Announcement:
Recently, a reader sent me a review. The review said that I should shorten my story to under fifteen chapters on this website, stop writing a few hundred to a few thousand words per chapter, and make my story less uncomfortable to read.
I realized that maybe some of you reading this story might feel the same. So, before I start the chapter, I have a few things to say.
This is a story that is also available on Wattpad and Archive of Our Own, so I have to keep it consistent between all three fanfiction platforms. Furthermore, starting and ending my chapters with a series of one-sentence paragraphs, ranging them from a few hundred to a few thousand words, and including thoughts of the characters is just my writing style. Every writer has one. This is mine. If you don't like it, that's okay, but I won't change my style.
As for shortening my story, I can't do that either. I have explicitly written within the disclaimer, "This story involves two characters coming to terms with their trauma, healing each other, and falling in love with each other in the process. Therefore, this will be a long fanfiction." Long fanfiction. My fanfiction is a very dark story, so it addresses all the dark themes that I cannot shy away from. There's no way I can do that in just 13 chapters. In other words, this is not supposed to be a comfortable story; the disclaimer and trigger warnings are proof of that. And if you have noticed, it took me almost 70 chapters to just start the U.A. Sports Festival Arc. With that in mind, I can see this fanfiction having more than 200 chapters.
I'm sorry if you don't like my story. I'm not compelling you to read it. This is simply the product of my dark imagination and opinions of the Boku No Hero Academia universe.
With that, here is the chapter.
It's been a few hours since Lunch.
Classes are over for the day.
But I've been sitting outside the infirmary for the past one hour, trying to summon the guts to go inside.
I think back to those few hours.
I didn't waste a second. I smashed through the school doors and chased after the first adult I could find. It was Midnight-sensei. Frantically, I told her that Hanada-chan needed immediate help. I didn't even give myself a chance to catch my breath. She told me that she would bring her inside and that I should inform Recovery Girl. I barely noticed the damage I had caused as I ran to the infirmary: large spears of ice that shattered the door glass. But I didn't have time to think about it. Hanada-chan was the priority at the moment. My priority.
And here I am now. Unable to show her my face like a damn coward because I'm ashamed of myself.
No. I don't have that luxury. She doesn't deserve it, and I can't do that to her. I did this to her, and I have to atone for it. I must apologize. I must make amends. I must apologize. I must make amends. I must apologize. I must make amends. I repeat this over and over in my mind like a mantra, hoping it will give me some courage. And it does. True or false courage, I feel scared but brave enough to enter the infirmary.
I do, and Hanada-chan is the only one inside. She's on her back, in her uniform, gloves, and cactus flowers, but awake. She turns her head toward me, only to look down once she does. Just as I pull a chair to sit by the bedside, she lifts herself into a sitting position.
"I'm sorry," we say simultaneously.
I smile softly, recalling the last time we apologized at the same time. I'm not one to believe in signs, but if this is one, I think this exchange will go well. "May I go first?" I ask her. She nods. "I didn't mean to shout at you. You were apologizing for my mistake, and I only made the situation worse with my outburst. Much worse. I made you relapse into trauma ..." I trail off and look at her hands. She's squeezing them tightly together. I want to ease as much of that tension as I possibly can. I gaze at her intently until she meets my eyes. Then, I silently ask her something I should have asked long before, something from the very beginning: Can I touch you? And she nods again. I place my hands over her gloved ones, rubbing my thumbs gently on the fabric. Very slowly, the tension fades. "Hanada-chan, I don't know who hurt you. I don't know how much pain you've endured. I don't know how much courage it must take for you to live another day. But know this. I won't hurt you. I won't be your master, and I will never make you my slave. I won't become a part of your trauma. Instead, if you'll let me, I would like to help you through your trauma. This is my promise. I don't expect you to forgive me right now. In fact, I don't want you to. Let me atone by keeping this promise to you." My voice is full of conviction, I pray that she can feel it.
Thankfully, she does. She stares at our hands and lets out a choked sob. Then she looks into my eyes. They're full of emotion: a waterfall of gratitude, a spring of respect, but an ocean of melancholy. That last emotion surprises me, especially when she removes her hands from mine and wrings them again.
"If I apologize, you won't shout at me?" she asks.
"No, I won't," I reply immediately.
I watch her steel herself. Upright posture, audible gulp, and hands clenched so tightly as if to prevent all flow of blood. "I'm sorry, but I don't think we should be friends anymore."
Nothing could have prepared me for that. For a few moments, I'm stunned. I'm just processing those words. I don't think we should be friends anymore. That sentence replays itself again and again in my head. My mood shifts from astonishment to wariness to anger to heartache and back to astonishment. "What do you mean, we shouldn't be friends? What brought this on?" I don't recognize the voice coming out of my mouth.
"I mean that this relationship will not work. In this one month of our friendship, just how many times have we argued? How many times have we had to apologize because we were both in the wrong? Just how many times have you had to carry the burden of me with you?"
Though I manage to keep my voice low, my anger rises. "Is that why you're suggesting ending this? Because of some arguments. Hanada-chan, arguments are common in every relationship. I know I'm lacking in the social skills department, but I know that even the closest of friends have arguments from time to time. It's normal. It's natural. It's expected. So just because we've fought a few times means that we should end our friendship completely? I don't agree with that. I am not okay with that at all. Have you forgotten that after we apologized, we tried to make it up to each other?"
"Alright. I'll concede. But what about all the times you've had to carry me because of my arthritis? A good portion of our visits happens in the school infirmary. You stay after school because you feel pity for me," she tries to counter.
"I carried you because I cared for you. I visited you because I wanted to know if you were okay. I felt pity for you at the start, but not now. Not for a long time. I respect you. You were - are - my friend. You're not a burden to me. You never were," I reason.
Her eyes are shining brightly with tears, but she forces them away before they can pour out. She is losing this argument, and she knows it too. But that's not why her final counter stings. "And what about today? I relived a traumatic experience and put you in the place of the person responsible for that experience."
"What are you trying to say?" I ask warily.
"Don't you hate me in the slightest for doing that to you?"
There. The thing I was ashamed of. It was not Hanada-chan's fault, but in those moments I loathed the thought of being someone so disgusting. So vile. I had felt like I was the image of my father: cruel, harsh, merciless. Maybe even darker than him. And at the same time, I had felt like I was the past image of Hanada-chan: a little boy pleading for mercy, willing to do anything if it meant escaping from the torture, but knowing that it would be futile in the end. Either way, it meant that I was pathetic.
Perhaps Hanada-chan doesn't deserve it, but, at this moment, I hate her. I really do. I hate her for extending the hand of friendship first, only to snatch it away now. I hate her for being someone I could confide in. Trust in. I hate her for how I sought her company. I hate her for all those mornings in class and lunches by the pools. Most of all, I hate her because of her, I had changed from a victim to an oppressor, tortured to the torturer. She was my dark mirror.
I can't bear to spend another second with her right now. I get up and give her my parting words. "Fine. From this day forward, we're no longer friends. I won't greet you in class, I won't join you for lunch, and I won't give you that pendant. I won't even call you Hanada-chan anymore. But I will take a flower from your hair every day. You've probably already noticed that I've been doing it for a while now. I used to do it to remember you with something nice and sweet. Now, I'm going to do it to remember you with pain and betrayal. And I want you to feel their thorns prick when I do."
To make my point, I pull a white and a yellow cactus flower from her hair.
Endurance.
How fitting.
Except I have to endure this pain much more than you will, Hanada-chan.
But I hope you enjoy its fragrance.
I leave the infirmary and don't look back.