PLASTIC FLOWERS ( k. bakugou )

chapter 12

' a semblance of friendship '

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Weak. Yuko awoke to the word ringing on her ears like a broken record.

Weak. The taste of stale crackers lingered in mind even as she tried to wash it off with five glasses of water.

Weak. A mantra her mind had whispered to her. Over and over again. As the shower droplets slid on her skin.

Weak. Like a cacophony of diaphanous wings fluttering on her ears and splitting her head apart.

Weak. During classes, during Mathematics. When they're asked to find the cotangent and the angle of a lighthouse from a boat.

Weak. Fists clenched over white tiles and when other girls flooded the comfort room, head buried in knees inside the comfort room and palms pressed on ears as if the ringing inside her head would stop.

Weak. Hero Training. Defeated by a single blow from Aoyama during combat. Kouda had helped her up, Uraraka cheered her on and it felt great that there were friends willing to help her but an uglier part of her had whispered.

They're helping you because you need it. Because you cannot stand on your own.

Weak. Weak. Weak. Weak. Weak. Weak. Weak. Weak. Weak. Weak.
Weak. Weak. Weak. Weak. Weak.
Weak. Weak. We-

"Oi, little girl!" the owner of the noodle house calls, Mizutani Shinya (but he preferred to be called 'Owner' or 'Boss') as she stands in front of the sink, hands clenching the sponge tightly. "You okay back there?"

Yuko tries to smile but she fails so she just shrugs it off and nods. She forces her attention back to the repetitive action of cleaning the dishes. It doesn't matter. Forget it.

Move forward. She was good at that, no, she was amazing at that. She didn't even need to use expletives to show how extremely good she was at moving forward. Water under the bridge. Past is past. Forgive and forget.

Some things were meant to be. Like how the world was meant to stay on its axis, how the stars less brighter than the sun were only meant to be seen during the evening. Like how the flowers wither and die. Like the trees losing their leaves at the onslaught of fall, surviving winter and unfurling at spring. Like how she, a young girl of fifteen, Akihisa Yuko, was meant to be utterly and hopelessly weak.

Back in the first time she spent in her first year, all the people around her were considered normal, so unlike this current batch of first years with an overwhelming top hero for a teacher, with their overwhelming and unplanned quests of glory. She was the youngest in her class so any failure, mistake or misgivings, it would be attributed to her age and not her incapability to be strong.

Yuko hid in that excuse, cowered in it so when it broke and she was finally brought to where she belonged, the vulnerable flesh underneath the strong shell was torn.

Back then, she had felt something lacking within her but she wasn't at the very bottom so she dismissed it and thought that it was perfectly fine. Two seats from the very bottom was fine, she was still in the esteemed hero course, still the best of the best. She could still do it!