tepid golem.

      calming their father’s ire was not unlike the practice of putting one’s head inside an alligator’s mouth - their mother toed the line between caressing the alligator’s glistening sharp teeth and getting her skull cracked open every time she bared endeavor’s gaze. those eyes,   blue eyes,   made her flinch every time they landed on her. 

     touya’s eyes are the same color. he had made her tremble once,   staring at her. you look so much like your father,   she had said,   apologetic. he doesn’t think she was talking about something as trivial as the color of eyes or his jawline,   though. ( he wishes he knew,   dearly. he’d rip whatever it was from his flesh. ) “   wha - what did you say?   “ he had gone so still that his muscles ripple beneath skin. he’s absolutely frigid. “   i’m not. i’m not anything like him!   “ his voice is a shriek,   a tea kettle screaming the void. he is his mother and he is his father and all he knows is to cower and to bite. 

     he is trembling just as his mother used to,   cigarette burning away on the ground now. his heart beats like his thin fists against a closet door. smoke pillows out between the gapes of his scars. he couldn’t burn brighter,   even doused in kerosene. “   you - you take that back! take it back, shouto!   “ touya buries his hands into his own hair. yanks. the cry leaves his throat before he can stop it,   rabid. 

sickening  as  the  sound  of  cracking  bones,  a  part  of  him  inherently  similar  to  what  he’s  highlighted  in  touya  blooms.  the  ugliest  version  of  himself  creaks  open  the  door  and  peeks  through.  it  relishes  in  the  his  words  sinking  hilt - deep  into  its  target,  lethal.

it whispers  i  could  have  been  just  like  you,  when  i  was  younger  i  wanted  to.  speaks  through  him,  fueled  by  the  rage  of  abandonment,  the  cruelness  of  his  own  pain  used  as  a  weapon,  “ you  are  just  a  worse  version  of  him.  corrupted  by  vengeance  and  lacking  substance.  at  least  he  saves  people.  he  ruined  so  much,  and  drove  mother  mad  and  he  hurt  us  or  neglected  us  and  i  make  no  apologies  on  his  behalf  because  i  myself  WON'T  ACCEPT  THAT  HE  DESERVES  TO  BE  ABSOLVED  FOR  THAT  but  at  least  he  stayed.  he  is  trying  to  change  and  maybe  we  haven’t  forgiven  him  but  the  effort... that  should  be  worth  something,  if  not  enough. ”  

swords  in  the  pit  of  his  belly,  shouto  burns.  this,  too,  is  worse  for  it  is  true  and  wholly  unfair,  equally.  it  is  complicated,  the  pain  and  damage  is  personal,  shouto  knows  that.  still,  he  can’t  let  it  go.  hatred  may  be  the  reason  but  it  is  not  an  excuse.  “ i  needed  you — where  were  you? ”  

 their  paths  have  differed  greatly  and  shouto  is  no  stranger  to  the  fact  that  it  has  less  to  do  with  who  he  is  and  almost  everything  to  do  with  the  fact  that  he  was  born  in  their  father’s  correct  image.  he  had  the  right  potential,  not  the  better  one.  subsequent — he  got  lucky.  there  are  people  outside  his  family  that  showed  him  vengeance  wasn’t  the  only  option.  success  didn’t  always  mean  someone  else  had  to  suffer,  it  could  inspire  instead.  still,  shouto  aches.  be  better,  do  better.

     he carries this heart like broken glass,   tenderly for another reason other than tenderness - careful not to slice himself open. he carries this heart like a dying lamb,   screeching/singing into the dark. “   i hate.   “ present tense. this heartbeat echoes the emptiness. “   i hate him.   “ this body grows ash/grows decay/used to grow skin. this body isn’t a garden. this body is rot. this body of - myriad scars plague festering rat without a mouth. “   i hate him,   “ he says again,   to himself. 

     this is his mantra for existence. 

     “   i hate him more than i love any of you.   “ and that’s - not quite right. he’s falling apart by skin by limb by blood,   sweet as cherry wine. it fills his throat bitter. 

     he puts another cigarette between his lips. lights it and takes a deep drag. “   it’s a funny thing,   see - i tried to love,   and love,   and love. i loved you and fuyumi and natsuo. i loved mom. i even loved father,   sometimes,   i think.   “ haven’t you ever thought about how those families feel? “   i loved and i thought round and round and round,   trying to make sense of what father did to us.    “ give him a four letter word for insanity. he takes another drag of his cigarette and blows the smoke at shoto’s face. 

     “   i thought so hard about it,   i went crazy.   “

       awful,  the way shouto wishes.  for something small in the truth.  an explanation,  an apology.  a reason,  even,  to hate their father again.  anything to hold onto,  anything not to believe what seemed true.

      tell me it wasn’t a choice you made.  to leave me behind.  to give up on your promises,  knowing exactly what would happen.  tell me he made you do it.  

      he almost clings to the present tense of words that follow whispers  —  until those sink deeper,  form meaning.  shouto loosens his grip on the i love and hears the full intention of the sentiment.  fragile hope,  melting half - way to the ground before it has the dream to build upon itself.  oh,  so much worse in the wake of an almost.

          “ you sound just like him, ”  shouto mystifies.   breath,  exhaled,  expelling smoke into steam.  heat,  threatening within the confines of his binding.  the words replay,  intrusive,  wounding.  over,  over,  over,  again,  continually.  he gasps a sound near laughter but tilted,  sadder for the smirk that graces his face;  for the sharpness of two - toned eyes mid - realization.

“ you want to beat him so badly that you hurt the people you love to do it.  how is that different from father’s ambition to beat all might?  fueled by hate — pretending you are the righteous one.  tell me touya,  how are you any different than him?  you’re exactly the same. ”  

     cold widens the dark. it hides his flinch - a minuscule twitch of his fingers,   nails digging into the gap between scar tissue and unblemished skin. a drop of his blood lands on the ground,   devoured by shadow. he thinks that’s how he’s always existed - the earth drinking his blood. one day it’ll eat even the sinew of him and pick it’s teeth with his ribs. 

     he wants to deny it. he wasn’t leaving them but saving himself! but - but. “   yeah. yeah,   i left you.   “ he was always good at hurting people,   even if he didn’t mean to. he’s his father’s son,   after all. he’d try to become the one who ate rather than being eaten. he dragged himself out of the stomach with broken fingernails,   crawled to the heart. 

     ate the heart. 

     a wound reopens. ( there will always be a part of him that’s kind. his fingers are thin things. better suited for flower petals. ) “   do you hate me,   little shoto?   “

        how quickly the extremes reach out to grasp in their family.  there is so little in between love and hate that for the longest time shouto believed them the same thing.  it was touya,  wasn’t?  who taught him they could be.  

       maybe  —  but no,  no,  not really.  hate is too simple,  the swell in his chest is a tornado,  the feeling split between the white and black,  a  muddled pink.  after all,  duality is what he was breed to be.  “ i don’t know you anymore, ”  painful honesty,  non-answer.  he’d wanted to be him,  back then.  “ i hated him,  instead. ”  past tense.  “ hated the parts of me that were like him. ”  it got easier when mom left,  to blame the common factors.  

       a child speaks through his mouth piece again,  less anger than the previous version,  burning hot instead of cold.  “ you left me.  there.  with him. ”  it is part accusation,  part question.  “ you knew. ”  

    eyes examine the shared blue,  the familiar halves and the scarred new.  it’s too late to matter now.  there is a version of him,  past,  sitting at the window waiting for someone who isn’t coming back.  he doesn’t know it yet but it will happen again.  

     morbidly he had begun to archive the before. 

     one. father hadn’t been warm,   per say,   but he was there. standing in doorways,   eyebrows furrowed as he wondered how he was supposed to deal with this child,   his child. he hadn’t been warm but he’d pat touya’s head awkwardly. ( that was the gentlest his father ever laid his hands on him. ) he wasn’t loving but it had been enough. two. touya had ice cold skin everywhere but his hands and when he got his quirk it ate at his arms like kindling. through his tears,   touya saw father grin wide. it was the kind of smile that belonged to a thing that ate sparrows,   and when his mom argued that his body wasn’t meant for fire,   was too weak,   father cracked bones between his straight teeth. mother’s cheek puffed up and her pale skin was left mottled in shades of purple and yellow for weeks afterwards. three. mom’s belly swelled with life three more times. the last time touya let out a stuttered gasps at the little tufts of red and white hair on his baby brother’s head. he still doesn’t know if the sigh was one of relief or of despair. he’s too scared to find out. 

     that’s - that’s enough. his panting fills the silence. his cigarette burned itself down to the filter. his lips parted an open grave. all his bones on display. that’s what he gets for thinking about a dead boy. “   i’m just a wrath in the dark.   “

FIREPROOF?  cold resistant?  shouto had always wondered what his hair would look like darkened,  his reflection older,  changed.  to see it now,  not quite him but close enough.  close enough.  lost in his own skin as if it were him instead who disappeared from a dinner table.  ( ironic,  now,  that he is. )  blood runs so hot it feels cold.  RAGE,  finally cracks in the ice of his composure.  not for being stolen but robbed — abandoned.

memories are fickle things.  they don’t heal like scrapes,  neither bruises.  they become shadows,  tucked into numbed spaces until reopened wounds remind.  remember,  remember. 

@sculpthalves​

     cigarette smoke forms into plumes of never ending tenderness - clouds in the dark. he remembers laying in the grass once saying,   look,   look ‘yumi,   that one is a frog! instead,   now his head is cushioned by the cold comfort of concrete and he’s struggling to find shapes,   however abstract,   in the aftermath of his cigarette. “   fuck.   “ his mouth taste like ash. he feels as though he is missing something. not slightly,   but the way one misses a limb after it’s been lobbed cleanly off,   the phantom pains so intense he grits his teeth. ( he had googled his name some mornings ago. he wonders if missing an identity is the same as missing a leg. lonely with just the ghost of himself. )