"HAHAHAHAHA! What the hell are these faces?!" Bakugo laugh uncontrollably in the middle of the street, looking at his phone. It had been a couple of days since the start of the workplace field training, and all was well, until the funny faces of Tokoyami and Sukuna became memes.
"They look like fucking dumbasses!"
"Bakugo, it's time to patrol." He glanced at Best Jeanist walking towards him. He sighed, putting away his phone.
"Yeah yeah whatever. "
Meanwhile at another agency, Mina was also laughing crazily, her stomach hurting from the constant laughter. Midnight walked over, raising an eyebrow at her.
"What's so funny huh?" She asked curiously. Mina, in a fit of giggles, showed Mina what was on her phone. The woman took one look before she bursted out in laughter.
"I can't! Why does your boyfriend look so done with all of this!"
"That's what I'm saying!"
"Honey, you're gonna have to see this." Jin grinned as he called his wife over. Kaori, who had just came downstairs, walked over to her husband before sitting on his lap.
"What is it dear?... Oh my~ What happened to our son?"
Meanwhile, back at Kyushu. In the cafeteria of the Hawks' Agency, Sukuna and Tokoyami stared at their own phones, mouths open, both speechless.
"Our faces, they're everywhere..." Tokoyami muttered in disbelief. Out of all the things that the public could post about him helping that lost child, they decided to embarrass him. He definitely regretted not keeping composure back then.
"'When your mentor is about to die but he suddenly tries to rizz you'... I... I don't even know at this point." Tokoyami after reading a meme prompt added with his face, simply shut his phone before placing it in his pocket, not wanting to deal with this silliness.
"'When the girl offers to marry you but you don't even like her.'" Sukuna read the prompt of the meme before looking at his deadpan expression below it.
"That's enough internet for today..." He palmed his face, setting his phone aside.
"Well well well! If it isn't my two favorite memes!" Hawks laughed as he entered their cafeteria. Sukuna and Tokoyami simply deadpanned at him.
"Not a single word." Tokoyami threatened, which only made Hawks laugh harder.
"Should I shut him up." Sukuna muttered, preparing to activate his Quirk.
"That would be the most fitting choice of the moment." Tokoyami nodded. Hawks raised his hands.
"Woah woah! No need to take it too far! C'mon let's go patrol!"
The trio had patrolled from the morning until nightfall, only taking about two to three short breaks within that timeframe. Before this, Hawks would only have them patrol for half a day, but today it seems like he wanted to show more of the reality of being a hero.
Though when it was afternoon, Hawks had left the two to patrol alone, with the excuse that he had important matters to get done. It only raised Sukuna's suspicions that the man had ulterior motives. Why would he give them so much autonomy in the first place?
Sukuna had long came into the conclusion that Hawks was monitoring him. On his second day, he had overhead a passing Commission liaison using careful wording with Hawks, using language such as 'continued observation' or 'behavioral consistency.'
That, added with the fact that Hawks also asks uncomfortable questions at random times. It might look like something in character for the guy, since Hawks is always casual, but to Sukuna it only made his suspicions come true, that this wasn't purely mentorship, it was supervised evaluation.
'If I am being evaluated, then I'll decide what they see.' Sukuna vowed to himself, watching the city skyline from a balcony on the agency building.
"You're up late. Light sleeper I presume?" Sukuna looked at Tokoyami approaching him.
"How can you tell?"
"Because I am one too. And no one voluntarily stays up at 1 in the morning." The bird man stood beside him, leaning on the railing.
"Do you dream when you sleep?" Sukuna randomly asked. Tokoyami glanced at him.
"Sometimes. Though they're not always sunshines and rainbows."
"Ever since I received my Quirk, all I ever received were nightmares of myself doing unimaginable horrors to innocents." Sukuna muttered. Tokoyami blinked at the revelation, not knowing what to say.
"I mean it's pretty fitting, considering how my Quirk works, but I'm not that type of person." Sukuna sighed before chuckling, shaking his head.
"I'm not even sure why I'm telling you this. Well... I think I do, I somehow feel more comfortable around you and the class now."
Tokoyami stayed silent for a while.
"You've changed." He finally spoke, gathering Sukuna's attention.
"How?"
" You're a far cry compared to when you first started at UA. You talk more, you're more open to others."
" You talk as it it's a bad thing." Sukuna raised an eyebrow at him. He didn't even know he was acting that way, it all just felt natural to him.
"No, it is an amazing thing. Now about those nightmares..."
"Ah, yes... Don't tell Mina about that." Sukuna rubbed his neck.
"Do you think that's why you are the way you are?" Tokoyami questioned, correlating the nightmares to him being distant to everyone. It must be, right? Watching yourself perform inhumane acts every night you try to relax was horrifying. It was too dark even for someone like him.
"Possibly. Those nightmares. They were like lived memories. They felt too real, to the point where the boundary between 'me' and 'that version' feels thinner than it should."
"Those nightmares in simple terms, showed the absolute worst version of myself. I treated human life like they were insects I could step on without a care in the world. I was obsessed with domination, and I saw morality as weakness. I had chose to become a monster." Sukuna muttered, almost a grim expression on his face, the scenes resurfacing, of him mercilessly decapitating a girl with a flick of his wrist, of him being more of a monster than a human.
"So you think that if you relax too much or get too vulnerable with someone, you would become like that version of you?" Tokoyami wondered. Sukuna sighed, looking down at the city that never sleeps.
"When I was a child I already avoided strong emotional swings, I avoided dependency, and I didn't let anyone become 'necessary'. From the outside, that reads as me being distant, but for me it was my own version of self regulation."
"You're trying to prove that you're not that demon in your dreams? That's why you held back during the sports festival. You didn't want to slide towards a version of yourself that enjoyed domination, indifference, cruelty. You're afraid." Tokoyami stated. Sukuna blinked.
"Maybe...Yeah... I'm not sure..." He admitted silently.
"You're living with constant hypervigilance, hence the tension, insomnia and emotional suppression. You have never been able to relax fully all your life."
"Yup..." Sukuna smiled a little, still staring at the city. He now understood why Hawks loved this city and wanted to protect, it can be very beautiful.
"I respect you, Sukuna, for carrying such a responsibility." Tokoyami stated, patting his shoulder. Sukuna widened his eyes a little, before he closed his eyes, finally letting out a smile.
"Thank you... It's nice that you didn't pity me or anything." He muttered.
"Though I have one thing to say, those nightmares aren't prophecy. Your fear doesn't equal your destiny." He stated, eyes on the horizon. Sukuna glanced at him, intrigued.
"You speak as if the nightmare is a future version of you, but nightmares are merely warnings shaped by the mind." Tokoyami glanced at him again.
"If you were truly that monster, Sukuna, you would not fear it. You're no monster, because the worst version of yourself feels no fear of what he is. The gap is enormous, don't you think so?"
"But if I relax that containment, the risk would increase." Sukuna argued.
"Control isn't negating emotions altogether, it's the decision that emotion will not command you. If you truly believe you are fighting a monster inside you, you will always live inside a battlefield."
"You are not responsible for a possible version of yourself that never existed. Darkness exists, but it is not the master of night." Tokoyami finished quietly, in a very Tokoyami-like fashion.
Sukuna didn't know what to say. First he opened up with Izuku the other day, and now he was being intellectually challenged by Tokoyami.
"And one more thing." Tokoyami crossed his arms. "If you truly feared becoming that version of yourself, you would have isolated completely." He let that sat for a moment before continuing.
"But you didn't, did you? You still chose to keep people near you." Sukuna mind immediately flashed to Mina, the first person to actively seek to hang out with him, the first person who was never scared of him, and now she had become his special someone.
"My father told me this once... A man who fears becoming a monster but still allows himself to be loved is not a man controlled by fear, he is a man choosing what his fear cannot take from him." Sukuna sat there, processing Tokoyami's words.
"She's proof that your fear does not rule your life, and if one person can stand close to you, then the nightmare has already failed to claim everything." Tokoyami patted his should, smiling a little at him.
"You're not alone, you never were. Our brothers and sisters in Class 1-A are with you, always."
Tokoyami patted his shoulder some more before he walked away, leaving Sukuna alone with his thoughts.
Sukuna snorted, burying his face in his palms.
"Man... I'm such a dumbass..."
To be continued...