Musume

Chapter 2

The wonder in her eyes at the concept of Quirks had been refreshing. She’d been so amazed at the idea.

“Will I have a Quirk too?” she’d asked curiously looking up at him.

He’d wondered himself if she maybe had a fire related Quirk and that was why she was unharmed when he found her.

But the Doctor that checked her after the fire incident had been very clear saying that she was Quirkless.

It had pained him so to dash her hopes on that front.

She’d been clearly disappointed at the idea that she wouldn’t, but she’d tried to smile. He’d hugged her and comforted her, not fooled by her brave façade. He knew better than most what it felt like to know you were denied such a gift.

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“You want to adopt her?” asked Naomasa, eyes wide.

Toshinori looked at him with an unusually serious face, nodding.

“So will you help me?”

“Of course, just… are you sure about this? A child is a lot of responsibility. Not that I’m saying you aren’t- I don’t mean to imply you aren’t capable- I just-” stammered his friend, obviously flustered and flailing as he tried to explain how strange the concept seemed.

“Calm down.” Snorted Toshinori. “I’m not offended, my friend. I didn’t see it coming either, but… I’m sure. I’ve thought about it and this is what I want to do. I can give her a home and she’s already getting used to me, it would be pointless to uproot her and have her handed to a stranger.” He ignored the clenching of his heart at the idea.

And although he wouldn’t say it out loud, the idea of returning to the lonely life he’d been leading before her left an ashen taste in his mouth.

“Are you sure it’s a good idea in your state?”

“I admit I’ve thought about it and maybe if it were any other child I’d have a hard time, but… she’s so well-behaved and she hasn’t been any trouble to look after. And I can’t let this injury condition my whole life: that would be like letting him win.”

“I guess… And she’s, what? Ten? Eleven? I guess it’s not the same as having a toddler, even if she has no memory.”

“She’s actually quiet mature and quick to learn.” He said sounding quiet proud already, something the detective didn’t miss.

“What about your job?” asked Naomasa, curious.

“I’ve got near to six hours now out of my power so my appearances have been getting sparser. The public is getting used to me appearing at random times. And barring emergencies I’ll stick to patrolling when she is at school.”

“You’ve really thought about it. Wow, I never thought… I mean, this will make you a dad, you realise?”

The blond rolled his eyes at his friend, hiding the reddening of his cheeks, and the detective visibly put himself together, taking a deep breath.

“Okay, well, I’ve got a friend at Social Services. I’ll ask her if she can hurry the process along a bit, don’t worry.”

The thin man smiled in thanks at his friend and the subject changed to the other things that needed to be done now that he’d decided to adopt the little girl.

When he started to speak about having started to look for a more central and homelier apartment and choices for school, Naomasa looked astounded again at how much he’d already begun to work out on his own.

It wasn’t much later that the little girl showed up at the door with a small shy smile and the tall blond beckoned her closer, introducing her to his best friend for the first time.

Except they hit a snag right then.

“Well if you’re going to adopt her maybe you should find her a proper name. You can’t keep calling her Hime-chan!” teased the detective in a halting accented English.

Big green eyes had looked up at him in astonishment and barely hidden hope.

“You’re going to adopt me?” she asked quietly.

“Well, only if you want me to.” he answered gently.

She had smiled brightly and hugged him, initiating contact for the first time, and he coughed to hide his embarrassment at his friend’s look, but returned the gesture and ruffled her red hair fondly.

“So I guess we’re looking for a name?”

She nodded enthusiastically and he smiled widely as Naomasa chuckled at them both.

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She’d been so excited at the idea of getting her own name that Toshinori felt a bit guilty for pushing it back for so long. But they had thought they’d find her family, so he hadn’t wanted to confuse her by naming her something only to find out later her true name.

But as eager as she was, it took a couple of days before they settled on one. Or more like Toshinori settled on one and she just accepted it happily.

Unknown to her, the blond had poured over so many pages about names in the internet that he was almost an expert by then. In fact, his desire to find her the perfect name had only been tempered by the fact that a name was needed to move the adoption along.

And so on the third day after Naomasa’s visit, he sat her down on the kitchen and presented her with his choice, waiting nervously for her to accept or reject it.

“Yumi.” She repeated slowly, a smile growing on her face until she was beaming at him. “Thank you!”

His answering smile had been so wide it almost hurt; he was so proud of his choice!

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In between looking for a new apartment and checking out the local schools, Toshinori made sure to help his new ward with the language. He would leave the written part to the school and probably sign her up for some extra classes to get her up to the level she should be at her age, not that he thought she’d have so much trouble with the eagerness she showed towards learning. Still, he wanted her to have down the basics of the spoken language before she started school.

And there were other things that he needed to do, too. When he’d first taken her in, it was supposed to be temporary. Now that it was going to be a permanent thing he was startled to realise that he needed to buy a fair few things: she didn’t have enough clothes, nor toiletries, or toys, or anything at all for that matter.

With that in mind, he took a short break from his job, calling on a few favours so his patrols were covered for a couple weeks, and set himself to remedying that lack.

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He didn’t remember the last time he’d spent so long as Yagi Toshinori. Well, okay, so he did, but he hated to think of the time he spent recovering in the hospital after that fight so he’d feign that he didn’t remember it.

But now that he had Yumi-hime to look after he was spending a lot of time as that. The anonymity felt better than he remembered too.

He took the little girl shopping soon, enjoying her wonder at the big mall and a bit chagrined when he noticed her nervousness at the amount of people there. He should’ve expected her shyness and nervousness to kick in when she was in the middle of such a big crowd.

Shopping wasn’t something he usually enjoyed, but in the end he had a fun time shopping for the little princess.

They looked for clothes first and he admitted he was a bit lost in the beginning. Yumi was just looking around with wide eyes and shrugged confusedly when he asked her if she saw anything she liked.

He even went so far as to ask a nearby woman ―a mother to a girl a bit younger than Yumi― what he should be looking for.

The woman took pity on the “poor frazzled single father” and helped him figure out what sizes of clothes they’d need and which kind of clothes he absolutely needed to get her.

Once the insecurity of messing up was gone, he spent a great deal of time cooing over how cute the little princess looked, choosing all kinds of pretty things for her to wear and managing to coerce the skittish girl into choosing a few things herself.

Next they went to various other shops, getting her different kinds of shampoos and towels and pyjamas and anything else he could think of.

But their last stop was honestly the most fun in his opinion: the toy shop.

Not even Yumi’s shyness had withstood the racks and racks of colourful toys. And when he told her to pick anything she wanted, she’d looked at everything with wide eyes and a happy if a bit incredulous smile.

Yumi wasn’t a very demanding child, he’d already noticed that, so he wasn’t surprised when she stuck to only a few things and that was with him pushing her to.

A couple of children story books ―that he’d be reading to her until she could start practising herself―, a new box of crayons and a sketching notebook, a cute green snake plushie and a set of hero-themed figures ―which of course included his own alter ego― were soon chosen. But he took note of the other things she’d eyed and not taken as future reference. He’d have just bought them for her, but she was already looking overwhelmed.

After that, they stopped at a nearby café to get some lunch before going back home, where he proceeded to enthusiastically introduce her to the wonder of action movies.

All in all, he had more fun than he’d expected.