Boy Versus Superhero

Because you don't need a suit with a fancy little cape to be a real superhero. A SumiKoko unrequited love story.

Disclaimer: Nope. :P Don't own any of the stuff I've mentioned here. XD

Author's Note: For AoGA and Cara, because they are the coolest people ever. XD

This story is written in a different kind of style (first person of Koko, lolololol) but I hope you like it anyways. :D It's rough, and maybe has a few grammatical errors, but I hope you overlook those because I tried my best. :)

And oh, by the way, the story itself has some AU qualities, such as the notion that Sumire and Koko met when they were a lot older. You can actually consider this AU. :D It was heavily inspired by the masterpiece, The Perks of Being A Wallflower. :)

And, and, and- enjoy! :D

Dear superheroes,

Yesterday, I was thinking about how I've always looked up to you. Weird, huh?

It was just a spontaneous spasm of my imagination, because somehow, while I was eating my chicken sandwich on my lunch table alone, I remembered you and how you used to be the fragment of my life that assured me that courage was what got people from nowhere to somewhere.

Well, I'm here today, still nowhere. And not much has changed except for her.

She came into my life on a Tuesday. You know, the days when I spend time after school sitting at the lunch table at the far-left, observing life as it unfolds? Yup. She came knocking on my door without warning, sitting right beside me.

"Hey." She started the conversation herself. I nodded awkwardly, because it had been too long since someone talked to me. But she didn't care about all of that.

I found out in the following thirty minutes that we talked that she liked Death Cab For Cutie, and The Avengers. I found out that she just recently got her driver's license because she hates to use her bicycle early in the mornings to get to school. I found out that her eyes are the most beautiful pair of emerald gems I had ever laid eyes on. The last one she didn't actually say, but I soon figured out on my own.

Every week after that, she sat there next to me. We grew closer and closer by the day. What was great about her was that she never asked about me. Well, at least, she never pressed for information about me. The information that came out of me was just so… Natural. Like it was supposed to come out when it did.

And then one day, she did something extraordinary.

She and I were talking about our lives. Somehow, we managed to get to the topic of my parents, and she asked me what I felt about them. I told her the truth—that mom and dad died long before, and that I was over it now. She probably felt sorry for me, but then she was silent for a few seconds. Then she told me the story about her life.

She told me that she was starving herself in order to feel prettier. She told me that she sometimes used a sharp tool- scissors, I think- to hurt herself because she never felt good enough. I saw her there- vulnerable, susceptible to the worst.

"That's not true," I told her. "I think you're so beautiful."

I don't really know why my heart felt like it was going to explode when she held me. You know that feeling when that small little organ beats so fast and so strong that it doesn't even feel like a part of you? It's like a pump pressed to your chest and you're scared it might just pop and stain your clothes. It's like a punk-rock drummer glued to the surface of your chest cavity that makes you want to dance with total abandon like an indigenous tribesman. That's what I felt when she held me.

But then she pulled away.

It was like an instant of pure bliss on my part because I never loved anyone before, and I wasn't so sure if I even had the ability to love. Before that one moment, I thought I was born without love. But her arms, around me, reached into my heart and shook me awake. It was the first time in my life that I wanted to kiss someone—to caress her cheek and wrap her around in my arms so that the eternal winter inside her soul would end. I wanted to hold her in the way I knew she deserved to be held.

I should have taken her hand and pulled her in my arms, too. I should have done something other than sit, dumbfounded at the outcome of the situation.

But I couldn't. I was a cowardly kid who didn't know any better.

And she proceeded to hold up her hand and tell me how much she appreciated me being there for her as a friend. So I kept that façade for two more years- that I didn't care about what she felt about me, even if every day I would secretly add another entry to the reasons why I wanted to make her my wife.

Then she met him. Natsume Hyuuga. It was totally understandable why she fell head over heels for the guy—he was always portrayed as divine. And pretty soon, even if you didn't think so initially, he began to metamorphose into someone divine, someone so godly that his face was a painting by Leonardo Da Vinci and his heart was made of pure gold.

Don't get me wrong- they were never together. But she definitely wanted it badly. I saw the way she looked at him, and I thought… 'That should be me'. I wanted to be the one she held, and there was something in my heart that went sour, like I ate a whole piece of my mother's lemon squares without water. It was worse when I found out that he loved somebody else at the same time she loved him. Even if she gave everything she possibly could. Even if she was first to love him before anybody else. Even if I gave her up for him.

"I can sort of believe it," she told me. "I'm not good enough for him."

And then she started to cry- the way my grandma did when grandpa died. I told myself then, hold her now. Now is the time. So I did, and she kept crying and crying until my shirt was damp.

She loved him enough to tell him that she did. It's true; that's how much she loved him. And even if I wanted to be the one who received that love, I nodded beside her to let her know that I wanted her to be happy.

But he screwed it up.

I wanted to punch him so hard that his nose would bleed. So that his sense would return to his head and he would apologize for making her cry. I wanted to take back the love she gave his undeserving heart and tell her to direct it to me, because I knew my sponge of a heart would absorb anything that came my way if it had the opportunity. I wanted someone to pay for the valley of tears she shed in front of me, those tears that my hands were too small to catch.

But I couldn't.

So Superman, Batman, and Spiderman—tell me why. Tell me why even if I flashed a bat-signal, you didn't come to save me. Tell me why even if I tried so hard to be invincible, my heart itself was built of kryptonite. Tell me why in movies, you guys get the ladies and the fame and the glory and all of that shit without trying- because you were born with it all- and I get nothing but the sour taste at the back of my throat that doesn't do anything but constantly remind me of my loneliness like a ticking time bomb in my head. Tell me why my heart hurts so bad when I look at her but I still want to look at her- gaze into those beautiful eyes- for the rest of my life until she finally looks back.

Tell me.

See? I knew it.

You don't know, either.

So you know what? I've decided. I'm throwing away my Iron Man posters and Captain America bed sheets. Maybe I'm not ready to venture out on my own. Maybe I'm just a hopeless romantic up to no good.

Maybe this is all full of shit.

But maybe we're not all superheroes, destined to win all the time. Maybe- just maybe- we're just… People. Looking around for some opportunity to be the person we want to be.

So here's what I'll say to you:

Dear so-called superheroes,

I don't need a suit with a fancy little cape to be the boy who did everything he could to save her—even if he has to die trying. And maybe I'm just a quixotic ass that'll keep holding on to her and all of her pain even if she doesn't want me to, but I have a heart filled with warmth that can melt away the frostiness in her life, and I'm more than willing to pour it out for her.

All of you and your romanticism- riding or flying off into the sunset without any effort with the one that you love- are fakers.

So fuck you.

…

Because maybe one day, when she sees that I love her beyond what words can describe, when she finds that the only person who's stayed with her this entire time is the one boy who was sitting right next to her all along, when she discovers what her heart truly deserves—maybe she'll realize.

Maybe one day, she'll hold me back.

And then, we'll see who's the real superhero.

Author's Note: I know... It kind of ended badly. :( But I did try! :D So thanks for reading, reader.

I love you, and you are awesome. Superman's got nothin' on you. XD