(Written while listening to: "Shattered Dreams" by Starset on Youtube
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[Yogami Tomio POV]
Yogami Tomio considered himself an accomplished man.
He had a loving wife, two smart kids and a nice house in a safe neighbourhood, a hard but stable and honest job.
And then he was preparing for a new bundle of joy to enter his life with his wife getting pregnant again after a few years break from having kids.
And just a few months later…
His entire life collapsed.
It all began with Yogami Hikari having a misscariage.
Because of various complications not only the life of their unborn child was lost…
Hikari also didn't survive.
After a year passed, Tomio knew there was a massive scandal about the company that employed her at that time.
In a press briefing the police revealed that they were illegally coercing their employees to overuse their quirks in various ways for the goal of chasing profit margins.
And Hikari's quirk literally "fed off" from her body.
And she wasn't the only victim of that company's illicit practices.
In the end, the police investigated, shut down, and persecuted everyone responsible.
There wasn't even a need for heroes to get involved.
The bad guys got put in jail, that didn't bring his wife's or daughter's lives back.
But before that happened… just a bit later after Tomio has lost the two precious loves of his life…
His first born: Masaaki, also died.
According to the police, it was involved with a recent spike of "quirk outrages" in the vicinity of Naruhata. This time, the heroes were heavily involved.
But Tomio didn't care about the reason… he lost his precious boy.
Yes he had his problems with self-worth, but they tried to provide him all the support they could as parents.
Either by personally being there for him, or by getting institutional help… even if by that time they couldn't really afford it.
And yet… he failed… his son was gone.
After all of that, Tomio was left alone with his youngest.
Truly, the brightest, kindest, joyful and most mature(and also a little bit weird) kid he could ever imagine… Laito.
That was also the moment Tomio's life bounced off slightly… but in the manner he really didn't care about.
He got a crucial promotion at work.
After that his career skyrocketed, as apparently he was talented in finance despite never working in it before.
He was redirected to a desk job, he managed to clean up a lot of redundant procedures, bringing up both company efficiency and worker morale.
Then he was allowed to make some minor decisions… and after that even some major ones, like a buyout of some smaller construction companies, that were having problems with getting contracts on their own.
In the recent small spike of villain activities, the consolidation of a large part of the local construction industry, gave them large profits from the government in rebuilding damaged(or outright obliterated) public property.
That was about Tomio's career.
Because his private life kept falling apart.
The final nail in the coffin… was his last family member…
His little light in the eye… Laito…
Falling into a year's lasting, deep coma.
At first he had his youngest hospitalized.
When the doctors there couldn't even explain what had happened, Tomio moved his son to a much better private facility using part of his much larger then recent earnings.
Still nothing.
They put him on life support and assigned nurses to provide therapy against muscle anthropy and other coma-related dangers.
But no matter what… Laito just wasn't waking up.
And nobody, even those with highly specialized quirks couldn't tell why.
His brain activity was there. So were all the bodily functions and reactions.
It was as if he was just…
Sleeping.
Without ever waking up.
Tomio even reached out to foreign psychologist who had the quirk that allowed her to "walk into the dreams of others".
But what she found when she tried to connect with Laito?
Nothing.
She said it's like he wasn't even "there"... but that's not what the exams and doctors… and science said.
So that was that.
Years passed.
Yogami Tomio's work life flourished.
His private life… was basically gone.
Beside taking care of his sleeping son, whose he decided to withdraw back home from the hospital after they "did all they could".
Tomio kept hiring professional caretakers… but also he wanted to personally help his son and be ready in case he woke up.
He never did…
Until that day… in the middle of the autumn.
That day Tomio was already done with cooking the dinner for himself and his sleeping son.
The therapists for the day already had left so it was peaceful.
As he turned towards the wheeled bed where Laito was placed Tomio saw…
His son's eyes were open!
Tomio instantly dropped everything he was doing and approached Laito with hopes exploding in his chest.
"Laito?" Tomio simply called his son's name with a slightly raspy voice.
There was no answer.
Laito simply kept staring in front of him…
With empty eyes.
Tomio tried to contact his son… get his attention.
No response.
Tomio called the doctors once more.
[Few hours later]
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Yogami Tomio just finished listening to the doctor's report.
"... are you trying to tell me… that my son… in the end… after all these years… has turned… into a vegetable?" He spoke slowly.
He felt anger slowly building in a place where once hope was.
"Please Yogami-san, I swear that his state has not changed much. Although his not sleeping anymore… the tests says…"
Tomio had enough and interrupted the quack:
"I… don't… give… a… flying…. FUCK! about…"
"Damn it dad… language… sheesh…"
He was also interrupted by a quiet, raspy from the lack of usage, voice.
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[1,5 years left until MHA plot beginning]
[Chapter End] The story is not over yet
My tipping jar: [email protected]/marasis (change "@" into "a")
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Author notes:
I really hope that I've got the timeline correct… I don't have access to my pc right now, it's so inconvenient for me to search for MHA plot events and their chronology at the moment.