Chapter 9
The aroma of fried pork, caramelized onion, and sweet soy sauce filled every corner of the kitchen, thick and enveloping. It wasn't a sophisticated scent, lacking the exotic notes or complex nuances of a big-city gourmet dish, but it was undeniably... warm. It was the smell of permanence, of a day ending well.
With the mind of a thirty-something adult trapped in the body of an eight-year-old, I knew perfectly well the abysmal difference between a "house" and a "home."
In my previous life, Sebastian and Lily, my real parents, weren't bad people. Quite the opposite. They were working-class people who broke their backs working double shifts at low-paying jobs so that my sister and I would never lack a roof over our heads or a plate of food on the table. Their love wasn't measured in bedtime stories or afternoons at the park, but in exhausting overtime hours and crumpled bills left on the kitchen counter. I didn't resent them; they did what they had to do to secure our future. But the price of that security was their own presence. I grew up surrounded by rushed notes on the fridge, microwaved leftover dinners, and the constant echo of an empty house. Loneliness had become my natural state until I moved out to live through my own years of college stress and night shifts.
"Katsuki-kun, be careful, the bowl is hot," Inko Midoriya said softly. The gentleness of her voice acted as an anchor that pulled me from my thoughts.
With a smile that radiated genuine kindness, she placed a ceramic bowl full of steaming katsudon in front of me. At that moment, there was no trace of the neurotic, anxious woman I remembered from the original manga. She was, simply, a mother radiating a domestic peace so palpable that my past self would have found it almost unbelievable.
Beside me, Izuku blew on his spoonful of food with almost scientific concentration.
"Mom makes the best katsudon in the whole wide world!" Izuku exclaimed, his cheeks flushed from the steam and a small All Might band-aid stuck to his chin, a testament to our training at the dojo. It wasn't the forced happiness of a kid who has to be "brave"; it was the simple, natural joy of an eight-year-old having a quiet dinner.
I picked up my chopsticks. The wave of steam hit me right in the face, warm and fragrant.
Four years, I thought, feeling the weight of time.
I had managed to change Izuku's destiny. The kid was no longer a bundle of cowering nerves; he had budding confidence, he was learning to fight using his analytical mind, and he had a mother who supported him unconditionally. Mission accomplished. A resounding success in my project to "save the protagonist."
But as I ate, the home-cooked taste brought on a reflection that revolved around Mitsuki and Masaru Bakugo.
When I arrived in this world and found myself with a woman who yelled like a broken megaphone and a man who sweated nervously while trying to mediate, at first it just seemed annoying. It was noise. It was invasive. I was so used to Sebastian and Lily's silence that the Bakugos' chaos overwhelmed me.
But now, with the perspective of years, I saw it in a radically different light.
Mitsuki yelled at me because she cared, and most importantly: because she was there. The smacks on the back of the head hurt, yes, and her demands were suffocating, but amidst all that volcanic chaos, there was always her physical presence and the question: "Have you eaten anything decent, brat?" And Masaru... the quiet man who, despite coming home exhausted from his own job in the design industry, always sat down to ask me how my day at the dojo had gone with genuine interest.
"Is it good, Kacchan?" Izuku asked, interrupting my deep introspective analysis.
I blinked, looking back at him.
"It's not bad," I muttered, taking another bite with studied indifference. The truth was, it was exquisite; the kind of food that hugs you from the inside.
"I'm so glad you both like it," Inko said, finally sitting down with us and offering us green tea. "You know, Katsuki, Mitsuki called me a little while ago. She said if it gets too late doing homework, Masaru will come pick you up in the car so you don't have to walk alone in the dark."
I felt a strange, almost painful knot form in my throat.
In my other life, Sebastian would never have been able to pick me up. He probably would have been in the middle of a night shift or sleeping the meager four hours his worn-out body allowed him. Walking alone under the pale light of the streetlamps, the cold seeping into my bones until I reached an empty house, would have been my only option.
Knowing that Masaru, probably tired after a long day of work, was willing to grab the car and leave his house just to make sure his eight-year-old son didn't have to walk a couple of blocks in the dark... hit me with an unexpected force.
"The old man doesn't need to bother, I can walk back on my own," I grumbled out of pure habit, maintaining my immutable facade, though my voice sounded a bit more fragile than I intended.
"I know, you're very strong, Katsuki," Inko said sweetly, without an ounce of condescension, "but us parents like taking care of our children. It's our way of being happy, too."
Our way of being happy.
I looked down at my ceramic bowl. Often, as we grow up, we become blind to the small, monumental details of parental sacrifice. We see the flaws, the yelling, the absences, but we ignore the silent love hidden behind the exhaustion.
I had invested so much energy in "saving" Izuku that sometimes I forgot I had also received a second chance. I hadn't just reincarnated with a powerful Quirk; I had reincarnated into a present family. I no longer had to come home to a silent house. I had a home where true silence—the deadly, crushing silence of loneliness—never reigned.
Izuku laughed out loud at something he saw on the TV, and Inko wiped a smudge of sauce from the corner of his mouth with maternal gentleness.
I finished eating in silence. I had saved Izuku, yes. But by fully accepting and valuing this new world with Masaru and Mitsuki, I realized I had also saved the lonely son I used to be.
"Hey, Auntie," I said suddenly, my voice a little rougher than usual, leaving the empty bowl on the table.
"Yes, dear?"
"Tell the old man I'll be waiting for him," I said, hopping off the chair. "And thanks for the food. It was... fine."
Inko smiled, a smile that lit up her eyes with warmth.
"You're welcome, Katsuki. You're always welcome here."
Yes, I thought, as I headed toward the entryway to grab my backpack. Welcome. That was the word. I was no longer a stranger watching someone else's happiness from the outside, nor a ghost in an empty house. I was home.
Author's note: Well, here is where the real differences from the original fic begin. Previously, I was pretty careless with the protagonist's past life, so this time I wanted to give him a slightly more personal and grounded background.
I'm not sure if I fully managed to convey the message I wanted with this chapter. The idea of having parents absent due to overworking is very real for a lot of us. My intention was to reflect on how, sometimes in life, we don't appreciate those closest to us enough. Absurd fights or silly grudges cloud our vision from seeing what truly matters.
Many times we only see one side of the coin: we view our parents' exhaustion as neglect, or their demands as just yelling, without stopping to think about the why behind all that stress. Maybe a father comes home completely destroyed from work, and even if he doesn't have the energy to play, he still sits down to listen to your story about what happened at school. Those small but massive efforts are the ones we usually miss when we're kids, but start to understand as adults.
I'd love to know what you guys think. Do you feel the message came across clearly? Let me know in the comments!