dxrkestmirror:
“Oh. You arriv-” He turned his head as he spoke, though cut himself off. “You look awful. You weren’t kidding about the training.” Ever so honest, but that wasn’t the issue at hand.
“I’m fine, I really truly am.” The boy waved it off as if it was no big deal, perhaps it wasn’t and he was just overthinking it, but, something was bothering him.
“You keep lying to me.” Ok, blunt. “Saying I’m a good person, I deserve so much more than I get, so on and so forth. Why? I’m not a good person…It’s not that I choose to be that way, I just. Don’t know how to be any other way.”
Shadow had folded his hands on his lap, often glancing around to avoid eye contact with Izuku. Maybe it was embarrassing for him to admit he was seeking help, but, it certainly was a start. “Maybe. If you’re up to it. You could teach me how to be a better person…” His words had trailed off to the point of being almost inaudible.
–– You sink into the sand, falling back on your elbows before lying on your back. It’s soft enough to be comfortable, but firm enough to put your spine back into place. He says you look awful, and you shrug.
“Mm. Yeah, I know. It just means I’m going to sleep better tonight is all,” you say, closing your eyes, only to open them and blink when he accuses you of lying to him. You think he’s going to call you out on something, but instead he goes on about how he’s not a good person.
This again? How many times are you going to have to tell him he’s a good person, and that he deserves to be happy? How many times before he believes you?
"I wasn’t lying to you,” you say, sitting up, easy expression put to rest. Suddenly, you have more energy. Suddenly, sitting up doesn’t feel so hard. “The fact you’re even asking these things, or questioning what kind of person you are at all. That proves who you are, at least to me.”
You stare out over the ocean, at the places where the spots of light dance with the shapes of shadows. The dusky blue grey shapes in the middle get lost, but they’re there, moving and changing. Holding it all together.
“You did some bad things back home, didn’t you? You can tell me if I’m wrong, but it feels like you’re still holding on to who you used to be that you can’t see the person you are now,” you say, giving him the advice you could stand to hear, yourself. “But I can. Back when we met? You couldn’t follow through with threatening me on the train. And not too long ago, you put yourself in danger to help me. I didn’t tell you to do those things, Shadow. *You* decided to.”
You don’t hold back.
“If you want someone to stand by you while you figure things out, I’ll be there. But if you think I’m going to sit back and let you put yourself down, then I’m sorry, but I’m going to disappoint you.”












