One-Shots [Boboiboy]

How to Defy Fate

He was not the one.

He's the hero. He's the chosen one. He's the beacon of hope.

He's not.

But why is everyone telling him that?

* * *

He could see them.

He could see all of them.

How many lives had one little power sphere taken?

What was its motivation?

What did it want?

He stared into the abyss before him, despite the cheery atmosphere of the playground and passing citizens. They all gave him a smile, but all he could see were sneers. Children clamoured him for autographs and pictures, but all he saw was a snarl. The pavement seemed disorientating, the grassy wind intoxicating.

There was nothing more to it.

All of this fame, all of this power thanks to the damned watch wrapped around his left wrist. If it wasn't for this piece of plastic, he would be an ordinary boy with an ordinary life.

And he would be fine with that.

He would rather fade into the background than be some hero.

Besides, it's proven on a multitude of times that he wasn't suited for the task. He was too violent, too bashful and cold. Yet they all ignored it, refused to acknowledge the fact that he was another regular kid on the streets some ball selected to host this power.

What can he say? His fate was stringed up for him the moment he picked that soccer ball up and brought it back to his dorm in the orphanage. It was what turned him from an outcast to the celebrity that everyone aspired to be, but it was not what he wanted. All he wished for was a regular life, have a few genuine friends, graduate high school and find his dream college. Perhaps he would even find love some day and settle down, watch his kids run across his garden in peace.

All of those possibilities were stripped from him the moment he met it. He could have been his own person. He could have been an artist, a teacher, a gymnast—but the title of a hero will forever obscure those chances for him. No one will recognize him for who he is, only who he is playing to be.

He had never felt more isolated and alone.

And he could tell he wasn't the first.

All of them—all of those who had walked this path that he is residing on all sacrificed themselves. Their futures, their hopes, their dreams—all for something they never wanted to be. He could see them in his dreams, telling him to stray from this fixed path they were forced to follow.

And every night he resisted.

One night it was a young girl, who had died at the mere age of thirteen due to the very powers he held. She told him to run. It was not what it seemed to be. The other was a male teenager, just slightly older than him. He told him that he would only end in the same fate as all of them, condemned to a short life with false hopes and dreams.

All seven of them.

* * *

Why can't he just live his life however he wanted?

He does not want to face villains.

He does not want the praise.

He does not want or wish to be the very god that everyone sees.

Day by day, he could see the logic that his predecessors were portraying. He could see the flaws that built the illusion of a hero.

Somehow he still was powerless to fight back.