Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. (OC/Reader x Aizawa)

You, Wyatt, and Y/N: An Introspective Case Study.

The way Y/N had thought about her life, was angry. Angry, bitter, upset. Empty. It's this constant feeling of wanting something so far away, so far removed from her-

Actually, no.

Me.

It's seeing little kids walking home from school with their parents, hand in hand, a young girl giggling without a care in the world. A mother smiling, full of pride, full of love. I walk behind them and wonder, why not me? Why didn't I get that? Why was I different? The light of the sunset is hitting their faces just right, brown eyes turning hazel, blue eyes squinting. The warmth of the sun warming their hearts in turn.

But... I've been watching them for so long, I forget to feel the warmth myself. The sun's on my face too, isn't it? Are my eyes turning hazel, too? Am I so focused on the past, that I forget the present? My body is here and now, yet my mind is in a time long forgotten. My mind is at a Halloween party, my best friend is dying. My mind is in a living room, with fraying curtains, and a birthday cake with a half-melted '6' candle. My mind is in a bedroom, where my dad has a gun in his hand, and I'm in my bedroom with my headphones blasting whatever shitty music was charting at the time. I think back, so long and hard, I forget to be here and now.

I see a couple, young and happy. The boy is making her laugh. She's in the hospital, where I'm waiting to get my injuries checked out from the villain attack during the exams a couple hours ago. She's sick. She's wearing a hospital gown, and she has no hair. Yet, her boyfriend is there, encouraging her, holding her, keeping her spirits up. I wonder, why not me? Why couldn't Keigo do the same for me? Why? Why didn't I get a happy love story?

Oh. Aizawa's sitting next to me. He insisted we go to the hospital just in case. He's next to me, trying to crack a joke every now and then. He's telling me about his favourite book. He wants me to read it, so we can talk about it together. He was reassuring me, telling me that the attack wasn't my fault. That the students are safe. That I did my best, I couldn't have seen this coming. I forget to reply to him- I'm too busy staring at the couple across from us. He waves a hand in front of my face.

Is life passing me by? It is, isn't it? My inability to move on has me stuck in the past. Am I 24, or 4? Am I 23, or 14? My body is old and sad, yet my mind is stuck as a child. Stuck when everything was okay. It's waiting. Waiting to grow up, waiting for a childhood that will never come. How long can I wait? My whole life? How long can I ignore the pain, the hunger, the bruises the scars the everything? How long can I ignore it all, waiting for a train that is always 2 stops away, never arriving at the platform I'm standing on? I can check the arrivals board as many times as I want, but it will never change. I sit on a rotting wood bench, my hair growing long, my body growing weary. Waiting. Ivy covers my body. But it'll never come. But do I have the courage to get up? Get on a different train, go somewhere else?

Or will I die, waiting?

Waiting for a childhood.

Waiting to be loved.

Waiting for my quirk to come back.

Will I die feeling bitter?

Will I die having allowed life to pass me by?

Will I die, with everyone going full steam ahead without me?

Because I'm stuck.

Stuck waiting, stuck remembering, stuck staring at other people's happy moments wanting to steal them for myself. Stuck rotting away in bed, not wanting to get up for a year. Ruminating on what I could have done differently, what the people around me could have done differently.

But sometimes, I do count myself lucky. Most people can't stop a panic attack by holding their breath! But my quirk allows me to do that! Oh, well, what's left of my quirk. My quirk that allows me to pile another unhealthy coping mechanism onto the other ones I have. Am I selfish? There are people far worse off than me, yet I'm complaining about losing half a quirk. Complaining about a boyfriend that never even hit me? Complaining about parents that weren't horrible to me?

Yet, selfishly, I still long for a past that never was. I long for a high school career that didn't involve wondering where my next meal was going to come from. One that didn't involve panicking when getting a detention, knowing a beating was waiting for me at my newest house.

I long to be loved. Doesn't everyone? No one loved me. I hardly remember my parents. Keigo loved the idea of me. I wasn't a well-known hero, so I had no army of adoring fans.

I can't even love myself. But I want to love. I want to love someone. I do, I really do. If no one can love me, then can I at least put some of that back into the world?

Even if I'm broken beyond repair, can I give the rest of the broken shards of my soul back to the one I love?

I'm not whole. I have terrible coping mechanisms, I hate myself, I hate the world for what it did to me. But I want to love something, someone.

So, you want an introspection? I am sad. I am bitter. I am angry. I am unable to mourn what will never be, what never was. I am stuck in the past, missing the moments of today.

I am missing the man sitting with me on the roof in the moonlight, listening to me pour my hear out. Because I'm too busy thinking about how Keigo would have never listened to me like this.

I'm too busy to realise that I do have someone to love.

I've woken up.

I look up. His eyebrows are pinched together, listening to me sadly. Keigo had flown away, and I looked down at my bloody knuckles, and broke down. About how I was a terrible girlfriend. A burden.

But I'm better than this. I can't keep wishing, waiting. Instead, I just look at him. I stop crying, stop talking. I realise I love him. I realise that's selfish of me.

I'm done being a passenger in my own life, going along with whatever happens. I'm done feeling removed from my own body, watching my life from a 3rd person perspective. I'm in charge now.

He's staring at me. Waiting for me to continue.

But I don't.

So, I stare back. Thinking not of Keigo, but how I don't deserve to love Aizawa. How he'd be far better off with someone with less damage.

But at least I can look ahead? I can look forward, at us. Not behind. Never behind, not anymore.

I'm done watching from the sidelines, and most importantly,

I'm done looking back, waiting for something that will never come.

I stand up and turn around. I turn to the opposite side of the platform, and get on a different train.

The one I was waiting for will never come,

But that's okay.

A/N

I know it's a bit cringe to put my pseudonym in the title, but my writing is very personal to me, and so is this chapter.

It's my 23rd birthday today.

Sometimes I'm stuck in the past, in better and worse times, and that's okay.

We all get stuck in the past sometimes. I spent far too long, years mourning a childhood that would never come. And that's okay.

You just have to remember to look around you in the present too. I have to remind myself a lot of the time that I am living my 14-year-old self's dream right now. If you're not living your dream, that's okay too. It will get better, I promise.

My body is 23, yet sometimes my mind is younger.

And that's okay.

Just please remember to enjoy the little moments in life- the sun shining warmly at sunset, staring out of the window on the bus listening to your favourite song, the perfect coffee on a cold winter's morning, or even the people around us.

Accept your trauma, but don't become stuck in it. That's how I lost a good year of my life. Work through what happened to you, and take a moment to mourn your past self. Don't spend an endless amount of time wishing that you could change the past.

I love each and every one of you.

Take care of yourselves, and remember to look at the world around you in the present.

Happy birthday to me,

Wyatt.