Arrangement

17 - In The Files

TW: mentions of exploitation at work, sexual harassment, media scandals

~

Shouta had spent the day looking through anything and everything he could find on the Internet about this guy - Puppet Master - and how he was treating his employees. He did dig up the little scandal that Y/N had been talking about and it seemed like it was a pretty big thing back at the time.

Of course Shouta had never heard any of that, because he didn't take much, if any, interest in what the media was saying about him at any given point. But when he was seeing all the stuff that was still online about that incident he was starting to get why Y/N didn't like to think back to what happened. Or why she didn't try to find a job with another agency, even now, after it had been over a year since all that had happened. The whole thing had been nothing but mudslinging.

Shouta cringed reading some of the old comments underneath the news articles, calling Y/N a 'crazy bitch' and just making her out to be a horrible person in general. There were a few people that seemed to believe her side of the story, but most people decided to believe whatever the 'hero' said. Shouta wasn't even sure which story he would have believed if he had heard it himself.

People could be pretty insane when it came to their favourite heroes and there were serious problems for some heroes with stalking and having really creepy fans. Shouta wouldn't have been surprised if that was what happened. That was the story the media chose to portray. And every picture of Y/N that he could find from that time seemed to show her in a nervous and insecure state.

If that was all that he had seen, Shouta wouldn't even have second-guessed Puppet Master's story. Everything seemed to line up so well with his story. Of course everything lined up really well with Y/N's story, too. It was her word against his and of course the public was going to believe the hero in this and not the rookie side-kick that wasn't more than mediocre at UA.

But knowing what Y/N had told him he did dig a little deeper, finding people talking about how bad it was, working for Puppet Master's agency, how some people were being completely overworked, others were talking about sexual harassment, but no one really wanted to speak out, because they all seemed afraid of this so-called 'hero'. Shouta hated calling him that so much.

That man was no hero. He had nothing to do with a hero - he was truly just a glorified cop at best. He honestly seemed more like a villain. He was probably looking out for young and inexperienced girls that just came from some hero school, with very little confidence, that weren't sure what they were going to do with their life yet. That man was an absolute predator.

It was disgusting to Shouta. All he really wanted to do was to get all this evidence together and put it out there and ruin this man. The thing was just that... there was no way he could do that without dragging Y/N into all this again. And he didn't want that. He didn't want to do that without asking her. Right now, she was asleep right next to him and she looked so peaceful.