A Life Worth Living (Aizawa x OC)

37 - Proximity

On the way back down to the gala, the elevator cabin was filled with silence. The uneven pair was standing next to each other, Aizawa with his hands in his pockets and absent-mindedly staring at the door in front of him while Himari desperately tried to rearrange her hair that had been visibly dishevelled by the breeze and her little dancing session on the rooftop.

Aizawa's mind was torn, still attempting to wrap his head around their previous talk. The woman next to him was obviously hurting because she'd lost someone, which also explained her behaviour, her weird mood swings, and provided him with a possible explanation for her outburst in the gym. However, he could only hazard a guess whom she had lost and how it had happened.

Also, she had finally opened up a bit and had freely spoken about what had been weighing on her mind. Considering that she'd always been extremely keen on saying nothing, on completely shutting down whenever something happened, he was positively surprised that she seemed to trust him enough to tell him.

But then again, whenever he was with her, he felt like a completely different person. He did things he'd usually not even consider doing. Whenever he was close to her, his reason, his rationality, went right out of the window, a development he wasn't exactly fond of, so to speak.

The shell he had been hiding in for years, the shell he had meticulously established as a defence mechanism, had started to crack because of her. Her worried questions, her smile, her tears, her sincere laughs, her teasing,...generally, every single aspect of her presence had caused a crack in his shell that grew with every second in her proximity. It felt like she had slowly started to take over his life. His mind was taken hostage. He didn't ask for that to happen. Without his shell, without his defence mechanism, he felt vulnerable and this was something he wanted to avoid at all costs. But at the moment, he felt like he couldn't do anything against this development.

At the same time, the gears in Himari's head were going into overdrive as she recalled her confrontation with Hizashi, fully aware that she couldn't run and hide from him forever. She would have to face him again and apologize for her behaviour, or rather her rash escape. After all, they'd see each other at school every day. The only thing she was silently praying for was that his feelings for her were just a crush, an infatuation, mentally cursing herself again for not noticing earlier. It couldn't be more considering that he still barely knew her. She was aware that it hurt nevertheless, but he would eventually get over it.

But her thoughts also wandered to the man who was currently placed next to her and seemed to be as wrapped up in his head as she was. It had been obvious that he had stepped miles out of his comfort zone up there and yet he had gone through with it to lighten her mood, even though he'd probably never admit it.

She was grateful for Aizawa to always be there whenever something happened, although she had still no clue how he managed to do that. She enjoyed his presence. It was soothing and the more time she spent with him the more she felt like she could actually entangle the chaos in her head and put it into words. Whenever he was there, it felt like he brought some sort of safe space with him, a space in which she could be her true self or at least as much the circumstances permitted.

This safe space was exactly what she needed because the constant lying was exhausting, almost overwhelming by now, but most importantly she felt extremely guilty about it. She didn't want to lie at everyone's faces. Himari was tired of continually having to watch out for slip-ups or coming up with excuses whenever she was talking to someone. It didn't exactly help that everyone at school was like her new family. All of them were amazing people. They didn't deserve to be lied to. The brunette was genuinely scared that when they'd find out the truth about her and that she'd lied to them, they would turn their back on her, not sure if she would be able to cope with that.