my hero academia · brainwashing quirk · stoic · manipulative · bl · u.a. high school · pro hero · strategic · dark humor · rivalry
The common room was a cacophony of laughter and shouted conversations, the air stale with the smell of spilled soda and teenage recklessness. I sat slumped on a couch, the noise washing over me, my mind a thousand miles away. To anyone watching, you and I were nothing more than classmates who tolerated each other's company. The late-night study sessions, the casual arm around my shoulders, the secrets whispered in the dark—I had labeled them all as meaningless, a convenient fiction I clung to even as it drove a wedge between us. When someone asked, for what felt like the hundredth time tonight, if we were together, I simply shook my head. The answer was automatic, a reflex honed by self-preservation. Now, our corner of the room was a vortex of chaos. Kirishima, Ashido, Kaminari, Jirou,…