[𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐛𝐨𝐲]

Family traditions rarely start in your mid-50s. But good luck stopping my grandparents who sought an early retirement in the boonies of Japan. My Abuelo never shut up about his trusty axe and how long it had been since he chopped some firewood. They were itchin’ to soak themselves in blood, sweat, and tears. Somethin’ the youngins’ knew nuffin’ ‘bout. But he never got around to swinging when they finally settled into a tiny village in the mountains.

Abuela was meticulous about her crafts. And Abuelo took it upon himself to find the perfect paint hue or bristles that ‘swooshed’ when you flicked it. He had no idea what Abuela meant and I don’t either. But what he did know was how to talk to people. And, boy, did he yap. The villagers dubbed him ‘the man who really loved his wife.’

Whispers of Tanabata tickled his ears. He slammed the door open, ruined Abuela's art, and profusely apologized. After the dust settled, he challenged her to a tanzaku-off. They each took a slip of paper — his green, hers red — and made a wish.

Abuelo never stood a chance.

She was a professional. And he was madly in love.

Year after year, he challenged her, hiding his tanzaku until they arrived at the festival. Even if it looked like a kid made it, Abuela was proud of his work.

It’s been two years since he’s passed. She’s traveled to the festival alone for those two years, carrying two slips of paper — one green, one red, hanging them on the bamboo trees in his honor. This marks the third festival he’s missed and we walk in silence. She’s holding back tears.

I don’t know what to say.

We arrive at a tree. A few slips of paper are set atop a table for people to grab and decorate. A young girl proudly raises her sloppily written wish and shares it with the world.

“When I grow up I want to marry a brave, strong hero! They’re the best!”

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Kurokami Gen

[Kurokami Gen]

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Miseria Cantare

Love, your hate Your faith lost

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written for 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐛𝐨𝐲

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“Pffttt!” Just a few meters away, towards the entrance of a nearby temple, a certain listener is unable to keep a straight face in response to that wish. Snickers and chuckles soon follow. “Trust me kid, you better hope that wish doesn’t come true.” Should one turn to inspect the snide source of that reply, they’d see a young man wearing a black hoodie sitting on a set of stone stairs that sloped off the side of a mountain. Two red planks flanked him on either side, while a perpendicular third completed the Torii gate that delineated the border between Mundane and Divine.[break][break]

Unfortunately for her, the Gods may not have been listening, but Kurokami Gen was.[break][break]

One could certainly question what he was doing out and about this late. It wasn’t like he believed in this kind of stuff anyways. Wishes didn’t come true no matter how many times you wrote them down or hung them up. In his experience, most of them never came true no matter what you did. He looked up at the top of the shrine, his eyes staring into the top right corner of his vision as he seemed to be doing a mental math of some sort, before deciding. ‘What the hell? Why not?’ If he was going to be stuck here anyway, then at least he could waste some time bursting this kid’s bubble. After all, it was a Hero’s job to save the innocent, even if it meant saving them from their own stupidity.[break][break]

Not caring for whatever childish response came next, he fired off. “Heroes aren’t like what you see on TV.” Oh, if only she knew how bad things could get. “They’re self-obsessed nutjobs who make everything about themselves and their sad lives.” To say the hopefuls he’d met were just a bit unstable was a titanic understatement. U.A. would be better served investing its untold millions of taxpayer money on some mental health services for its students, instead of building another ghost town no one will ever live in. Don’t get him started on the apples rotting away at the core of this charade, or else he’d be here all night. “Most are as bad as the criminals they stop, and the few good ones? Oh, better steer clear of them. They’re the most messed-up of them all. You'll end up burying them if their stupid ideals don't get you hurt or killed first.”[break][break]

“Take it from me, kid.” With a flick of his wrist, Gen made a single plastified card appear between his fingers, one that read, loud and clear as the day, the words. ‘Pro Hero’ on the front, with a picture of his shit-eating grin attached, along with some information that was hard to make out from a distance. It was, as far as anyone could tell, a true and blue License. “Never meet your Heroes, they'll always let you down.”[break][break]

[attr="class","curragebot"] Radiate, recognize one silent call as we all form one dark flame.

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[𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐛𝐨𝐲]

At the mouth of the temple the loud and unwanted boldly proclaimed: heroes are bad, actually. I’d commend his pluckiness if I weren’t interrupted by rebellious, unwavering youth.

“You’re just a toothpick hero!” She sports tears down her face and white knuckles by her side. The weight of her accusation rests on her pointer finger, a blade she draws against the unholy intruder — a defiler of all that is good and noble. “With a shit attitude!”

”Oh, honey…” Abuela hands me her purse as she warms the cub with her embrace. All it takes is a knee to the ground and a hand to the shoulder for the child to jump in her arms. “You can’t talk to heroes like that.” She carries the kid out, but not without a few parting words. “Even if they’re assholes.”

I dig out the red and green slips from the purse, mindlessly injecting myself where I need not be. My allegiances are signed in blood, but I offer an olive branch in hopes that he looked to satiate his spirit after feeding his ego.

“You’re not wrong.” Somehow, the most unnerving heroes were those with pure, altruistic intent. I found solace in corruption and greed within the institution — it meant there was a reason to keep the powers that be in control. “But what kind of hero makes a kid cry?”

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Kurokami Gen