When Izuku startles to awareness, he finds himself seated at a table with a bowl of soup placed in front of him. The bowl is half-empty and there is a spoon in his hand. He sets the spoon down, trying to remember what he was doing just prior to this but his memory comes up blank.
Well, it appears he was in the middle of eating some soup. Izuku looks into the bowl, heartbeat quickening in anticipation of something. But all he sees is normal miso soup, with white cubes of tofu and clumps of seaweed half-floating, half-sinking in the brown broth. Steam is rising from the surface but it dissipates before reaching his face. Nothing out of the ordinary. ExceptâŚhe squints his eyes. Yes, there seems to be a hair in the soup, skimming the surface like a water skier bug.
He reaches for it, more out of habit than conscious choice, and plucks the hair out of the soup between his thumb and his index finger. He raises the hair to eye level, to get a better look. Itâs green, the same shade of green as his own hair. Long, too. Almost the length of his forearm. Too long to belong to himâŚ
He drops it. Drops it like it was the end of a burning match. He stands and the room reverberates with the crack the chair makes as it hits the floor. He nearly stumbles and trips over it, in his haste to get as much distance between him and the table as humanly possible.
He cries out, out of relief or pain he isnât sure, when he rams his back into a doorknob. It feels like someone pressing a gun to his spine but it is an escape. He fumbles to grab hold of it all while keeping his eyes glued to the table, to the bowl, as if it could somehow leap out and attack him.
When he gets his hand firmly around the knob and it turns without resistance (oh, thank god, thank god), thereâs tears in his eyes. He has to get out of here and find his mom. He has to make sure sheâs alright. She must be alright. She canât beâ
âLeaving so soon, Izuku? Not hungry?â
Run, screams his mind. Run now, while he still has a chance. But his legs will not cooperate. His feet are rooted to the floor. His head turns towards the source of the voice, no more able to resist its tug than the sailor could resist the sirenâs song, leading him to his doom.
âHey, son,â he says, dressed to the nines and leaning against the counter like he owns the whole place and everything in it. âLong time, no see.â
âWhat are you doing here?â Â
âHow did you find us?â
The questions ring in his head, as loudly as if he had shouted them at the top of his lungs, but the words are drowned out by a rising swell of nausea that will not be held back.
His body wretches convulsively, helplessly, and forces him down on all fours in its desperate attempt to expel whatever foul thing is sitting in his stomach. Out, out, out. Burning a track up his throat, through his mouth and coating his tongue, his teeth and the hardware floor in a thick, acidic sludge.Â
More long, green hairs lie in the puke. A whole clump of them, like theyâd been pulled straight from the shower drain.
âAw, poor little thing, you made a mess,â his father teases, sounding entirely too gleeful.
Izuku spots his own reflection in his fatherâs polished shoes. The man had taken the opportunity to come closer, too close. From Izukuâs angle, he looks like a giant, as huge as he once appeared to his three-year self.
âMomâyou bastardâwhere isââ Izuku barely manages to choke out the words before another wave of revulsion hits.
âSurely, you figured that much out yourself.â His father laughs, a full-belly laughter. Heâs enjoying this. âOr did you honestly think I would ever let her live after what she did to me? What she did because of you, my Izuku?â Â
Itâs only then that he catches sight of something incongruously shiny amidst the greasy ratâs nest of undigested hair. A golden band with a large diamond set in it. A ring. No, not just any ring. His momâs wedding ring. Oh god, oh god, oh god.Â
He canât hold it in anymore. Izuku screams, both inside his dream and out of it.
Izuku has nightmares about being forced-feed people by father and is dead certain heâd kill his mom, what if I combined those two things?
