Strings (BNHA x OC) [Rewrite]

16 || Interruption

—The Next Day, 1:56 pm at the LoV Hideout—
——

Puppet sat in her room on her bed, fidgeting with a string when someone knocked on her door.

Through the door came the muffled voice of Mr. Compress. "Puppet?"

She picked her mask up from beside her on the bed and fixed it back onto her face. "Come in."

The door opened and the magician stepped in, closing the door once he was inside. He greeted Puppet with a wave.

He gestured to the bed. "May I?"

"Sure." Puppet scooted over to the side, closer to the headboard of the bed. With space now available next to her, Mr. Compress walked over and sat down.

"What have you been doing lately, my dear?" he asked.

In her head, Puppet went over what she had done in the past couple of weeks. The last time that she had met with her friend, they were together raiding a jewelry store. Since then, she, and later Dabi, had fought Eraser Head. In addition to that, the whole Hawks-alleyway situation had occurred. Since then, she had only been collecting souls in her boredom.

"I've been collecting some souls," she answered. "Dabi and I also fought Eraser Head and burned down a theater."

Mr. Compress nodded with a a hum of commendation.

Puppet thought over whether or not she would tell him about Hawks.  After a moment, she inwardly shrugged. To hell with it.

"You remember our conversation about Hawks, right?" she asked.

"I may be older, but my memory is still intact," he replied. "Of course I remember."

"Well he made his move."

"What kind of move?" he questioned, his voice slightly lowered.

"He backed me into an alley and trapped me there," she answered, "went on a tangent about trust."

"What was your reaction?"

"I don't know. I accepted it, but I don't trust him that much."

Mr. Compress breathed out a sigh. "I would suggest to put up an act, just for the time being."

"I plan to. I want to use him later."

He nodded. "Well if you ever want me to intervene, I'll be there."

"I know. You and the rest of the League."

The two villains stopped their conversation as they heard the sound of shoes skipping down the hallway beyond the door. When they both turned to look, they saw a shadow cast under the crack of the door, cutting off the light from the outside.

Both of them fell silent and waited.

Someone knocked on the door in an upbeat pattern.

"Who is it?" Puppet asked loud enough for the person on the other side of the door to hear.

"Aww, you don't recognize my knock~?" Toga's cheerful voice replied.

"You've never knocked on my door before, so no."

"Well, Tomura wants you to come downstairs," she informed.

"We'll be down in a moment," Mr. Compress spoke, answering her.

"Ooh, magic man's in there? You two are cute~"

"Yeah, yeah," Puppet responded, brushing off the comment. She wasn't phased; the teenager had said the same thing about the two masked villains before. That same day, they had made it perfectly clear that they were nothing more than close friends. Neither of them had romantic feelings towards each other, and they were content with that.