unmasked ⇌ tobidei

unmasked

[art + the cover art does not belong to me, if you know who made it please let me know so i can credit them! this story will be from tobi / obito's point of view]

"Tobi is sorry!" I screamed, my voice breaking as I was now tired of this façade, the stupid voice I used put a massive strain on me. I had always wondered if it would hurt less if I loved less... I can confirm it doesn't. I've realised you cannot prevent prevent pain, and I've just been denying myself a full life by shutting myself out from the world.
"Are you even listening to me?" Deidara complained angrily, snapping me out of my thoughts. 
"Tobi is sorry." I repeated in the same high-pitched voice, but this time not as loudly, causing the rest of the Akatsuki looked at me weirdly.
"I was just joking, you didn't have to take it so seriously..." Deidara muttered, also looking at me like I had just done something unbelievable. 
"I'm going to bed!" I declared while fake yawning, quickly hurrying to my room and closing the door gently. I let out a sigh of relief, sinking to the cold floor and ripping off my mask. 

"Everything I've ever wanted is on the other side of fear..." I murmured to myself, my throat soothing as it returned to its normal pitch. I had a tendency to talk aloud to myself, probably because I'm the only person I can talk to. Sighing, I stood up and walked to the mirror, gently touching the scarred half of my face,
"What do you do when there's nothing but pain left inside of you? This question has been lingering in my mind for the past eighteen years, the question that has undoubtedly lingered in the minds of those I had to surpass to get here. I made a promise to so many souls, promises that were just empty words. Sometimes I wish I could send just one message to you, to my younger self. It would probably go something like, 'To my past self... I am so sorry. I'm sorry that you tried so desperately to fix others, when your own hands were shaking. I'm sorry that I didn't give you enough time to heal, that I let you seal the wounds of everybody else whilst your own were bleeding. I'm sorry that there are still days where smiling hurts, but I forced you to laugh so that nobody else had any more reasons to hurt you. I'm sorry that you gave all your time and effort to people that will never give the same amount back. I'm sorry that there were nights when you cried yourself to sleep and nobody would ever understand why. Most of all, I'm sorry that I did not love you, like the way you deserved to be loved.' That'd be a good thing for me to hear." I stated sadly, my fingers roughly trying to smudge the jagged, unattractive scars that were etched into my face.
"But I suppose I do love these wretched scars, because they have stayed with me longer than any person has. I am so much more than my scars..." My voice wavered as I held back a sob, my gloved hand placed firmly over my mouth, just in case I couldn't control these emotions anymore. 

"I keep it all inside because I'd rather the pain destroy.... m-me, than everyone else." I choked out, tears streamed down my face as I tried to stop the sobs that racked through my entire body, my hands roughly wiping away my tears as I looked at my reflection in disgust. 
"Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are just buried alive, and will come forth later in uglier ways." I said angrily, malice poisoned in every word I uttered as I glared at myself.  The quiet sound of a door creaking shook me with fear to the core, my Sharingan activated on instinct as I covered my face with my hands while trying to look at the source of the noise.
"D-Deidara?" I gulped, but at this moment in time, my mind wandered from what he had seen or heard.  It had always been my belief that people enter your life at exactly the right time, there are rare people who will show up at the right time, help you through the hard times and stay into your best times... Those are the keepers. And in this moment, nothing could stop the start of my infatuation with Deidara, that would undoubtedly grow.  His usual dull icy blue eye seemed to be shattered by the discovery of me, a haunting regret evident in them. But even I know, infatuation is the language of a beautiful eye upon a sensitive heart. I must know this, for my sake, for his sake. That infatuation is not love, but a blinding gush of sunlight. 
"H-Hello Tobi, I'm sorry I didn't mean to..." Deidara was still speaking to... me? I drowned out the rest of his words, until they became a muffled dull echo in the back of my mind.