EXTRAS: Story Expansions

🧡 Twice the Night Before Christmas 🎄

⏩ Part Two:

You know, I actually had a fairly happy childhood. It wasn't until my teen years where everything went downhill.

Things were fine for my family in the beginning. It was just me and my two parents for a while. My mom had been going to night classes during most of my childhood to get her degree in architecture. My dad, well...he was his own case.

He was one of those guys who hated Quirks. I wasn't sure if there was a legitimate reason, and I sure never asked him. He just couldn't stand the "unlevel playing field" as he called it. My mom was Quirkless, though she carried the gene. That's how I ended up with my power, Replicate, when I was four.

This caused a huge riff between me and Dad. Anytime I used my power to copy toys, spoons, or anything I could find, my dad put me in time-out.

"It's not natural, Washiro," Dad would say every time I was scolded for copying things. "Quirks are setting society back, and I'll be damned if I let my family add on to the problem."

My Quirk wasn't one that I could repress for very long. There are some powers that need to be used, or they cause drawbacks. I had a cousin with a Fire Quirk, and if he never used it, he would overheat. Mine was similar, forcing me to use it before it used itself. When my dad was around, and I couldn't use my Quirk, I noticed a pattern in my speech. Since I was little and I was asked to refrain from using my power, I found myself repeating words or phrases, as if Replicate began replicating the things I said. The truth was it had all been because my dad hated my Quirk.

Yeah, he was an ass. Though, he was still my dad, and that's why Mom and I didn't push him on his beliefs. He labeled himself a good person for being able to stick around his family despite the fact that I was an example of everything wrong with the world, and my Mom carried the genes for it. We were mess ups, and he praised himself for being able to love us.

It wasn't until years later when everything fell apart. Early December, six years ago, mom and dad were about to have another baby, and it was time for the last ultrasound. When the doctors showed them the X-ray of their youngest, they found something peculiar. My little sibling would soon be one of few people in the world born with a Quirk, and not one she could hide, a mutation.

My dad was livid. He raged to us for hours about how we needed to hide my baby sister's mutation. My mom was done taking it though, saying he needed to grow up or get out, and for a while, they just didn't talk about it.

Christmas Eve, and my mom brought a baby girl into the world, one with bright orange hair and blue eyes just like me, and webbed fingers and toes like a starfish. From the first time I saw her, I couldn't have been happier, thinking my sister was the coolest thing ever. My mom wouldn't let go of her for a minute, wanting to hug onto her youngest baby forever. We both just wished my dad felt the same way.

He took one look at her when we brought her home from the hospital then went to bed. Mom didn't dare bother him, and I stayed with my new sister, Kanokoa, all night. We thought his mood would pass. However, when we woke up the next day, Dad was gone and it was the last we ever saw of him.

Years passed. Kanokoa grew into her nickname Koko quite well, being a rambunctious and curious little girl that Mom and I watched grow up. Mom did get her degree, but she still struggled to find a stable job. I then got accepted into the best school in the nation for Support, and we got by just fine. I didn't need my dad around, and I didn't need a holiday that reminded Mom and Koko of why he bailed.

Back to my life at UA, I wasn't able to ignore the reminders of the seasons while I decorated the gym with my class.

"Hello, I'm up here," Rose snapped her metal fingers at me after I zoned out. I recentered myself with my surroundings, noticing how I had zoned out after looking at the Christmas ornament in my hands.