MINIMAL [s.hitoshi & k.denki]

eight

Denki knows he's generous; spending time just for photos with fans or buying coffee for his coworkers. He keeps caramel and chocolate candies in his pocket just for the nicer kids or for people feeling down, and buy donuts when he, himself isn't in the best mood.

It doesn't matter to him though, because the small 'thank you' or smile makes it so rewarding and he can go about his day.

Today is simple for him, almost neutral and not that exciting.

Denki's sneakers are laced as he burns an incense stick at a small shrine; praying to a framed picture of a blonde woman, smile matching with the glittering in her eyes. She looks just like the blonde man praying to her, yet there's an age to her that makes them so different. A shined gold urn is seated beside the photo, yet Denki only smiles at it and bows his head; imagining her hand atop his hair. Some ohagi is set in a small plate in front of the picture, freshly procured from a bakery that he stopped at.

He spends hours just praying.

His older sister had always liked matcha mochi way better, but Denki knew that her carnivorous cravings wouldn't dare turn down any sight of food. Perhaps he got his speedy metabolism from her.

Next, he sits in the living room reviewing all the work he'll have to prepare for next week, signing contracts and meditating. Just some celebrity appearances and a few miscellaneous meetings, nothing too crazy. Letters from former teachers of Shiketsu academy, congratulating him for ranking up into the top 100 heroes— former hero "Battery" scolding his older student for copying one of his attack moves.

It's like an eternity passes by when he finds the strength to finally pick himself up from his paperwork strewn atop the kohatsu and begin to find some food, focused on satisfying the crazy amount of growls and twists from his stomach as he sighed. The clock on his fridge read three-fifty three in the morning as he peeled a banana, chomping into it quite aggressively.

The murder trial for Kaminari Kanae was a long time ago, the event barely occurring during Denki's first year of Shiketsu Academy; the day before his written Hero Exam. His older sister chucked the black uniform hat atop his head, a loving smile on her lips as she told him 'good luck'. That'd be the last time he would hear her voice, smiling gently.

He'd need it, because he didn't expect to come back home and see his bedridden mother grieving at the patio steps— officers consoling her and the horrendous scent of what Denki would smell at the butcher's shop.

The investigators had told him and his mother that her body parts weren't in one piece, fingers sawed off almost expertly, torso missing, and one of her ears..

Denki misses Kanae, but he knows that she would slap him front and back if he was still mourning over her, because the youngest Kaminari can still hear her laugh it off and say what she'd usually say;

"It's fine Denks," she would smile and hold her younger brother closer, "why? Because we still have each other!"

Technically.. he does still have her, though hugging a cold metal urn is much different than holding an actual person. Denki remembers the judge allowing him to speak face-to-face with the murderer; some random nobody that decided that Kanae would be his victim, not even knowing her.

The blonde boy leans into the marble counter, slumping once he realized how angry he sounded; screaming and scolding the man in handcuffs, the man in an orange uniform. Denki still had on his Shiketsu uniform on— his mother clutching the uniform cap close to her chest as she stood beside her only child left, drained of tears and too heartbroken to speak.

"Do you realize what you've done! Do you?" Denki had screamed, he remembers grabbing the urn, slamming it in front of him. "I can't hold my sister anymore! I can't say that I love her! Why? Because you took her away!"

"No right to, you had no damn right!"

"I have to hold this cold, metal container and imagine that she's there! Imagine that she's still alive to say that she loves me back! That she loves mom, that she loves everyone!"

"But no, you took that! And you had no FUCKING right!"

Denki sighs, shaking his head as if it'll rid of his despair— before feeling his phone rattle, a strange contact on the screen.

"Yeah," he's interrupted by a yawn, "Kaminari here."