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The new house is big. It’s two storeys high, with tall, tall ceilings and bright, spacious rooms. Eri had even been allowed to pick the room she would stay in. She chose a small room downstairs, far from the front door, and they told her she could decorate it however she wants.
The backyard has a big garden, with grass and flowers and lots of room to play. Eri’s never gotten to play outside before. (She hasn’t gotten to play much at all.) She’s not sure she knows how to.
The new carers seem nice. They’re family, they told her, but she doesn’t have to call them that yet (which is good, because she won’t). They ask her questions and listen to what little she has to say, they offer to play with her and they leave her alone when she needs them to. She doesn’t really trust them, but she likes them well enough.
Even if she didn’t, it’s not like she has anywhere else to go.
Eri likes the new room, which is neat and tidy but has all the things she got to pick herself. There are stuffed toys and books and games and fluffy, colourful sheets that she likes to snuggle up in. There are fancy-looking boxes and crates and shelves and lots of corners to curl up in to be alone. There’s a desk for her to colour at and a cushioned chair for her to sit on that lets her feet touch the floor.
It’s all very new and strange, but she’s starting to get used to it.
Today all of the ‘family’ are in the house, and they want to have dinner together. She got to choose what they had, but she doesn’t know a lot of different foods, so one of the men got out a tablet and went through pictures of different foods until they found one she thought looked nice.
Now, the youngest boy, who is a few years older than her, comes to the door and knocks. “Eri? It’s dinner time, if you’d like to come and eat.”
Eri puts down the coloured pencil, closes the colouring book and approaches the door. Opening it slowly, she peeks out to look at the boy. He smiles at her, bright and genuine and warm, dimples in his cheeks and green eyes shiny. His hair is a frizzy mess on his forehead, making Eri want to reach out and touch it and make it neater.
“It smells great, I’m sure you’ll like it,” Izuku says, stepping back to give her more room.
Eri steps out, closing the door behind her and walking behind Izuku as he leads the way to the kitchen. There’s a savoury, warm smell in the air that makes her mouth water. The dark haired man, Shouta, is at the stove stirring a pot, and he turns to face them when they come in. He’s wearing a pink apron with words on it that she can’t read, and his hair is tied up out of his face for once. He nods at them as they pass through to the eating area.
“You can help Mirio with setting the table, if you’d like,” Shouta says, and Izuku agrees easily.
Eri hasn’t had to set the table yet. She looks to Izuku for assistance, and he smiles at her.
“Don’t worry, I’ll show you what to do.”
Izuku leads her around, showing her where to put the chopsticks and their rests and how to set out the dishes around the food Mirio has already placed on the table. She follows along attentively, doing her best to not muck up her simple job. Her skin feels cold as she nudges and adjusts a pair of chopsticks, making sure they’re perfect before she moves on. By the time she’s gotten all of them on the table, Mirio and Izuku have done their jobs.
Her shoulders ride up as she looks down to the floor, shame-faced because of her slowness. The shame curdles in her stomach, icy and dark and icky, telling her, ‘You’re a mistake, a fuck-up, good for nothing but being used-’
(The therapist said to acknowledge those thoughts, but think about how she doesn’t really think that, and let them float away like clouds. They usually rain on her, instead.)
She needs to get better at her jobs, or she’ll just be a disappointment to them. They’ll realise what she’s really worth, and they’ll want to send her away.
Izuku gives her another smile, as if he’ll never run out of them. “Good job, Eri!” He looks to Mirio, giving him a pat on the shoulder before walking away. “I’m gonna grab Ocha and Dad.”
Mirio gives him a little thumbs up and turns back to Eri.
She’s starting to expect it, now, it’s been months after all—but she’s used to being looked at only when she’s needed, or when she’s in trouble. Here, it seems, she’s looked at just for being around. It’s weird.
She’s tired of the attention. Already, she wants to go back to her room and hide away in the familiar empty quiet. She’s probably not allowed to, though. For some reason, everyone seems to get upset when she skips meals here.
Mirio shows Eri to a seat and sits beside it, and soon Izuku is coming back, the brown-haired girl Ochako behind him. She thinks Ochako is the newest after herself, but she’s not sure. (She shouldn’t have eavesdropped.)
Soon enough, Shouta comes in with the rest of the food, his husband Hizashi behind him. Everyone sits together at the table, so Eri climbs onto the cushioned seat they call ‘hers’ and waits for a cue to eat. Her feet don’t touch the ground, even if she sits on the edge, so she crosses them to stop the fidgeting that’s sure to come. Around her, everyone picks up their chopsticks, beginning to eat. Her chopsticks are different from everyone else’s; they’re stuck together at one end, a little animal figure sitting on top. According to Shouta, they’re ‘training’ chopsticks. From what Eri has learnt since she got here, that means they’re for babies.
No one eats with their fingers here, though, so Eri has to use the baby cutlery. At least it will be less messy than using her hands.
Copying the others, it’s easy to pick up the thick noodles with chopsticks. They drip brownish liquid broth that smells so good her mouth waters. She slurps it up and it tastes even better than it smells; it’s savoury and chewy and settles nice and warm in her tummy. Light chatter picks up around the table, and she goes in for her next mouthful wearing a little smile.
One of the nicest things she never had before this is food; hot, yummy meals, homemade and pretty to look at. There’s just something so very pleasant about eating good food. And getting to choose what she eats? It’s something she never would have expected from the outside world.
When the conversation dips, Shouta asks her if she likes it.
“Yes, thank you,” Eri says quietly. She doesn’t even have to lie.
Her arms are covered in bandages. They ache, she knows they ache. There are footsteps outside the door, and she knows someone is coming for her, knows she should hide but stands no chance if she does.
The room, usually full of hidey-holes and dark corners to huddle in, is small and sparse, every surface flat and just bright enough that her ugly white hair would stand out like a sore thumb. She gets up to try hiding anyway, but there’s something stopping her from moving.
The footsteps grow closer, and there’s screaming somewhere outside. Are those her screams? Another child’s? They sound like her. How many of her are there, now?
The door is open, suddenly, and she writhes and cries and resists as much as she can as an iron grip pulls her from the room.
He hits her to make her stop screaming, and she does. But there’s a violent, trembling energy in her bones, and it has to come out somehow, so instead she starts to cry. The tears stop her from seeing, and it’s like she’s looking at the dark, dark world through a thick grey curtain.
When the curtain is pulled back, she’s being strapped to the chair, and her crying becomes sobbing. He is watching and doing nothing, he just lets it happen. Makes it happen, though he doesn’t touch her himself.
The straps are tight. She can’t move. They cut into her arms and legs, dig into her throat as she struggles to breathe between sobs. She doesn’t want this, no, she doesn’t want this. Please, please, she begs, no more.
Then there’s red, everywhere, and there’s screaming, and she wants it to be over, and she’s going to die, no, please, she doesn’t want to die—
Eri wakes and sobs. She rocks herself, huddled under heavy blankets, and violent cries wrack her thin little frame.
She can hardly breathe, and her head throbs, and everything is so fuzzy-
She’s going to die, the world is ending, nothing is okay.
A door opens, light shining through the blankets, and for a moment she’s terrified it’s him, coming to punish her or take her out with the others to do her job because she owes him, it’s a life debt-
The hand on her shoulder startles her, she flinches back and is ready to scream when the covers are pulled off her completely, leaving her exposed and cold. She’s shaking hard, like there’s an earthquake happening in her body, and the fear is all around her, in the air and in her blood and in her stomach.
There’s a voice, and the person isn’t him, but that doesn’t mean they can help. That doesn’t mean they’re safe.
Then the blanket is pulled onto her lap, and she’s looking into big blue eyes. He’s talking to her, quiet and calm, words hard to grasp but the soothing tone washes over her nonetheless.
Slowly, slowly, she relearns how to breathe. Trickles of warmth return to her light, empty limbs and the world begins to right itself. When Mirio opens his arms, she doesn’t have the energy to stop herself from falling into him, his firm chest proof the world is still intact, the steady ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum of his heart a reminder she is alive.
His words sink in through the fuzziness around her. He tells her it’s okay, that she’s okay, that she’s safe. She has nothing to fear, here, and no one will ever let her get hurt again.
In her mind, the words register as wrong. But her heart is soothed by them. That gentle, sure tone coaxes it to calmness. Soon, she’s Eri again, the adopted child who’s adjusting to her new life and isn’t okay but tries very hard to be. She is here and not there, and her not-brother Mirio is holding her with a gentleness she has hardly ever known.
Air rushes into her lungs. She squeezes her eyes shut and resists the sobs, taking gasping breaths to force in more air. She suppresses sob after sob and pushes air in and out, until she can feel the heat coming from Mirio’s body against her, until the weight of the world ceases bearing down on her.
“There we go, just breathe,” Mirio says, rubbing a gentle hand over her back.
Breathe.
The urge to sob fades with each breath she takes, with each repetition of the rhythmic patterns brushed against her back. “That’s it, Eri, you’re doing great. It’s okay. You’re safe here.”
It’s okay.
Mirio hushes and soothes and holds her until the tears stop.
It’s okay.
Some time after that, she falls back asleep.
The nightmares are not new or unfamiliar to Eri. But waking others is. She was always one of the best-behaved kids during sleep hours, after all.
No one was allowed to get out of their cots to comfort the young ones, the ones who’d cry and cry at night. So long as the rules were followed and the grownups went undisturbed, the volume of their cries didn’t matter. Keeping quiet was the least Eri could do, really.
(They always needed their rest for the upcoming horrors, after all.)
The timing of her nightmare is either perfect or horrible. Hours after the awful dream, she’s at the therapist’s office for another appointment, and she does not want to talk about it.
Eri’s appointments started weeks ago, and have been happening frequently ever since. She sees the doctor at least once a week, to check on her body’s healing. She doesn’t quite understand doctors out here, since the only one’s she met before... usually did little to help. But doctors are actually supposed to help, and do good, like superheroes (another new, but fascinating concept). Shouta says doctors make a promise to always help people, no matter what.
The other doctor she sees is a therapist. She doesn’t quite believe they’re really ‘doctors for feelings’ like Hizashi said, but she seems smart enough to be one. So Hizashi might be right.
Like she has every other time, the therapist starts with a smile and a hello, asking her if there’s anything she wants to talk about. When Eri shakes her head, she lets her explore the room and play with the toys. There are so many toys in the room, she never knows where to start; it’s hard to believe so many toys exist in the whole world, let alone in a single room.
Today, Eri picks a puzzle. The box says the puzzle has 100 pieces (that’s another thing she’s doing now, learning numbers), more than any puzzle she has ever completed. But she wants to learn and get better, so it’s a challenge she’d like to try. The image on the box depicts a pretty field, filled with flowers that flow from pink to purple to blue.
She tips out the pieces and spreads them out across the carpeted floor. There’s no frame or backing for this one, so she’ll start with the corners.
The pieces are smooth. They slip against each other as she brushes against them, gliding about until they get stuck in the light fuzz of the carpet. One corner. The edges are hard and squared. She sets it aside, finds another, then a third.
But on her fifth comb through of the pieces, she still can’t find the last corner piece. She frowns at the blocks. Where’s the piece? Is it even there?
No, it’s there. The therapist must take good care of her toys, toys are meant to be used and put away properly, and adults are always responsible with their toys. She just can’t find it. It’s there, where is it, why can’t she see it?
She turns over each and every puzzle piece until they all face upwards, a disorganised mess of colour jumbled across the floor.
She blinks hard before her sight gets too blurry. It’s the sides next, she’ll start on the sides and she’ll find the pieces she needs and she’ll do the puzzle because she can do it. She has to.
The side pieces get set aside, too, until it looks like she’s found them all.
With the way the colours blend, it takes a lot of fiddling with the pieces to find which ones match up. It’s hard to tell what goes where and how they go together. It takes a while—too long—to get most of one side all done. She connects the corners with the side, and tries to connect the rows of side-pieces, but they don’t match. There’s another piece she missed.
It’s somewhere. She can—she can find it later, right? If she looks now it’ll take too long, and, and—
Eri looks up, over to the couches. The therapist is watching her. She smiles, as if she hasn’t seen Eri struggle so much with a simple puzzle, as if she doesn’t think Eri’s stupid.
She looks back down, dark heat rising up and flushing her face. It’s a lot of something, something that wells up and threatens to overflow—
And before she knows it, for the second time that day, she’s crying.
The tears well up and overflow in seconds, and there’s nothing she can do to stop it. It’s just so much, she’s so stupid and everyone can tell. She shouldn’t be this dumb but she is! Why do people still bother pretending to care about her? She’s too dumb to do a kid’s puzzle! There’s no reason for anyone to like such a fuck-up!
Eri is still crying when the therapist sits down beside her on the floor, flinching when the woman shuffles close enough that Eri can feel her, even though they aren’t touching.
“What’s wrong, Eri?” the therapist asks, calm and cool, just like she’s paid to be.
“It’s stupid,” Eri says, then shuts her lips tight, so the stupid truth—or worse, a sob—can’t come out.
“There’s nothing stupid about crying and having feelings, Eri, no matter what’s making you feel that way.”
“But this is a stupid, little thing. I shouldn’t be crying. I’m just being a big baby.”
“I don’t think you’re being a big baby. You’re just feeling emotions, like we all do.” A pause, and when Eri doesn’t look at the woman, she keeps going. “Do you know why scientists think people cry, Eri?”
Eri bites her lip and shakes her head, wondering if this is another thing she’s supposed to know but doesn’t.
“Well, they think that when we feel emotions and the emotions are really strong, our bodies don’t like it. There’s too much to handle, so our bodies want to try to get rid of some of that emotion. So it gets rid of them through tears. We can’t help it when we cry, but when we do, it helps us. It’s a natural thing our bodies do, just like breathing and sleeping.”
“It feels bad,” is all Eri can say back.
“It does,” the therapist agrees, “but it always makes me feel better after. Does it make you feel better?”
Eri sniffles. The talking might have helped, but now that the tears have slowed down, she doesn’t feel quite as bad. Everything feels.. less. Like her skin isn’t about to burst, like the too much has deflated to something smaller and easier to manage.
“I think so.”
The therapist nods and smiles softly. “I’m glad to hear that. Do you want to talk about what you were feeling before?”
Eri sucks at her lip as she considers it. Now that she’s more calm, it seems even stupider she got so upset over a puzzle.
The therapist is smiling, not scolding Eri as she offers a tissue to dry her tears. Maybe, if she talks about it, she won’t be punished or laughed at. Maybe, her therapist will just listen, asking gentle questions but demanding no answers like she always has since Eri met her.
So she takes a deep breath and explains her frustration, the way dark thoughts wriggled into her mind to upset her further. And like Eri has slowly come to expect, her therapist is patient and kind as she speaks, asking questions and explaining that her feelings are normal and teaching her about bad thoughts and feelings and what she can do with them.
If Eri really tries, her therapist tells her, the things she teaches her can help a lot. Can help with big things and big feelings, as well as the littler ones. Eri just needs to remember them, and here’s the important part; she needs to keep trying.
“Can you do that, Eri?” Chiyo asks. “Can you keep trying?”
“Yes. I think I can.”
And Chiyo smiles at her, the biggest and warmest smile she’s ever seen from the woman.
“Then that’s all that matters.”
Eri goes home after therapy and spends the next few days thinking about what she’d been taught.
The idea that trying could be the thing that matters, the thing she needs for things to be... better? It’s really quite awesome. So she thinks about it, and commits everything her therapist has taught her to memory. She finds it helps when she cries; she feels less guilty about her tears and volatile emotions. She feels like she’s getting a bit better, like she’s a bit more of a human than before.
Human, a funny concept. She is human.
No one else is in the room when the news comes on. Eri is sitting contentedly on the couch, watching television. Then, after an advert about strange, colourful toys, for which she’d leant forward in curiosity, it is plastered across the screen.
HUMAN TRAFFICKERS BUSTED, TO GO TO COURT.
A newsperson appears. Describes how, following the bust of a “highly complicated human trafficking and organised crime syndicate,” the case is going to court, with over thirty people currently facing charges.
(Were there thirty? It seems like so many. It seems like nowhere near enough.)
The charges include kidnapping, human trafficking, human experimentation and prostitution. Among others.
Her hearing has already fuzzed out by the time the pictures come onto the screen. It’s—them. All of them. The faces and fears that appear in her nightmares and lurk in the shadows of every room.
Right at the top, there’s him, too. The one who never smiled, even when she was in pain. The one who controlled it all and scolded her for her screams and looked at her blood with disgust and then made her clean it up-
There is silence, sightlessness, numbness, need—for it all to be over.
There is loneliness, there is pain, there is terror, there is desperation.
There are screams, there are walls painted in blood and bodily fluids, there are children, friends, strangers, sobbing and held down and hurt so terribly she does not know how they continue to live afterwards. There is nothing but this hellish misery, this reality of horror and the hurricane of chaotic, false ‘life’ it brings with it.
It is howling winds, windows rattling, pitch-black hallways of creaks and monsters lurking within the shadows. Lightning, thunder you can never block out, racing heartbeats, dragging, kicking, screaming, no-!
Hands on her, people in the room, watching, looming, waiting, threatening-
“Turn that off, quickly!”
The chair, she thinks. Not the chair.
There are words, now, but she doesn’t listen, she hates what they say, she doesn’t want to hear them. “Don’t touch … triggered … Step back ….”
“Eri!” They usually don’t call her that when they-
“Eri, you’re safe. Breathe for us, can you do that? You’re safe, Eri, you’re safe.”
Safe.
She’s... safe?
“No, no, no...” she says, the only words she can, because she knows safe and that is not this.
“It’s okay, Eri. Can you look at me?”
“No, no... I don’t...”
“You’re in the house, Eri. You’re safe. If you open your eyes, you’ll see the living room, and you’ll see me, Shouta.”
Shouta is here? Why would he be, he’s— He’s…
Why...
Oh. She’s here. She’s on the couch, there’s a toy on her lap and soft, warm clothes on her frame.
She blinks her eyes, tears dripping down her face, and looks up at Shouta.
He’s here. He doesn’t hurt her. He never has.
Eri struggles to remember what’s happening and where she is, can hardly think about what she’s to do, but there is something in her that says to breathe.
People move around her. Things happen as if from behind a cloudy window, distant and muffled. She breathes, and she is safe, and Shouta is there. That is all there is, all there needs to be.
She is only dully aware of everything around her for the rest of the day—or night, or whenever it is, until she finally slips into the nothingness of sleep.
She isn’t left alone, that much she knows, but she can’t tell how. The faces are familiar, there’s a name for each one, but she can’t make out the expressions they wear. For once, though, that isn’t scary. The numbness is cold and fuzzy, but leaves her without the fear, quiets her thoughts, hushes all the bad that is usually abuzz within her.
It’s nice.
It takes some time to sleep once she’s in bed, and she thinks someone tucked her in, held her hand. It felt nice, she thinks.
The hand was so warm.
Eri tucks an errant strand of hair behind her ear and tugs at Mirio’s pyjama shirt.
Mirio smiles at her from his seat on the beanbag beside her. “What’s up?”
Eri wriggles in her own squishy seat. She’s hesitant to speak, even though she knows what she wants and she knows it’s okay to ask. But she also knows, thanks to Chiyo, that it’s important to keep going when she’s hesitating.
She’s been told, and is slowly accepting, that sometimes, simply trying is strength in itself.
“My hair. I don’t know how to do it. Can you... help me?” she asks.
Her hair reaches her belly button now; the longest it’s ever been. She likes having it so long, likes to brush through it and touch it and let it curtain her face when she doesn’t want anyone to see her. But sometimes it gets in the way.
Mirio’s smile becomes beaming. “Of course! Do you have any hair ties?”
He takes her to the bathroom, letting her watch him in the mirror. The room is bright and lightly cluttered with everyone’s things, and they find sparkly hair ties that might be Ochako’s, but also might be Hizashi’s.
Several hair ties and fits of giggles later, Eri’s hair is much messier, and it’s apparent that Mirio doesn’t know much more about hair than Eri does.
Mirio gently pulls the tie from her hair, releasing it from the latest messy styling attempt, and looking sheepish as their eyes meet in the mirror. “I don’t think I’m very good at this!” he laughs.
Shouta’s voice comes from the doorway. “No, you’re not.” A pause. “I’ll get Ochako. I’m sure she’ll be able to rescue Eri’s poor hair.”
Judging by Mirio’s great, ringing laugh, Eri’s sure that was one of Shouta’s teasing jokes. She finds him quite funny, now that she knows when he’s joking.
Ochako enters the room, still in her pyjamas like the rest of them. She looks curious, and upon seeing the state of Eri’s hair—Mirio tried, he really did—she can’t contain her laughter. “Oh, sweetie,” she says. “Would you like some help with your hair? I can teach you how to do it.”
Eri nods. “Yes, please.”
Ochako gently elbows Mirio out of the way so she can get at Eri’s hair. “Well. An effort was made. I don’t think your hairdressing career is gonna make it, bud.”
Mirio sighs dramatically. “I know. But at least me and Eri can learn from the best!”
Ochako runs the hairbrush through Eri’s hair, just as careful as Mirio, but with much surer hands. “It’s not fun teasing you when you’re positive like that,” Ochako murmurs, using her fingers to brush hair from Eri’s eyes. She looks at Eri in the mirror. “What style would you like? We can start with something simple, if you want.”
“Um. A plait, please?” Eri has always thought they look nice in Shouta’s hair.
Ochako winks at her. “Coming right up!” She separates Eri’s hair into three sections and weaves them over each other, explaining the process as she does it. She ties it all up once she reaches the ends of Eri’s hair and places it over her shoulder.
“And we’re all done! What’s the verdict? Do you like it?”
Eri looks at her hair, at the eager Ochako behind her, at Mirio who still watches on, smiling softly. “Yes. I like it a lot.” She blinks, eyes suddenly watery, and finally understands what it means for tears to come from simple, strong emotions. “Thank you.”
Izuku enters the room then, saying something about schoolwork before coming to a halt.
Izuku gasps when he sees Eri, happiness coming alight in his eyes. “Eri! You look so pretty!”
Pretty. Another new word, one that’s never been used to describe her. Eri likes it a lot.
“Come on, kiddos!” Hizashi calls, ducking into the room. “Let’s pile out. It’s time for breakfast, the most important meal of the day!”
At Eri’s prompting, Izuku scoops her up and carries her out of the room along with her siblings, all of them chattering and smiling and familiar and warm.
Family, Eri thinks, is something she could get used to.