𝐁𝐥𝐮𝐞 𝐁𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝 ||Neito Monoma x Reader||

||10||Refuge||

╔═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╗

"He's what?"

Although you felt your heart leap into your throat at the thought, you held your composure. "I'm going to need you to further elaborate on that."

Seiichi leaned into the bench, keeping his eyes focused on the sky. "Okay listen, this is going to take a lot of explaining so just bear with me here. You've met Ichiki before, right? Darker skin, long hair?"

You nodded, knowing exactly who he was talking about. She was the one who had attacked you and Neito in the UA forest. You never did see her after that, or that you knew of, at least.

"Right, so her, Neito, and I have known each other for a very long time. I don't want to get into the details, as they're hard for me to speak about, but let's just say we all have some tragic backstory that leads to us meeting our boss."

You raised an eyebrow, "boss?"

"Yeah, boss. Anyway, a little while back, Ichiki was supposed to be walking Neito home, but she was killed by Hisato, that's our boss's name. Neito was all freaked out because Hisato was acting like a psychopath so I swooped in to help him out."

Your eyes widened, jaw practically on the floor. "Wait wait wait, let me get this straight. Ichiki died? And she was killed by your boss? How does that even happen?"

Seichii rubbed the back of his neck, looking at his shoes. "Well, he has a pretty dangerous quirk, but I really shouldn't get into that. Plus Ichiki was disclosing some information that Hisato didn't want Neito to know."

The grass beneath you danced in the chilly wind, small seed pods following their path. "I suppose that makes sense, but that still doesn't tell me why Neito is going to..." you paused, swallowing the hard lump forming in your throat "... die."

"I was getting there," he flashed you a glare for interrupting "After I swooped in to save him, I wasn't thinking straight and used my quirk on our boss, and he was pissed about that so he took it out on Neito when we got back. Man, he was black and blue where he was beaten, let me tell you. Of course, I don't enjoy seeing him like that, but there was nothing I could do about it at the time. Hisato had sent me off to go help with something unimportant."

"I'm not entirely sure that Neito will die, but I need someone other than me to protect him from Hisato. You're the only person I could think of that might've been willing to help. Sure, he can be very overwhelming at times, but the kid's like a brother to me. I don't know what I would do if I lost him on top of Ichiki."

He looked you dead in the eyes, his frame still and silent. The frigid breeze threw his hair around and pushed it out of his face, revealing a deep and rigid scar that ran from the top of his right eyebrow to his bottom lip.

You couldn't bring yourself to look him in the eye. How could you? He was asking something so big, and as much as you wanted to help Neito, you didn't know if you could. Even if you had improved a lot since studying at UA, you still were light-years behind this "Hisato" guy. Even in that petty fight with Bakugou, you could do nothing about him quite literally blowing up in your face. There was nothing you could've done about Aika's death, if only you had been home sooner, or maybe if you had been stronger you could've saved her. You did nothing about your parent's disappearance, all you could do was cry alone in your room. When you were beaten by your grandmother, you did absolutely nothing. You sat by and allowed yourself to be hit over, and over again and you developed dents in your skin.

You were weak, you couldn't do anything then, and you can't do anything now. What was even the point in trying to save Neito if you knew in the end, he would just be taken away from you like everything else. How were you supposed to find it within yourself to fight, if you had nothing to fight for?