Leave Your Mark | Various!BNHA x Reader

25: Choosing to Believe

There's a stranger in Endeavor's house.

"You should try doing the chubby bunny challenge too! It's really fun. I don't think you'll even get close to beating my record, but everyone has to start somewhere."

Endeavor watches from a distance, completely flabbergasted, as you tear open a big bag of marshmallows that you were apparently keeping inside your backpack (why?), and hold out a handful of them towards Shouto-who looks confused, yet intrigued.

"It's simple," you explain. "The goal is to stuff as many marshmallows into your mouth as possible, and keep saying chubby bunny until you physically can't anymore."

"Oh," Shouto merely replies. He pauses to knit his brows together. "But... what's the point of doing this?"

"You do it because it's fun, obviously!"

"Is it?"

"Definitely!"

"Even though it sounds like a choking hazard?"

"Mhm!"

You bob your head enthusiastically, and Endeavor is still watching, more and more horrified by what's going on in his living room.

He finally snaps out of it, and needless to say, he comes stomping into that room with all the self-control of an angry toddler.

"What is the meaning of this?!" Endeavor exclaims. "How dare you march into my home without permission! Where do you get the nerve?!"

You turn your head towards him, granting him a full-frontal view of the concerning amount of marshmallows you've just stuffed in your mouth. You must have been in the middle of giving Shouto a demonstration. He's even clapping, goddammit.

"Chubby bunny," you simply say, and there's a slight pause, only for your marshmallow-stuffed cheeks to swell into a gummy smile.

Endeavor honestly wants to die right now.

"You're despicable," he spits, and it's a miracle he hasn't already popped a blood vessel. "Didn't your parents ever teach you any manners?"

For some reason, Shouto's expression darkens several shades the second the words leave his lips, but you merely swallow all of the marshmallows in your mouth-god knows how-then shrug in response.

"Well, no, because I never really had parents," you say. "I lived in an orphanage until not long ago. But I do have a guardian now, and he doesn't seem to mind when I stuff marshmallows in my mouth. I even got him to film me doing it once."

Endeavor falters for a few moments. You're an orphan? What's an orphan doing at a prestigious middle school like the one he enrolled Shouto in? How in the world did someone like you pass the entrance exam to get accepted?

No, whatever. That's not important right now. What's important is the fact that you're still in his house. You shouldn't have even gotten in!

"Leave," Endeavor demands, eyes glowing with a hatred so fierce, it's enough to make even the civilians he saves afraid of him.

Although he's a hero, he's not popular, like All Might. He's never been good at the public, social aspect that's part of his job. But he never cared much about that, because as far as he was concerned, the only thing that actually matters is strength. If he's strong enough to defeat even the most dangerous villains, he could still be considered the Number One Hero. It would be more than enough to stand at the top.

But the truth of the matter is that he's not strong enough. He will never be strong enough.

Not when faced with the most daunting, insurmountable obstacle in the whole world-All Might.