Chapter Text
Hoshi wasn't having a great day.
It had started normal enough, she went to school early in the morning after a long night of not sleeping and spent the day avoiding conversation with her peers (9-year-olds are gross and generally stupid, best to avoid early loss of brain cells). After school she had walked home like usual and pondered when she would next see her birth giver, Etsuko had made a habit of leaving unexpectedly for 3 or 4 days and then showing up again and pretending it never happened. She was coming up on her 5th day gone and while it happened before with her longest stint away from home being 11 days no contact (Hoshi may or may not have been preparing for abandonment and the subsequent homelessness if she didn't come back at the 2-week point) she had recently found a new job and Hoshi didn't think they would tolerate that many callouts in a row so the long stint gone was a bit unexpected.
Her thoughts about her absentee mom were interrupted as she reached their apartment and saw police cars outside the building. “I wonder if one of the old people from upstairs finally kicked it” The thought wasn't exactly kind but honestly with all the noise they made you'd think they were holding 3 am dance classes or something and frankly Hoshi was tired of it, (technically she could use her quirk to get rid of the sound but it was the principle of the matter and she was lazy).
After trudging up the 4 flights it took to get to her level she took a left and rounded the corner only to come face to face with a very kind-looking police officer coming out of HER apartment. Hoshi's first thought was, “Ah, so the geriatric tango lives for another night”, then she remembered that the police really shouldn't be in her and her mother's apartment and that probably meant something bad had happened (or that her mom finally got in trouble with the law).
It only took a few moments of silent dead stare from Hoshi for the policewoman to start looking uncomfortable.
This wasn't exactly a new occurrence though, Hoshi knew she generally looked kinda creepy, what with her deathly pale skin, neon green reflective bird-like eyes (her mom had the same eyes but somehow made them look exotic rather than eerie), and perpetual dark circles. It didn't help that her face sat in an everlasting deadpan so Hoshi decided to take pity on the poor lady and just ask,
“So. you come here often?”
“Ah, hmm. Well. that's not what I meant to say. But I guess a pickup line from a 9-year-old works just as well to break the tension” and it did work, the officer looked less unnerved and more pleasantly confused now and responded in a gentle tone, “Oh no I don’t live here, there's an ongoing investigation regarding the residents of this apartment.” she then seemed to realize that she probably shouldn't be telling this to an unauthorized little girl and quickly stated that “an investigation is really no place for kids”, and “do you live in this building? Can I guild you home?”. Which, while it was a very kind and well-meaning offer, Hoshi had to inform the poor lady that she did in fact live in the site of the investigation.
“It's nice of you to offer but my apartment is actually the one you're investigating. Speaking of, did Mom get in trouble or something?”
Any warmth the woman had held in her face was immediately replaced with pity and sorrow for the girl as she replied with a furrowed brow, “Oh I see. Would you happen to be one Takanashi Kuraihoshi daughter of Takanashi Etsuko?” at my confirmation the officer forced a smile on her face and stated that her name was, “Yoshida Akiko, but you can just call me Akiko if you'd like. Why don't you step inside and take a seat, I'll grab my superior, and it'll just take a sec!”.
So roughly 3 minutes later Hoshi finds herself sitting at her dining room table across from 2 male police officers wondering just how much trouble her mom got in and if she was going to find herself in foster care or not.
“So. is Mom in trouble? What’s this all about?”
“Well, firstly I'd like to confirm that you are in fact Takanashi Etsuko’s daughter.” at Hoshi’s nod the officer continued, “I see, well firstly I'd like to offer my condolences, Takanashi-san was found earlier today in an alleyway having overdosed on a relatively new stream of drugs. Your mother was rushed to the hospital at around noon and confirmed dead at exactly 12:33, I'm sorry for your loss Takanashi-chan”.
The officer probably said more but at this point, Hoshi was fairly certain she was in shock. Her mom was dead. Her mom was DEAD. Sure they weren't close and Etsuko never really acted like a mother but she was the only semi-consistency the girl had and now what, would she go to foster care? And orphanage? Should she be sad? Is she sad? It's not like Etsuko was particularly caring or anything, she never gave hugs, or kisses, or warm words or really any form of comfort (but now she was gone and would never get the chance to), hoshi didn't know what to think so she just decided to give up on thinking and worry about the now (she could breakdown later under the comfort of night.)
She tuned back into the officer's words only to hear, “-we have of course contacted your next of kin and h-”, “Wait I have kin?”. The officer looked a bit peeved at being interrupted but responded patiently nonetheless. “Yes, you are listed as having an eligible biological father to care for you, we have contacted him and he has stated that he would be willing to take you in. We know this is a lot to take in at once but we will have to ask you to collect whatever possessions you would like to bring with you to your new place of residence.”
He must have signaled something because at that moment the kind-looking officer from before joined the conversation stating she had found a duffle bag that Hoshi could use to carry her belongings.
It didn't take long for her to gather everything, they had never been very well off so she didn't have much in way of possessions, just some comfy clothes and a few nicknacks (and a small plant she had been trying to nurse back to health named Alfred). She also made sure to gather any and all money or valuables she could find, just in case her dad ended up being an asshole and she needed to run away or something.
“Alright, I'm ready”, and with that, they were off
3 hours later-
Hoshi was bored. She was bored and annoyed and She was sitting in a drab lobby waiting for her apparent sperm donor to pick her up all the while receiving pitying looks from the officers on shift (as if they weren't the reason she was sitting there bored and annoyed). She couldn't read (they were holding all her belongings for her), and she couldn't nap for various reasons, and it was past her usual dinner time and she was getting kinda hungry which sucked.
But. it did allow her the time she needed to think the situation through. So as Hoshi sat there bored and annoyed and hungry, she couldn't help but think “You know, it's probably a good thing I'm not a normal little girl right now, because for all my memories of “the before” have made most of my day to day life rather boring, its at least provided me with the emotional maturity to process the situation. And I've come to the conclusion that I'm really, not that sad over Etsuko’s death. She didn't love me, and I don't think I loved her, maybe I loved the idea of her, the idea of unconditional maternal love and care, but that wasn't my mother and while it's easy to excuse her behavior towards me, I need to remember that if it were any other little girl in my place with her as a mother it would be inexcusable, it would be unacceptable, and I probably wouldn't forgive them for how she acted”. And while Hoshi was relieved that that was settled, the situation did lead her to recognize that to most people, to everyone else that doesn't know of the life she's lived before this one, she is a 9-year-old little girl. And she may not act like a 9-year-old little girl, and it may annoy her to be treated like one, but she should stop excusing the actions of those who don't care for her like one.
“Alright, well, good that that's been covered, yay me”
2 hours later-
At this point Hoshi was just cranky and hungry, she had gotten a snack earlier from the nice lady officer “What was her name again? Koko or something like that?” from before who stated that Daddy dearest had arrived and was signing paperwork in order to gain custody to me but it didn't really do much to tide her over. See, Hoshi requires 2 to 3 times the amount of food regular kids her age do because of a (suspected) side effect from her father's quirk being that she doesn't sleep. At all. She stopped sleeping at the 8-month point in her new life and the doctor said that while she was totally healthy, her body simply didn't have the biology to allow her to sleep (apparently the “sleep” she was getting before the 8-month mark was actually just her falling in and out of coma several times a day over and over again, the doctors don't know why it was happening but Hoshi suspects it was because her baby brain couldn't handle her memories from “the before”) but she still needed to get the energy to live from somewhere, and so, food. “On the bright side, I probably won’t ever have to watch my weight and-”
Hoshi is interrupted from her rumination by the nice lady officer “Ako or something right?”, as she rounds the corner with a distinctly non-official-looking man.
He's tall, like, insanely tall for a Japanese man “Maybe it's related to his quirk?”. He has to be at least 6’5, dang. After getting over the usual shock of a tall person in casual setting her eyes drift to the man's face and she quickly realizes that- (Oh…) “No wonder mom didn't like me, me and dad have practically the same face”
“I always thought that me and Mom looked alike, we have the same eyes after all, but I'm now realizing that it's really the only feature we shared.” Hoshi thought as she compared herself to the man who had since stopped in front of her. Same black black hair (as opposed to Etsuko’s colorful feathers), same deathly pale skin, same sharp cheekbones, similar smattering of moles. “We even have the same dark circles underneath our eyes, and-” Hoshi noticed, “-if I had dark purple eyes instead of bright green, id practically be the female version of him."
With all these thoughts running through her head Hoshi just ended up blurting out, “So you"re my sperm donor? Dang, it’d be nice if I ended up that tall”