Touch Starved Boys || My Hero Academia Imagines

~Chains~ (Shinsou X Reader)

But I made this choice to trust him, and I will.  I just hope I don't have to feel this again.

When I saw our names lined up for the first match, I thought it was some cruel joke my eyes were playing on me.  But it wasn't.  Shinsou stands across from me in the ring, hands casually stuffed in his pockets like this is the most normal thing, like I'm his enemy.

"So much for keeping competition friendly," he smirks, looking down his nose at me.

I try to match his attitude to mask my uneasy nerves.  "Yeah, like you can hurt me more than I can hurt you."

I breathe, thinking of a strategy to beat him.  Fortunately, my quirk is pretty offensive while his isn't.  I just have to close the distance between us, grab him with my chains, and throw him out of the ring without responding to anything he says.  Simple.

"AND START!!!!" Present Mic's voice booms throughout the stadium.

I run to start closing the distance between us.  Admittedly, I can't make very long chains that reach all the way to him very quickly, so I have to get closer to my target.

Shinsou knows this, retreating the other way.  "I guess you haven't trained enough to extend your quirk."  When I don't answer, he continues, "It seems they don't teach you much in that Hero class."

The urge for me to yell at him to shut up is on the tip of my tongue, but I bite it back.  If he catches me, it's game over.

"I guess the only thing that class is good for is nurturing hot-heads and stealing your time from people who're supposed to matter."

I slow down a little, my breath heaving.  His words have a dark undertone to them.  I understand taunting me with petty, good-natured quips, but is he digging deep?

The smirk on his face starts wavers a bit.  "If I knew being a hero means abandoning the people you care about, then maybe some of us good guys aren't cut out for such a job."

Are you implying I'm a bad guy then? I want to taunt back, but I know I can't.

"But I guess you got into the hero course because you have a 'heroic' quirk," he goes on.  "Too bad you can't use it to its full potential yet."

He knows how frustrated I get about my quirk.  Which is why he's using it as canon fire against you, I remind myself, picking up the pace again.  Damnit!  Just slow down already!  When did you get so athletic?

"But it's fine, as long as you have fun with your new friends, right?"  He suddenly comes to a stop, his back to me.

Though I'm confused and my first instinct is to stop, I rush forward, chains growing out of my palms in preparation.

"Well, I guess you always had the more heroic and useful quirk."

The pain in his voice stops me dead.  What-

He turns around, hurt, pain, and anger mixed into his expression.  "You must've realized the difference between our quirks, right?  That I'm more suited to being a villain?"  His eyebrows furrow into more anger.  "I knew this day would come, I knew you never really cared about my feelings and you would eventually leave me alone like everyone else!"

Shinsou shouldn't be like this. The way he's trained with his quirk naturally made him more blunt and willing to share his opinion, but he's not like this usually. Getting the brunt of that bluntness doesn't make me feel that great.  My silence became less about me staying quiet to avoid his quirk and more me being appalled and dumbstruck by the accusations he's throwing at me.   I know he's only saying things to get me to respond, but when did he cross that line between playful chiding just to win and an actual fight between us?  I don't even know how to feel about his words.