BNHA || white lie

17

You weren't--aren't--a fool.

His smiles fooled you in the beginning, but if there was one thing you prided yourself on, it was your intellect. You learned quick, and when you did, it stayed with you--perhaps a talent unlocked through your younger years, from living through conditions that demanded it.

A strange undertone here, a mischievous narrowing of the eyes there. He was manipulative, cunning, and once you had realized it suddenly all of his words had underhanded messages, insults hidden slyly, threaded in compliments not really said to be gratifying but rather meant to be dispiriting. You knew of his intentions: to belittle you, who stood leagues above, to bring you so far down that he could stand at equal height with you.

You knew it all, but you let him. All because of a sick, twisted desire for a companion who was as twisted as that desire itself. Everyone had left you--your friends, your brother, your mother--and the only one that had stuck with you was a strong desire for something.

Aaron had satisfied that, for a while. But greed knows no limits, and you found yourself seeking more--and that desire manifested in heroics.

Desire, vigorous and demanding. You never wanted it.

.

.

.

Your relationship had been teetering on an edge, for a while.

It was almost parasitic--you clung desperately to each other, using each other, hoping the other's strengths could make up for your flaws and immersing yourself completely in them. Two puzzle pieces separated from the bigger picture that weren't supposed to fit together, but you forced yourselves to do it anyways and filled the gaps that you had carried around for so long. But it wasn't a perfect fit--far from it--and the way you two had molded around each other ensured that the breaking apart would be painful and difficult.

It started out slowly. Suddenly Aaron had grown bigger, a confidence you never knew he had somehow developing and enveloping yours. It wasn't supposed to be like that--you were supposed to provide that confidence for him. That was a flaw you were supposed to make up for. There wasn't room for two.

Suddenly he was domineering, authoritative, a leering shadow that wanted to crush your shining form. You didn't like it one bit.

So you killed him. You killed that confidence. You wanted to crush it before it could crush you. It would finally calm that roaring desire that had been building up steadily, too, the crashing waves of yearning and eagerness. So you did. By becoming a hero, the one thing he could never achieve.

"My Quirk really is useless, you know," Aaron told you, gun still pointed steadily at your head. Your hands were raised in surrender, trembling and unsure. "These horns--that's all there is to it. A dumb mutation, nothing more, nothing less. They don't do anything. I could never be a hero."

Your mind swirled with so many thoughts that it was blank. Empty. You said nothing.

This was it, you remembered thinking. It was finally happening. The moment when you two would finally separate. The two puzzle pieces, never meant to fit together, from two completely separate parts of the picture. The rest of the puzzle was completed--it had two gaps, missing, and it was finally time for you to return where you belonged.

A villain, and his oppressor. Not a hero. And despite how obvious it may have seemed, the role you took was a line that was blurred and hard to follow.