"How much longer do we have to stay?" You asked, sitting in the corner of that dark room, the one without windows and the locked door.
It'd been hours since you'd been in there. Although time tends to slow to a stop when uncertainty wreaks nothing but stress in the mind.
You glanced up from the corner, hands on your knees still.
The white haired boy was sitting, his eyes half lidded and his posture loose as he sat against the wall. He didn't seem very awake. Maybe the darkness was getting to him.
"I'm not sure." He replied, his voice rough. It'd only just dawned on you that he hadn't been given food or water either in all that time. He sniffled. "Sensei said to just wait for him."
"I don't like your Sensei." You said, tightening your hold around your legs, putting yourself further into the corner.
You were just as tired, just as hungry, just as thirsty, and more than anything you just wanted to be able to see the sky again.
"Why not?" The boy asked, not like he was offended- like he just wanted to know.
"He looks scary." You mumbled, remembering the tall, ominous man when he first reached out his hand to you. Obviously the image was blurred in your mind now, let concrete. But you remembered him kneeling down, saying things to the white haired boy than to you.
Shigaraki understood why you would think those things even if he didn't share your feelings. He was so young, only a few years older than you. He didn't know how to handle any of this. All he remembered was you crying and not wanting to see that again.
"You said I looked scary once, remember?" He asked, creeping a little closer to you. Again, he didn't seem offended. Just wanted you to understand his feelings too.
You rose your chin from its resting place on your arms, met his gaze.
"No," You shook your head, "I never said that."
Shigaraki had to think for a moment.
Looking at you was a bit trippy for him.
Somehow you, your face, the way you looked at him with a mix of caution and care, it reminded him of his mother.
He'd always called her his 'mama' and now that she was gone, seeing her, even in others was a bittersweet comparison.
"Right." He whispered under his breath, wiping his nose. "Maybe mama said it."
Glancing back over at you, he realized you were very much in your own head again. Probably fearful. Probably needing to talk just to keep your mind from downward spiralling into the cruelly unpassing time.
"I know you're too young for school," He started, shifting from the wall, sitting criss-crossed across from you, a good meter away. "but I went once."
His tone was so casual, conversational.
It almost made you feel safe.
"I never had friends,' He went on, blinking, his shoulder relaxed, everything about him seeming genuine enough to trust. "because they all thought I was scary-looking too."
To clarify, he pointed to the scars around his eyes, the divots in his skin that curved beneath his lids. They looked like lines carved in stone- more artistic than pretty, although slightly painful looking. The same sort of scars adorned his neck, his wrists too. Almost as if he was tearing at himself wherever he thought he could.
