PLASTIC FLOWERS ( k. bakugou )

chapter 07

' of endless cycles and nonexistent hopes. '

━━━━━

The youth was right the first time, the fake smiles and fake tears were not the last time she had to struggle. In fact, every single moment she spent in that barren wasteland was of struggling. She lied, cheated and killed. She became a monster. No, she uncovered the monster that lied within.

Now, she did not need help from other people. She was beyond that kind of problem, she could eat, and drink and breathe freely. She was freed from the shackles of helplessness, but as she watched her 'enemy' fall to the ground, blood trickling from his chin, she knows that another chain has been casted on herself. And unlike helplessness, it is heavier and more smothering.

It doesn't matter, the youth weakly reminds herself as the man doubles over his back to suck oxygen in his futile struggle to survive. The glass cage is sealed and eight minutes, twenty seven seconds was all it took for him to run out of air. It is pitiful. The position in which the man is in is almost laughable to her. The youth thinks that the irony behind this particular situation is sickening albeit a little interesting.

It was one of the many distinct differences from where the youth was in that helpless environment and this gruesome one. Now, she was not the one who begged and cried for survival. Now, she decided who died and lived.

The euphoria from the fact that she gets to make a choice makes the youth muster a smile. It is not like the smiles she made in the past. This time, the smile is wicked, with black spots dancing on her eyes and red rimming her teeth.

She had a choice. And it is a choice she will stand by.

"You're dead," she mutters and it must be a cruel trick of Fate but she has been so wrapped up in these games she's been playing, the murders she has committed, the moving from one evil person to another to lure, manipulating others that she has forgotten how normalcy felt.

It was precisely two years, three months and twenty one days ever since this bloody performance begun and she shakes her head, looks at the corpse in front of her. This was the sixth mobster she had killed, posing as one of the kids he used for kidnapping. The glass cage was where he put the children he caught, suffocating them and never opening the entryways of air if their parents didn't comply.

Didn't give the needed ransom.

The youth had been paid by a rival mobster, saying that she would be paid double if she managed to get rid of this man- she didn't bother remembering his name, you didn't remember the names of the ants you've stepped on. At first, the man who hired her seemed to be teasing but when he saw the blood red eyes and the look of someone who had abandoned humanity in her, he decided to give her the opportunity.

She hadn't failed to comply.

She glanced at the dagger on her grasp, it's been her only companion for the years that have passed. How many years more, she questioned to herself, tracing the sharp knife, revealing its final hours, minutes and seconds.

Faraway, still faraway. Two more years, one month, two weeks, three days, five hours, nine minutes and forty seven seconds and counting. She hoped she could still extend that time, but if the youth has learned at least a decent value in this monstrous world, it was that things move on and you had to let go in order to move forward.

The youth releases a curt sigh, exiting through the window and landing on rain kissed pavements. She wipes the traces of blood on her khakis and wraps the hand knit blue scarf around her neck, buttons the first three buttons she swore. She turns on a corner, trailing the labyrinthine alleyways of the city and upon reaching a crowded place, followed the surge of the pedestrians.