#naiwang

You are Nice. The perfect hero.

You show up when the villain is terrorizing, you catch the little girl who gets sent flying, and you beat the villain.

(It doesn’t matter if the villain is hired by your own agency, all you need to do is just be a perfect hero.)

You adjust the villain's mask, turning it straight.

You turn to the crowd and smile. Fingerguns, and your catchphrase of your own name.

Show up. Save. Beat. Again, again, again. That’s what a hero does. You save the children. You save the beautiful woman in a white dress, catching her in your arms. A perfect start to a perfect romance. What better way to meet your perfect soulmate than to hold her in your arms?

You date her, because why wouldn’t you? You create promo videos together, and appear in public all the time. A perfect couple.

You keep being a hero, climbing the ranks. Top 500, top 100, top 50, top 30. It won’t take long to reach the top 10. You invite the woman to live in your residence. Your perfect residence. Clean, neat. Not a single object out of place. No clashing of unnecessary colours. White. Purity. Perfection.

You beat the villain again. What’s a nemesis if he doesn’t try again? What’s a hero if he doesn’t respond?

You are Nice. The perfect hero, and no one else. 

Or maybe someone else to one person, as your best friend cradles your face and moans out a name that no other soul has uttered in over three years.

You are Nice. That is all you have been, and all you will continue to be.

You slip out of bed and catch your reflection in the mirror. Perfect skin marked by messy scratches. That won't do. Imperfections cannot exist, nor persist. Ugly desire should never consume you. You put back on your suit, and you go back to your own residence, where your perfect girlfriend is asleep on your bed, none the wiser.

You take your phone and delete one of the three contacts that had been in your phone. Boss and girlfriend. Those are the only phone numbers you need.

(Despite everything, you can't bring yourself to block the number, even when you receive texts the next morning asking why you didn't spend the night.)

(By the time you take a shower the next morning, the scratches are gone. Perfect skin, as befitting of perfect Nice.)

You ignore the texts, the voicemails, the emails. It is simple, you could not keep partaking in such activities anymore. It would not be proper, it would not be perfect.

(But you can't bring yourself to tell him this, because if you tell him it's over, he'd stop sending messages, and you'd have nothing left.)

You are Nice. The perfect hero. The perfect boyfriend.

(To her. Not to him.)

There is no one else you could ever be.

You are—

You are not perfect, because a perfect person would never feel like this. You protect every smile, but you cannot protect his. Or even your own.

You find a rooftop. You find a civilian who talks bad about you. It's almost a relief, and you want to laugh, but it wouldn't be right, given the choice you're about to make. You give him a smile and fingerguns.

You step off the roof.

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