𝐀𝐫𝐜 𝐈 | bnha

glass Buddha

She dreamed of her room at home, the Buddha sitting on the windowsill and glinting in afternoon light, a rosary sitting on her nightstand and swaying, the prayer beads tapping out a quiet tune, a Wiccan incense holder on her desk that still smelled of curling smoke.

She'd never truly thought about what she believed in, she was too wrapped up in whatever thought had seized her whole, throwing her into a fit of activity.

But here, covered beneath the thin sheet of sleep and cheap hospital sheets, her mind was sluggish and calm. So she tried to dream of divinity, of golden ichor and crumbling statues, of hands stained with pomegranate.

Instead the hands were only stained with blood. 

Instead, she dreamt of demons.

She woke up. 

(contrary to popular belief, waking up from a nightmare isn't a flurry of cold sweat and waving limbs, of gasping breath and stained eyelids; its like coming up for air. for a moment the world is blurry and it feels as if you're still trapped below. but then your breathing steadies, your heart slows.

and then the shaking starts.)

Hitoshi must have left a little while ago, as someone else fills the vacant space he left behind.

"Hey," her father says and he smells like stale coffee and printer ink. (Y/n) fidgets, twisting the polyester sheets of her hospital bed between her fingers. Her hands start to smell like bleach.

"Hey," she responds, and it feels like her throat is a desert. Her father leans forwards and his fingers lace around a disposable coffee cup, the contents long gone.

"The doctors told me you got pneumonia." His tone is soft. Her hands are still fidgeting with the sheets and her eyes are fixed on some point, some thing he cannot see. Something that likely only exists in her thoughts for a moment as her mind races, races like it always does.

(her father never knows what to do. they are less father and daughter and more two spectres tied to one another that only leave fleeting images, disappearing whispers. it started when she burst into his office one day, her voice crumbling and fracturing. "papa is dead," she said, with a look in her eyes like crushed glass. "the news- the-" she noticed someone else in the room, someone she knew; a tired man that no longer reeked of drowning sorrow in a bottle. she said something else then, but her ears rang and she couldn't remember what it was.

she never was the same. she had that look in her eyes so often, the look of crushed glass.)

(Y/n) finally looks up at him and her hands still, if only for a moment. "There's something else."

There's something else. She knows he hates it when she reads him, but its hardwired into her. His heartbeat quickens a hair and his is breathing off when he's apprehensive.

"There's something else," he agrees.

"Work?" He nods. "Where is it this time?" His mouth twists and his foot almost starts to tap.

"Hosu. A hero agency needs some help with an investigation." The name bounces around in her mind. She'd- she'd heard something about Hosu. She couldn't quite remember, though. Her eyes narrow, her lips pressing together as she fumbled blindly through her memory, grasping at nothing. God, she needed coffee.

"I'll visit you if I get the chance." He grins at her, though its a little worn, like his rumbled clothes he likely hadn't changed in a few days. 

"Sure. Just make sure you stay away from alleyways and-"

"-Bring pepperspray. Though anyone would regret messing with me." Her smile is almost genuine.

"Don't get arrested." Her father rises to his feet and starts to the door.

Hosu.

The name whispers at her back and her eyes widen. That's why she recognized it.

"The Hero Killer," she says and her father stops with the door half-open. "That's the investigation you're helping with, isn't it?" His elevated heartbeat is the only answer she needs. "Be careful, please." He looks back and she can see him; pro hero Cosmic, before the years weighed down his bones and the heartache crushed his spirit.

He smiles brightly and responds. "I always am."