•Manipulation• [BNHA × Male!OC]

Chapter 181: mis(s me with that)communication

"Where have you been?" Katsuki shot at me with an accusatory tone.

It seemed he had been pacing the floor, now free from his IV pole.

I blinked, glancing around the surprisingly empty room.

'Right, everyone else had been discharged...'

The others who had once occupied this shared room had long since departed. Meanwhile, Shoto and Katsuki, who's conditions had improved significantly, were moved here to bide their time until they got discharged.

Deku was still in his own room, he'd barely regained consciousness. That seemed to really relieve the pair of them.

And now, it was just the three of us in the room.

"It feels like forever ago that we shared a room, huh?" I mutter to myself but the pair stiffen.

I hadn't just imagined it.

Since awakening, despite seeing each other daily, a wall seemed to have appeared between us.

And I could guess why.

"So you remember that? What else?" Katsuki's tone was harsh, overtly so, like he was trying to cover for something.

"Katsuki," Shoto hissed from his bed. His voice was still hoarse but it was finally coming back.

The blonde looked as if he wanted to retort, but bit his tongue and remained silent anyways.

I reach for his hand but stop just inches away, deciding against it.

I pull back and slowly shuffle to the edge of Shoto's bed. Sitting down, I pat the empty space beside me.

"I think we need to talk," I smile, trying not to be too upset at the distrustful looks the two were giving me.

I'd deceived them, knowingly or otherwise, it was the truth.

On a deeper level, it seemed I felt I deserved this.

Maybe that was why it seemed to make my heart twist all the more.

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For the next hour, I let myself be interrogated by the pair, telling them whatever I knew of my past and why I'd ended up the way I did.

Whatever they asked for, I'd give the details and then some. I had nothing to hide and they deserved the truth.

I talked about how my awakened quirk had the ability to manipulate even my own memories, which had caused my amnesia. How, in my mentally unstable state, my quirk malfunctioned, teleporting me into the sky where I would have likely fallen to my death if not for Hawks.

How Nora, a being created purely through the need for survival, had finally gone to rest.

Then of my path, how I'd been groomed into the perfect attack dog for the king of villains himself.

All of it.

Eventually, they seemed to run out of questions to ask.

Except for one.

"Why did you come to UA?" Shoto's tone was light, purely curiosity.

I paused. This was an easy one, and nothing to do with my current predicament, but I'd answer it nonetheless.

"I wanted to be free," I state simply, smiling up at the ceiling.

The incandescent lights reminded me of the floodlights that hung above my cell where I'd spent my first year as Ryo under government watch.