Cold Instinct || Vigilante Deku

ⁿᵒ.14

Six Months

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'For six months, I couldn't sleep.'

Everything was a blur, a huge cloud of fog, it was ironic, really. To this day, he couldn't recall how the paramedics got him to the hospital, or how he slipped in and out of consciousness with the anaesthesia after the surgery on his leg.

He couldn't get out of bed for weeks, he couldn't talk for weeks and couldn't sleep even after he was cleared to go back home; six months. For six months, I couldn't sleep. Tossing and turning, opening and closing the windows, and changing his clothes constantly throughout the night with the mere hours he managed to close his eyes turning up to be a nightmare.

Whenever he closed his eyes, the image of his friend's bleeding, disfigured body flashed before him despite the pit of darkness. All Shota could hear was his voice encouraging him. Telling him to keep going.

"The radio was broken once the buildings in the area collapsed... you were on your own, Aizawa."

I was all alone. I kept going while he was probably still holding onto the thin red string of life. I killed him. I was a murderer.

When his grades started dropping drastically, when he was forced to sit by the bench because of his leg during heroics, and when he was cleared to go back in the field physically; he couldn't pass the psychological evaluation.

And he was tossed back to general studies.

Everything was spiralling out of control, he watched his life, my dream, slip through his fingers like it was nothing. And he pushed his last hope away with the back of his hand.

"You can't keep doing this to yourself, Shota. Please," His friend had begged, "You have to keep pushing through, he wouldn't have wanted this for you."

He couldn't keep it in anymore. Watching Hizashi all carefree, acting like nothing happened, looking at him like he was some wounded animal who needed to be taken care of as Shota lost everything.

Home was shit, his mom didn't even try anymore. She'd given up on herself long ago and now she'd given up on her son, the nights he found her passed out with a needle by her side kept getting more frequent, and she'd started to blame it all on him. What was Hizashi even yapping about, like he had any idea what he was going through?!

"Yeah? And how do you know what he would've wanted for me, Hizashi?!"

I was an idiot.

"Would Oboro want me to just walk around with a smile on my face?!"

I shouldn't have pushed him away.

"Or would he want me to burn down the school for fucking kicking me out of the hero course?!"

I should've considered his feelings.

"Would he want me to-- to..."

I shouldn't have left him on the school roof all alone that day.

Shota ran, and ran. He couldn't take it anymore. It was all too much. The truth was, Hizashi was right. He was always right. He knew what he was doing, he was keeping up appearances. A part of me knew, but I was just a kid.

A kid who killed his friend.

Ignoring the rest of the world around him, ignoring the ache in his ruined leg, ignoring the people staring at him running down the streets in the middle of the day and he didn't stop until I reached my house.