help but find the whole thing oddly fascinating.

“I’m not going to wait.” Yukiko hissed, waving her hand in my general direction. “You’re going to explain to me exactly how—this happened.”

A ruddy red colour seemed to be rising up on Principal Kazu’s face as he leaned back in his seat to maintain the distance between the two of them. Even without him having said the words, I had a distinct feeling that the man would have liked to be somewhere else.

“Miss Sarada, please sit down, and we will get to the bottom of this,” Principal Kazu said, voice firm. “Miss Higawara is on her way—”

“The bottom of this?” Yukiko snapped, spinning around to stab a finger in my direction. “This little fu—”

Principal Kazu surged upwards to his feet, his sheer size dominating the room as he rose to his full height in order to cut her off before she could say what was probably the word that Nanami had been grounded for saying two weeks ago.

“Miss Sarada, please sit down.” Principal Kazu insisted, “We will—”

The door opened without warning, and Aunt Hayami pressed her way inside the room, looking frazzled—she spotted me a moment later and immediately started forward in my direction.

“Hisoka,” Aunt Hayami said, “What has happened? Are you okay? You’re not hurt, are you?”

“Is he okay? Is he hurt?” Sarada managed. “My husband is sitting next to my son’s hospital bed after this little bastard broke his arm.”

Aunt Hayami flinched at the word and then spun to face Yukiko, an expression of matching fury rising up on her face at the words—I couldn’t remember seeing her face twisted into an expression quite like this before, her features growing sharp, angular, and almost birdlike.

“Do not use that language in front of him,” Aunt Hayami said, almost vibrating. “How dare—”

“Fuck off,” Yukiko snarled, her own anger just as bright. “You—”

“That is enough,” Principal Kazu boomed, slapping both of his hands down on top of his desk. “Both of you, be quiet.”

A massive crack ran down through the piece of furniture before it caved in at the middle and collapsed onto the ground beneath him. Everyone fell silent at the massive man’s loss of composure, and I wondered if it was his sheer size that allowed him the ability to break it or if it was a result of a strength-enhancing quirk.

“Miss Higawara, your son has been involved in a very serious incident this morning,” Principal Kazu said, voice perfectly level. “The altercation left another student with a broken arm; this is indisputable, as there were several witnesses to the event, including two teachers.”

Aunt Hayami turned to look down at me, shocked into silence and unable to find the words to address the situation. Yukiko seemed to be taking some amount of pleasure in seeing my Aunt looking so lost—I spoke up to address the mistake I’d noticed.

“Hayami is actually my Aunt,” I said into the silence. “Not my mother.”

The words had the effect of drawing everyone's gaze away from Aunt Hayami, and I nodded at the attention. Principal Kazu cleared his throat at the words, apparently coming to terms with the new information, and a frown came to settle on his face.

“Then I must apologise for my mistake,” Principal Kazu said, “Hisoka, this is a very serious situation, and you are in a lot of trouble—why did you do this?”

Aunt Hayami seemed to be stuck in place, unable to come to terms with what exactly was happening around her—Yukiko seemed stuck between wanting to call me a bastard again and wanting to hear what I had to say for myself. I wasn’t sure if Principal Kazu knew Haru Sarada, but he seemed to be familiar with Yukiko Sarada, so I decided to start there.

“Haru has been picking on Nanami since her first year at this school,” I said. “Today, he cut the back of her ponytail off with a pair of scissors—she was very upset, so I broke his arm.”

Aunt Hayami and Principal Kazu stared down at me for a long moment, but Yukiko seemed to find her second wind.

“He just admitted that he broke my son's arm on purpose,” Yukiko said, stabbing her finger at me again. “I want this little psychopath out of this school.”

“Don’t call him that,” Aunt Hayami hissed.

Aunt Hayami took a step towards Sarada, and I wondered if they were going to fight.

“Enough,” Principal Kazu insistent, his voice deep and loud. “Miss Sarada, please go wait out in the hall while I deal with this—don’t leave the building. I’d like to discuss Haru’s actions with you first.”

“Haru’s actions?” Sarada hissed, “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me he’s getting expelled.”

“He won’t be getting expelled because this is his first offence,” Kazu said, holding his hand up as she started to speak over him. “Hisoka will, however, be suspended for a month.”

“A month?” Hayami managed, “That’s—he can’t—he needs to go to school—”

I took note of how the anger written across Yukiko’s face changed slightly, her cheeks rising slightly and causing her eyes to narrow. Her mouth was a flat line, lips pressed together hard, but if not for that deliberate effort, he thought that she would have almost been smiling—how interesting was it that she seemed more interested in seeing Aunt Hayami upset than anything else.

“I’ll have his teacher send his coursework to your home, and you can make sure he doesn’t fall behind.” Principal Kazu said before turning back to look at me. “Hisoka.”

Yukiko didn’t make any attempt to leave the room, and I turned to address the man who had just spoken to me.

“Yes, Principal Kazu?” I said.

“Hisoka, while I very much appreciate you telling me the truth, this kind of behaviour is completely unacceptable—both at school and in society at large,” Kazu said, his thick black brows pulled together into a wrinkled mass above his nose. “If another student makes you angry in the future, you will not address it by hurting them; you will come to me and explain it—do you understand what I am asking of you?”

There was a disconnect here, and I felt the urge to speak up to address it because I hadn’t been angry that Haru had cut off Nanami’s ponytail, and I hadn’t been angry when she came to me to tell me what had happened. I hadn’t even been angry when I’d asked Haru why he had done it or when he’d threatened to beat me up if I told anyone about it. I hadn’t broken his arm because I was angry; I had done it because he made Nanami cry. I must have taken too long to respond because Aunt Hayami drew in a shaky breath.

“Hisoka,” Aunt Hayami managed. “Answer him.”

I wondered if maybe, sometimes, it was just better to let people continue to think things that weren’t always correct.

“If I get angry or if I see something bad happening, I will come and speak with you first,” I said, nodding. “I won’t hurt anyone else.”

“Very good,” Principal Kazu said, “Miss Sarada, you’ve seen what you wanted; please wait outside.”

Yukiko’s almost smile faded to something far less interesting, but whether it was because she too had noticed the mistake in Principal Kazu’s words or if it was simply because she was unhappy with the resolution, I wasn’t sure. Either way, Yukiko Sarada turned and pulled the door open with far more force than was required before pausing at the threshold.

“Don’t you ever come near my son again, you little monster,” Sarada said. “Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Miss Sarada,” I agreed. “I understand you.”

The door slammed shut hard enough to rattle the framed letters, awards, and certificates that covered the walls—the one that had the word ‘Certificate’ written across it in golden font fell to the ground and shattered. Aunt Hayami’s hands were now clenched into fists at her sides, her skin shifting into a familiar grey hue as her quirk began affecting her skin. Principal Kazu stood amongst the rubble of his desk, holding his face in his hands—school was hard.

#

Higawara Manor, Musutafu.

In the aftermath of the Haru Incident, I found myself grounded, something that I’d never experienced before except through the stories that Nanami had shared with me about the things she had gone through. Leaving my room for anything other than eating, showering, or using the toilet was now forbidden until such times as my suspension was finally lifted. I was further restricted from using the internet and doing much of anything fun. I was allowed to read, but only non-fiction books were permitted. Additionally, Aunt Hayami had informed me that I would be meeting with a special doctor for a special checkup and that once I did return to school, I would start attending regular appointments with the school counsellor to make sure I was doing okay. The last two things seemed less like a punishment and more like they were worried that I might end up doing something wrong again.

I hadn’t really considered what would happen after I broke Haru’s arm; other than that, it would stop him from being able to cut off any more ponytails. I had been looking way too closely at how to fix the problem right in front of me, and that meant that I hadn’t thought about any of the things that would come afterwards. I hadn’t considered that Haru would have to go to the hospital or that the teachers would start shouting. I hadn’t considered that Nanami would start crying again—or that this time, I was once again the cause of it. I hadn’t considered that Haru had parents who would be upset that he had been hurt or that the school wouldn’t like it when the students fought. I hadn’t considered that using my quirk in public was not allowed or that using it to hurt someone was actually a crime. I hadn’t considered that I would be forbidden from seeing Nanami and that she was forbidden from coming to see me until my suspension was lifted.

Without Nanami around, it had suddenly become very quiet, and the days seemed to stretch on forever. I had a growing list of things that I wanted to tell her about, one that was now long enough that I might have already forgotten some of the things that had been on it. Uncle Sajin had come to see me a few short hours ago, and he had asked me to recount everything that had happened. I explained everything that had occurred between Nanami, Haru and I. He remained silent until I had finished and then asked me to go through everything again, but this time, he stopped to ask for much greater detail. He asked me what I had been thinking at each moment and if I’d considered other choices. He asked me if I knew what Nanami or Haru had been feeling or if I had felt strongly about any of it. He asked me to come up with alternative solutions to each step and then encouraged me to work out where they might have led if I’d taken them. He took the time to explain what each of my mistakes had been and then shared what he would have done in my place.

I’d committed all of it to memory, burning it all into my mind and found myself marvelling at just how many other choices there had really been. I took in everything he had to say and added it to the ever-growing pattern of social rules that I was expected to adhere to and navigate through—and then he’d gone downstairs, and I had been left in my bedroom to think about it all. Uncle Sajin’s voice floated up from somewhere downstairs, and then Aunt Hayami bit back a moment later, the two of them sounding entirely unlike themselves. I couldn’t understand the words with all the obstructions in the way, but the volume and tone were easy to hear. Aunt Hayami’s voice was rapid, high in pitch, and paused irregularly; she was upset, crying, and agitated. Uncle Sajin’s voice was calmer, assured, and not quite angry, but something that was adjacent to it.

Even without being able to hear the exact words or being able to watch the expressions on their face, the context of the situation left no doubt as to what the problem was.

“Me,” I murmured.

Aunt Hayami had been distant since the incident, staying away from my room except for necessities. It wasn’t too different from our usual dynamic, as she hadn’t ever been particularly affectionate before that. That isn’t to say she disliked me because I knew that wasn’t the case, and Aunt Hayami had always been the perfect guardian. But I’d said the words back in Principal Kazu’s office, and they had summed up our relationship entirely—Hayami was my aunt, not my mother.

Aunt Hayami had never wanted children—this, I knew, because I’d heard her say it to Hiroshi and Kana once—and she had made a choice to never have children. She had chosen to avoid settling down and not to have a family of her own. That choice had been tread upon when my parents had died two years ago, and she had been expected—socially and perhaps by some measure of duty—to take me in as her own. Aunt Hayami could have said no because I knew that orphanages existed. She could have gone on to live the life she had earned for herself with her successful career. She could have travelled abroad like she spoke about or gone to the events, parties and gatherings that were befitting of someone with her social status. She could have experienced everything she had wanted—but instead, she had put her own life on hold to make sure that I would grow up cared for.

Uncle Sajin had made himself available as well, but there hadn’t been quite that same societal expectation to put his own future on hold. I could recognise that my existence had caused problems for both of my parent’s siblings, but I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do about it or if I even could do something. When I had decided to break Haru’s arm, perhaps I should have considered how my actions would have affected them, as well, because now I’d caused Aunt Hayami to cry as well—and once again, I’d made things more difficult for the both of them.

Uncle Sajin’s voice floated up the stairs again, quieter, calmer and in a familiar enough pattern that I could guess what he had said.

“Strength and perseverance,” I murmured.

Uncle Sajin had a pristine record when it came to being right about things, and his advice always seemed to make things easier. I tried my best to follow his rules, and I wanted to keep all of the promises that he had asked me to keep—he had told me once, a long time ago, that everybody cried, and now, when I found myself rubbing at my eyes, I realised that he was right once again.

#

Musutafu Elementary, Musutafu.

“Hisoka,” Aunt Hayami said, taking a deep breath. “I know you must be sick and tired of me telling you by now, but I need you to promise me that you will not hurt any of the other students—not even if you get angry, okay?”

“I won’t hurt anyone, even if I get angry.” I said, “I promise I’ll be good, Aunt Hayami.”

Aunt Hayami watched me for a long while, studying my face for something that I couldn’t understand, and then, without discernible cause, she smiled. For a moment, she brushed my hair out with her fingers, seeking to tidy it up.

“Good—that’s good,” Aunt Hayami said, breathing out. “Have a good day, Hisoka.”

Once she was satisfied, she gently turned me around and then sent me off towards the school gate. I went willingly and without complaint, wondering if the building that I had spent only a single day within had changed since I had been gone—this last month had not been good. Aunt Hayami had spent a significant portion of it crying in the privacy of her bedroom, and I had done my best to keep out from underfoot. I had no intention of making things any more difficult for her than I already had, and that had meant further retreating into the solitude I had already grown used to.

Uncle Sajin had come to speak with me last night. The timing of the discussion made it clear that it would involve the coming school day, and he had spent some time patiently explaining something complicated. I hadn’t followed it entirely, but I think I’d approached some kind of understanding of what he was trying to tell me. It had built upon our previous talks, and in it, he had guided me towards actively thinking about how the people around me reacted to each other. To look beneath the surface, past the words they used or the tone in which they said them, to the things that they were actually trying to convey—and to use the greater context of what I wanted and what they wanted to determine what was actually being communicated.

It was something that had been happening almost unconsciously up until this point, and now that I was aware that I was supposed to be doing it, I was left feeling as if everything I had ever said up until that moment had been an unending line of mistakes. I had been relying almost entirely on the patterns, phrases, words, and gestures that I had observed from those around me and then mimicking them myself—but that only ever worked when the action aligned well with the context in which it was said. The day I had used Doctor Mimi’s false secret-telling to stop Nanami from crying had worked because Nanami liked secrets, and even though I hadn’t told her one, she had thought that I had. I needed to start thinking about these things in advance, to work out what I should say and what I should do, long before the situation occurred in which I needed it. I needed to work on it every single day and in the same way that I had to work on learning to control my quirk—perhaps this was the secret to why Uncle Sajin always seemed to know the answers to my questions.

“Strength and perseverance,” I said.

If I’d thought about it from the perspective of everyone else who had been involved in the situation, then I probably wouldn’t have made the choice to break Haru’s arm. If I’d thought about it for long enough, I might have come up with a smarter solution, one that wouldn’t have ended up causing a lot of trouble for Aunt Hayami. If I’d just thought about it, then I might have realised that I wouldn’t get to see my only friend for an entire month.

“Hi, Nanami,” I said.

“Hisoka,” Nanami bawled, almost strangling me in her attempt to perform the strongest hug I’d ever felt. “You dummy.”

Sorry, Uncle Sajin, I messed up again.

#

Higawara Manor, Musutafu.

The greatest hero in the world was a very strange man, or that seemed to be the case at least. I’ve never seen anyone smile quite so often or with so much energy as All Might—not even Nanami was quite that cheerful. Every single picture of the man was adorned with the same brilliant smile. Every poster, figurine, and trading card was exactly the same. All of the video footage on the internet had the man smiling. Even when he was talking, the outline of cheer was still visible around his mouth. I wondered if he could only smile and that everything else was locked away somehow or if All Might had simply never experienced a day that was sad or a moment that had made him angry. I wondered if it was a smile without anything behind it, like the one I sometimes made so that Nanami would smile as well.

All Might seemed to be everywhere I looked, and while that had always been the case before, now that Nanami had developed an interest in the hero, it only seemed to be magnified a thousandfold. Now, as a result of that new interest, I was expected to have watched, read about, or at least known about each of the cool things that the man had done. There were a lot of those things to remember, and I spent a lot of time reading up about All Might and all of the other heroes he had been involved with. There was a lot of material to go through, and I didn’t want to miss anything, so I had to start from the very beginning. The earliest thing I could find was an article that spoke of All Might and David Shield working together in the United States of America and how the country would go on to become an inspiration for the man’s special attacks.

I wasn’t exactly sure where Nanami was getting her own information about All Might, but she must have been reading a lot—her determination to become a hero hadn’t wavered either. Almost all of our conversations eventually hit upon the topic of heroes, villains, or quirks in some way. I didn’t mind the topic because quirks were interesting, and a lot of those same heroes and villains had ones that were particularly noteworthy. The other kids at school didn’t have a problem with it either because heroes seemed to be the only thing anyone wanted to talk about.

The information should have been useful for socialising with the other students, but just having the information didn’t mean that I could actually use it. As a direct result of the Haru Incident in my first year, I had irreparably damaged my reputation, and even now, almost two years later, it still has yet to recover. Yukiko Sarada had started something of a social media crusade against Principal Kazu, the school, Aunt Hayami, and me—and even now, if I searched up the school online, I could find the entire thing written about in articles, some of which even used my name. Haru Sarada had been removed from school by his parents rather than submit to any form of suspension for his own part in the bullying of what must have been everyone in his year.

Nanami was the only person at school who wanted to engage with me outside of class. The other students were either scared that I would repeat the actions of my first year, or they had parents who encouraged them to keep their distance just in case. The social ostracisation wasn’t that different from how I had already been treated by others my own age, so it was something I seemed to grow used to. Nanami, however, wasn’t used to the mean-spirited comments or the fact that whenever she chose to sit with me at lunch, everyone else seemed to vanish. Even still, she’d stuck by my side in the aftermath, and though some of her friends had learned to tolerate my presence, it was clear that none of them felt safe when I was around, and some had even gone so far as to tell Nanami as much. It had put a strain on our friendship, and although Nanami had refused to acknowledge it, I had brought it up on two separate occasions; both times, I had managed to upset her, but the second time had been far worse. Suggesting that she could stop talking to me at school in order to trick her friends into coming back had been a mistake but one that was now far behind us.

The mandatory nature of my weekly appointments with the school counsellor had remained, but it was something I didn’t mind—Takeda Yasunari was popular amongst the student body; he was friendly, patient, and always explained things at length. The problem, however, came from when someone had figured out I was required to go there. That had happened a long time ago, and the information had spread throughout the school very quickly. Every now and then, someone would notice one of my appointments, and a fresh wave of rumours, whispers, and glances would start all over again.

My home life hadn’t changed in any really significant way, but there were some small changes. Uncle Sajin and Aunt Hayami must have come to some kind of agreement because there were now times in which Aunt Hayami would vanish for weeks at a time, and during those periods, Uncle Sajin would take care of me. Aunt Hayami’s disposition always seemed to improve after she returned, seemingly rejuvenated in the wake of whatever trip she had taken. It gave me the chance to spend far more time with Uncle Sajin, and it was during those weeks that I found myself being enrolled in three different martial arts classes—Jeet Kune Do, Karate, and Muay Thai in an attempt to find the one that I would like best.

After a single lesson of each, I had developed no lasting attachments to any of them, and so Uncle Sajin had decided on the latter in my place. Every lesson left my legs aching badly, and the rest of my body didn’t fare much better. I was told that it would hurt less over time as my body was strengthened, and Uncle Sajin made sure that I wasn’t going to undo any of the growth by remaking my body in the aftermath. Unlike the other times in which I had been expected to socialise with others, this seemed to go much better. It might have been that the class was made up of older girls and boys or that the classes were shorter and the focus narrower—but at least they weren’t scared of me.

#

Restaurant, Musutafu.

Nanami’s tenth birthday was an interesting affair, and one that had gone through several different planning iterations before Aunt Hayami had finally convinced Hiroshi and Kana to let her book a table at what I was starting to think was a very expensive restaurant. I hadn’t really understood it until Nanami had invited me to a sleepover for the first time, but it seemed to be the case that her parents weren’t nearly as well off as Aunt Hayami was—and that had been reflected in how uncomfortable they seemed to be with how much this dinner had cost her. Nanami seemed oblivious to it, or at least unaffected, because she was beaming around at everyone in the restaurant without any hint of discomfort.

“Hayami—this feels like way too much,” Kana managed, “You didn’t have to go to this much trouble.”

Kana trailed off as several waiters arrived with their orders—and Hiroshi seemed sheepish as a well-dressed woman placed a plate down in front of him.

“It’s no trouble at all; I just wanted to do something nice for Nanami,” Aunt Hayami said, waving her hand to ward off the other woman’s embarrassment. “Besides, Hisoka wouldn’t have let me hear the end of it if I didn’t.”

I was pretty certain I’d never mentioned anything about it to her, but I didn’t mind taking the blame if it made things easier for her. Nanami certainly seemed happy with how everything had turned out, kicking her feet beneath the table as the waitress placed her own plate down. Kana reached over and placed her hand on my shoulder, in what I interpreted as some kind of misplaced gratitude—I made sure to smile.

“A birthday?” The waitress said, “Oh my, how old are you today, little miss?”

“Ten,” Nanami said, preening at the attention. “How old are you?”

The question caused an odd round of amused reactions from everyone at the table, and I wasn’t quite sure why. I had once asked the very same question to a teacher, and she had been entirely unimpressed—Nanami just seemed way better at this kind of thing.

“Me?” The waiter said, smiling now. “I’m twenty-nine.”

“Wow.” Nanami said, impressed. “You’re old.”

That caused another round of amusement and a sheepish laugh from Hiroshi—Aunt Hayami seemed entirely incapable of hiding her amusement, even through the use of her hand.

“Nanami, you’re not supposed to say that,” Kana said, face flushed. “I’m so sorry—”

“That’s quite alright, Ma’am.” The waitress said, still giggling. “Enjoy your special day, sweety.”

“Thank you, miss.” Nanami said, beaming again. “Hisoka—how cool is this?”

“Very cool,” I agreed.

I listened as the adults spoke, the flow of conversation broken up between mouthfuls of expensive food, and when Nanami started to grow a bit rowdy, Hiroshi insisted that he was going to eat all of Nanami’s birthday cake if she didn’t behave herself. I was pretty sure it was a ruse, but Nanami seemed to take the threat far more seriously. At some point during the dinner, I found myself distracted by the array of odd people sitting at a table directly behind Hiroshi. The only thing they really shared in common was the expensive-looking business suits they were wearing, each one a different, dark shade of colour. Two women and three men, all shapes and sizes, represented amongst them.

The first person stood out purely because of his ridiculously bushy moustache and his noticeably short stature. This man’s facial hair was entirely wild, and it stuck out to both sides, covering most of the bottom of his face while ensuring that the expression of his mouth was truly unreadable. Despite sitting indoors at night time and with relatively low light in the room, he was wearing a thick pair of sunglasses over his eyes. The second person I could see was a woman with bright pink hair that reached all the way down below the table and far out of sight. Her mouth had clearly been affected by her quirk because it was pulled into a permanent, face-stretching grin with a series of sharp, perfectly interlocking teeth.

The third was a mammoth of a man with dark skin and angular sunglasses perched on his nose, an overlapping series of tattoos visible on his hands, fingers, neck and face. I’d never seen anyone quite as large before, and I was certain that if he’d stood side by side with All Might, he would have dwarfed even him. The fourth was a teenager, short, with tanned skin and a pixie cut coloured in dual tones of gold and black, the split occurring straight down the middle. Unlike the others, the sleeves of her suit had been scrunched up to her elbows, and it was clear that despite being the second smallest person at the table, her arms were lined with definition.

The fifth was a tall man with exceptionally sharp eyes. He had his arms crossed over his chest as he sat, slumped back in his seat with a bland smile on his face. The most startling thing about him was that his skin was actually blue. It was the first time I had seen something like that before, and as I continued to study him from the point of view emerging from my neck, I noticed that he had a pair of serrated fins striking out of his elbows, angled behind him and passing through a custom hole that had been stitched into the suit. As I watched them, I began to notice that they were also watching us. Although I couldn’t actually tell who they were looking at, the most likely reason was that they had spotted Aunt Hayami—this wouldn’t be the first time that someone had recognised her in public. I turned my head for the first time to look at the group with my real eyes. In an odd display of timing, the blue-skinned man glanced over, catching my gaze.

The two of us stared at each other for a very long time, and neither of us looked away—

“Hisoka?” Nanami said, “Hey—stop ignoring me, dummy.”

I broke eye contact with the narrow-eyed man and turned to face her, putting the other group entirely out of my mind.

“Sorry, Nanami,” I said, “What did you say?”

#

Beach, Musutafu.

“It feels like forever since I’ve actually been to the beach,” Uncle Sajin said, “I’d forgotten just how much the proximity to so much sand improves my range—everything feels so effortless down here.”

I nodded in agreement as Uncle Sajin waved his hand in an arc, and a wave of sand twisted up before solidifying into a hyper-detailed mess of overlapping buildings—a cross-section of Musutafu rendered in miniature scale, with a tidal wave looming high over it all. I attempted to match it, but while the flat rectangular faces of the buildings were easy to manage, the addition of so many little details was still beyond me.

“You’re getting better,” Uncle Sajin said with interest. “You’ll get there in a few years—it’s just practice at this point.”

The sand tsunami crashed down onto the city, burying it in an instant, and nothing was left behind except a flat expanse of sand. I tried to copy the manipulation, bringing the wave up to crash down onto the city in slow motion, but the timing was off, and all of the buildings fell apart before they got hit by anything. Uncle Sajin gave a happy laugh at the sight of it and then set out to create a series of increasingly complex scenes for me to attempt. I managed to mimic most of them, but each of my attempts grew worse as he stepped up the complexity of his own until I was forced to send a tidal wave crashing into his latest one in quiet protest. We ended up creating a pair of humanoids to fight it out right there on the beach, but it was a lopsided battle—my rough, stilted and blank-faced mannequin was unable to make much ground against the perfect-to-scale replica of All Might. Eventually, I let my badly damaged figure fall to the ground in defeat while his own stood triumphantly over it, smiling wide in its stolen pose.

“Are they usually this late?” Uncle Sajin asked.

“They have been late a couple of times,” I said. “But not this much.”

“I’ll have to tell Hayami to buy you a phone,” Uncle Sajin said, pulling at his moustache in thought. “You don’t know their number, do you?”

I lifted my hand up until my palm was facing the sky and then used my sand to write the sequence of memorised numbers out in the air. Uncle Sajin nodded at my efforts in acknowledgement before bringing out his phone. He tapped the numbers in and then pressed it up to his cheek—

“Instant voicemail,” Uncle Sajin said, eyeing it for a moment. “They are probably just driving; I’ll try again in a couple of minutes.”

“Okay,” I agreed.

There was a beat of silence before Uncle Sajin lifted his own hand up, and the words ‘strength and perseverance’ wrote themselves out in the air—the raised eyebrow was all the encouragement I needed to try and replicate it.

“It’s like clockwork, huh?” Uncle Sajin said, “All these holidays that she’s going on—Hayami seems happier, so I can’t really fault her.”

That really had been the agreement that they had come to. Aunt Hayami wanted to take some time for herself, and Uncle Sajin was willing to help out more to make it happen. From what I had gathered, he had been forced to pull back on his work hours to look after me whenever she went away—he had never said anything about it, but I had a feeling that Uncle Sajin was more upset about the loss of work hours then he really admitted to.

“Sorry, Uncle Sajin,” I murmured. “If I was older, I could look after myself, and you wouldn’t have to spend so much time away from work.”

Uncle Sajin reached out and put his hand on my shoulder before shaking his head.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Hisoka.” Uncle Sajin said, “I should have been around more after your parents died, and that’s on me, not you—you’re a kid; you don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

I wasn’t really sure how to respond, so I stayed silent and continued my efforts to write out the Higawara family motto.

“Katashi was my brother too, so I shouldn’t have left taking care of you entirely up to Hayami—that was selfish of me,” Uncle Sajin said, “But I’m here now, and I don’t have plans of going anywhere, okay?”

“Okay,” I agreed.

“Good,” Uncle Sajin said, “I’m going to try calling them again.”

It had been a few minutes since the last attempt, but they still didn’t pick up, and Uncle Sajin was frowning now.

“They might have forgotten about coming,” I said.

“They would have still answered the phone if that was the case,” Uncle Sajin said, “Who’s number is this?”

“Kana,” I said.

“Do you know their landline?” Uncle Sajin asked.

I did, but it simply rang out without an answer and brought us no closer to figuring out why they hadn’t shown up.

“I know they drive that little silver car,” Uncle Sajin said, eyeing the mostly empty parking space nearby. “Do you know their address—then let’s go see if they’re at home.”

#

Higawara Manor, Musutafu.

Hiroshi, Kana and Nanami hadn’t been at home, but their car had been parked in the driveway. Neither Kana nor Hiroshi had answered their mobile phones over the course of the next two days. I hadn’t really understood how big of a problem it was at the time. At first, I had assumed that they had done what Aunt Hayami always did and that they had gone on a holiday, just without telling anyone first. I had also assumed that they would return whenever they were finished doing whatever people did on those—but that wasn’t what happened. Hiroshi Kureta, Kana Kureta and Nanami Kureta were officially declared missing on the 17th of March, and an investigation into their whereabouts soon started.

I found this out on the same day after Uncle Sajin had picked me up from school and then explained to me that Aunt Hayami would be cutting her trip short. We sat in the car for a long time after that as he explained everything that he had learned from the police—namely that absolutely nothing had been found. There were no cameras or footage showing them walking anywhere. There were no neighbours witnessing them leaving the house. There were no packed bags, missing clothing or vanished toiletries to indicate that they had gone somewhere. The two mobile phones, their wallets, and the keys to the car had all been inside the house. There were no notes to indicate where they might have gone and no signs of forced entry to the house.

Nanami had been at school on Friday—I knew because I’d had lunch with her—but she hadn’t returned to school after the failed trip to the beach. The three of them had simply vanished without a trace. Nanami’s absence had been noticed, and the news had already made its way through the school. I’d already overheard several nasty comments about ‘the psychopath’ having done something to her—something which heralded the first time I could remember feeling angry. The social ostracization, the unfair accusations, the lack of any new information about their whereabouts—and worst of all, there was no Nanami to talk to about any of it. All of it was starting to build up inside of me, and instead of breaking my promise to Aunt Hayami and Principal Kazu by lashing out at someone, I went to Uncle Sajin.

Our quirk practice and my Muay Thai lessons became much more frequent—an outlet that only resulted in sore legs and a beaten-up bag of sand. It did nothing to dispel the anger; instead, it just left me feeling tired and lost. When Hayami finally returned from her aborted holiday, I’d cried again, and she had joined me.

#

Higawara Manor, Musutafu.

An entire month had passed since Nanami had vanished, and nothing new had been learned about the situation. Aunt Hayami was acting strange, talking to me more frequently, asking me how I was feeling at any given moment, and requesting that I spend more time with her doing things like watching movies or going to hobby groups. In turn, my practice sessions with Uncle Sajin increased in frequency once again, and my best guess was that they were attempting to fill the space I usually spent with Nanami with something else in an effort to distract me.

My days at school were spent in silence, no longer interacting with any of the other students unless the class required it, and I’d begun spending my nights looking up anything that I could find about missing persons on the internet. I’d learned many facts about both abductions and the victims of the crime, but the one that seemed most relevant was that in the last fifty years, there had been more and more of them occurring. The primary causes of those missing persons were dementia in the elderly; the second was custodial battles over children, where one of the parents illegally removed the child from the legal guardian somehow. Neither of those seemed applicable to Nanami’s specific case, but the third and fourth most common reasons—quirk trafficking, and human trafficking respectively—might have been.

Nanami had a useful quirk and one that many people had said was amazing, it was therefore possible that someone had taken her for that very reason. As soon as I had realised it, I had gone to Uncle Sajin to tell him and he had assured me that it was the very first thing that the police had looked into. He had also told me that I should be focusing on my schoolwork and that, as a child, this kind of detective work wasn’t something I should be trying to get involved in. I had felt silly for all of ten minutes before it occurred to me that Uncle Sajin had known the most likely reason for Nanami’s disappearance for some unknown amount of time, and he hadn’t made any attempt to share it with me.

Though I understood that he had probably avoided saying anything in order to protect me, I couldn’t stand the thought of being denied access to the same information that everyone else had. I didn’t stop looking, and if anything, I started devoting more of my time to working out exactly what else they might have discovered and what I might not be aware of—and through it all, that anger continued to fester.

#

Higawara Manor, Musutafu.

When I returned home from school, I found that Aunt Hayami was lying half on the kitchen table, her face pressed into her arms as she cried. Uncle Sajin was seated beside her, his linked hands resting against his forehead; he sat up when I entered the room.

“Hisoka, we have some things to tell you, and you aren’t going to enjoy them,” Uncle Sajin said, voice gentle. “Please, come sit down.”

The tone of voice was enough for me to realise that something had gone wrong, and while Aunt Hayami did sometimes cry, it hadn’t ever been like this. I sat down beside him, studying his face in an attempt to preemptively discover what he might say—

“Five days ago, Hiroshi Kureta was found washed up on a beach several hours away from here at a small port city,” Uncle Sajin said, “They are still investigating, but it’s believed that he died in the middle of March—the cause of which was drowning.”

I stared at him without comment, fists clenched tight as something horrible inside of me shifted in response to the words—there were so many questions passing through my mind, and I was having trouble bringing myself to ask any of them.

“The police, along with multiple heroes, have been searching the area since he was found. Four days ago, they located the body of Kana Kureta; she was—in a similar state,” Uncle Sajin said, voice careful. “The search is continuing, and Nanami’s body has yet to be found but—I’m sorry, Hisoka.”

Hiroshi and Kana were dead, and that meant that I would never be able to hear their voices again, see their faces, or watch them scold Nanami for her bad manners. Hiroshi and Kana were dead—but Nanami was missing, and that meant that she was still alive.

“How did they get there?” I asked.

“We don’t know,” Uncle Sajin said, “They didn’t drive, and there are no transactions on any of their accounts to say they bought anything on the way, no tickets for boats or any other form of transit.”

Aunt Hayami, still crying, pushed herself up, half-lunged-half-stumbled in my direction, and then wrapped her arms around me. I didn’t move; my hands still fisted beneath the table, and though I clenched my jaw tight, it did nothing to stop the stinging in my eyes.

“It’s going to be okay, Hisoka—” Aunt Hayami managed, “It’s going to be okay.”

“The search is going to continue for another week at most,” Uncle Sajin said, “If Nanami isn’t found in that time, the team handling it will disassemble, and she will be declared officially deceased.”

Aunt Hayami shuddered against my back, but her hold on me only seemed to tighten. I couldn’t understand how they could possibly declare that without finding her first. Without her body, they had absolutely zero proof that she was dead—so how could they give up after only a week of looking?

“Who did this?” I asked.

“We don’t know; there is nothing to indicate how they ended up where they were found, nor was anything learned from the bodies that would explain why,” Uncle Sajin said, sounding genuinely frustrated. “The case is cold, and unless we can find Nanami—no, even if we do find her, it’s unlikely that we will be able to catch the ones responsible.”

That sounded a whole lot like they were going to stop trying, and I couldn’t think of a single thing in my entire life that I hated more than the idea of giving up on Nanami.

#

Park, Musutafu.

Uncle Sajin’s prediction of the outcome of the investigation had been exact, but for the first time, I found myself wishing that he had been wrong. The investigation had continued for almost the entire week, and a lot of it was publicised. There was footage, articles, and everything else in between spread across the news, the internet, and even the radio. A tip line had been established, and the extensive news coverage—along with the reward that Aunt Hayami had posted—had resulted in tens of thousands of people calling in. Almost all of the tips had been useless, according to Uncle Sajin, who had remained entwined with the case all the way to the end of it.

Nanami’s body hadn’t been found, and the investigation had been brought to an abrupt finish. The state of the two bodies that had been found was bad enough that they had never even reached the cemetery. Aunt Hayami had helped pay for the funeral out of her own pocket, and all three of us had attended. There had been far more people at the funeral than I had realised would be there; Hiroshi and Kana had been well-liked in their respective social circles, and what must have been half of Musutafu Elementary was in attendance. I had never expected to see so many people crying at once or in one place, but it was just further evidence that Uncle Sajin was correct. In the aftermath of the funeral, I’d had my first real argument with Aunt Hayami.

I told her that she had made a mistake, and as I had expected, she hadn’t taken it very well. That was a conclusion I had managed to arrive at long before I had decided to say the words, but this time, I felt like I had to say them. It was true that there were times when I didn’t need to point out a mistake when I saw it, and there were times when it was okay to let people think the wrong thing, even when I knew the truth was different. But there were also times when I couldn’t stand the thought of allowing it to go unsaid. I’d made her cry again, which wasn’t something that I had wanted, but it was something I had expected. Watching her cry hadn’t helped soothe the anger or quell the pain; it had only enhanced it by adding another layer of pressure on top of everything else.

Rather than witness the pain I had caused her, I had run away from the house, entirely on my own and long after dark—something that was definitely against the rules. There was a high probability that I would find myself grounded for doing it, but right now, I couldn’t seem to find a reason to care because a month inside my room was now no different than a month outside of it. Nanami was missing, and just like the police, the news reporters and the public at large, they had given up on her. I didn’t care that there wasn’t any evidence to show that she was alive. I didn’t care that the most obvious conclusion to this entire thing was that Nanami had drowned in the ocean alongside her parents. Nobody had seen her body, and so nobody knew that for sure. Nanami wasn’t dead, and so Aunt Hayami had made a mistake—there should have only been two headstones at the cemetery, but instead, there had been three.

#

Park, Musutafu.

The park was different at night, drenched in the light of the moon and by that contrast, it sent shadows twisting about—Nanami wouldn’t have liked it like this, I was sure. But I would have gladly accepted any amount of tears if it meant that I got to see her again. Nanami wasn’t dead, but she wasn’t here either. She was somewhere else, and nobody was looking for her. None of it made any kind of sense to me. Almost everyone who had been at the funeral had been crying, and that had to mean that almost everyone missed her. So how did anyone expect her to come home if they didn’t keep looking?

Hiroshi and Kana wouldn’t have stopped looking, I was sure, and if someone had asked me a month ago, I could have said—without even having to stop and think first—that Aunt Hayami wouldn’t have either. It only took Uncle Sajin fifteen minutes to find me, which might have been an expression of his skills as a hero, his understanding of me or perhaps just a testament to how few places held any meaning for me. I felt the sand he was using to enhance his mobility like a beacon in the night before he slid to a stop on the grass at the edge of the park. I didn’t turn to look at him, my entire focus on my next attempt to bring some semblance of Nanami back to life—there was something off about the way her hair fell around her face, and it bothered me that I couldn’t remember exactly how it had sat before. I should have brought the picture with me.

“You’ve been practising a lot,” Uncle Sajin said, “This is much better than last time.”

Uncle Sajin was now leaning against the legs of the swing set, his arms crossed loosely over his chest. Some ingrained instinct almost caused me to turn around to face him while he was speaking, but I didn’t want to take my eyes off Nanami, so I simply watched them both from two different points of perspective.

“It’s still not right,” I murmured.

Uncle Sajin pushed off the metal frame and came to sit on the swing beside me—it was an odd sight, seeing such a large man in a swing that was usually reserved for kids. We sat in silence for several minutes as I attempted to fix the mistake I’d made, and in which he made a few quiet suggestions on how to improve it.

“Hayami is very worried about you,” Uncle Sajin said in the same casual tone. “Running off in the middle of the night is a dangerous thing, Hisoka—especially after what just happened.”

I knew, somewhere in the back of my mind, that he was right and that I was putting myself at risk by going off alone like this—but I just couldn’t get the image of the headstones out of my mind.

“I shouldn’t have said anything,” I murmured. “It was a mistake.”

“Hisoka, the problem here isn’t that you said something; you’re allowed to express what you are feeling,” Uncle Sajin said, “Arguments are going to happen, and nobody is perfect, but running off like this isn’t a good solution to the problem.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“I know you are, but you’re still just a kid,” Uncle Sajin said, turning his eyes up to the sky above. “There’s going to be more moments like this as you get older.”

Moments like this? Arguments, tears, or people vanishing from my life without explanation? Moments like standing in a cemetery on a warm, sunny day with strangers in black clothes and unused umbrellas? Moments like watching my Aunt Hayami’s face twist in hurt as I told her she had given up on Nanami too quickly. Moments like sitting in an empty, worthless park without the only thing that had given it any meaning? Uncle Sajin had never said it outright, but it was clear to me now that he had never believed that Nanami was coming back.

“Uncle Sajin,” I said, voice quiet. “Do you ever make mistakes?”

“Of course I have, Hisoka,” Uncle Sajin said, “I’ve made so many mistakes over the years that I’ve stopped keeping count.”

Uncle Sajin seemed to take the question as something else entirely because when he spoke up, it was something I hadn’t expected.

“I ran away from home a lot when I was a teenager,” Uncle Sajin said before letting out a quiet laugh. “Hayami ran away once, but it was a whole dramatic kind of thing—just like her, right?”

“Aunt Hayami ran away?” I murmured.

Uncle Sajin smiled at the interest.

“Hayami, me, and your dad grew up outside of the big cities, and it took a while before we managed to acclimate to everything after we moved here,” Uncle Sajin said, “The very first day of big-city high school and Hayami gets into a massive fight with a pair of older girls—I can’t remember their names now, it was two decades ago at least.”

I could remember Aunt Hayami standing in the principal’s office, with her hands clenched into fists and her skin washing grey as her quirk activated beneath her fury—even then, it was hard to imagine her actually fighting someone.

“Hayami got suspended for throwing the first punch, and she ended up getting an earful over it from our parents,” Uncle Sajin said before smiling again. “Your dad thought it was hilarious at the time.”

I had some vague memories of my parents, but most of them had already faded, and I couldn’t quite remember what they were like.

“Hayami lost her temper, screamed at everyone, and then locked herself in her room for the rest of the day,” Uncle Sajin said, “Lo and behold, she didn’t answer the door when we were sent to get her for dinner, and when we finally got inside—Hayami was gone.”

“Where did she go?” I asked.

“We never found out, and she never told us,” Uncle Sajin admitted, “She came waltzing back in the next morning, looking way too pleased with herself.”

“Do you think that will work for me?” I wondered.

“It’s like clockwork, huh?” Uncle Sajin said, smiling. “Hayami is more worried than mad, so you two can just hug it out and then everything will go back to normal.”

I fell silent at the words—the idea that Aunt Hayami wouldn’t be mad at me forever was a reassuring one, but the notion that everything would be back to normal was nothing more than a thinly veiled deception. I returned my attention to the statue, and for a long minute, the two of us sat in silence.

“Hisoka,” Uncle Sajin said into the silence. “I’m going to ask you to promise me something again.”

It might have been because my mind had already been shifting through all of the possible outcomes of my decision to run away since I’d arrived at the park, but I had been waiting for something like this—and for the first time in my life, I felt distinctly uncomfortable with what he might ask of me.

“A lot has happened recently, and I know how overwhelming it can be, but all of this is only temporary,” Uncle Sajin said, “I want you to do your best to put all of the bad stuff out of your mind, and try to focus on your school work—can you promise me?”

It wasn’t that far removed from all of the other promises that he had asked from me over the years, and it wasn’t even that difficult of a request. It even matched quite well with what Takeda Yasunari had been telling me to do during our sessions at school. Put all of the bad stuff out of my mind, focus on school work and let everything just return to normal. It sounded like good advice—except for the fact that Nanami was still gone, and moving on would mean that there was nobody left who was actually looking for her. I watched him for a long moment, studying his face in the moonlight—and then I let the imperfect statue of Nanami Kureta fall apart.

“Yes, Uncle Sajin,” I said. “I promise.”

Uncle Sajin reached out and clapped a hand on my shoulder, a smile coming to rest on his face like it always did when I agreed to his promises. I wouldn’t realise it until years later, but this was one of the most defining moments of my life—it was the first lie I could ever remember telling, but it would be far from the last.