fear. || { bnha }

twenty three.

a/n: first off, thank you all so much for 1k votes! <3
second, updates may come slower as i'm moving to college today and i start classes on monday. but updates will continue to come! (i also updated my profile with links if any if you wanna talk to me)
(also, gimme some name suggestions for hitoshi's parents lol)

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Valui spent the rest of the school day sitting in Nezu's office. At first, she had asked about going back to her own school until the day ended, but Hitoshi had insisted that it would be safer for her to stay in UA; Nezu agreed, and so she took a seat on his couch and stayed there for a handful of hours. Thirty or so minutes later, after being asked why she didn't go home, Valui had explained what had just recently happened. Nezu had listened, simply nodding after her story to show he had acknowledged what she said.

When the school day ended, a bell rang that woke Valui up from the light sleep she had fallen into. As she rubbed her eyes, she stood up off the couch, wobbling a little as the drowsiness wore off. She waved a small goodbye to Nezu, exiting the office and making her way down the hallway to the elevator. Just as Valui raised her hand to push the button, the metal doors slid open and revealed Hitoshi standing there looking fairly bored — until he saw her and his eyes lit up.

"Oh, hey." He smiled, which Valui returned as she stepped into the elevator, a small spring in her step. "How was doing nothing all day?"

A small scowl replaced the smile on Valui's face. "Boring."

Hitoshi chuckled softly as he pushed a button on the elevator panel. "At least that's better than something bad happening." He smirked lightly down at her, resting his elbow on the top of her head in a teasing way. "You attract a lot of bad luck."

If Valui never thought that before, she was definitely beginning to now. She'd had a mess of bad luck; being in the extremely wrong place at the extremely wrong time; meeting the extremely worst kind of people. Yet when she looked up at Hitoshi, she didn't think that at all — if anything, she thought the opposite. She felt like the luckiest person in the world.

And also the most scared.

Her bad luck had nearly gotten her killed, and it had gotten her own father killed. It scared her to even entertain the thought of what might happen if this string of horrendous luck continued.

"And you're right in the middle of it," Valui mumbled without really thinking, her eyes dropping from Hitoshi's face and looking to her feet. There was a somber, if not troubled, look on her face, eyebrows furrowing as she struggled to keep the images of him dying out of her mind.

She felt Hitoshi's arm slide off from her head, his hand then intertwining itself with hers. "I'll be fine, Valui." His voice was softer now with an almost pleading undertone to it. "You don't have to worry so much about me."

Valui wanted to protest; to tell him that she very much did need to worry about him, and that she couldn't stop even if she tried. But she didn't — she didn't want to risk disagreeing and start up an argument or risk herself breaking down into hysterics again. All she did was give a small, halfhearted nod and squeeze his hand. In the same moment, the elevator stopped on the ground floor and the doors opened.

Hitoshi led Valui out of the elevator, his hand tightening around hers as they entered a small crowd of students. The girl habitually moved closer to him, awkwardly looking at a few of the people who were giving her curious looks. She began wishing her mood from earlier never left — the one where she didn't care what everyone around her thought of her; where she was ready to fight anyone who mentioned a word about her not belonging, regardless of Quirks or not. Now she just felt out of place and uncomfortable.