All My White Lies | bnha

eighteen | shattered

PEOPLE WERE LIKE DORMANT VOLCANOES. I knew that better than anyone. Silent, but simmering with anger, as if a mere drop of stone into the cracks of cooled magma would unearth something beyond catastrophic. Unrelenting emotion, and suppression, beyond the human mind's magnitude as it took victim of everyone around it.

The lava that burst forth was anger and when viewing Kota, I could see that better in him than anyone else. There was a specific fiery glare within his stare when he eyed me and the others or any pro-hero for that matter, as if we'd be better burning than we would be standing.

I never tried to pry to Mandalay about Kota's state of mind and considering the kid typically kept to himself, I never edged out beyond giving him a glass of water. The water would do nothing to his anger and even then, he'd eye it like some kind of foreign liquid before reluctantly drinking it anyway.

One time he had straight up refused to take the drink from my hand but I couldn't blame him; it was more of Mandalay's suggestion to keep him hydrated than my own. He had simply walked out of the kitchen, arms crossed, sneakers snapping against the floor with stubbornness that only someone his age could manage.

Pixie-Bob had watched the whole thing happen and had reassured me it wasn't my fault, but I didn't need that reassurance to know that it wasn't. Sometimes he peeked into my room, when the door was ajar when the slightest sliver of light leaked in enough for him to steal it away and spotlight the things inside.

The slightly messy bed, my tucked away belongings; everything that made it look less lived-in, but it was enough to make me comfortable. I don't know if he ever noticed, but gradually, over the hours, I'd adjust the door further open. Just a centimeter or two, enough for him to study more about me without asking questions.

More space for him to glare and then get mad at himself for being intrigued. He never said anything and neither had I. I stuck to my room, ate the food that Vlad King gave me, and resigned myself to scrawling in my notebook and sneakily peeking out the windows in my free time.

The first night I had snuck out to get a better survey of the area around the camp, but apparently, I wasn't secretive enough. In the morning, I found a map of the training grounds slid from under the door, and instead, Aizawa had dropped off my breakfast, gray eyes drifting towards me and then the paper on the ground shortly.

He had been kind enough to include coffee on the tray though, so I didn't bother to question how he knew. "Now you're just being annoying," His voice trickled in like a vapor, low, soft, but slightly raspy with a tinge of irateness. His sneakers squeaked in front of the door and his frown deepened as if his attempt to be more powerful had failed because of it.

"How so?" My pen drifted upward from the paper and I looked towards the kid in my doorway, another black pen stuck in between my teeth. I snacked on blackberry and blue raspberry-flavored ink when I was bored. "You're supposed to be hiding, but you're just leaving your door open now."

Kota's arms were crossed and for a moment he reminded me of my mother. I chuckled lowly at the thought and beckoned him inside half-heartedly, not even sure if he'd bother to consider my request. "Well, it got you in my doorway, didn't it?" I questioned. Kota looked mad for a second, but stepped inside anyway.

He looked like he had fallen for the worst trick of his life; he thought he had ultimately won the little game between us but had inevitably lost at my long-term plan. He was playing checkers, I was playing chess. "I thought you were a pro-hero. Why are you doing art?"

He scrunched his nose. The kid was smart, so it must've crossed his mind that art was related to my quirk, but he wasn't going to mention that. He'd look for any place to poke and prod at something to insult me with. In that way, he reminded me of Kioshi. The boy was a sweetheart, but he was still a sibling.

And as all siblings, we fought.

Not often considering I was more understanding of his immaturity, but there were occasional moments where he'd call me "stupid" or "dumb" and cry a few seconds later after realizing it was mean. "Pro-heroes create sometimes. For their quirks, for fun. You can be both: an artist and a pro-hero," I shrugged lazily.

My art was hardly art; it looked like half-dead corpses just plastered onto lined paper, but I suppose that was what gave it more of an intimidating air. I drew better back when I stenciled at that tattoo shop. I chewed on my lip at the sight of a curly-winged bird, my mind flicking to the crow painting that sat in my bedroom briefly.

"No, you can't. Villains and pro-heroes are just competitions; it's just a boxing match with corny powers. It only makes the people around them sad, hurt, and dead." The boy fidgeted before moving to shift himself onto my bed, knees pulled against his chest as his chin jutted out in between his limbs, eyes still focused on my moving pen.

I chuckled softly at his black-and-white view of reality. "I get that," His head perked up as if he had never heard someone agree with him before. There was the common misconception that kids were brainless; their thoughts weren't as valid because they didn't think as deeply as adults did.

However, Kota was living proof of the opposite. He had sat and rotted with his thoughts that spurred within his brain like a forgotten water mill. With each cycle, the contraption creaked, but it always recycled the same conclusion: heroes are the weakest of all. "But what if the villain or hero dies?"

My pen paused, poised against the paper. I wasn't sure what else to draw, another rendition of a dragon underneath my fingertips as the itch to draw something else overcame me. However, I wasn't sure what. Kota remained silent as if waiting for my creation to go on with my thoughts.

"People die in tragedies, loss happens everywhere. Still, there are instances where the actual fighters end up losing their lives, right?" My eyes drifted toward his unresponsive hunched-over figure. He looked as if I had just smacked him across the mouth and flicked his forehead hard enough for his brain to manually eject out of his skull.

I bit my lip to stifle my laughter at the thought, shaking my head as I continued. "What then? Would you say they lost the 'boxing match'? Or their corny powers weren't enough?" I prodded, going back to my artistry with a newfound determination, my arm lining out curves that were being drawn before they were thought of.

"People die no matter the circumstance, Kota," I bit my lip. "It's not limited to superhero fights. People don't fight just to fight, y'know? At the end of the day, there's something they love, something to come home to. They go into a fight knowing they might not make it out and unfortunately, that's the reality of our boxing match."

"What motives?" Kota muttered. "What could be so important that they'd abandon me?"

I didn't egg him on for details. I eyed him carefully, setting a hand on his back once I noticed his watery eyes. "To create and destroy. People are all the same, if you love something enough—if you're obsessed enough—you'd do either for it. So, it has nothing to do with being a hero or a villain. To create an ideal reality for you is why I think they passed."

Kota curled into himself, shuddering. And for a moment, I saw a glimpse of Kioshi, the same tiny frame that hugged his own figure amidst the cold, curled up in the bleached tone of the hospital blankets, nodding off to the systematic beeping of his heart monitor.

"They were wrong," He mumbled in between tears. "My ideal reality included them in it."