so, i guess i'll come right out and say it. i'm the reason my dad killed my mom.

i know, it's a tough thing to just admit right off the bat, but it's the kind of sob story you only need (or want) to hear once. so tuck in for a second.

mom and dad were high school sweethearts. grew up together, family friends, went to high school together, the whole thing. from what i've been told, they were pretty cute back then. problem is that mom got pregnant with me right out of high school, and since both their families were really traditional, they had to get a shotgun wedding to hide their shame.





though it was scary, this became both me and my mom's defense mechanism. everytime it looked like dad got into one of his moods, i would pop my quirk and he would calm down and everything would go back to normal. suddenly, it was like we had a way to defend ourselves. this worked for a year, around the time when my mom figured out a way to finally leave with me and get out of the house. she was packing up with all of her stuff, trying to get me all ready to leave while dad was at work, when he suddenly came home early.

of course, he was furious. yelling, screaming, wailing, hitting. he was angry enough to the point that even my quirk didn't make him stop. in fact, when he finally realized i was the one who had been preventing all of this from happening for around a year, he only got angrier. dad was just about to get to me when one of our neighbors called the cops. while he was being taken away in handcuffs and paramedics were trying to revive my mom, dad kept yelling at me that it was all my fault, and that it always had been.

i learned in the hospital that my mom passed away from her injuries, and that my dad pleaded guilty to all charges in the courts. while this was lucky, because that meant i didn't have to face him again, nor testify against him and his lawyers, it was bittersweet. in a way, i did believe him, that i had ruined the family, that i had prompted him to kill my mom, and that i was the root cause of all the issues we had been having.

of course, the government made me get a therapist as i went to live with my aunt on my mom's side, where the story of me and my parents became a big family secret. my aunt is a saint, but she's like the rest of them. if i ever tried to bring up my parents, how nobody bothered to get me and my mom out of there, how my grandma even blamed my mom for the whole situation, my aunt would just shut it down. no one talked about it. as far as the rest of the family was concerned, it never even happened, and i was essentially just an adopted vagrant.

the one good thing that came out of all of it is that i realized i could actually protect people with my quirk. it takes away most hostility and aggression, just enough to get everybody on an even emotional field and descalate situations that could become deadly. maybe when i signed up for ua university, i was hoping to do just that.

more realistically, i'm only in uau to make up for my mom. maybe there's a chance that heaven will forgive me if i save enough lives to balance out the life i indirectly ended.

maybe all of it is just wistful thinking.