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Yes, there is something clawing at your insides. Something akin to hunger.
Most times, you are able to shove it away like throwing a pebble into a lake, your touch being the last thing that will ever grace it. Lately, unfortunately for you, it’s been forcing itself to the front of your mind, making its presence known. It burns inside you, a flame that’s grown too much, a wildfire imminent.
It would be naive of you to brush it off as a desire for blood, but you do anyway. Time and time again, you try to extinguish this feeling by making vapid threats, play-fighting (because there are some people you could never truly hurt and walk away without feeling anything). And once someone dares to raise their sword above your head, you sit and dwell in your anger, brainstorming how you can get back at them (It never works, because you are not what you once used to be; now, you are something small and fragile— something to be picked on or to be pitied, and you hate both of those outcomes).
On the other hand, it would be smarter and perhaps more emotionally mature of you to admit that this isn’t really bloodlust. Killing is a language you are versed in, yes, but it is not the one you wish to speak, in the end.
The ugly truth behind this hunger inside you rears its head when you and Nara are pushing each other around; when he gives you a second home and a warm bed to look forward to at the end of the day; when you see Red again after periods of isolation and he dotes on you despite your shortcomings; when Betty tells you she cares even though you’ve never talked to her and you told her (quite rudely) it honestly disgusted you that she worried over someone like you.
The smart thing to do would be admitting that you, like any other person at their core, crave a sense of belonging— human connection, or, in simpler words, you need someone that likes you enough to stick around. You would never admit to this, though, so as a result you chain the feeling up inside you.
Really, it’s like restraining a starving lion, but… after experiencing a world so cold, when you have been backstabbed so many times and left for dead, how could you display your emotions so publicly?
For those who dare come close, you keep them the only way you know how. The hearts inside of you should go to someone destined for bigger and better, not to an expendable like you.
It worries people that you hand out your life force so easily, but you’ve never understood why. After all, you’ve never amounted to anything useful… Well, maybe that changes now. There are some people you’d be willing to lay your life down for in return for the misplaced kindness they’ve shown you.
You think, as you mindlessly run around Nara’s base, the sting of a sword would leave more of a sweet aftertaste if it came from her. Likewise, you welcome death engulfing you like a comforting blanket after you annoy Cog a little too much (it gives you your hearts back, but you think you should’ve let it keep them— they feel wrong back inside your body again).
You wouldn’t mind being a reservoir for people like that, you decide. It’s just a small price you have to pay for someone to stay long enough to quell your hunger.