Bakugo
Present
"Quit biting your nails."
"I'm nervous."
"Be nervous on your own time, I'm working here."
I've been cutting my kids' hair since they were babies. Yuki would always run into the bathroom, barely landing on the stool, letting her poof out of her ponytail only for it to crowd her eyes. The little demon smiled with half her baby teeth missing. I did good work with scissors to get through that mane.
She's eighteen now. She still refuses to let anyone else touch her hair. Even if things haven't been exactly peaceful between us in the past few months, Yuki came to my room while I was picking out ties for the event tonight. She tugged on my sleeve, wearing a dress shirt and her mom's dress pants. Her eyes were more dull than usual, tired-looking, but at the same time shy. She didn't even say anything. Just held up a pair of scissors. I nodded, pulled out the old stool from she was little, and patted it down.
"I never see you anymore," I say, pulling up layers from underneath, clipping at them while she ravages her fingernails. "You have nothing to tell me about? How're your friends?"
"Kaido went on that trip. Haven't seen him." Kaido called me the night Ame ran off and asked if he got home safe. On that phone call, it was clear something was off. He asked if he could get away for a while, something I always agreed to arrange for him if life was getting too difficult.
"He's back now," I tell her. "How's Tokoyami?"
"Hina's good. She's perfecting this wing mobility enhancement move now when she lands. It's awesome."
My laugh echoes across the tiles. I only barely catch the smile Yuki bears while biting her lip.
"You sound proud of her."
"I am," she says. "I feel like a teacher practicing with her and the kids all the time."
"Who's the kids?"
Yuki's fingers still by her mouth. Her eyes widen in the slightest.
"You know," she clears her throat. "Kids I mentor. At school."
"What are their names?"
"Aren't you gonna tell me about your work life?"
"What work life?" I scoff. "I've been home with your mom and Ame most of the time. I've just been helping Deku on his cases and working on the masked revolutionaries fiasco with the police. It's you who's been busy. Eijiro says you keep locking in hours patrolling on the outskirts of uptown. I'm proud of your dedication, but take it easy if you have to okay?"
She looks healthier than she did. That makes me happy. When she does come home, usually late, it isn't with heavy undereye bags or a slump in her shoulders. Even if we don't talk much anymore, knowing she's not making herself sick is relieving.
"Yeah," Yuki nods, almost messing me up near her fringe. She wanted to change it up a bit, get rid of the ponytail altogether. She said she wanted to look more like me. I'm giving it my best shot with hair clippers and genetics. Yuki gets distracted though. Her mind is elsewhere than the stool and the mirror.
"The masked men," she says, softly, without eagerness, controlled. "Did you find anything?"
Our drifting first started with that organization. I kept keeping things from her. I regret how I handled things, but I don't regret trying to keep her safe. There's no use in lying anymore.
"There hasn't been an attack in what? Three months now?" I ask, dragging through the shorter ends near her scalp. "Dead ends are all we've got."
She nods.
