Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia
Chapter 87:
Zach Sazaki slowly opened his eyes while laying back on a soft surface. He stared at the ceiling, one he recognized as he had woken up in this room many times before. Zach stared straight at the ceiling, and then his face scrunched up and he glared so much harder at the ceiling panel directly above him. It wasn't a dream.
"Sazaki?"
A soft, older woman's voice spoke and made Zach's expression flatten back out. Zach started sliding up and he pressed his back against the wall behind the bed he had awoken on. He stared next to the bed at the short old woman who took a step towards him, and he kept a blank look on his face while staring at her. Then Zach's eyes shifted up and he looked over towards a bed that Present Mic was laying on. Though the spiky-haired blond looked injured, he was breathing. Zach brought his eyes back to Recovery Girl and stared at the short woman with gray hair who looked at him so sadly at the expression on his face compared to the last time she had seen him. That last time she had seen him though, he had been walking and talking and laughing with his best friend through the hallway right past her office.
Recovery Girl started walking closer to Zach's bed, and the boy sitting up on it just stared down at her with his lips pursing harder as he tried keeping a straight face. "I have heard that, it was you who realized Himiko Toga had replaced me. And, that you were the one to figure out where I was being held, in time to stop the other villain from taking me away…" Recovery Girl trailed off as Zach's eyes started shaking, and the boy had to turn away from her with a pained look on his face. Zach looked towards the windows of her office and out into the dark sky outside. "I want to thank you, Sazaki."
"You're welcome," Zach whispered, though it sounded so quiet that it was more like he breathed the words out.
Recovery Girl looked down at the tone of that voice. She stared at the floor for a moment, then she looked up at the back of the boy's head again and started, "If you'd like, I'll go get Softy. She's waiting to hear-"
"No," Zach said. Recovery Girl froze with her mouth open, and then she had to close it while staring at the boy who pulled his legs back towards him under the blanket she had put on him in his sleep. Zach pulled his knees towards his chest for a second, and he looked down between them as he thought about the short, kind woman, who he had told so much about himself and how he was feeling to. I don't trust her. She could be, just like Kaminari. She'll take whatever I tell her, and she'll use it against me. "No," Zach just repeated quietly.
Why am I talking to her? She could be too. They all could. Anyone could. Zach brought his left hand up slowly to his face and he put it over his mouth for a second. Don't scream. Don't scream. Kaminari. You, you were really… "ZACH! HELP ME!" Every time he said her name? He knew. The whole time. He knew, he knew but talked about her like he didn't… and I! I felt bad for- Zach let go of his legs and he turned away from Recovery Girl more, putting his legs off the other side of the bed farther from her.
"Sazaki, if not Softy," Recovery Girl began quietly. "Talk to me then. I heard you went too far again. It's okay if you want to stay here and-"
"Recovery Girl," Zach whispered. He turned around and asked in a soft voice, "Is the offer still on the table?"
Recovery Girl flinched, and her heart ached at the look in the boy's eyes and the tears streaming down his face. Zach's lips were trembling, and it looked like he barely got that out. She found it hard to respond, and she did not know what to say. So she just gave the boy a small nod instead.
"Hey, Yaoyorozu," Momo turned to Rikido Sato who stood in the hallway of the third floor and kept his voice quiet as he spoke. Yaoyorozu had just stepped out of the first room on the girl's side of the floor, and she finished closing the door slowly before turning to the boy who had gotten quieter while saying her name because of the look she darted him. Yaoyorozu closed the door quietly but left it open a crack, leaving behind the girl who had cried herself to sleep alone for now though Momo planned to come check on again soon. Sato looked at Yaoyorozu who gave him a questioning look without saying anything so as not to wake Jirou. The large boy with fat lips turned his head and whispered in a soft voice, "Zach's, back."
Yaoyorozu's eyes opened huge and she started forward quickly. Sato started going just as fast when she reached his side, and as they got into the stairwell he continued in a normal tone again, "I tried talking to him, but he walked right past us. His, room. We've been hearing…" On the steps on the way to the fourth floor, the two of them stopped because a faint scream reached their ears. It was too far to be coming from the fourth floor, and they looked farther up as they recognized the voice too.
Yaoyorozu started jogging up the stairs faster, and she pursed her lips as she heard another wail that made her heart pound. She got up to the fifth floor, and she rushed down the boys' side and past a couple of guys who she looked at in confusion at why they were not reacting to these yells. Sero and Todoroki both just gave Yaoyorozu sympathetic and pained looks though as she ran by them, and Sato stopped with the two of them and looked after her in the same way.
Sero glanced back at Todoroki after Yaoyorozu ran by, while the hallway was quiet for a moment. "It was only a few minutes," Sero said in a low voice. "The whole Sports Festival we were together, but when he ran back inside to go check on Zach… or that's why I thought-" Sero ground his big teeth together and then said in a lower, regretful tone, "We got separated. It must have been then, that Aizawa sensei…" Sero brought a hand up to his forehead and used the bottom of it to press down on his eyes.
As Yaoyorozu stood in front of Zach's door at the end of the hallway, another boy just reached the top of the stairs and started down the hallway towards his classmates. The three boys near the middle but farther towards Zach's room than the stairs looked towards him. Midoriya looked past for a second and all the way to Yaoyorozu, but then he looked closer and he saw the looks of his friends that made him start sweating. Todoroki's eyes focused in on Midoriya, and he thought about something Kaminari had said that afternoon. "I'm a bit worried you might be able to do something with All Might's power and all…" Midoriya, there really was a deeper connection between you two. You having his power though? What does that mean?
Yaoyorozu held her hand in front of Zach's door, but she found herself unable to knock it forward. What do I say to him? She stared at the door so nervously, so unsure of what she should say. Talking to Jirou, hugging her and saying it would be alright, it had been easy. It had hurt her to see her best friend like that. She believed Jirou would be able to get past it though. As she heard a scream of rage on the other side of the door, her whole body flinched, and then she flinched harder and pulled her hand back as something smashed with a loud crack followed by more breaking noises. "FUCK! MOTHER FUCKER! God damn it! Damn it! Ahh, ahhHH! DAMN IT!"
The tall, busty girl standing outside of Zach's room brought her hand back towards the door again. She took in a deep breath and prepared to knock, but she stopped hearing angry, loud pants coming from the other side. The screams stopped, and Yaoyorozu hesitated as it almost seemed like she did not need to go in there and calm him down. I need to talk to him though.
Sero looked over towards her, and he opened his mouth to warn her about something but stopped himself. Midoriya was looking around at them in confusion, and Sero glanced at him before saying in a low voice, "Zach barred his door or something. He screamed at us to go away, so we figured maybe Yaoyorozu could…" Sero looked back towards the girl in front of Zach's door, and then he shifted his gaze a bit and looked so sadly at that door that he stopped hearing screams coming from. "Kaminari, really fucked him up."
"We all trusted him," Sato muttered, but then he brought up his right hand and grabbed his forehead with it. "But Zach, he, he already wakes up in the middle of the night screaming, every night," Sato whispered it and he clenched his teeth so hard after getting the words out, while the other boys all looked at him with wide eyes. Todoroki lowered his after a second, as he had been woken up once or twice over the last couple of months from night terrors that had reached two rooms down. To think they were every night though… and then with this on top of it. Sato grabbed his forehead tighter and his eyes filled with anger towards Kaminari, so that he could stop them from filling with tears instead. "How could he do that to him? To us?"
"We, never really knew him," Todoroki said quietly.
"Not, the real him," Midoriya whispered. "But, I don't think the Kaminari we knew…" Midoriya grit his teeth while the others looked towards him. "Raijin, said that he had Kaminari thinking in order to fool us, in case there was a mind reader. So, so that means, Kaminari had his own thoughts. And maybe, those thoughts together created feelings?" Midoriya clenched his eyes shut for a second at the thought of it.
"Zach?" Yaoyorozu whispered. Her face was up close to the door, and she opened her fist instead of knocking and just pressed her palm into the door. She lowered her other hand to the doorknob and whispered a bit louder, "I'm coming in, okay?"
She heard no response. Yaoyorozu was starting to feel increasingly nervous. The silence was worse than his screams, because at least with the screams she could kind of make out what he was thinking and feeling. She pushed in on his doorknob and the door started sliding inwards. A couple of boys back in front of Sato's door looked over in surprise as the door slid in easily, though it bumped into something after a second when it was only a third of the way open.
The room inside was dark. Yaoyorozu let go of the doorknob and she took a step inside, and then she stepped fully in and glanced down to see what was blocking the door. Her breath caught in her throat though as she looked at the floor. It was not part of the broken desk that lay on the floor blocking the door that had taken her breath, or the fact that his mattress was torn apart, or that his bed stand was broken down the middle, or that his clothes were ripped up and his dresser smashed in half. His blender was shattered in the corner to her right, and a pile of protein powder was piled up near the turned over tub, though there was more powder scattered around the floor. Yaoyorozu's eyes focused straight down next to the broken desk though. When she took a step into the room she felt a small bump under her right foot, and she lifted it up to see a small white pill the same as all the other ones littered about next to a small orange bottle in front of her shoe.
Yaoyorozu lifted her eyes up from the pill bottle and the pills around it. She looked up and into the corner of the room where she saw a silhouette of a person illuminated only by the light from the hallway behind her. She did not need to look at the light switch to tell that flicking it would not work, as there was broken glass on the floor and no shadow of the lighting fixture that should have been on his ceiling. The silhouette in front of her however, was clear enough in the light from the hall that she could see him still wearing his white hero costume. He sat there in the corner, with his legs pulled up so his knees were in front of his chest, but his legs below the knees were actually pushed out and spread a bit. His right arm was resting on his upper right leg, using it for support while he held a small white pill up in between his index finger and thumb just a foot in front of his face.
On Zach's face was a look of so much hate yet hesitation too. He stared at the pill between his fingers. It was one that had been close to the corner he finally slid down to his butt in, and he had picked it up almost subconsciously. His desk that he had thrown in front of his door to block it when Sero first knocked was broken apart now, which had allowed for his girlfriend to open the door partly and step inside. He did not look towards her but just kept staring at the pill he held between them. "What, is that?" Yaoyorozu questioned. Her voice was soft, and scared.
Zach just kept staring at the pill. He stared at it and the pill shook between his fingers. "My dad," Zach began. He spoke in a normal voice loud enough that Yaoyorozu would be able to hear him, though it was not too hard for the other four who had walked down the hallway and stopped before reaching the open doorway. "Was an alcoholic… You knew that. Everyone, knows that." Zach quieted down for a second, then he continued again while moving the pill farther from his face. "It's how he dealt, with what I had done. Killing my mom, his wife. He used things to help him deal, then he wound up needing them." Zach's lips shook as he held the pill away from his face, "I've been trying so hard, not to listen to Recovery Girl, or Softy, and just not take these."
"Zach," Yaoyorozu whispered.
"I don't want to become like that though," Zach whispered, his voice cracking when he realized he was pulling the pill back towards his face. "I don't want to be a man who hits his son, hates his son, if I ever-" Zach lifted his left hand and grabbed his head, and he let out a sob while the pill slipped between the fingers of his other hand. Zach clenched that shaking right hand into a fist and then slammed it to the right into the wall while snapping his head back. "I can't take this though," he said, while lowering his hand from a new dent in the wall. "It hurts so much. It, it hurts… But I can't do anything about it." Zach brought his left hand from the side of his head to in front of his eyes.
"A new life? Who am I kidding?" He asked, his voice so pained and his heart lurching like it had been since he woke up. "I'm the same. It's all the same. Nothing's changed. Ahhh," he sucked in a huge breath at the end to try and get a grip over himself as he was too close to breaking down and screaming again.
"It's okay," Yaoyorozu started to whisper.
"It's not," Zach said, shaking his head and clenching up his face harder. He bit down and lowered his hand, and he looked up towards Yaoyorozu with such an agonized expression. He stared at her and bit down so furiously, and then he snapped, "He was right!" Zach balled his fists and he brought them up to the sides of his head. "The night we fought Shatterer, I knew he had moved too fast!" Zach called it out and then sucked in a breath because he had to or his voice would crack. "I knew! That his face, had looked like he was short-circuited. But, I told myself that he had just gotten stronger. I, I believed in my best friend, and that he was getting stronger, and that, that… Oh my God- that night. I did it for him? For him?!"
"You didn't know-"
"I crossed a line," Zach gasped at her, his face covered in a horrified look. "Just to save him." Zach reached up and grabbed the side of his head so hard with his left hand. He let out a moan and then said with his head tilted back, "I went so far to save him."
"You saved a lot of people that night," Yaoyorozu started.
"But all that mattered to me, was getting him back," Zach countered strongly, and with such an angry look on his face. He glared at Yaoyorozu and he snapped louder, "I just wanted to save Kaminari! And I, I crossed a line. I went- I crossed- I-I-" Zach stared closer at Yaoyorozu's face and started shaking his head. He leaned forward so his head was over his knees, and he said in a disbelieving voice at the way she was looking at him so understandingly, "I'm not talking about leaving school, or lying to All Might, or how I didn't tell you anything." Zach shook his head and then he clenched his teeth, his face covering in fear and anger and hate. "All that mattered was getting him back, and I did- I, I crossed the line! I went so far past it! FOR HIM!" Zach screamed.
The others outside of Zach's room stared towards his door and found themselves getting nervous, either holding their breath or it speeding up. "The things I did… I went too far! And, and as much as I kept telling myself that it was worth it to save them all- To save him! It, it haunts me."
Zach, Midoriya thought, his heart gripping as he imagined what it could have been Zach did that night that had him sounding like this.
"You don't know that that was a bad thing," Momo began quietly to him. Zach shook his head, but she continued, "The real Kaminari-"
"There is no real Kaminari," he said quickly.
"You don't know that."
"There can't be," Zach whispered, so much anger in his voice. "He was tricking us the whole time. He was a monster, the whole time. Every second of it was a lie, just a trick!"
"We don't know that for sure-"
"It has to be!" Zach screamed, looking at her so angrily as he yelled it. "Because if it's not, then what the fuck am I supposed to do when we see him again?!" Zach shouted it at her and Momo pulled her head back from him. He looked at her in so much anger and confusion, but also desperation for an answer. "If I fight him, I have to kill him. Because, because if you're right, and you could be…" Zach paused and he sniffled in before saying, "Then when we face him again, he's going to bring out Kaminari and make him look at us. While we're all looking at him like a monster who murdered our friends and teacher. And if we catch him, Raijin's not going to be the one who goes to prison." Yaoyorozu's eyes started shaking and the others in the hallway stared down at the floor with horrified expressions. "The first thing he'd do if he got caught is bring Kaminari out. Make him go on trial, and go to jail, and he'd know all of the things that he had done to us… But more than that, he would have been real, which would mean that he just died!"
"So he can't be real," Zach said in an angry voice as he tried to remind himself that none of that mattered. "I have to believe that Raijin was the one in charge the whole time, and not just in charge, but faking all of Kaminari's expressions and words and feelings and everything! I have to believe that even protecting Thompson, and fighting Shatterer with me, and that whole night… it was all a lie. Everything that happened that night, and after, that convinced me he was really on my side. That made me, put my trust in him."
He paused and took in such a deep breath as he mentioned putting his trust in Kaminari. "And then," Zach whispered in a high-pitched, cracking voice. He looked deeper into Yaoyorozu's eyes he could see clearly in the light from the hall, and he whispered, "After that night, I told him everything. I, told Kaminari my secrets. Things I didn't tell anyone. All of my deepest held secrets. Secrets I should have kept from everyone."
"You don't need-"
Zach clenched his teeth so angrily that Yaoyorozu froze in mid-sentence. Zach glared into her eyes and hissed in fury, "They weren't my secrets to tell. I, I knew things. I know things that…" Zach looked over towards his phone, thrown across the room but in sight with a cracked screen. His angry look switched to one full of so much sadness and regret, and sheer guilt that overtook him and made him shift his gaze over towards those pills again. "I knew things, that people's lives depended on. I didn't just tell him about me. I told him, about- about things I shouldn't have! I told him, secrets that are going to get people killed! Things that are already getting them killed! AHhahaaa AAAhhh!" Zach sobbed and slammed his head back into the corner behind him again.
Yaoyorozu's eyes were wide though after what she just heard. She thought Kaminari sounded a bit weird when he mentioned Zach telling him things, and she stepped closer and questioned, "What do you mean? Who is-"
"How could I tell you that?" Zach asked, opening his clenched eyes and looking at her in agony. He had a horrified look on his face still as he thought about what he had done. "How could I, trust you?" He asked, and then he pulled his head back farther into the corner at the hurt look on her face. "It's not that- I want to but- I, I can't! I can't Momo! Please, please, please…" Zach started shaking his head, and then he leaned forward and got onto his knees while pushing his head closer to her. "I tried so hard to distance myself from everyone when I got back. I knew that someone here was a spy. I knew, that someone must have told the villains where our training camp in the woods was. And after being tortured, after being with the villains, I thought I could figure out who it was. I, I really- but Kaminari! He was the first person, that I checked off as being innocent. More than the people that I could actually account for, more than people who I could prove weren't, I trusted him explicitly. Because, because he was the one who told me it was okay to trust people! He said that he would always be my friend," Zach's lips started trembling and tears spilled out of his eyes while he spoke in such a hurt, betrayed tone.
He shook his head again and then lowered his gaze down to the floor. "I told him that anyone I became friends with could be a target of the villains. I told him that, because I knew there was a spy who could report that kind of stuff to the League. I told him that I didn't want to get him targeted, so we couldn't be friends." Outside of Zach's room, Midoriya pulled back and his eyes were huge as he remembered the awkward conversation he had been a part of at the start of the last term when Zach had just returned. Midoriya felt his heart rate speeding up and he reached up to grab his own chest as Zach continued, "I told him that, and a few days later he comes back to me. He comes to me and tells me that he's going to be my friend anyway. That, that he's okay with being targeted by the villains, if it means we can be friends," Zach gasped it out and then made a noise that sounded like a dog being beaten by its owner that it trusted. Zach's bottom lip shook and he looked desperately up at Yaoyorozu, and he gasped at her, "He said that I was being selfish, and that I was hurting him more than the villains ever could by pushing him away. And I believed every word out of his mouth."
Yaoyorozu opened her mouth to respond, but she was at a loss for words. She stared down at Zach and the boy looked back at her and started pulling away as he realized all he was saying. She pulled back herself at that look which showed her once again how he did not trust her, and then Zach's face filled with more pain at the way she reacted to his expression. "I can't," he whispered again towards her. "I, I kept trying to avoid people, but Kaminari would talk to me, and he was so outgoing. He would start conversations with other people while we were talking, and involve me in them, and he got me to open up to more people. He got me, to become friends with… I opened up, because of him! I started caring about everyone again, because of him! And he just did it so that he could tear it all away from me! Those few days he took after I told him he'd be a target before telling me his response, it wasn't so he could think over what I told him! He probably got in touch with Shigaraki, and they discussed how he could fuck with me the most! Shigaraki lost me, but he wasn't done with his torture! And he won. He fucking, won." Zach lowered his head and he fell back on his butt, and he scooted to the wall again and pressed his back into it while tucking his head in his legs. "Because right now, because the pain I feel right now…" Tears came out the corners of his eyes and rolled down his cheeks, and Zach sobbed out, "It hurts more than bringing someone back ever has."
Sero lowered his head and he brought his right hand up to his eyes and covered them.
"It hurts more, than getting tortured- no, no that's not true. I can't really feel that pain very well right now though. I can remember how I felt when I felt that pain though, I can remember how I had screamed at the most intense times. When it had been days, or weeks, since I had last slept, while Jenny screamed at me to save her over and over again for the millionth time in a row. And even though I can't feel that pain, I can hear her screaming right now. I can hear her voice echoing in my head!"
Sato turned away and he started walking back through the hallway. He couldn't take it anymore, and he needed to get far enough that Zach would not hear him when he started punching something.
"I've felt what it was like to have my heart shot, and stabbed, and pierced with lightning… but right now. Right now it feels like my heart's being slowly crushed, constantly. And I know what that feels like too. I know, I- I know what pain, feels like more than anyone. I know what death is- and loss," Zach shook his head so slowly back on the wall behind him and he stopped when it was turned to the right, a depressed look in his eyes and a look of utter despair as there was nothing he could do. "All I want to do, is take the antidepressants Recovery Girl gave me. But I can't. And it's not even about my dad. It's not even about, knowing what I could become. It's what I've done! Those secrets I told Kaminari, because I trusted him so much." Zach clenched his teeth and got so mad at himself for the pathetic look that had just been on his face. "I told him those things I never should have told anyone, but I told because I believed in him. And I've killed people now, again. More people. Good people. They're dying right now because of me, because I was stupid enough to trust people. I was stupid enough to tell people things that I never should have told them." Zach snarled that last part so much angrier, and then he shifted his gaze to his left and towards Yaoyorozu who he had told some secretive stuff to earlier that day, and who stared back at him in shock but unable to say a thing.
Midoriya's eyes were huge out in the hallway too though. He thought about how he felt when Zach had told him those things, how the thought had crossed his mind that Zach was a bad guy and how he might have had to report those things Zach told him. And Midoriya took a step back from Zach's door, looking at it with a trembling look at all the things he just heard Zach say. He wanted to go in there and help one of his closest friends, but he knew that Zach wouldn't trust him. He knew, that Zach would look at him in a way he could not imagine being looked at right now and pitied Yaoyorozu for having to see.
Yaoyorozu started walking towards Zach though after what he just said, and his angry look faltered as she stepped towards him instead of away from him. He bit down hard and pushed back harder into the wall as she walked towards him though. "Stop! Stop," he begged the second time, his voice weaker and so much fear on his face that made Yaoyorozu hesitate. "I knew there was a spy," Zach whispered. "But, but why was he telling us all the things he did? Was it really just because, he had wanted to brag about it all that time?" His girlfriend's eyes started to widen as did the three boys still just out in the hallway. "Or was Kaminari trying to make us believe that everything that had happened was all him? Because there was another spy here that he wants everyone to stop thinking about? What if it really was Hagakure, and he was trying to protect her cover because, be-because, she was a better spy than him? Is that- why does that have to make sense? Why?" Zach shook his head and he clenched his eyes shut again. "I don't trust any of you. I can't trust any of you."
"Zach, you can trust me," Yaoyorozu said. She took another step towards him, "And your other friends. Not everyone is doing-"
"He made me trust people," Zach whispered, opening his eyes again slowly and letting more water spill from them. "He made it, so that I would care about people, just so that he could tear them away and make it hurt so much more." He paused and took a breath, then he gasped at her, "They decided to make Kaminari my best friend, because it was time for me to be betrayed like they were." Yaoyorozu pulled in a sharp breath as she thought about how pained Zach sounded when he talked about betraying the League earlier that day, and she could see in his eyes that he blamed himself for all of this too. She could see that he thought had he never done that, they never would have made Kaminari do all this to him. "Yet," Zach continued after a moment, and he brought his left hand to his head again. "It was before I came back too. He, he told them how much I cared about Jenny. He got her and her family killed. And he, he told them where the training forest was, to get Bakugo, and me, kidnapped… so that All Might had to come and lose his power. He- he let slip that I was the one who killed the villain at USJ to the press, and he did it on purpose… And he! He made me kill that guy in the first place. He made me kill. I, I swore I'd never kill, but he's been manipulating my entire life since I got to U.A. Every single thing I've done since, every single thing that's happened to me! It was all Kaminari! He- He was my best friend, but he was more than that…"
"I, I don't have a family," Zach whispered. He looked up at Yaoyorozu and he said with more tears filling his eyes, but a look of anger bubbling behind them too. "He was the family I chose, when I had NOTHING! I trusted him! And he used me. Lied to me! Betrayed me! All for what?! TO WIN?!" Zach started panting after screaming that at the top of his lungs in his most furious voice, while tears splashed off of his face and he realized he was shaking in rage. Zach's fists that were shaking at his sides started to loosen their grip, and Zach sniffled in while leaning his head back, looking towards Yaoyorozu with the saddest look she had ever seen before. "I loved him. He was, my best friend… And he killed my family."
Yaoyorozu ran forward and she dropped on her knees in front of Zach. His eyes snapped open wide and he tried feebly to pull away, but she wrapped her arms around his head and back and pulled him down into her shoulder. She put her head against his and rubbed the side of hers into him, and she rubbed a hand on her back while putting her right hand through his hair and holding him so tightly. "You're not alone," she whispered while pressing her head harder into his, though keeping her face forward where he could not see it and would not be able to tell that he had caused her to cry. She had tears streaming down her face though, and she held him tighter while saying, "You still have people who care- who love you. You still have a family."
Zach started twisting his lips back flat. I need to calm down, he thought, and his hands stopped shaking at his sides that he had almost lifted to push Yaoyorozu away, and then that he had almost lifted to hug her back. I need to think. I need to get into the zone, and start preparing for what's next. I messed up. I, I need to think- to plan… but, I can't just push this away that easily. I'm just human after all. "Nothing good ever happens," Zach whispered in response to the girl trying as hard as she could to console him. He could tell how hard she was trying, and he wished he could just believe her as easily as he wanted to. When he tried though, all the terrible thoughts he had been having rushed to him at the same time. "My life was a lie. The beautiful world I believed in is a lie. Everything is a lie. I- I can't believe in anything anymore, can't trust, anything." Zach's lips shook and he stared towards his open door with shaking eyes so full of fear. "I can't even tell what's real and what's not," he gasped, "and I want so badly to just give up and take those pills Recovery Girl and Softy want me to take. I want to give up."
She hugged him harder and just said again, "It's okay. It's going to be okay."
"I hate this," Zach replied in a whisper. "I fucked up, Momo. I told him- everything. And I can't tell you what that means, I really, just can't." Zach pulled his head back from her shoulder a bit, and he turned his head to her which made her turn back to him. He stared at her face and her eyes opened wider as his expression did not even change when he saw hers covered in tear streaks. Zach's expression was not as emotional now though. He looked at her with a more serious look in his drying eyes. Stop breaking down. You told him everything. I, broke promises. Put people in danger. So many people, are going to die now. Because of what I've done. So, there are things I need to do now. Certain ways, I need to do it… And I don't mean that Momo. I know, the world's still beautiful. For other people at least.
Yaoyorozu's wide eyes started shaking at that look in his. She grabbed him by his sides and she lowered her head now, pressing it into his chest and holding him so tightly as tears fell from her eyes. As strong as she was trying to be for her friends, she couldn't take all of this as much as she told herself she could. As much as she told herself that they were hurting so much more than her, seeing the way Zach just looked told her how much things had changed in a single day. And she let out a cry while holding him, and Zach rose up his left arm on instinct and put it around his back to hold her there.
Zach's face scrunched up while he put his hand on her back though. He looked down at the top of Yaoyorozu's head with his face scrunched up like that in pain, Kaminari, knows how much I care about you. I, I went to him when I needed to know how to ask you out. He knew- he always knew. And what if he convinced me to ask you out so that- maybe you're the other spy- or maybe it's just so he can take you away and- and- and I don't want to lose you! Zach curled his left hand into her back and held her tighter, his eyes closing and his head bowing to press down on the top of hers. He closed her eyes as he held her, a sad look on his face because he knew. It's over. This, can't be. Zach's eyes opened up and he continued to hold onto her, but his eyes got darker and he rose them to stare into the darkest corner of his room. Starting now, it's a whole new world. A whole new game.