#snared part five

Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Six Part Seven

           You tried your best not to look at Shigaraki, still not wanting to acknowledge the reason behind the suffocating atmosphere of your bedroom. Instead you stared straight ahead, wishing that you had real blinders in your arsenal as opposed to purely metaphorical ones. From what you could see out of the corner of your eye, he was playing some sort of handheld game on your bed, hunched over it in an attempt to get as close to the screen as possible. You did your best to stay quiet, simply thankful that his attention wasn’t on you at the moment and wanting it to stay that way. Each time you heard him huff out a frustrated breath or heard your bed creak as he shifted his weight, you froze instinctually, trying to keep him from remembering that you were even there.

           There was no chance of Shigaraki forgetting such a thing though. He might have been playing with his handheld, but he was only doing so to provide him with some sort of distraction. His whole body felt like it was buzzing, the fact that you were finally with him after so much time spent waiting nearly overwhelming him. Not only that, but he was positively surrounded by you: by keepsakes of your room, by the scent of warm spring rain that he knew belonged to you, by the image of you standing before him that Shigaraki knew belonged to him. His previous hunger for you seemed almost petty compared to now, his need to claim you raking through every inch of his skin.

           Meanwhile, everything felt so utterly surreal to you, the sheer absurdity of your situation serving to make you feel as though you were dreaming, with blurred vision and all of the other trappings. But there was a different part of you that acknowledged the reality of what was happening, and that was the part trying to keep the rest of you calm. It felt as though there was a degree of separation between those disparate sides of you, as if you were receiving instructions from a far away source. Shigaraki had told you to unpack and as much as you didn’t want to, as much as you wanted to grab your bag and run to the police, the sensible part of kept you from making that mistake. There was no chance in hell that an escape attempt right now would go well, so instead you robotically took out the clothes from your duffle bag and put them back in your dresser.

           Suddenly, another creak resounded throughout the room, this one long enough and loud enough to tell you that Shigaraki had gotten off your bed without needing to risk looking. Clenching your teeth, you paused for a moment, waiting to see what he was about to say or do. But even though you could hear him moving around your bedroom, Shigaraki neither approached nor spoke to you, leading you to resume unpacking. Several minutes passed this way, with you pretending to ignore him and him doing who knew what. As time went by though, the tension in the room thickened and solidified, pressing down on you until it was all you could feel. While you still didn’t want to acknowledge the villain who was making his way around your bedroom, not knowing what exactly it was that he was doing was even more frightening than just looking at him was. And so, after taking a deep but desperate breath, you turned around to face him.

           If Shigaraki noticed your change in position, he didn’t show it, instead just continuing what he had already been doing. To your confusion, you saw that he was not using his quirk to destroy your belongings as a part of you had suspected. Rather, Shigaraki was simply inspecting each and every item that caught his interest. He took note of each piece of your room and what it revealed about you, cataloging in the back of his mind for later. From the pictures of you with your friends and family to the shoes in your closet to the books collected on your shelf, Shigaraki memorized it all. It was a necessity to him, and an obvious one at that. After all, you belonged to him, and that meant that each piece of you and each piece of your life did as well. This hunger to know each and every part of you had been eating away at Shigaraki from the night he first saw you, only worsening as the days had gone by without a way for him to satisfy his craving. So now that he was in your home, now that he was finally with you, he was determined to glut himself with even the smallest fixtures in your life. Besides, Shigaraki knew that you needed to be taught that your place was at his side, dutifully obeying his every command and reverently heeding his every word as though they were something holy. And if he was going to educate you properly, he needed to know everything there was to know about you.

           “It’s not very nice to stare at someone,” Shigaraki said abruptly, sending a jolt through your nerves. Afraid to speak yet more afraid to stay silent, you searched for something to say.

           “I—”

           “Who is he?” Shigaraki interrupted you, nodding at one of the pictures hung up on your wall. Moving closer to see it, you stilled when you realized it was the picture you had of you and one of your friends at the park, you leaning against your friend as he had his arm around you. You had loved that picture, the memories attached to it always happy ones to think back on, but now you cursed yourself for being so sentimental. Shigaraki didn’t belong anywhere near your friends, not even near their picture. The anger rising within you at his presumption to even look at the picture threatened to escape, only held back by your fear for how he might retaliate.

           Shigaraki, meanwhile, was growing angry as well, though for different reasons than you were. The image of you with your friends incensed him, the mere thought of you wasting your time with other people setting his temper ablaze. It didn’t matter to him that the picture had been taken before the two of you even met, before he even knew that he wanted you. No, none of that mattered when all Shigaraki could see before him was the image of you being touched by some worthless NPC. Just barely containing his fury, he prompted you to answer his question.

           “Well?”

           “That—that’s my friend.” Eyes still on the photograph, Shigaraki sneered.

           “Just a friend, huh? You two seem a bit cozy for just friends,” he snarled tightly.

           “So what?” you replied without thinking, simply set off by the entitled tone of Shigaraki’s voice.

           “Excuse me?”

           “I—I mean, he only did that for the picture, it didn’t mean anything.”

           “Hmmm…I’m not sure if I believe you. Maybe I should ask him,” Shigaraki threatened.

           “I swear, we’re just friends!” you repeated pleadingly, hoping that he would believe you. “We’ve just known each other for a while, that’s all!”

           “So you two must be close then.”

           “N—no, not really,” you stammered, realizing your mistake.

           “Really?” Shigaraki wheezed mockingly. “Cause you just said that you’ve known him for a while, and I can clearly see him touching you in this picture. However close you two are, it’s clearly too close.”

           “So I won’t see him again, I promise!”

“But even if you don’t go see him, how do I know he won’t come to see you? I don’t like the thought of us to keep having to deal these constant interruptions,” he mused. “I mean, we’re just at the start of our relationship here, and we’ve already had to deal with the police. How’s our relationship supposed to grow if other people keep trying to mess things up?”

“He—he won’t mess things up,” you vowed, doing your best to fill your words with as much conviction as you could muster.

“And how are you going to make sure he doesn’t?”

“I’ll fight with him, tell him I never want to see him again, whatever the hell you want me to do.”

“I don’t know,” Shigaraki spat back at you. “If you two are so close, he might not bother listening to you. It’d probably just be easier for me to take care of this for you.”

“Please,” you said, voice shaking, “you promised that if I did what you said you wouldn’t hurt the people I care about.” Reflexively, you stressed your plea by placing your hand cautiously on Shigaraki’s shoulder, willing to try anything to keep him from going after your friend. The villain tensed at the contact, not prepared and certainly not expecting such a gesture from you. For a moment he simply stared down at your hand with wide eyes, hardly believing that you had just touched him of your own volition. Once he had a minute to adjust though, he was able to let himself enjoy the lustful burn that spread over his skin and through his bones.