The living room had become a battlefield, and for once, the enemy wasn't physical.
Izuku sat cross-legged on a cushion he'd stolen from the sofa, his phone balanced on his knee showing a YouTube video titled: "Zen Mind in 5 Minutes (IT REALLY WORKS!)". Across from him, Inko mimicked his posture with significantly less grace and a lot more skepticism.
"Alright, Mom," he said, reading the screen. "The guy says you should visualize your thoughts like leaves floating down a quiet river."
Inko already had her eyes closed, her face scrunched in a look of deep concentration.
"Leaves on the river, got it."
Izuku watched her for three seconds before her nose wrinkled.
"What's wrong?"
"The river reminded me that I forgot to do the laundry," she murmured without opening her eyes. "Did I put in the fabric softener? I don't think I did. See? This is useless... My mind won't stop talking."
"That's normal!" Izuku said quickly, looking back at the video where a serene man with a man-bun gestured at nothingness. "You're supposed to acknowledge the thought and let it float away. Look, there goes the laundry thought! Bye-bye!"
"Now I'm thinking about your socks," Inko said, her voice rising in frustration. "You need new ones. The ones you have are falling apart. Besides, chicken is on sale this week, but fish has omega-3s, which are supposed to be good for brain function, and mine clearly needs all the help it can get if I can't stop thinking about grocery lists when I'm supposed to be reaching enlightenment!"
This is harder than the entrance exam, Izuku thought, watching his mother's increasingly agitated face.
"Wait!" He jumped to his feet with a sudden inspiration. "A purifying gong! To scatter the negative energy!"
"A what?"
Before Inko could open her eyes, Izuku had already dashed to the kitchen and returned brandishing a pot lid and a wooden spoon like they were sacred instruments.
"This'll reset your mental state," he announced.
CLANG!
The sound exploded through the apartment. Inko's eyes flew open as she jerked back so violently she nearly tipped over.
"IZUKU! Are you trying to give me a heart attack?!"
"But is the fish thought gone?" he asked hopefully.
"Yes! It's been replaced by thoughts of hiding every spoon in this house so you never do that again!"
Izuku lowered his improvised gong with a sigh, setting it on the coffee table.
"Okay, that method is officially off the table."
"You think?"
A week later, meditation had been demoted to ten minutes of frustrated silence before breakfast, and the real work had moved to the coffee table. Inko stared at the wooden tray in front of her as if it had personally insulted her family. A hundred marbles shimmered under the afternoon light.
"This is too frustrating," she muttered.
"Not if we make it interesting," Izuku said, leaning against the sofa with his arms crossed. A sly smile spread across his face. "I'll bet you the last slice of chocolate cake in the fridge that you can't pull out the emerald green one in under a minute."
Inko's head snapped toward him, her eyes burning with competitive fire.
"Challenge accepted. Set the timer and get ready to watch me eat your cake, young man."
She leaned forward, her hand over the tray as she focused on the green marble. Her Quirk activated with that familiar tug, and ten marbles rolled toward her in a small wave.
"Miss!" Izuku chirped, checking his phone. "My cake is safe."
"I'm just warming up!"
She tried again, narrowing her focus. This time, an entire section of the tray slid toward her as if she'd tilted the whole surface.
"Ugh!" She slapped the table with her palm, making the marbles jump. "It's useless! My Quirk only has one setting, and it's either grab everything or grab nothing."
Izuku saw her frustration mounting and decided an intervention was necessary—both for the sake of science and for the cake he actually wanted her to win. He knelt beside her.
"You're thinking about 'pulling the marble,'" he said softly. "You have to be more specific than that. Forget the others even exist."
He shifted his position, moving behind her. His hands reached for her shoulders.
"Relax here," he whispered, pressing gently to release the tension. "And align your hips."
His hands moved down to her waist, adjusting her posture.
I hope this isn't as weird for her as it is for me. Focus.
He pulled his hands back, standing at her side.
"Now focus. I'm going to help you."
He leaned in and placed his hand over hers, which was hovering over the tray.
"Feel the connection," he whispered. "Only with the green marble."
Guided by his voice and the warmth of his hand, Inko let her awareness collapse into a single point: the emerald green marble with its white swirl in the center. She found the thread of her power and pulled. The marble rolled free from its neighbors and dropped into her open palm.
"YES!" Inko jumped to her feet, holding the marble over her head. "HA! TAKE THAT, PHYSICS! THE CAKE IS MINE!"
Izuku laughed as he watched his mother do a little victory dance around the coffee table. They'd won.
The following week nearly broke them both.
"It's just a feather," Izuku said, placing the tiny white feather on the coffee table between them. "The lightest thing we could find."
Inko sat across from him, staring at the feather with frustration.
"Just push it. You've been pulling things your whole life; just think of the opposite. It'll be easy."
"If it's so easy, you do it," she retorted.
"My Quirk doesn't work like that."
"Lucky you."
She closed her eyes, reached out, and focused. Her Quirk activated with the familiar sensation of reaching out and grabbing, but when she tried to reverse the flow, her mind hit a wall. The feather remained motionless on the table, mocking her.
"Nothing," she said flatly. "Not even a budge."
"Maybe the aerodynamics aren't right," Izuku said, already heading for the kitchen. "Something simpler!"
He returned with a single square of tissue paper and laid it on the table. Inko concentrated so hard her face turned red. She took a deep breath through her nose and the paper went flying, but it ended up stuck to her face. Izuku's shoulders shook as he struggled not to laugh.
"This isn't funny," Inko said through the paper.
"I'm not laughing!" Lie: he was totally laughing.
They tried a grain of rice. Inko stared at the tiny white speck on the dark wood of the table, wishing with every fiber of her being for it to move away from her. The grain sat there like a monument to her failure.
"It's too small!" she snapped, standing up so fast her chair screeched. "We look like two crazy people playing with food! Enough for today! I'm done! If I have to look at that stupid grain for one more second, I'm going to scream!"
She stormed out of the room before Izuku could respond. He found her that night in the dark kitchen, sitting at the table with her face in her hands. Izuku sat across from her without turning on the lights. The time for games and training exercises was over. They sat in silence for a long time before he spoke.
"It's not about the feather, is it?"
Inko shook her head, her hands still covering her face.
"I can't, Izuku. It goes against everything I am. My whole life has been about pulling. Pulling to make sure you had everything you needed after your father decided his career was more important than his family."
The old wound opened up between them again.
"I know," Izuku said softly. "You never let yourself push anything away. You always carried the weight, even when it was too heavy." He leaned forward. "This isn't a training exercise anymore, Mom. This is for you. For the first time in your life, let yourself push something away. Reject it. Tell it you don't want it near you; tell it to go away."
Inko looked at him, tears streaming down her face in the dark. She turned her head toward the living room where the feather was still on the coffee table, visible through the doorway in the ambient light from outside. She stood up on shaky legs and walked toward the table. Izuku followed but kept his distance.
Inko looked at the feather and thought about every time she'd smiled despite the exhaustion.
ENOUGH.
The feather slid a couple of inches across the table. Away from her.
It was the smallest movement imaginable, but to her, it felt like moving a mountain with her bare hands. A laugh escaped her throat, shaky and almost hysterical.
The next morning, the day before Izuku's first day at U.A., Inko woke up before her alarm. She walked into the living room in her pajamas and stared at the TV remote on the coffee table. She focused, reaching for the thread of her power, and pulled. The remote slid into her hand, she caught it, and then pushed it back away using her Quirk.
From the hallway, Izuku watched through the crack in the door.
I'm proud of you... Mom.
He quietly retreated to finish packing his school bag. Her training was momentarily over, but his was about to begin. U.A. would open its doors tomorrow, filled with students with incredible Quirks—each of them a manual waiting to be read.
*****
Author's Note: hitting that like button is the best way to let me know you want more
Enjoying the story? Don't forget to drop your Power Stones!
Author's Note: hitting that like button is the best way to let me know you want more.
P @ t r e o n.com/itszeroo