A New Life For Tomura Part 7

A new life for Tomura part 7

Love Like Ghosts (Chapter 5) - a Shigaraki x f! Reader fic

You knew the empty house in a quiet neighborhood was too good to be true, but you were so desperate to get out of your tiny apartment that you didn't care, and now you find yourself sharing space with something inhuman and immensely powerful. As you struggle to coexist with a ghost whose intentions you're unsure of, you find yourself drawn unwillingly into the upside world of spirits and conjurers, and becoming part of a neighborhood whose existence depends on your house staying exactly as it is, forever. But ghosts can change, just like people can. And as your feelings and your ghost's become more complex and intertwined, everything else begins to crumble. (cross-posted to Ao3)

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9

Chapter 5

There’s something wrong with your house, but you knew that when you bought it, and you’re slowly coming around to the idea that what’s wrong with your house might be one of your favorite things about it. Part of it is how happy Phantom is – you feel guilty leaving her at home alone, but a lot less guilty when you know she’s with Tomura, who’s kind of crazy about her. Part of it is knowing that you’ll never find another insect in your house again, and that even if you do, you won’t have to kill it. Part of it is never worrying about a break-in, because based on how Tomura responds to even friendly people coming over, he could probably give any potential intruder a massive heart attack even without materializing.

All of that is nice. But if you’re being honest – and you try to make yourself be honest, with yourself if no one else – the main reason why you’re so happy with what’s wrong with your house is because you and Tomura are sort of, maybe, finally getting along.

You have to buy a new microwave after the soup can incident, and it wasn’t the only time Tomura tried to take care of you while you were sick. He ruined a lot of the stuff he tried to help with – flooded the hallway with bubbles after using liquid detergent in the washing machine, left the fridge open for eight hours and cranked up your electricity bill to unsustainable levels – but when you explained what went wrong, he didn’t get mad at you. He called you an idiot a lot, mostly for getting sick in the first place, but he also fed Phantom and brought you food so you wouldn’t have to get off the couch, and in the biggest shock of all, he let Keigo into the house to check on you. You’re pretty sure he only did it to piss Dabi off, but still.

There hasn’t been any more touching. Other than dragging you from the hallway to the couch the first day you were sick, Tomura doesn’t get close to you unless he’s dematerialized. That’s fine with you. You’re pretending the whole incident didn’t happen, or trying to. Sometimes the thought creeps into your head anyway. You’ll be doing something completely innocuous and all at once your mind will explode with the memory of Tomura’s raspy voice begging you to keep talking, not to leave him.

And then the images come in, things you never saw but things you can picture perfectly: His pale skin flushed and his shoulders rising and falling in unsteady pants and his hands frantic and shaking as he jerks himself off. It invariably turns your face into a furnace, and Tomura always notices. But Tomura thinks a flushed face means you’ve got a fever, so you’re safe from being found out. You don’t know what would happen if he did find out. The longer you go without anybody finding out anything at all, the better.

The flu sweeps through the neighborhood, but strangely enough, you’re the only non-ghost who catches it. Eri, Himiko, and Magne all get sick, and Hizashi spends a lot of time gloating until he comes down with it, too. The only sort-of-former ghost who avoids it is Dabi, but that’s because Dabi never goes outside. Or Keigo won’t let him go outside. You’re not sure which it is.

“It’s weird,” Spinner says. You’re giving him a ride to the grocery store because you both need to go, and because you owe him for somehow catching a whole anthill and leaving it on your porch. “That just the ghosts caught it. Usually they don’t get sick.”

“Shouldn’t they get sick more than we do? They don’t have immunity or anything.”

“I guess,” Spinner says, frowning. “But I brought home all kinds of weird shit when I was in school, and Magne never caught any of it until now.”

That is weird. “Jin says he and the others always got sick, but never Himiko before this time. If it wasn’t for me getting it, I’d think it was a ghost thing, too.”

“It could still be a ghost thing even if you got it,” Spinner says. “You spend all your time hanging out with the most powerful ghost anybody’s ever seen. Maybe you’ve got enough ghost on you to catch the – hey, are you okay?”

“Fine,” you wheeze. There’s no way you’re telling Spinner that you misheard “ghost on you” as “ghost in you” and choked on your own spit. “Go on. What were you saying?”

But Spinner’s changing the subject. “What’s that like, anyway? Living with a ghost that strong.”

“You should know. Magne’s pretty tough.”

“She’s got a body count, sure,” Spinner says. All the ghosts in the neighborhood have killed somebody, but Magne and Hizashi are the only ones who need both hands and both feet to count how many. “But I never got the feeling from her that the whole street gets from Tomura. That aura he projects is something else. Did you really not feel it when you were buying the place?”

“I didn’t,” you say. “I knew there had to be something off about the house, or somebody else would have bought it. But I did everything I could think of to figure it out and there was nothing. I’ve never felt what you all are talking about from him. From Hizashi, sure. But not from him.”

“Hizashi’s scary even as a human,” Spinner agrees. “I don’t know how Aizawa handles it. I’d be pissing myself.”

“Aizawa seems pretty bomb-proof,” you say. “I guess that’s a good thing. Or they would have been in trouble when Eri’s conjurer showed up.”

The whole street knows the story, even if the Aizawa family never talks about it. You heard five separate versions of it, one each from Himiko, Jin, Jin’s little brother, a former ghost named Atsuhiro who lives at the top of the street, and Keigo. You’re inclined to trust Keigo’s version, but you see the look on Spinner’s face, and it makes you question things. “Do you know something about it that I don’t?”

“They had the same conjurer,” Spinner says. “Eri and Magne.”

Your jaw drops. “We’re pretty sure he was Atsuhiro’s, too,” Spinner continues, “but Atsuhiro says he doesn’t remember who conjured him. The circumstances are pretty close, though. That conjurer liked abandoned buildings, or ones that were in danger of falling in. When the building comes down, it turns the ghost loose.”

“He wanted to set them free?”

“I guess,” Spinner says. “Loose ghosts can cause a lot more trouble than trapped ones. I’m glad he’s dead. And I’m glad he found the Aizawas first.”

Eri’s conjurer sounds like a real creep, but Spinner didn’t strike you as the kind of guy who wishes he could shove the bad stuff off onto somebody else. “Why? You don’t think Magne could have taken him?”

“She probably could have,” Spinner says. He gets out of the car and heads for the store, leaving you to chase after him. “But there’s this legend. Or a myth. Maybe a ghost story. It says that if you kill your own conjurer, even after you’re embodied, it sends you back.”

“I thought they couldn’t go back to the world between,” you say. “Aizawa never said –”

“Aizawa doesn’t know everything,” Spinner says. His jaw is clenched, and the next words he speaks are hard to hear. “I didn’t want her to go back.”

“Oh.” Your feelings on Tomura are just mixed enough that the idea of him vanishing permanently doesn’t make you panic. Or at least you tell yourself that it doesn’t make you panic and try not to think about it any harder than that. But Spinner looks miserable just saying it out loud. “Um –”

“I need to grab my stuff. I’ll meet you back here when I’m done.”

“Okay,” you say. You want to say something else, but Spinner vanishes down the aisle before you can think of what it should be.

You’re turning a lot of things over in your head as you do your grocery shopping. The legend about ghosts returning to the world between. The world between itself, what it’s like there. The now-dead conjurer who summoned Magne and Eri. The maybe-still-alive conjurer who summoned Tomura. But Tomura’s still a ghost. Even if his conjurer came back, there’s nothing they could do to hurt him.

You remember Spinner saying that Magne didn’t like this world at first, all the way back on the first day you met Aizawa. Maybe he was worried she’d go back if she got the chance. You gather up your last items, pay for them, and go to wait for Spinner, who comes back five minutes after you with a bottle of soda, a bunch of bananas, and a whole bag full of makeup and nail polish from the discount bin. “It’s for Magne,” he says when he sees you looking at it. “She likes pretty stuff. I’d buy nicer stuff if I could afford it.”

“Sometimes the cheap stuff is best.” Your favorite sunscreen is a discount brand, and you’ve never had very much money. “I’m sorry about what I said earlier. I think I was being kind of insensitive.”

“You didn’t know or anything,” Spinner says. “I don’t talk about it very much. I, like – it’s not heartwarming. Or cute. Or anything like that.”

“It doesn’t have to be any of those things,” you say. It’s not like your ghost story fits, either. You struggle with what to say as the two of you walk back out to the parking lot. “You don’t have to tell me. You can if you want to.”

“Really? Everybody else wanted to drag it out of me,” Spinner says. “Somebody new shows up in the neighborhood, and everybody else cases the joint for a few days and comes crawling out of the woodwork. I’d been here two weeks when Aizawa ambushed me with a tape recorder. Everybody’s in everybody else’s business all the time.”

You didn’t get that treatment, but then again, you didn’t have a ghost when you moved in. “It makes sense,” you say as you start the car. Spinner raises his eyebrows. “Ghosts don’t have any boundaries at all. The more of them you hang out with, the less boundaries you have.”

Spinner snorts. “You wouldn’t believe what happens when they start talking to each other. The shit they’ll say – one time I heard Himiko telling Eri how cute it is that Jin picks his nose and farts in his sleep. And she wasn’t being sarcastic. Once they choose a human, they really commit.”

You wonder what Tomura would say about you to the other ghosts, if he ever talked to them. If he’d say anything about you at all. “How do you think about your relationship with Magne, then? Is she like your friend, your sister, your aunt –”

“My big sister,” Spinner says. You back out of the parking spot and steer towards the road, and the noise in the car almost covers up what he says next. “My mom.”

You’re not close with your parents. There was never any real reason why, and it’s not like you hate them. You’re an only child, and the three of you just never felt like a family – not like the families your friends were part of, or the ones you saw on TV, or even the weird ghost families in the neighborhood you live in now. Maybe it was different when you were too young to remember, but as you grew up, the three of you felt more like roommates than anything else. You always felt like you were alone. Moving out just made it official.

But it’s not that way for everybody. Not even most people. You glance sideways at Spinner. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he says, and then he tells you the story.

Spinner’s parents weren’t great. That’s not an uncommon story in the neighborhood – Jin’s dad was an all-purpose batterer, and Shinsou was in foster care – but unlike the two of them, there was no friendly ghost in Spinner’s house. Spinner ran away from home when he was twelve, and nobody looked for him. He went from town to town, building to building, alone. He was fifteen when he found himself staying in the abandoned warehouse Magne haunted.

At first, Spinner says, there was no way to tell that the place was haunted at all. When Magne showed herself, she was always embodied, and he thought she was human, just like him. And she was nice to him. She brought him things he needed, although she never said where she found them. She talked to him, although she never answered the questions he asked her about herself. “She cared about me,” Spinner says. “For real, not pretending like everybody else did. I never wanted to leave.”

But he had to. Spinner caught the attention of the wrong gang of criminals, and although Magne hid him, they found him anyway. Magne’s way of draining people was different than Tomura’s is. Spinner tells you about lying on his back on the concrete floor of the warehouse, watching the people who were attacking him implode, one by one. “And then, with the last one, something happened,” Spinner says. “The whole world – I don’t know how to describe it. It did something. Usually people aren’t conscious when their ghosts embody themselves permanently, but I was. I saw it happen. I knew before she did.”

You wish Spinner could describe it better. It’s not like you’re ever going to see for yourself. “It was scary for everybody,” Spinner says. “Me and her. There we are in that stupid warehouse and there are dead people everywhere and we can leave, finally – except I’m so beat I can’t tell which end is up. It was three whole days before we got anywhere it was safe to talk about stuff.”

“Was there a lot to talk about?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Spinner says, shaking his head. “All the human stuff? Even when they embody themselves, they never embody themselves long enough to get a feel for what it’s really like. And there’s no way for them to experience all the human stuff ahead of time. Like eating, sleeping, taking a piss –”

You imagine the look on Tomura’s face if he permanently embodied himself and then found out about having to pee, and then you’re struggling not to laugh. “That’s bad enough,” Spinner says. “But then there’s the thing where she’s, like – a whole human. A whole human who didn’t exist before. There was paperwork. It sucked.”

You hadn’t thought about that. “How does that even work?”

“Honestly? That’s how we met Hizashi,” Spinner says. You blink. “He spent so long blending into the human world before he embodied himself full-time that he had to learn to forge documents to do stuff, and he’s creepy good at it. He gets you the basic stuff – birth certificate, ID – and then he builds a whole paper trail. Somebody who looks at Magne’s documents is never going to know she didn’t exist five years ago.”

“So that’s how you found this place, too,” you realize. That means Hizashi and Aizawa were here before Spinner and Magne, but when did the rest of them move in? “Who was here first?”

Spinner gives you an odd look. “Your ghost,” he says. “Tomura.”

“He’s not mine,” you say, almost on reflex. “He’d be mad if he heard you say that.”

Spinner basically straight up ignores you. “I gotta say, it was weird to hear you name-drop him that first time. We’ve all always known he’s there, but we know so little about him that he’s basically got legend status – and to you he’s just Tomura. And that’s it.”

“What else was he supposed to be? I didn’t know anything about any of this until I moved here.” You feel hurt, even though you shouldn’t. Spinner’s not saying any of the things your brain is telling you he’s saying – not that you shouldn’t be here, not that you don’t deserve to be in the same house as Tomura, not that you don’t understand. “I’m glad he does what he does for everybody in the neighborhood. I don’t think it’s conscious –”

“Oh, we know that. He doesn’t give a shit,” Spinner says, and laughs. “Maybe that’s why it’s weird. Because he clearly gives a shit about you.”

You knew that. Hearing somebody else say it, somebody like Spinner who doesn’t have a weird relationship with their ghost, makes you all kinds of uncomfortable. “Like, he got on the phone for you. Live ghosts hate technology. They hate anything they can’t haunt. For a ghost like him to get on the phone, he must care a lot.”

You laugh, wondering if it sounds as uncomfortable as you feel. “I still have to apologize to Aizawa for that phone call. Tomura was kind of a dick.”

“They’re all kind of dicks,” Spinner says, and your laughter feels a little less uncomfortable this time. “They can’t really help it when they don’t understand. The embodied ones learn eventually.”

You’re not so sure about that. Dabi’s still very much of a dick. Magne was a dick when she was sick, but so was everybody who got the ghost flu, you included. Hizashi’s a dick on purpose sometimes, but most of the time he isn’t. He can’t be. Aizawa wouldn’t have stayed with him otherwise.

Out of all the ghost families in the neighborhood, you’ve spent the most time observing Aizawa’s. You don’t know why, when you’ve got Keigo and Dabi right across the street, but your eyes are consistently drawn to the house where Aizawa and Hizashi and their kids live. At first it might have been because you needed to confirm your conclusion. You needed to know whether Aizawa married Hizashi because he wanted to or because he had to. And you’ve watched them long enough that you’re sure: Aizawa loves Hizashi, in the same weird way Hizashi loves him.

It’s not like you can’t see why, even if you’re legitimately spooked by Hizashi. There’s nobody more committed to a relationship than an embodied ghost. Hizashi likes to make sweeping statements about all the things he’d do if Aizawa asked him to – like fighting God, or bringing him a piece of the sun, or breaking into the cat shelter and stealing all the cats – but what he actually does is quieter. Aizawa’s relaxed when Hizashi’s around. He doesn’t look so tired. He smiles more. Hizashi makes him comfortable. Hizashi makes him happy.

There’s a line in one of the few ghost books Aizawa didn’t write that’s been playing in your head lately: Ghosts haunt the space they’re given. That’s how they haunt houses. Maybe that’s how they haunt people, too.

“Thanks,” Spinner says, and you glance at him. Somehow you’re parked in front of his house already, when you barely remember driving home. “For the ride. And for not being weird about things.”

“Any time,” you say, and you mean it. You watch as Spinner makes his way up the front steps and opens the door, only to find Magne waiting there already. She hugs him so hard she lifts him off his feet.

You drive the rest of the way back to your house, lost in thought, and greet Phantom on autopilot before you start unpacking the groceries. You know Tomura’s around somewhere, and sure enough, there’s a puff of cold air against the back of your neck – the air chilling and then displacing in response to his presence. “Spinner,” he says without preamble. “Do you like him?”

For once you don’t play dumb. “He’s a nice guy. Kind of young for me.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-six,” you say. “How old are you?”

“A hundred and ten,” Tomura says, and your jaw drops. “I think. It was hard to count in here before. It never felt like anything changed.”

“It probably didn’t.” The first time you stepped into the house, you felt almost like time had stopped. “Me and Phantom change. I bet that helps.”

“Whatever,” Tomura says. At his heart, Tomura’s still an asshole most of the time. When he speaks up again, his voice sounds different. “When you say change, you mean age. Don’t you?”

You nod. There’s an edge to Tomura’s voice now. “How long do you live?”

You don’t like thinking about how long Phantom will live. Your vocal cords feel pinched and tight when you speak. “Phantom’s breed of dog can live to be thirteen or fourteen if you take good care of them. I take good care of her, and she’s only two. That’s – eleven more years.”

“That’s not long enough,” Tomura says. He’s telling you. Your eyes well up. “What about you?”

“If I’m lucky?” It’s easier to think about this for you than for Phantom. “I might make it to ninety. If nothing goes wrong.”

“That’s not long enough, either,” Tomura snaps. “What do you mean, if nothing goes wrong?”

If you’re not allowed to play dumb, Tomura isn’t, either. “You’ve watched medical dramas with me. Car accidents. Heart attacks. Alzheimer’s – the one where you forget everything. Cancer. All those things can happen to humans at any time. And they do, every day.”

“No,” Tomura says.

“It’s mortality. You can’t just say ‘no’ and opt out.”

“No,” Tomura says again. “That’s not how this works. You don’t get to leave me.”

Your stomach twists. “I’m sixty-four years away from being ninety. That’s a long time.”

“It’s not long enough!” There’s a light thud from behind you, the sound of Tomura’s feet hitting the floor as he materializes. A pair of ice-cold arms wrap around your waist, gripping you tightly and yanking you backwards against an equally cold chest. He’s breathing hard, even though he doesn’t have to breathe. His heart is beating harder, even though there’s no reason for him to have one. If not for the chill spreading over you, you couldn’t tell a difference between him and someone human.

His voice, when he speaks, is full of menace. “It can try to take you. I won’t let it.”

“There’s not a grim reaper,” you say. At least, you think there isn’t. But the world has ghosts in it. Maybe it’s got a personification of death, too. “There’s nothing for you to fight. This is just how things are.”

“No, it isn’t. You and Phantom are mine.” Phantom comes running at the sound of her name and drops her ball at your feet. You kick it away and she runs off in pursuit. “The others are stupid. They did it wrong. I know better.”

Your teeth are starting to chatter. “What do you mean?”

“They embodied themselves so they could follow their humans,” Tomura says. “Wherever they go. Even after they’re dead. I’m going to make you follow me.”

You want to tell him to quit talking like a lunatic. Remind him that ghosts and humans are two different species, that ghosts can become human but not the other way around. Tell him that this isn’t a fairytale, that the rules won’t bend just because he wants them to, that you’re going to die one day and there’s nothing he can do about it. “Don’t be so sentimental,” you say, like an idiot. Like an asshole. “What kind of ghost are you?”

The last time you said something like that to Tomura, he vanished, haunted your house all night, and then got so turned on from touching your hand that he flooded the entire neighborhood with horniness. This time he doesn’t vanish, but he doesn’t answer, either. He stays exactly where he is, arms lashed tightly around your waist, cheek resting against your hair, and the cold seeps into your bones.

“Is that really why they did it?” you ask after a while. Tomura makes some kind of noise that’s muffled by your hair. “The others.”

“Why do you care?” Tomura’s quiet for a second. “I get it. That human thing where you have to understand stuff so it won’t scare you.”

“I guess.”

“Then ask somebody else,” Tomura says, almost derisive. “I’d never do something that stupid.”

“Yeah,” you say. Your heart sinks, and you compartmentalize like you haven’t done since the first few months after you moved in. It’s almost been a year. A year ago you’d never have imagined this, and you wish you’d stayed that way. Don’t you? “I know.”

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flamme-shigaraki-spithoe

1 year ago

Yes pleaaaase if only i had him when i was living with my parents 😭😭i'm jealous

Platonic Yandere sundrop x gn! Reader

Trigger Warning: infantilisation, mention of abusive family, panic attacks, kidnapping

English is my second language, so I'm sorry for any mistakes that you may find in this text.

___

You were a staff member at Freddy Fazbear's Mega Pizzaplex and even though you were not working anywhere near the daycare you've had a very stressful week, which resulted in you having constant panic attacks, which would hit you at the most random of times. So, whenever you had one of those, you made it a habit to hide in the empty daycare until you calmed down enough to continue with your work.

Thankfully you were working at night where there were no children at the daycare. You didn't want to imagine the desaster, and embarrassment, it would cause if anyone would find you in your current state: impossibly red eyes with tears rolling down your face, while cradling yourself in a hidden corner of the daycare, trying to get your heavy breathing back under control, while trying at the same time to be as quiet as possible as to not allert any other staff that may decide to pass by.

While there wasn't much staff needed during the night, when the Pizzaplex was closed, there was an increase due to some technical problems with the animatronics. You were not sure what these technical problems were, but decided to ignore it for just now.

"Hello~? Are you okay little one? What are you doing here at this time?"

Wonderful. You wanted to sink in the ground. Why now? Now, when you still hadn't calmed down enough? You felt how your breathing started to increase again and knew that it just got worse. You slowly looked up, hoping that whoever found you would leave you be as soon as they knew what was going on with you, only to be surprised to find Sundrop, one of the two daycare attendants looming over you while looking at you with his signature smile, which slowly sunk and instead turned into a panicked Expression.

"Oh!! Are you crying?! DON'T CRY LITTLE ONE!! You wanna play Something? Playing makes everyone happy!! Or- maybe finger painting?!" You could now clearly hear the panic in his voice, and how desperately he tried to help you, sinking down to yor level, grabbing you and holding you safely against his cold, metallic chest.

While it wasn't really comfortable getting pressed against an animatronic's cold body, it felt surprisingly safe and calming to be held in a tight embrace by someone else. Before you knew it you had calmed yourself down enough to leave the embrace. Slowly trying to crawl out of his arms you realized, that his grip on you was slowly starting become a little too tight and that you couldn't get out. So instead you tried to convince the yellow animatronic to loose his hold on you. Reluctantly he did as you asked and let go of you, even though hesitant, as if he didn't really want to do so.

After a while of the two of you just sitting there, sundrop waiting for you to say Something, and you trying to think of a way of getting out of this awkward Situation, he asked you in a worried tone: "So little one... Why were you crying so much? Did you hurt yourself somewhere?" His words became faster towards the end, and he looked like he was ready to jump at you and run with you to the next available staff member any moment now.

You, on the other hand, were considering your options: On the one hand you could lie and tell him you were injured, which would probably result in him getting you out of the daycare, which would result in you leaving this awkward Situation faster as if you just told him what was bothering you. On the other hand you didn't want to let your coworkers see you with still very much red eyes, and a few drying tears, carried around the whole Pizzaplex by a panicked daycare animatronic. Plus, maybe talking with someone about your problems might help you with getting it off of your system.

Having made your decision you start venting your problems to him. How you had problems with your abusive family, how you left them only for them to find you and demand to live with you since you now had a good-paying job and how the money just wasn't enough for feeding your whole family AND you which resulted in you having not eaten in several days. How they still beated you up over every minor mistake you did and even if you weren't responsible and how you just couldn't leave them, since you couldn't stop working all of a sudden and they somehow befriended your landlord, resulting in him telling them whenever you tried something like leaving.

Sundrop listened unexpectedly calm during your whole monolog, especially for an animatronic that was known by the staff for acting hyperactive and unable to sit still for even a moment. When you finished, all he said was: "You're not going back to them! You're staying here where I know that You're safe!! If I had known how terrible it is outside the daycare I would have never let you leave all the times when you were here!! But everything is okay now, because papa sun and uncle moon are here now and we are going to take GOOD care of you!! Isn't that wonderful? You're here now with your true family!!! We are going to have so much FUN here together!!"

You just stared horrified and weirded out at the daycare attendant in whom you found comfort in only moments ago. With an awkward and bad feeling you tried to explain to him that you had to leave now, but he wasn't having any of that and instead just grabbed you and held you like a toddler while happily making his way to the main part of the daycare.

You just were confused and horriefied. What was HAPPENING to you? What would your life be like from now on?

___

So, how was it? I hope you liked this small piece of yandere Sundrop and if your currious on how sun and moon are going to be like, just ask me for a part two or headcannons or anything really and I start writing.

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flamme-shigaraki-spithoe

1 year ago

3,166K notes View Post

flamme-shigaraki-spithoe

1 year ago

Sanctuary of Nightmares PT 5

Platonic SB x Child Reader

Chapter Selection

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A/n: I meant to get this chapter out a little bit sooner but I've been having a really shitty day so I didn't have the time. But I have it out now so enjoy!

Sun was using every bit of his energy to keep the young boy distracted. He didn't let the boy stray out of arms reach in fear that he'd get too loud and gain attention from the others. And he'd been doing a great job too! He had everything going as smoothly as it could.

Until that voice came back...

See, Sun's job after hours was to clean up messes left behind by the kids in his care. It was a line of programming that was constantly there but was ramped up during the night to ensure the play area would be spotless by the time children got here. Usually he managed to keep thr place spotless as the kids played so that overwelming feeling during the nightime hours didn't effect him as much.

During this time he likened a mess to the feeling of dread, at least that's how the workers described it to him. Similar to the kind of feeling a child gets when they've done something incredibly bad. A sinking feeling that he'd get in trouble or that he'd be outright decommissioned if everything wasn't spotless. This, of course, wasn't the case. Though no amount of convincing could change purposefully made programming.

It was while he held the boy in his hands, attempting to place him down, that an echo screamed through his head.

"PUT THAT DOWN! IT'S DANGEROUS"

The scream greatly startled Sun, his mind overtaken by the sound. He dropped the boy before looking around as if he'd find the source of the voice manifested somewhere else. What happened instead was a clumsy fall as he tripped over a stack of toys, knocking them and him down in a loud fall. When he looked up and noticed the mess he felt that dreadful feeling sink in.

"Oh no. Oh no no no no no no NO! I-I've made a mess!" He yelled before quickly throwing himself at the toys, hastily trying to fix them.

The clanging of toys followed by his panicked yell had quickly awoken you. You had learned to be a rather light sleeper, ready to spring up at a moment's notice, just in case you had to run or hide. It was practically second nature at this point.

For a moment you panicked, not recognizing your surroundings. That didn't last long though as you soon recalled the day's events and remembered where you were. What caught your attention next was the lack of any nearby presence. Neither the animatronics you'd previously were here nor was anyone else for that matter. Blinking your tired eyes open, you wearily looked around before your mind fell onto a noise from outside. It sounded like Sun's voice but in your groggy state you couldn't quite make it voice out.

Hoping to see where he'd gone you silently ascended the stairs, not looking to draw any attention to yourself. You made it to the podium you'd seen briefly before. It allowed for a full look around the playroom, though your eyes quickly fell on an unfamiliar presence.

Is that a kid?

You couldn't make out much from here, the distance too great to fully see any features. Though they seemed to be quickly making their way to the security desk, as if on a mission. You couldn't quite focus more on the kid as Sun's voice caught your ear, the familiar sound immediately pulling your attention.

"I-I have glitter glue! Googly eyes?" He inquired in the kids direction as he attempted to quickly make his way over to the child, almost running to them. He didn't make it far though as he tripped over another pile of toys, falling on his face and in doing so losing his faceplate. He quickly grabbed it, shoving it back on before turning around to the toys he just tripped over as he quickly tried to pick them up. He had to keep one hand on his face to keep it in place, his other hand struggling to quickly pick up the mess.

Sun was in an absolute panic.

Everything was piling up. The day's events with you and your painful silence, his loud echos of Moon, his inability to keep himself together in both sense of the phrase, his panic to keep you staying here a secret, these knocked over toys, this little boy who was so incredibly close to the light switch-

All of it, all of it ran through his mind. His systems were nearly overloaded by stress as he desperately tried to get the small boy to listen.

If he was capable of crying right now, he would.

You easily noticed this. You intuitively knew what each small fidget and movement meant. He didn't need a face to show it. It was in the slight shake of his hands, the tightness of his grip, the way in which his body slumped over his objective. You grew a deeply concerned look, the behavior so strange now that you saw it genuinely expressed in another.

You'd seen anger, apathy, and a sweet sugar coat of happiness when in public, but you never saw sadness in others. You'd never known others to feel devastation or concern, you'd never seen panic or fear or pain on anyone else. Those emotions had always been saved for you, a tool often used against you. They were emotions that made you feel useless, broken. As if you were the only one who knew what those emotions were, the only one to know the loneliness of the pain those emotions brought.

Yet you saw it in him. You saw him doing the thing you'd never known others to do. You saw him holding it back, pushing it away, desperately trying to hide it from the world because it already hurts so much that feeling anything else might just make you break-

Suddenly the room went dark. A simple second was all it took.

Sun didn't move from his spot on the floor. His hand instead silently falling from his face, letting the metal piece hit the floor. He didn't bother to fight it, he was too stressed to even think about the consequences anymore.

When Moon slowly clicked back to life he was overtaken by emotion. He'd been able to feel Sun's stress, especially with the still heated circuits in his system. But, more than that, he'd heard every thought through Sun's head. It was always when Sun became stressed that he'd ever heard them, those frantic words that only the two of them understood. It always upset him when Sun was like that. He couldn't stand to see his other half that was usually so bubbly become so defeated.

He didn't have much time to think about that though, no. There was another emotion that flowed through his system.

How dare this little thing come here. How dare it harm Sun, how dare it threaten to harm you! It had no right- no RIGHT to be here! That dangerous little thing! That harmful little creature!

And, for the first time, he felt Sun. Not in the way where he echoed in Sun's mind, no. He feels Sun's anger. His frustration. He couldn't hear him, he couldn't begin to imagine Sun wanted anything to do with him still, but he knew he was there.

Moon's eyes turned red, his vision going with it. His security protocols had been going ever since he'd locked eyes with that creature and he'd be damn sure that it wasn't staying around to harm anyone else.

"Naughty boy, naughty boy" Moon spoke as he slowly stood from the floor. His voice was no longer lulling or comforting but rather terrifying. It sounded almost as if both Sun's and Moon's voices mixed to create a gravel-like high-pitched tone that would send a shiver up anyone's back.

In the sudden darkness of the room you couldn't see much which only made the terrifying sound all the more bone-chilling. Not only that, but the slight clicks of the moving bot along with the faint red glow of his eyes deeply unsettled you.

Sun was...that? Moon was that? They were the same?

Then who was this? This terrifing dark creature that resembled Moon yet felt not at all familiar. His clicks were intentional yet sharp, his eyes showing the bright red of danger. You felt your body freeze, your hands quickly covering you mouth to hide any sound you might make.

It was only moments later that you lost track of the glowing eyes, only for them to lunge towards the child you'd seen earlier. You heard the kid let out a slight scream, one that stopped your heart for a moment. You were only slightly relieved of your newfound panic when a flashlight glared and moved, signifying they were okay.

For the time being at least.

The shine of the flashlight disappeared into the jungle gym, the glowing eyes not far behind. You felt the stop of your heart turn into a frenzy of beats against your chest at what ensued. A chase, one that you had a hard time deciphering the movements of. You couldn't move, you could barely breathe. Panic had fully overtaken your senses leaving you too terrified to think straight. You could only watch in horror as the nightmare unfolded before your eyes.

Were you dreaming? Was this a nightmare? Moon had been so calm, so kind. He'd felt so safe and comforting. And Sun- Sun had felt so carefree! So happy you almost couldn't imagine him upset. Yet those two people were one, and they were what was hunting down a child. A child that could have been you- a child that could still be you! Were you in danger?! Were they going to hurt you?

All of it came to a sudden stop when the bright glare of a flashlight shined towards you. You stared back, unaware that the kid had noticed you for a moment. After a second when the light didn't turn away you two became fully aware of each other, of the situation the other was in. Two scared kids facing down a seemingly homicidal animatronic more than twice the size of either of you. You couldn't see each other well, but you could at least say that they knew you were there.

This moment of recognizing the other didn't last long though as you saw past the flashlight and noticed the red glow that slowly approached the kidm

Nononononononono-

"NO!" You moved your hands to yell, an action that startled the kid enough for him to turn and shine the light on the now frozen animatronic behind him. Without more than a split second of decision making the kid jumped down the slide, quickly removing themselves from the animatronics presence.

But those glowing red eyes didn't follow him.

You saw him turn towards you.

The blood drained from your face, your stomach falling as he locked eyes onto you. There was a moment of absolute silence, neither of you moving.

He had been so close, so close to catching that little creature. But that noise, that piercing, painful noise had stopped him. He hadn't heard that sound before, yet he knew exactly who it belonged to. When his eyes had turned to see you he was met with utter fear. You were recoiled yet frozen in terror, your hands covering your mouth again as you stared at him. You were...

You were terrified of him.

That little kid that had rested so peacefully in his arms, the one that had been so skittish yet curious, had become terrified of what he was.

And to acknowledge, to even think about what that meant hurt him. To think he'd scared you, to think he was the reason you were frozen...

It hurt.

No no no this was all wrong! You- You were supposed to be happy! He wanted to keep you safe, to keep you happy! That's why Sun had done any of this, why he had kept you here. You were hurt a-and they were supposed to fix you! To make you a happy little kid!

But you stared with those terror-filled eyes, fully untrusting of what they had become. Moon felt like he'd failed and he could feel that Sun blamed him for it. You were scared because of him. That's all Moon had ever been good at doing...

It was during these few seconds that these thoughts were held, these moments before everything truly went wrong.

All it took was one small movement. One step from the bot towards you had shattered your frozen state. You bolted off the podium and back into the room before practically throwing yourself down the stairs. You stumbled a moment, catching a railing with your hands and a shock of pain only outweighed by your rushing adrenaline. You heard the click of him landing on the podium, hid movements no longer silent as he chased. You ran towards the door, slamming it open before bolting down the hall.

"Wait! Please, please wait!" You heard their voice call but you felt you knew better than to turn back and face the thing that had been trying to attack the kid from earlier.

The halls were pitch black with not a single light to guide you. Your hands traced the walls as you ran, panicked and hoping to find some way- any way out of here. You heard the metal feet fall in the room behind you before quickly following after. You stumbled in the dark, your sense of direction minimal. Yet, whether by pure luck or past experiences in similar situations, you found a door. You struggled to find a knob to the door when suddenly the lights turned on, revealing the handle to you. Just as you had found the exit you heard a shill scream, one that shattered your ears but only further increased your terror. You quickly pulled the door open, almost certain the bot was going to catch you. Guided by the faint lights of the hall, you ran out the door. You didn't take note on the delay before they gave chase once again.

Bolting as fast as your little body could go you were speedily making your way down the hall. However, the clicks of the metal robot only grew closer, their terrifying sound echoed in words you believed were only used to trick you into stopping. You had been here before, you'd done this before. The moment you were caught there was no escape, you couldn't afford to stop.

Suddenly the bot jumped and landed in front of you, forcing your movement to cease. In fact you had stopped so abruptly that you fell backward. They had attempted to stop your fall but you screamed when they did so causing them to drop you in fear that they'd hurt you. You fell to the ground and immediately scooted away from the animatronic that now hovered over you.

It wasn't the same as before...

Moon and Sun were no longer seperate. There were parts of the metal sunbeams you'd seen on Sun that poked out though not all of them wer there. The hat you'd seen Moon rested on their head as well. One eye glowed with a familiar blue and the other a bright white. Their body seemed as if it had become a mismatched puzzle of the different colors of both sides making it near impossible to tell which one stood in front of you.

All of this together made a horrific animatronic. One that was an amalgamation of the two who had comforted you, a nightmare as a consequence of ever letting your guard down. You eventually scooted into a wall, effectively having cornered yourself. Seeing no other way out you threw your hands over your head, hoping to negate as much harm as possible.

"Don't be [scared] [frightened]. We're here to keep you s-s-s-Safe! Rem-Rem-Remember?" Their voices blended into a horrifying attack on your eardrums. It was similar to earlier in the dark with the other kid, but only slightly more distinguished between the whispers and actual voice. There was also an echo of the words, a fact that drove away all comfort there was left in their voice.

'Please just let it be a dream" you silently begged, your thoughts now only the echo of those words. Just a bad nightmare, a horrible twisting of reality. Anything, anything but real.

What followed was silence. A silence where seconds felt like years and a minute resembled a century. You didn't dare move- speak- breathe. You were so certain you'd be hurt, that you'd be punished for a crime you couldn't conceive. So you waited. You waited for that pain because you believed you couldn't escape it. It was your burden of existing, the weight you carried in hidden scars. There was no escape, there never was.

You always ended up here.

It was after this prolonged bout of silence that you realized there was no longer any movement. You felt your body start to shake, believing to know what came next.

They wanted you to show yourself. They wanted your arms to fall before they layed a hand on you.

You felt your tears freely fall as your hands slowly fell, defeated. Your eyes stayed shut, your ears only catching the sound of your heartbeat. Finally, with what was last of your resistance, you opened your eyes. Your breathing picked up a moment, prepared to feel pain as the robot remained in front of you. However, the fear that coursed through your veins was now clashing with your confusion at the animatronic. Their.arms lay slumped, the glow of their eyes now gone. Slowly you began to breathe again, the sudden danger now silent in front of you. It took an even longer time before you dared to move, your head turning to make sure the animatronic wasn't trying to trick you. After noticing no change you finally decided to move away from them. You crawled out from under the bot, your cuts causing the process to be painful yet bearable. When you did finally make it out from under them you quickly scooted away, afraid that they might pop back to life at any moment. After a few extra seconds you finally believed that the bot wasn't awake anymore.

Had you broken them? You suspected so, though you weren't entirely sure how. You were thankful either way since whatever had happened seemed to stop the them. You then finaly stood, though your injuries made your legs weak which made the process harder.

What were you supposed to do now? You were alone in the silence of the pizza plex, the only animatronic you've met so far now broken. You looked around as if you'd find an answer around you. Instead you saw something familiar. A staff bot, this time with a flashlight and roaming around on its own.

Maybe it could help you?

Even with that thought you didn't move, not as the shock of what just happened was still setting in. Instead, it wheeled closer and closer until, eventually, it stood in front of you. It then admitted a high-pitched beeping sound, one that had greatly startled you. In instinct you immideately backed away from the bot, afraid that the sound meant you were in trouble. You backed away until an almost garage door opened behind you. With the bot still following you, you practically stumbled out of the door, trying to escape the bot.

Unfortunately, you weren't looking where you were going and, in a horrifying clank, your back hit something metal.

Your entire body tensed, your breath caught in your throat. Afterward, you heard the clicks of metal pieces turning, letting you know that you had in fact gone back first into an animatronic. With full apprehension you turned your head to stare up at what you had backed into, soon meeting the eyes of the man- or rather animatronic rockstar himself...

Freddy

- x -

Sorry if I missed someone for the tag list. There were a lot so I'm sure I missed a few. Just ask again and I'll add you next time!

Couldn't tag for some reason on another -> @kingxbubblez @h1mbo-cryptid

Tag list -> @honeycovered-bandaids @lethalbeautiful @kiinokochii @questionableperson @mary-wolf @just-a-frudgin-simp @nothing-leave-me--alone @eafv2323 @lemonrolls @ch8rrybl0ssoms @crea8ive-traveler91 @porkcracker @carmelchocola @a-rare-female-blaziken @sssleepless @plaguerat44 @zachariethememerie @nothing-leave-me--alone @gundams90cmbobs @sunnshineflxwer @sundropsideup @givemesomebeans @isometimeswritestuff @allidde @wheres-the-effing-pie @imuziawi @theasexualpan @kittenlover614 @arialikestea @ayoitshayden @boiciph3r @jinxedleo @beanie-boo0 @over-active-daydreamer @mistertiberius @large-juice @lokigirlszendaya @baka-beka @s0ggyrats @feverish-dove @simpsilky @pencildrawer12 @pastelpinksippycup @thegeekisheere @nonamedasimp @hellsfinestwine

1K notes View Post

flamme-shigaraki-spithoe

10 months ago

Thanks!you anwser so fast too like damn!✨✋

Hiii i just discover your account it's so cool ! What about shigaraki with a darling that litteraly worship him ? 🧐

Have a nice day/night✨🛐

TOMURA/READER WHO WORSHIPS HIM HC!

A/N: gulps nervously in my tomura collection worth $1k+.. what..worship this guy? hah, never heard of it

(cough sidenote: utahime/urame whatever her name is and sukuna or xielian and huacheng...)

WARNINGS: nsfw under the cut! ooc tomura?, subby-ish tomura

oh my god this boy is sweating, confused, scared, angry.

he's sweating because he's shocked and nervous! how would he even react to someone holding him in their arms and whispering praises into his ear?

he's confused, where did this come from? why does he deserve this? are you serious or are you being sarcastic?

he's scared because there's an odd feeling in his chest that hurts yet feels so good, it outweighs the feeling of hatred that burns so deep within him.

he's angry because he thinks your a spy or is playing a cruel joke on him, that one day this will all just stop or your just using him to your own gain.

you have to try and try for weeks on end to show that your not going anywhere and that you genuinely worship him for who he is.

once he settles in and realizes your treating him like some sort of god, or how people idolize and admire stain/all might with genuine love in your heart he short circuits for awhile.

he lays in your arms quietly as he feels you kiss around his body and tell him that he did such a good job, how handsome he is, how much you love him, how much you care and how much all you wanna do to him is..take care of him.

he'll try and push you off and say something along the lines of 'you're being annoying/stupid, cut it out' or he'll say something cocky, 'you really see me as a god or something, huh? that sounds about right for a king like me.'

once it genuinely sinks into all of him that your being real and not playing with him, it all goes to his head and his dick he becomes more cocky but whenever a plan fails he falls so much harder than he would've if you weren't around.

he loves your kisses and will sulk if you don't give him atleast 5 per 10 minutes like you usually do.

cup his face and shower him with kisses, praise, tell him how handsome he is as your cuteness aggression kicks in and you squeeze his cheeks like they're your life line.

head? blank. mind? off.

even though he becomes more cocky/egotistical, he still short circuits and shuts down for a moment because..what?

he doesn't know what he did to deserve you (besides being a gross ugly gamer boy who should go eat a cup noodle) but he definitely thinks it's because all his hardwork and dedication to master got you by his side.

please be patient with him, if he ever sees you upset with him he might actually go insane.

NSFW under the cut!

he loves getting a handjob from you while he suckles on your chest and you whisper sweet things,

he cums so fast when you hug him from behind, one hand stroking his cock and the other playing with his nipples and stroking his chest while you whisper praise into his ear and leave hickeys on his scarred neck or shoulders.

when you praise him, sometimes it just immediately gets him erect, even if you didn't say anything inherently sexual.

he will watch with eyes blown wide or barely open (depends on how long you've been going) as you suck his cock and treat him with utmost care.

yes he is a pillow prince.

he loves it when you treat him like a valuable jewel that could shatter at the slightest touch, your gentle squeezes, your slow and tender kisses, your praise, it all swirls in his head and makes him cum, even if it's just foreplay.

he loves the aftercare, when he's laying down on his stomach and a pillow on his chest as you carefully use wipes to clean his cock, makes him hard all over again.

the aftercare where you shower with him? now he's not sure, he'll say he can bathe himself yet the soft moans he lets out whenever you lather soap on his body or dig your fingers into his hair says he would rather have you bathe him.

cuddles, cuddles please. he needs that.

atleast an hour or 30 minutes of you cuddling him, petting him and telling him how good he did for you, he will sulk if he doesn't get this.

when he's the one mostly in control he's so rough and mean, well..as rough as a lanky twink can get.

he loves watching you cry for him or having you tell him how good you feel, goes straight to his cock.

tell him to go harder, faster, deeper or tell him you're about to cum quick, he loves it, he loves it all.

when your giving him oral, he will just straight up hump/facefuck you, he loves the adoring look in your eyes, it makes him so hard.

—Ake 2024

Platonic SB x GN Child Reader

Chapter Selection

Prev Chapter / Next Chapter

Tw: Mentions Of Abuse, Slight Blood

A/n: ayo wtf I did not expect any of y'all to actually enjoy this. 300 notes on the first part? Fucking insane. Anyway, I didn't sleep last night so guess what? Part two is out today baBY. Enjoy.

You continued to feel suffocated in this environment as you followed the bot through the crowds. You hadn't ever been anywhere this loud before, let alone with so many people in it. You felt wildly out of place, that at any moment someone would point you out as a stranger, that they'd notice that you didn't belong and they'd kick you out.

But no one did.

All seemed too worried about their own lives to notice you, even as you followed the bot with a flashing yellow light still on its head.

It led you through what you believed was a theater, though not one currently in use, before you found yourself right next to a huge play area. One absolutely crawling with toddlers and younger kids alike. The security bot continued to move towards a person who, without question, opened the door to the play area. You looked up to the person a moment, unsure of making any type of movement. It was after they gestured forward that you decided it best to enter. With apprehensive movements you made your way in, the door quickly shutting behind you. You turned back to see both the bot and human walk off, leaving you to your own devices.

You didn't move for a while, instead taking in what was happening around you. Kids crawled all over the jungle gym, their screams of joy ringing loudly in your ears. Across the room you saw running children and little play areas with plenty of toys. There was an art station, a ball pit, practically any fun activity a little kid could dream of was here. Yet you didn't feel like it was a good idea to step into the madness. No, you didn't belong there. Not among the laughing faces or the happy smiles. You didn't belong here- you shouldn't be here! No no, this was all wrong-

Your thoughts were interrupted by a terrifying surprise as, out of what you belived was literally nowhere, a certain jester dropped down in front of you.

"Hel-LO little friend! What are you doing over here?! I didn't see you come in!" He excitedly spoke, his face mere inches from yours. You jumped away from him, though your eyes never turned away. You stared in absolute silence with a look of clear terror on your face after having been spooked so badly.

"Friend? Can you hear me? Can ya?" He repeatedly asked as he continued to come closer. You leaned further away while keeping your feet planted in case your moving would upset the bot. You took a second to let your brain catch up before you slowly nodded.

"Well that's great news! I don't know how I missed y- Oh! I know, I know! One of the staff must have let you in! You didn't go down the slide! Of course, of course!" He nearly bounced with energy, full of joy after having solved his little puzzle. You continued to stay put as you watched the jester celebrate his little achievement.

"There's so much to do! So much to catch up on! You're late but that's okay! That just means you have to do everything faster-!..." He suddenly stopped his excited rantings, his body falling still as he stared at you. You felt your heart drop when he did so as a spike of fear overtook you.

Did you break it-?

"YOU'RE HURT!" He suddenly screamed and in reaction you quickly covered your face, the roaring sound shocking every sense you had. Suddenly you became light, your body pulled from the ground. You let out a whimper, terror rushing through your veins as your hands remained covering your face.

"WEEWOO WEEWOO! AMBULANCE COMING THROUGH!" The animatronic screamed as he quickly moved. His agility was a feat to behold as he effortlessly navigated around screaming children that all wanted his attention. He held you high above his head and quickly managed to make his way across the play area. It was a few seconds into this walk that you slowly uncovered your eyes, the sudden shock of fear only continuing to rise as you realized how high off the ground you were. You then clung to the animatronic for dear life, afraid that you might drop at any second. He carried you to a small corner of the playroom across the ball pit where a make-shift doctor office was made, though it seemed more like a pretend one than a real one. It had little chairs, a table, and plenty of typical medical supplies that were all brightly colored with childish designs covering them. There was also a lady fully dressed as a doctor sitting in the only big chair. She didn't look over to the noise Sundrop was making, then again she must have been accustomed to it by now.

"Ms. Doctor! I have a patient! They require immediate help!" The excitable bot quickly explained as he placed you on the table next to her.

"Thank you Sunny, I'll be with them in a moment. Why don't you go hang out in the art corner? I heard a few kids needed more glitter glue" she suggested as she typed the last few sentences into a computer.

"A glitter glue shortage!?!" He shouted in a shocked tone before bounding off, likely to do what was asked of him.

You sat with tense posture, the adrenaline spiking through your veins after that terrifying experience having been enough to skyrocket your anxiety. You were only allowed a few secodns to calm before the woman you knew only as Ms. Doctor finally turned away from her computer to look at you, a soft expression found on her face.

"Well sweetheart, where's it hurt?" She asked as she scooted her wheeled chair closer to you. Feeling a severe case of emotional whiplash from the bouncey yelling of the sun animatronic to the calm care of the doctor caused you to blink a few times as you adjusted to the difference. Even so your body once again leaned away as you were entirely distrusting of this stranger. Noticing this she grew a concerned look.

"Do you want me to call Sun back over?" She asked to which you very quickly shook your head. With that answer she let out a soft sigh. Not out of annoyance or anger but instead with a tired expression.

"Okay...will a sundrop candy help?" She asked as she reached into one of her many pockets before pulling out a small sphere-shaped candy wrapped in clear and golden plastic. You stared at the sweet treat for a moment, your body slowly calming as you looked between her and the candy.

You very rarely ever had candy so any chance you could you had always taken some. This time though you remained still as you debated whether or not to take it. You didn't know the full intentions of the doctor nor why she was so calm after Sundrops excited yelling. It didn't take long before you lost your resolve, the sweet treat too much of a temptation to your sugar deprived life. With a nod from you she handed the candy over, your eyes following it the whole way. You almost didn't believe it was real when it landed in your hands, let alone when you unwrapped it. It smelled of lemon, a flavor you don't think you've ever had before. It was a hard candy too, a type of candy you've had very few of in your life. So you happily ate the candy, your comfort levels clearly rising as it began to melt on your tongue. The doctor gave you a small smile, seemingly happy to have calmed you.

"Now can you tell me where your boo-boos are?" She asked again, her voice momentarily pulling you from your bliss which raised your guard once again, though not as much as before since she didn't seem as dangerous now.

You pointed to your legs, her eyes finally trailing down and noticing the slightly torn fabric of your pants along with the bit of crimson that had clung to them. Her face twisted into concerned confusion, the jaggedness of the cuts something she wasn't expecting. The whole place was padded to hell, how had you managed to hurt yourself that badly?

Then again kids your age always amazed her with the myriad of ways they somehow always managed to hurt themselves.

"Alright, let's get you fixed up"

It was a few minutes into the bandaging and she had already given you three sundrops since you were a particularly skittish kid. She had managed to get wrapping around one leg, though not without some struggle as you pulled away at any sudden spike of pain. It was only after covering your first leg that she even realized your hands were cut up too, a fact that only made this slow process all the more agonizing. It was just after the second bandage though that a sudden call came to her phone. She sat up, quickly finishing the last part of the wrapping before handing you yet another Sundrop.

"I'll just be a minute" she quickly spoke before sliding away to her desk to answer the phone.

"Daycare, Ms. Zell speaking" she answered into the phone, the buzzing of a voice on the other side not heard by you over the sounds of joyful children.

"Again? Alright, I'll be there as fast as I can...yes I know I-...fine, but I'm going to need more people...alright, alright I'm coming" she then hung up the phone, a deep sigh leaving her before she turned back to you. She stared at you a moment, a look of contemplation on her face as she did so. It was after this moment that she slightly turned back to her desk before hitting a small button. It was barely a few seconds later when a certain sun turned up.

"You called!" He yelled, his voice startling you as it came from above your head. You turned to look only to see the jester hanging upside down from the netting of the daycare. The doctor looked up, her face more serious than it was before as she stood from her chair, grabbing a few tools along the way.

"There was an accident at Roxy Raceway again, they need me down there. Can you finish patching them up? They just need some bandages on their hands and they should be fine"

"Of course Ms. Doctor!" Sundrop spoke before jumping from his spot on the netting. Surprisingly there was no loud thunk as the metal animatronic hit the ground, as if he almost didn't weigh anything at all.

You did not like this arrangement. You liked the doctor, she was calm and it was easy to predict her movements. But this neurotic child's toy? It was impossible to tell what he'd do next.

Even in your discomfort you said nothing. You didn't believe you had any power to change this decision.

"Thanks, I should be back soon- oh! And uh, one last thing" she stopped herself from leaving for a final moment and pulled out a few extra pieces of candy before handing them to the robot.

"These should help while you're patching them up" and with that she walked off in a hurry, though not as fast as she would have liked as she didn't have the same ability as Sundrop when it came to swerving around running children. You kept your eyes on her as she left, almost hoping she'd turn around. That she would regret leaving you here, that she'd think twice about it, that she'd just turn the wheel back around and-...

She wasn't going to come back was she

"Alright! It's doctor time!" The bot happily announced as he grabbed a nearby doctor coat. It was mostly similar to the one the doctor wore except for the sun logo sloppily drawn in marker on all of the pockets.

"I am doctor Sundrop and I'm here to assist! Now, can I see your boo-boos?" He spoke in a highly overdramatic voice, his posture rigid and his hands behind his back. Though even in his attempt to seem serious he were very easily seen through, especially as small cracks in this serious facade broke through with short snickers.

Now, while he was still rather too over the place for your liking you did have to admit, his get-up was a little silly and now that he wasn't so incredibly in your face his child-like behavior was almost comforting. You hadn't ever met someone so boisterous and over the top before and while it was still incredibly anxiety-inducing, it also pulled on the reason that you daydreamed about the PizzaPlex in the first place.

To be a kid, to play, to sing, to mess around until playtime was over. You wanted nothing more than that. To be allowed to be a kid.

Yet faced with the possibility of it you hesitated...

Once again receiving no answer from you as you kept you hands close to your chest, Sundrop lost a little bit of his bubbliness. His posture fell and his hands along with it. Even though he didn't really have an expression you gathered that he was either confused or saddened. That was until he suddenly sprung back to life.

If he was any more cartoonish you wouldn't have been surprised if a light bulb had appeared on his head.

"Oh! Right!" He spoke with a raised finger to further insinuate that an idea had formed before he then turned back to the desk and grabbed one of the left behind candies. He then quickly turned back to you with three candies outstretched.

"You like these right? Here! Just for you! I can even get more if you want!" He happily exclaimed, his face spinning with excitement. You stared wide-eyed as he handed you the treats, the sweets almost irresistible now that you knew what they tasted like. You looked between Sundrop and the candies before slowly taking one. You remained cautious though, just in case this was a trick. Once you did so his already excited mood skyrocketed. He believed he had made progress with you.

"More! You can have more! Do you want a fizzy faz too?! You like treats! I. Can get you more!" He swayed and slightly jumped as he talked. He seemed unable to stay in one place for too long when he was excited. Your eyes widened in surprise as he continued to outstretch the candies towards you. You hadn't expected to be allowed to have that many. You took the other two gratefully and with a look of astonishment that only furthered Sundrop's joyful state.

"Great! I'm glad you like them! Can I fix your boo-boo now? Can I? Can I!?" His hype level didn't seem to have a limit, though his excitability was growing on you. So, placing the candies next to you, you nodded, slowly outstretching your scratched-up hands to the animatronic.

"Oh no! You had a big bad fall didn't you? Don't worry! Doctor Sundrop will make it all better!" He joyfully spoke before practically throwing himself into the wheeled chair of the doctor before him. Granted he didn't entirely fit as his legs bent and his head was way taller than the chair, but he did anyway.

Even though it looked incredibly funny

Due to the nature of hands you couldn't just put a bandaid on your scratches, so he had to use wrap-around bandages to help cover the cuts. Luckily he seemed at least a little experienced with fixing injuries as he knew where everything was and how to do it. He kept you distracted the entire time with little jokes, even more of the Sundrop candies, and, when you would get especially anxious, funny gestures. It didn't take long at all before you were fixed up. In fact, he was just about to finish the second hand when you let out a sharp wince. Something that most definitely shouldn't have happened considering he was no longer near your cut up hands, the end of the wrapping stopping at your wrists just to keep them more secure. He suspected there were more injuries so he went to pull up your sleeve. He didn't get that far though as you quickly snatched your hand away, an almost panicked look taking over your face. Something that was quickly mirrored in Sun's posture and he assumed he must have really hurt you.

"Sorry! I-I didn't- uh- candy! You want more candy?! I can do more tricks! Sorry sorry I didn't mean to hurt you!" He bumbled over sounds like a panicked child, his words genuine as he quickly attempted to find anything to make you feel better. Once you saw your panic in his gestures you immediately calmed, realizing that your panic only induced his own. You felt guilty in a way, as if you had caused him stress. That being said, you still didn't give your hands back to him. You didn't want him to see, you didn't want anyone to see.

It only ever made things worse when someone else knew...

Seeing your calmed posture he calmed as well, though that only left confusion in his body language.

"Did I hurt you?" He asked, now unsure of his assumptions. When you slowly shook your head it only served to confuse him more. He tried to figure it out, to understand why you had pulled away, but he was truly at a loss.

"Can I see your hands again?" He asked with the utmost curiosity, only to receive another slow shake of the head.

"I-I promise I'll be gentle! I won't hurt you! I'll even pinkie swear on it!" He quickly spoke before outstretching his pinky to you. He was attempting to get answers to solve the sudden mystery before him, his hightened sense of curiousity not something easily dissuaded. Not to mention that if it was another injury he wanted to help make it better.

You thought on it a moment, his attempts to gain your trust having wilted down your initial apprehension towards him. Dispite his first impression he had a way of calming you down, of knowing exactly what you needed when you needed it. He had been gental with your cuts and had tried to keep your mind off them throught his time fixing them. Maybe...

Maybe it wouldn't be bad to let them see.

Maybe he really did want to help...

Slowly, and fighting your paranoid thoughts the entire way, you pinky promised with him, an action that once again caused bounciness in him. He did try to keep it contained as to not further harm your hand but it was still very visable. After you pulled away from the pinkie promise you kept your hand out so he could continue. Carefully and as gently as he's ever done anything he pulled up the sleeve you had attempted to hide behind.

He noticed a few bruises at first, a lot of them actually. He began to wonder what type of fall you must have had to gain this many. What he found most unfortunate though was the fact that he couldn't help with bruises. There were no amount of bandaids he could cover you with that would help with those. He was already saddened by this so by the time he realized what you had actually been trying to hide he practically froze.

Bruised onto your tiny body was a handprint. One too big to be a child's, one too small to be an animatronic. It was clear by the deep color that harm had been intended in whatever grip had caused it and the thought alone brought a horrible feeling throught Sundrops system. It was after noticing it that he looked back over the other brusis, now noticing fingerprints in a few of them.

The thought of what those meant brought a sickening, dreadful feeling through his wiring and it came with his own horrible memeories. Of losing control, of being forced into his moon state when he wasn't ready and not being able to keep the kids around him safe. Of failing to protect, failing to care for...

It was then that he looked back up at you, his permanent smile not allowing him to show the devastation that ran through him, a shock of pain that began to mess with his coding.

He would protect you, he would keep you away from the harmful humans that had done this to you.

No matter the cost

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flamme-shigaraki-spithoe

1 year ago

Love Like Ghosts (Chapter 6) - a Shigaraki x f!Reader fic

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9

Chapter 6

There’s something wrong with your house, but you knew that when you bought it. And to your dull human senses, what’s wrong with your house barely stands out on your street. You barely stand out on y our street anymore, either. Other people avoid this neighborhood. It’s not uncommon for everybody’s mail and packages to get dumped in a pile at the top of the street, because no postal worker wants to drive down this way if they can help it. But you’ve been here long enough now. Your neighborhood feels like home. Everybody here knows your name.

Shinsou and Hizashi are trying to start a garden, so you bring over some of your plants to help get them started. Keigo is teaching Jin to drive, and neither of them can get the hang of parallel parking, so you help out by shouting instructions from the curb as Jin tries not to murder your car or Aizawa’s while backing Keigo’s in. Sometimes you take Atsuhiro with you when you go grocery shopping, at Aizawa’s request – Atsuhiro has a shoplifting problem, and everyone else is tired of bailing him out of jail. And in the most awkward incident yet, Himiko gets her first period while Jin’s mom is at work and runs shrieking up the street to your house.

It’s your day off, but you’re in the bathroom when she arrives, so Tomura goes out onto the porch instead. Tomura’s not the person you want addressing a sensitive topic. When you finally make it out there, he’s in the middle of speculating that the unexplained blood loss means Himiko is going to die.

She looks close to tears, and you decide to address the biggest problem first. “You’re not going to die,” you tell her. Then you turn to Tomura. “And you – get out of here. This is girl stuff.”

Usually the threat of girl stuff banishes Tomura pretty quickly, but he doesn’t move. “Humans die from blood loss.”

“This isn’t that kind of blood loss. Shoo.”

Himiko ghost-blinks up at you through teary eyes. “It’s not?”

You shake your head. “It’s normal. Have you been feeling okay these last few days?”

“My stomach hurts. Since Friday.” Himiko’s mouth turns down at the corners. “Ochako at school says I’ve been mean.”

PMS is bad enough when you know it’s coming, but Himiko’s a former ghost, and her favorite human is a guy. She’s probably never seen this before. “Okay,” you say. “You should probably ask Jin’s mom more about this when she gets home. This is kind of a mom thing. But you’re not dying. You just got your period. It’s normal.”

“For humans.”

“Yep.

“Do you have one?”

“Not right now,” you say. You feel a little weird talking about this in front of Tomura. “Every month, though. I’m going to give you some pads to take with you, and you can borrow my heating pad. I’d invite you in, but –”

“Tomura’s a boy and he’s gross.”

“Hey!”

“Right,” you say, ignoring him. “Just a second.”

You duck back inside, pick up an unopened package of pads, and retrieve your heating pad from the medicine cabinet. When you get back to the porch, Tomura’s still there. He and Himiko are staring at each other. Neither of them are making a sound, but you get the sense that they’re talking. Spinner said the ghosts say weird things when they talk to each other, but he must have been eavesdropping on a conversation out loud. You’ve got no idea what Himiko and Tomura are saying to each other, and you have to clear your throat twice before either of them turn their attention back to you. And when they do, their expressions are different than you’d expect. Tomura looks uncomfortable, defensive. Himiko, still a little teary-eyed, looks pleased with herself. Why?

Whatever it is, you’ll have more luck getting it out of Tomura than her. “Here are the pads,” you say, holding them out. “You probably won’t go through them too fast, and when your mom gets back she can help you pick some out. And the heating pad is good for cramps. Put it on your stomach or your lower back, whichever feels worse.”

“Okay.” Himiko wipes her eyes, then smiles at you. “You’re nice. Are you old enough to be a mom?”

“I mean, probably?” A few of your friends from college have kids now. “Not old enough to be your mom, though. Why?”

“No reason.” Himiko turns and makes her way down the porch steps, staggering a bit like you do when you get hit with a bad cramp. “Thanks.”

“If you need anything else before your mom comes back, come over,” you say. You wait until she’s out of sight, then turn your attention to Tomura. “What was that about?”

“She asked if I like you like a mom.” Tomura looks like he wants to hurl. “I said no, and then she asked if I like you like she likes Jin, or like Eri likes Shinsou.”

“And you said no?”

“I said yes,” Tomura says, and your heart sinks – but only for a second. “The little brat can still read auras. She knew I was lying.”

It’s on the tip of your tongue to ask him what he lied about, but then you realize you already know. Himiko eliminated two of the three varieties of ghost-human relationships in the neighborhood – sibling-sibling and parent-child. That leaves two options, neither of which you like. Either Tomura likes you the way Hizashi likes Aizawa and Dabi used to like Keigo, or he doesn’t like you at all.

You should leave it. You should drop the topic and back away slowly. Instead you open your mouth. “Why did you lie to her?”

“What I do with my human is none of her business. Or anyone else’s.” Tomura is dematerializing. Now he’s just a voice and a pair of hands gripping the porch railing so hard that you’re worried it’ll snap. “Go away.”

Fine. You tell yourself it’s fine, that you’ll go, but your feet stay stubbornly planted until your phone rings from somewhere inside the house and you have to go back to retrieve it. Aizawa’s calling, and when you pick up, he starts talking without greeting you first. “Your job gives you access to public records. I’m going to give you a list of names.”

“I can’t just –”

Aizawa starts reading them off, proving that the ghosts aren’t the only ones in the neighborhood who can be assholes in the bargain, and you scramble for a pen and a piece of paper. Phantom is prodding you in the ankle with her snout, looking for a treat. “Hang on a second,” you snap at Aizawa. “I need to write this down.”

A piece of paper skids across the counter towards you, followed by a pen. “Thanks,” you say to Tomura. Then, to Aizawa: “Start at the beginning. The first name was?”

There are seven names on the list. They’re all men’s names. “I want all the information you can find,” Aizawa says. “As quickly as you can find it.”

“This is public record,” you complain. “Make a records request. This is my job. I’m not going to get in trouble just so you can avoid some paperwork.”

“It’s not the paperwork,” Aizawa says flatly. “If I make that request, my name and address become public. You’re the only one in the neighborhood who can look without giving us away.”

The neighborhood. You thought this was just some project of Aizawa’s, but – “Who are these people?”

“That’s what you need to find out,” Aizawa says. “As soon as possible.”

He hangs up the phone without saying thank you, and you look down at the piece of paper and the names you scribbled. Your handwriting is bad. You need to recopy them. “So that’s it?” Tomura says from the other side of the kitchen. He’s barely an outline. “Aizawa calls and you jump to it? Pathetic.”

You ignore him. What he says, at least. “Do you know any of these names?”

“Why would I know them?”

“Just look.” You hold out the list, and Tomura drifts across the kitchen to investigate. “I don’t know why he wants me to look these up. He made it sound really important. Do any of these look familiar?”

“No.” Tomura’s hand materializes fully, plucks the list out of your grip, and sets it down on the counter. “I wasn’t done with you.”

“You told me to go away,” you say. “I listened.”

It’s like you didn’t speak at all. The rest of Tomura materializes, from the tips of his fingers upward, until he’s standing before you, closer than he’s gotten in a while. “You asked me what I want. I know now.”

You can’t remember ever putting that question to him – according to Aizawa, asking ghosts open-ended questions like that is a really bad idea. But because you’re you, and you’re stupid, you ask it again. “What do you want, Tomura?”

A pair of cold hands close on your waist. Tomura pulls you forward so hard that you stumble, falling against his chest. “You’re mine,” he says. “I want you.”

A jolt goes straight down your spine. You’ve heard that note in his voice once before and imagined it a thousand times over, but hearing it again right now feels like a disaster. “Be specific,” you say, looking anywhere but up into his face. “What specifically do you –”

One hand leaves your waist to press against your jaw, forcing you to turn your head and look up. A moment later Tomura’s lips crash down against yours.

He kisses exactly the way you’d expect him to kiss, the way of someone who’s seen it in movies but never asked anyone how it’s done. Mouth closed, all pressure, nothing else. He’s not going to let you go, so you hold still, hoping Tomura will take some kind of hint that it’s not going as plan. Tomura stops and draws back, frowning. “You aren’t doing it back.”

“I can’t when you’re doing it like that,” you say. “You’re doing it wrong.”

“I’m not doing it wrong. You’re doing it wrong.”

“Hey. I’ve kissed somebody before. You’ve just watched it on TV.” You feel Tomura’s grip on you loosen slightly. This is your chance to escape, to tell him that you’re not interested, to threaten to move out if he ever tries this again and maybe mean it. “It’s more fun if you do it right.”

Tomura looks at you suspiciously. “How do I do it right?”

Some part of your mind that’s still sane, that still exists in the real world instead of the twisted upside-down haunt of your house and your neighborhood, is screaming for you to stop, but it’s fading fast. You let it go. You free your hands from where they’re trapped at your sides and frame Tomura’s face with them. “I’ll show you.”

You start with a gentle kiss, mouth closed but soft, and because Tomura’s an asshole, he starts arguing even before you’ve pulled away. “That’s what I did.”

“No, you did it too hard.” You kiss him the same way again, trying to get the point across. “You can still talk when I do it like this, which means you can respond.”

Tomura’s scowling now, but he leans in to kiss you again, and this time the pressure is significantly less. His lips are chapped. You part your lips against his, catching on his lower lip, and he startles. You wonder if anybody else in the neighborhood had to teach their undersocialized ghost how to kiss properly. Probably not.

Tomura’s fatal flaw with kissing is overenthusiasm. As soon as he figures out that opening his mouth is a thing he can do, he overdoes it. The only reason it’s not horrendous is because his mouth tastes like nothing, and it’s almost sandpaper-dry. You let go of his face, put your hands on his shoulders, and give a few shoves until he pulls back. “No.”

“I like it,” Tomura says defiantly. He does. That patchy flush is all over his face. “I don’t care if you do.”

“You should,” you say, and you fall back on a negotiating tactic from forever ago. “If you’re good at it, I’ll want to kiss you more.”

You’ve tried this tactic on human men before. Human men usually convince themselves that you’re playing hard to get and go right back to the vacuum-cleaner technique they were using. But Tomura looks like he’s thinking about it, so you try to sweeten the deal. “I’ll show you,” you say, and he’s already leaning in.

Part of you is still aware that this is a mistake. You won’t be able to turn back the clock on this incident the way you could with the last one. You can’t pretend that this is all for Tomura, that it’s got nothing to do with you, when you’re the one who won’t settle for less than a good kiss. You’re the one who keeps trying to get a reaction out of him, trying to put him back at the mercy of his body just like he was before, and there’s something heady and intoxicating about the fact that it’s working. Tomura’s breathing comes in sharp gasps, and yours isn’t doing much better – but it’s normal for you. “Why do you do that?” you ask, pulling away. Tomura lets out a frustrated whine and leans in again, but you stay just out of reach. “Breathing like that. You don’t need to breathe.”

“I can’t – help it.” Tomura’s shoulders heave beneath your hands. He claws at your hips, trying to pull you back. “Come on. I need it. I need it. I can’t go back like this.”

You’re still out of kissing range, but your hips are locked against his, and you can feel that he’s hard. It surprises you, although it shouldn’t. You got to him before by touching his hand. This is a lot more stimulation than that. You study him, your heart racing, taking in his dilated pupils, his flushed face. The scars over his lip and eye stand out in sharp relief. His skin is shiny, sweaty. You were right in all your daydreams about how desire looks on him. It looks good.

It looks good, and he looks desperate. “Don’t stare at me. Why are you staring at me?”

“You’re pretty,” you say without thinking. You lean in and kiss him again before he can complain about it.

The plan is to keep kissing him until he comes and dematerializes, but you like the sounds he’s making too much to keep muffling them. You duck away from his kiss and start kissing his neck instead, lips moving over the same spot he usually scratches. “Hey,” Tomura complains. “What are you doing? I – ah –”

He grinds against you, groans, and you realize you have a problem. You’re at least as turned on as Tomura is, only you can’t get off from just a kiss. He gets to dematerialize as soon as he comes, and after that you’ll be stuck. You decide that’s a problem for later. You’re busy. A second after you have that thought, Tomura loses patience. He pushes you back against the counter, pinning you in place as his hips jerk in brief, unpracticed thrusts. You keep kissing his neck. If he was human, he’d be walking around with love bites. That thought shouldn’t turn you on, but it does, and it occurs to you that Tomura’s possessiveness runs the other way, too. You’re his human, sure. But he’s nobody’s ghost but yours.

“I can’t,” Tomura gasps. He’s starting to dematerialize. “I can’t. Not yet –”

If he dematerializes while he’s still turned on, the entire street’s going to be pissed off at you for however long it takes him to materialize again. You back off from kissing Tomura’s neck and kiss his mouth again, as he moans and struggles for air he doesn’t need. Suddenly his back arches, pinning you harder than before, and you hold on tight as he shudders. It doesn’t matter how tightly you hold onto him. He’s already dematerializing, slipping away, just like you knew he would. The warm air rushes in once he’s gone.

One of the perks of having a ghost in the house is that the house is never too warm. Now, with said ghost too zapped to materialize, it’s way too warm in the kitchen, and even that isn’t enough to change how ridiculously turned on you are. You could stick your head in the refrigerator and try to calm down, but the idea of doing that pisses you off. Tomura got to get off to your weird but still hot kitchen makeout. So should you.

Some sense of propriety motivates you not to just stick your hand down your pants in the kitchen. You make your way to your bedroom upstairs, and this time, you settle onto the bed instead of the floor. This time, you don’t have to go to your imagination for something to fantasize to. You’ve got the memory of the absolute mess that occurred in the kitchen to keep you focused, and honestly, you’re so shamefully hot over it that you barely need to fantasize at all.

Your mind floods with a replay of the insistent pressure of Tomura’s mouth against yours, the uneven roll of his hips, and remembering the needy sounds he made makes your muscles clench tight in response. You have both hands between your legs, one teasing your clit while the other presses two fingers inside, crooking at an angle that’s never easy to reach on your own. If somebody else, somebody with longer fingers, somebody poised above you or settled between your legs – once you let that thought into your mind, it’s all over. You come so fast you’re almost embarrassed by it. Almost.

You’re lying on your bed, catching your breath, when the temperature of your room begins to change. Tomura’s voice, barely a whisper, snakes through the air. “I saw that.”

Your face heats up, but you’re already flushed, so it doesn’t matter. “So?”

“I want that next time.”

You’re not sure how you feel about Tomura’s assumption that there’s going to be a next time. But there’s a bigger problem. “Based on what I felt this time, you don’t really have the equipment for that.”

“Don’t be stupid. I want you to do this next time when I do.” The temperature of the room settles into the low chill you’ve become familiar with, but the cold spot itself is on the bed next to you, inching closer. “Or I can do it.”

You can’t think about that. Not right now, anyway. “Nobody’s doing anything right now. I don’t even want to know what you already drained to make this happen.” A terrible thought occurs to you. “Phantom! Where –”

“Don’t be stupid,” Tomura says again. You can hear Phantom scratching at the door and whining. She knows you and Tomura are both in here and she wants to know why she’s being left out. “I wouldn’t touch her. I used some plants.”

“Not the ones –”

“Not the ones you like.” If Tomura was materialized, he’d be rolling his eyes. “They all look the same anyway.”

“They don’t all look the same.” You sit up and swing your legs off the bed. “Stupid.”

Tomura makes an indignant sound, but you ignore him as you head to the bathroom to wash your hands. You’d expect things to be weird, so it’s a surprise to you how normal things feel. Normal except for the fact that Tomura’s in your room instead of lurking somewhere else in the house. So normal, in fact, that you find yourself dealing with a problem you’ve had since you found out you had a ghost. “You’re still not allowed in the bathroom when I’m in here.”

“You’re not even doing anything!”

You know you’re going to have to deal with the fallout from the kitchen makeout later. But it’ll be a while before Tomura can materialize again, and until that happens, you’re not going to think about it at all. “I don’t care. Get out.”

You were hoping you dealt with Tomura fast enough that none of the other adult ghosts caught on, but you’re not that lucky. When you leave the house the next morning to get in your car for the drive to work, Hizashi’s right out front on the sidewalk, holding a jar of fresh bugs as far from his body as humanly possible. When he sees you, he pushes it into your hands and backs away. “You know,” he says, and winks. “For later.”

You cringe and duck into your car, but a moment later, Keigo calls out to you from across the street. “Hey, can I get a ride to work? My car’s out of commission.”

“It looks okay,” you say – and then you realize it’s noticeably sinking on one side. “The tires.”

“Yep. Do you mind?”

“Nope.” You move your work bag to the backseat to make room, and look back up front just in time for a balled-up piece of paper to hit the windshield. It could only have come from one direction, and when you look up, you spot Tomura on the porch, barely materialized. “What was that?”

“Your dumb list.”

“The one Shou gave you?” Hizashi still hasn’t left, and he watches you closely as you pull the piece of paper into the car and un-crumple it. “Good. Let him know as soon as you find anything.”

“Sorry. Gotta move.” Keigo eases past Hizashi and hops into the passenger seat. You start the car and back out into the street a little faster than necessary.

You’re driving fast, but not fast enough to get past Spinner’s house before Magne steps out the front door. She waves at you, smirking, and gives a thumbs-up. You wave back, still cringing, and Keigo notices. He reclines his seat with a yawn. “Big night, huh?”

You hit your head against the steering wheel when you reach the stop sign at the top of the street. “Does everybody know?”

“Probably. He’s too powerful. Every time his mood changes, the whole street feels it.” Keigo shrugs. “Also, your whole front lawn is dead.”

You didn’t even notice. “Great,” you mumble. “Think he’ll tone it down if I ask him to?”

“You know him better than me,” Keigo says. He yawns a second time. “He seems like he cares about what you want. He made sure you didn’t forget your list when you left. Dabi, for comparison, snuck out of the house and slashed my tires before I woke up. You definitely got the better ghost.”

“Sorry about your tires,” you say, for lack of anything better. Keigo shrugs again. “Can I ask you about the list? Aizawa was cagey about it on the phone.”

“Sure.” Keigo spends a few minutes smoothing out the wrinkles in the piece of paper. You sneak looks at him out of the corner of your eye, and you don’t miss the way his eyes widen. “I don’t know most of these names. I know this one, though – Garaki Kyudai. He’s a conjurer. Touya’s conjurer.”

“What?” You stare at Keigo once you’re safely at a stoplight. “Touya’s conjurer is alive?”

“Most of them are,” Keigo says. He looks pale. “If Aizawa and Hizashi have that name, they know something we don’t.”

“Then they should tell us,” you say. Keigo looks worried. You’re not worried, maybe because you don’t know enough to be worried, maybe because Tomura didn’t recognize any of the names on the list. “Aizawa and Hizashi don’t get to hide things from the rest of us just because they’re the oldest.”

Keigo nods. “Do the research they asked for. Today,” he says. “Don’t give it to them until they level with us.”

“Sounds good.” Us could be you and Keigo. Us could also be the entire neighborhood, which is fine. If it concerns conjurers, it concerns the entire neighborhood, and everyone should know. But this is going to involve you saying no to Aizawa, who you owe big-time, and to Hizashi, who still sort of terrifies you. “Um, so I think I’m going to wait to say no until I’m in my yard.”

“Yeah, that’s probably smart,” Keigo agrees. “Hizashi won’t get into it with Tomura. Can you imagine if Hizashi was still incorporeal, though? That would be a hell of a fight.”

“Ghosts fight?”

“Yeah, big-time. Dabi’s old house – the one I moved into, like a moron – had a bunch of ghosts in it. It got crazy in there.”

Sharing a house with one ghost is chaotic enough. You can’t imagine a house with multiple ghosts, let alone multiple ghosts who are fighting with each other. You wonder if Tomura’s ever fought another ghost, and if so, how it went. He probably hasn’t. He’s picky enough with who he lets onto the property to begin with. No way he’d let another ghost in just to fight.

You park your car in the lot at the courthouse, and you and Keigo go your separate ways – you to the public defenders’ office in the courthouse’s lower levels, Keigo to the police station. He’s a social worker, not a cop, and he usually goes out on mental health calls. The two of you plan to meet after work, go over what you found, and book it into your respective houses once you get back to the neighborhood to minimize the chances that Aizawa or Hizashi will corner you. It’s only nine am on Monday and you’re already tired.

You didn’t sleep well last night. Part of it was still being sort of turned on and not being able to do anything about – not now that you know Tomura’s watching. And Tomura was watching. He’s been leaving you alone at night for the most part, but last night he was back to hanging out in the corner of your room. At least, you think he stayed in the corner of your room. At some point you woke up shivering, and you could have sworn he was on the bed with you, draped over you in some weird position that humans definitely don’t sleep in. But that could have been a dream. You’re hoping it was a dream. You don’t know what you’ll do if it wasn’t.

You’ve got no idea what Tomura thinks is going on between the two of you. He didn’t talk to you this morning. He usually doesn’t – you’re busy, and he doesn’t like it when you multitask while talking to him, and after you explained what will happen if you can’t pay your mortgage he’s stopped interfering with you going to work. But he was there. You could feel him there, shadowing your every move, close in a way that would be impossible to work around if he was human. Something’s changed in your relationship, and he wanted it that way. You can’t pretend you didn’t want it, too. But as you make coffee and take off your coat and go through your inbox, you realize you have no idea what you’ll be walking into when you get home.

You know you’ll be walking into it with the information Aizawa asked you to gather, though. You take the list out of your pocket and think things through. Technically you could get into the records database on your own, but you’re a paralegal, not a lawyer – people will be likely to question what you’re doing in there, which means you need cover. And you know just who to go to for help. Mr. Yagi likes that you’re thorough, that you check every angle when you have the time for it. If you ask his permission to get into the database, he won’t say no. You pocket the list again, square your shoulders, throw down your coffee, and go to his office.

The door’s ajar, like usual, but you knock anyway. “Come in,” Mr. Yagi says. He’s hunched over a document on his desk, marking it up in red pen. “I hate to start your morning off with editing, but this will need to be done by noon.”

“No problem,” you say. You can type fast. “Sir, I was wondering if I could log into the records database today.”

“You don’t need my permission for that, my dear,” Mr. Yagi says without looking up. “But you have it, of course. What do you –”

He looks up at you at last and bursts into a coughing fit. It’s a bad one. You duck out into the bullpen, fill a cup from the water cooler, and race back in with it, pushing it into his hands. Mr. Yagi takes small sips, but every time he looks at you, the coughing kicks up again. Something is dawning on you, something you don’t like, something about what Mr. Yagi said and did at the housewarming party. “Sir? Is there something wrong?”

“It’s all over you,” Mr. Yagi says, and your stomach lurches. “What happened?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” you stammer. You can feel your face heating up, and it gets worse when Mr. Yagi reaches into his desk and extracts a UV light wand. “Um –”

He switches it on and pans it over you, and suddenly you understand. There are handprints. Tomura’s handprints, on your shoulders, on your waist, along your jaw, invisible without the light but in stark relief under it. You were worried that the light was going to show ghost cum splattered on your skin, even though you showered and changed clothes twice since yesterday, but this might actually be worse. This looks like you were handled. It looks like you liked it.

Could Hizashi see this, and Magne? Did Tomura do it on purpose? Now that you think about it, you’re sure he did it on purpose. He’s been possessive of you since the beginning. Of course he’d mark you as his own the first chance he got, even if the only people who can see the marks are the other ghosts. If Keigo could see them, you’re pretty sure he’d have given you a heads-up.

But Mr. Yagi could see them without the UV light. And Mr. Yagi knew Tomura was there before you did, saw Tomura before you did. You stare hard at your boss, at his eyes. His eyes are bright blue, and their pupils are round, like they should be. But there’s a faint shadow around his irises in both eyes. You realize, with another lurch in the pit of your stomach, that you’ve never seen your boss blink.

“You’re one of them,” you say. It isn’t a question.

Mr. Yagi sighs. “I’ve been human long enough that my powers have faded. The contacts are enough to hide behind. But no former spirit, no matter how distant they are from their origins, could fail to spot that.” He gestures at you and you cringe. “Were you – aware of this as it happened? Did you consent to it?”

Your eyes well up suddenly, and Mr. Yagi panics, knocking over his cup of water onto his desk. You move to mop it up while he tries to hand you tissues, and in the chaos, it takes you a while to recognize the emotion you’re feeling as shame. What happened yesterday wasn’t out of the ordinary in your neighborhood. Keigo barely blinked when he found out, and Hizashi and Magne were teasing you, not mocking you. Hooking up with a ghost is a semi-normal thing to do in the world you live in now. But it’s not normal here. The way Mr. Yagi asked the question made it clear that he thinks nobody sane would do what you did yesterday. You feel like you’re going to be sick.

Mr. Yagi gives up on the tissues and hands you a handkerchief from his pocket instead. “I will get you out of there,” he says. “You can stay with my family and I, for as long as it takes for you to find your feet. You don’t have to stay –”

“It was consensual.” You force the words out of your mouth. Somewhere in the back of your mind it occurs to you that this conversation is wildly inappropriate for work. HR-reportable levels of inappropriate for work. “I’m fine. I don’t want to leave. Can I get into the database or not?”

“If you’re fine, why are you crying?”

Because you weren’t ashamed before and now you are. “I’ll have the brief retyped by noon. The database –”

“Why do you need it?”

It crosses your mind to lie, but there’s no need. Mr. Yagi is a former ghost. If you explain, he’ll understand. You draw the list out of your pocket. “These are the names of conjurers. I think. I need to get into the database to find out everything I can about them.”

Mr. Yagi takes the list, scans it, and immediately starts coughing again. You head out to the water cooler for the second time in five minutes. By the time you get back, Mr. Yagi is back at his desk, scribbling furiously on the list. You set the water down next to him and he ignores it. “This man is dead,” he says, and draws a line through the name – Akaguro Chizome. “Chisaki Kai – also dead, and recently. Ujiko Daruma is an alias of Garaki Kyudai. Which of the names is his true one, I can’t say.”

You stare at him. He continues to write, drawing circles around the remaining three names. “Garaki is worth locating, but concentrate your efforts on these three. They may be three different people or they may all be aliases of the same man. Who gave you this list?”

Some instinct makes you hold back Aizawa’s name. “Why do you need to know?”

“If they’re planning to hunt conjurers, I have some advice that might make the endeavor less dangerous.”

“Hunt them?” you repeat. “No. They wouldn’t. That’s not what – um.”

Mr. Yagi is looking at you, waiting for an explanation, but you don’t know how much to say. Your neighborhood might be sort of friendly, but there’s at least one murderer in every house except yours, and your boss is a lawyer. A lawyer, not a cop. And if he’s embodied, he’s killed someone, too. Based on your expression, he knows what you’re thinking. “Type the brief, then conduct your research. We’ll meet for lunch to discuss it.”

“Yes, sir.” Lunch is three hours away. You’ve got exactly that long to come up with a plan.

You text Keigo in between typing paragraphs of the brief. My boss is a ghost and he knows about the list. What do I do?

For real? I’ve never met one in the wild. Keigo texts back way too fast for somebody who’s supposed to be at work. You say so and get an eyeroll in response. I’m a crisis responder. If nobody’s in crisis I don’t go out. Did he have ideas?

He knew the names. I’m supposed to meet him at lunch to talk about it. You get an idea. If you’re still around at noon, come meet us.

Keigo sends a thumbs-up and you throw yourself into typing the brief. You print it and return it to Mr. Yagi, swapping it for the list of names. Then you settle in at your computer again, considering where to start. Mr. Yagi seems like he knows what he’s talking about, but it won’t hurt to double-check.

You start with the first name he crossed out. Akaguro Chizome has been dead for a while. Twenty years, almost, and he died from blunt force trauma that crushed his skull to powder. You wonder which ghost did that, if it was even a ghost that did it. There’s not much on him. Just an autopsy report. There’s a lot more on Chisaki Kai, when you look him up. Death certificate, police report, interviews. Interviews. You dig into those, and the name at the top of the first one stuns you into stillness: Aizawa Shouta.

The next interviewee is Shinsou Hitoshi, and after him, Aizawa Eri. The only name that’s missing is Hizashi’s, and slowly the pieces start to come together in your head. Chisaki’s remains were so splattered that he wasn’t identified until long after the investigation was closed. Hizashi wouldn’t have cared what Eri’s conjurer’s name was when he killed him, and as long as he was gone, Aizawa wouldn’t have cared, either. His name is still on their list because they never found out who he really was.

Chisaki’s cause of death was internal organ rupture – all of them, all at once. How the hell did Hizashi do that when he was already human? Probably the same way Dabi still burns Keigo – the stronger they are, the more of their powers they keep when they embody themselves. However Hizashi killed humans as a ghost, it must have been nasty. Really nasty.

You tell yourself not to think about that. The important thing is that Mr. Yagi is a credible source. You can take his advice on this. You borrow the computer at the desk next to yours – your coworker’s on maternity leave, leaving you with triple the workload in the bargain – and pull up a second database window. Then you set two searches to run simultaneously. One for Garaki Kyudai, since you want to have some information to give Keigo when you see him. And one for the first of the three circled names: Shigaraki Akira.

The Garaki search finishes fastest, and you print what you’ve got, then rerun the search for Ujiko Daruma. The search for Shigaraki is much more difficult. It’s not a common name, so while there will be fewer documents, they should be easier to find. They aren’t. You turn up some documents for a Shigaraki Yoichi, all of which mention an older brother, but the older brother’s name never comes up. You rerun the search, this time for Shigaraki Yoichi, wondering all the while if it’s futile. These documents are two hundred years old or more. These people, whoever they are, are long dead.

There’s more on Shigaraki Yoichi than Shigaraki Akira. Shigaraki Yoichi had a really shitty life. He was chronically ill at a time when regular illness was still too hard for most doctors to handle, and his mind wasn’t doing too great, either. He died when he was your age, in a mental hospital. Suicide.

At least, it was thought to be a suicide. The medical examiner’s report inserts some doubt into the equation, but it’s noted specifically that the family of Shigaraki Yoichi chose not to press charges against the asylum for his death. There’s a note about the family members – the ones who came to visit, and the one who identified the body. Mother: in a fragile state. Father: deceased. Sister: absent. Body was identified by deceased’s elder brother Akira.

“Got you,” you mumble, and hit print. Now you’ve got proof that there was somebody out there named Shigaraki Akira – and when you scan the list again, you spot the first name of the next name on the list. Kiriyama Yoichi. It could be a coincidence, but you’re pretty sure the asshole jacked his dead brother’s name. “Nice try. I’ve got you now.”

There’s more on Kiriyama Yoichi, but while that search is running, you look up the asylum Shigaraki Yoichi died in. Sure enough, it’s been shut down, but it wasn’t knocked down – it was turned into a museum. Maybe some of the documents were preserved. If they were, you’d love to read whatever Shigaraki Yoichi had to say about his brother.

You’re in the middle of writing an email to the curator when your phone rings. It’s Spinner’s contact number, which is weird. You can’t figure out why Spinner would be calling you, unless something’s gone wrong in the neighborhood. You pick up the call. “Hello?”

You hear Spinner’s voice, but it’s in the background. “Dude, give it back! Don’t go inside –”

There’s the sound of the door opening and shutting. “Phantom missed you,” Tomura says without preamble. Your jaw drops. “Say hi.”

“Hi, sweetie,” you say helplessly. You can hear her snuffling the phone. “Are you being good? Did you get in trouble?”

Phantom barks. “Good girl,” you say, and she barks again. If you were at home, you’d sit down on the floor to cuddle with her, but you’re at work – and Tomura called you. “You really should give Spinner his phone back.”

“He can have it when I’m done. If I feel like giving it back.” Tomura, you remind yourself, is still an asshole. “When are you coming back?”

“The same time I always get back,” you say. “Why did you take Spinner’s phone? Don’t lie.”

“Wanted to talk to you.” Tomura’s voice takes on an almost laughably sulky note. “What? You don’t want to talk to me?”

“I do. I just can’t believe you called me. I thought you hated phones.”

“I hate other things more than phones,” Tomura says. “Where are you, anyway?”

“I’m at my computer at work. I’m looking up things for the list.” You cast around for something else to say. “I’ll tell you about it when I get back. And I’m going to need help when I get back. Hizashi’s going to try to get it out of me, and I’m not telling anyone until they tell us what’s going on.”

“If he comes near us he’s dead,” Tomura says at once. You can hear knocking on the door in the background, and when Tomura speaks again, he’s not talking to you. “You can have it back when I’m done! Go away!”

“We’re done now. I have work to do, and if I don’t get it done, I have to stay late,” you say. Tomura makes an annoyed sound. “I don’t want to stay late and you don’t want me to, either. I –”

You slap your hand down over your mouth just in time. “What?” Tomura asks.

“I’ll talk to you later,” you say. You’re still reeling from whatever the hell almost came out of your mouth. The sooner you get off the phone, the better. “Give Spinner his phone.”

“Fine,” Tomura complains. “Say goodbye to Phantom.”

You tell her goodbye and listen to the appalling sound of her licking the microphone before Tomura hangs up. You’re going to have to apologize to Spinner when you get back. And you might have to get Tomura a phone.

You have time to finish your email to the curator and print the documents for Kiriyama Yoichi before Mr. Yagi ventures out of his office for lunch. “We’ll be going to the usual place,” he says. He nods at the folder you’re carrying. “It seems your search was fruitful.”

You nod. “One of my neighbors works nearby. Can he come with us?”

“Does he – know?”

You laugh. “He has one. A former one. Half a former one.” Mr. Yagi looks baffled, and you sigh. “I’ll let him explain.”

The lunch place is just up the street. You text Keigo to let him know you’re headed there and start the walk with Mr. Yagi. He insists on carrying your files along with his own briefcase, and all you can do is hover, waiting for him to drop one of the two. “The friend who will be joining us,” Mr. Yagi says, “is that who you were speaking with on the phone?”

“No,” you say. Mr. Yagi looks quizzically at you, but there’s no way you’re getting into it. The less you say about Tomura, the better.

When you get to the restaurant, Keigo’s there already, and he waves you and Mr. Yagi over. There’s a mischievous look on his face, and you watch it anxiously as you introduce the two of them. “Mr. Yagi, this is my neighbor across the street, Takami Keigo. And Keigo, this is my boss, Mr. Yagi.”

“Nice to meet you! And nice contacts,” Keigo says. Then he looks at you. His expression’s gone from a smile to a full-blown smirk. “So.”

“What?”

“The strangest thing happened this morning,” Keigo says. “I got a text from Dabi.”

“Dabi?”

“My – roommate,” Keigo says, modifying the sentence after you kick him under the table. “Usually Dabi’s communication style leaves something to be desired. Blighting crops and hexing people is more his speed. But today he texted me. Quite a bit. Take a look at this.”

He shows you the screen of his phone. You read, with Mr. Yagi reading over your shoulder, cringing on every line.

Dabi: do you believe this shit

Dabi: that asshole from across the street lured Spinner over to the fence like a pedo

Dabi: so then they’re talking about fuck knows what

Dabi: Spinner’s showing him his Switch

Dabi: then Spinner shows him his phone

Dabi: and that asshole fucking materializes one hand, grabs it, and hauls ass back inside

Dabi: it’s been thirty minutes and he still hasn’t given it back

Dabi: crazy shit

Mr. Yagi coughs. Keigo gives you a significant look. “Any speculations as to why Tomura stole Spinner’s phone?”

“Tomura is –”

“Her ghost.” Keigo nods at you.

“Ah,” Mr. Yagi says. “I imagine that Tomura stole the phone in order to place a call to her.”

Keigo wheezes. “He said Phantom missed me,” you say lamely.

“More like he missed you! You’re going to have to get him a phone.” Keigo misinterprets the look you’re giving him and keeps talking. “Don’t teach him how the camera works, though. I taught Touya and now I get photos.”

The last thing you want to do is teach Tomura about dick pics. If you get him a phone, it’s going to be a flip phone. Or one of the ancient ones with the keyboard that slides out. Mr. Yagi is studying Keigo carefully. “Is it true that you have a ghost? I was led to believe that there was something – odd about him.”

“Dabi? Yeah. He’s a scar wraith,” Keigo says. Mr. Yagi nods. “Do you know something about those?”

“Nothing, other than that it’s an uncomfortable state to exist in. How long has he been that way?”

“A while. Before we moved here.” Keigo focuses in on the file folder in a way that tells you he’s done talking about this. “What’s in there? Did you find anything on Garaki?”

“Here.” You pass him the relevant documents, then extract the files on Shigaraki to show to Mr. Yagi. “You were right. At least one of these is an alias. But this person – the first one on the list – was born two hundred and fifty years ago. He can’t still be alive.”

“Conjurers draw power from the world between,” Mr. Yagi says. “It allows them to exceed a natural human lifespan. But in order to draw that power, they require a conduit of some kind. Some are lucky enough to find a location that’s been consumed, in whole or in part, by the world between. Others must create their own.”

“What do you mean?” Keigo asks. “Like – well, shit. No wonder they keep coming back.”

Mr. Yagi nods. You feel like you missed something. “What?”

“The ghosts summoned by conjurers act as their conduits to the world between,” Mr. Yagi says. “When a ghost embodies itself permanently, the conduit is closed. A powerful enough conjurer will have summoned and bound many ghosts, and the loss of one or two will not trouble them. But weaker conjurers don’t have the ghosts to spare. When they lose a conduit, they come to investigate. And to punish.”

“Eri’s conjurer was weaker than the others,” you realize. “If Spinner’s right, and he was Magne’s and Atsuhiro’s too, then he lost three ghosts. He would have had to do something –”

“And he probably thought it was going to be easy until Hizashi murked him,” Keigo says. “I don’t think they even found out his name.”

“It was Chisaki Kai,” you say. “He was on the list. And he’s not the only one. Akaguro Chizome is dead, too. Do you know who killed him?”

“It is possible to kill conjurers,” Mr. Yagi says, noticeably avoiding your question. “However, it’s highly dangerous, as the conjurers are capable of harnessing ghostly power through their conduits to the world between. Humans who try to kill them often fail. I assume this Hizashi is a former ghost?”

“Probably the ghostliest former ghost, other than my idiot,” Keigo says. “If I was ranking power levels on the street, he and Dabi would be the strongest. If we’re counting former ghosts. We’ve only got one real ghost left.”

“You’ve been to my house,” you say to Mr. Yagi. “Is he really that strong?”

“Almost incalculably strong,” Mr. Yagi says. You’re weirdly proud of Tomura. “Given his presence, I’m not surprised your neighborhood has such a high concentration of ghosts. Unfortunately, such a high concentration poses a risk.”

“No, he blocks us,” Keigo says, frowning. “He blocks all of us.”

“I’m sure he does,” Mr. Yagi says. “What I mean is simply that if a conjurer discovers one of you, all of you will be compromised.”

He’s right. You hadn’t thought of that, and based on Keigo’s expression, neither had he – but Mr. Yagi is right. If a conjurer makes it past Tomura’s aura to investigate, they’ll find out that the neighborhood contains half a dozen former ghosts. “Do they talk to each other? Conjurers?”

“Some do,” Mr. Yagi says. “But all of them are able to sense the presence of ghostly power, just as ghosts are. If one finds your neighborhood –”

“We’ll just kill him,” Keigo says. “Problem solved.”

“Problem not solved. If we just kill some guy, our neighborhood will be his last known location,” you say. You’re not a lawyer, but after three years as Mr. Yagi’s paralegal, you know your way around a murder case. “We’d look guilty. And not everybody in the neighborhood can stand up to direct questioning. If the police show up we’d be in a lot of trouble.”

“We can get out of that,” Keigo says, waving his hand and accidentally attracting the attention of a server. “Now that I’ve met your boss, I know a good lawyer. Hi! We’re definitely ready to order.”

Keigo can put away food like there’s no tomorrow, but Mr. Yagi’s a slow eater, and your appetite’s taken a hit. Mr. Yagi notices. “Are you all right, my dear?”

“I’m worried,” you say. “Aizawa gave me those names yesterday, and Hizashi asked about them again this morning. Neither of them were taking no for an answer. It seems urgent. I think there’s a chance we’ve already been caught.”

“We’ve been caught. You haven’t been caught.” Keigo waves a piece of fried chicken at you. “You’ve got a live ghost. If a conjurer shows up, you’re the only person on the street who doesn’t have to worry.”

“That depends on the conjurer,” Mr. Yagi says quietly. “Conjurers lose ghosts for one reason and one reason only – permanent embodiment. Ghosts don’t embody themselves permanently without reason, and if Tomura’s conjurer were to suspect that Tomura might consider it, their wisest move would be to remove the reason why he would.”

“You’re saying Tomura’s conjurer might try to kill me,” you say. Mr. Yagi nods. “That would be stupid of them. He’d never embody himself. He likes being a ghost.”

“You sure about that?” Keigo eyes you over the rim of his soda. “I wouldn’t be. Since you two hooked up –”

“We didn’t hook up,” you say. There’s no world in which kissing constitutes hooking up. You’re not even all that sure Tomura knows what sex is, and you really don’t want to talk about it in front of your boss. You turn to your boss, pretending Keigo isn’t there. “I’m guessing a conjurer wouldn’t stop to ask. He’d just kill me. Right?”

“Yes.” Mr. Yagi sighs. “By that token, you’re perhaps the unsafest of all.”

“It’s a waste of time to decide who’s safest and unsafest,” you say. “If a conjurer shows up we’re all in trouble. Either Hizashi and Aizawa think somebody’s found us already, or – I don’t know. Maybe they’re trying to track where the other conjurers are?”

“That sounds right,” Keigo says. “If we monitor them, then we can figure out if they’re getting close, and kill them away from the neighborhood so nobody gets suspicious.”

“Let’s speak a little more quietly about this,” Mr. Yagi implores. People are starting to stare at the three of you. “Engaging with the conjurers this way should be your last resort. Stay hidden at all costs.”

“What if we have to kill someone in order to stay hidden?”

Mr. Yagi gives Keigo a look. “I’ve stayed hidden for fifteen years. Do you mean to tell me that you can’t hide better than an old man like me?”

The challenge is enough to silence Keigo on the issue – that issue, and only that issue, for the rest of lunch, until his work phone chimes. He drops his credit card on the table and bolts, and you and Mr. Yagi both stare at it for a moment. “Is he buying lunch?”

You think about some of Keigo’s bullshit today. “Yes.”

With Keigo gone, you seize the opportunity to go into a little more depth with your research. “With Kiriyama Yoichi, I need to do some more reading. Since Akira stole his brother’s name for his new identity, I’m guessing he stole a name from somebody he knew in the Kiriyama identity to generate the next alias. I’m not sure who it is, but it’ll help to find them. They almost certainly left a bigger paper trail than he has.”

You contemplate the stack of papers, then think about what your work inbox looks like. “There’s no way I can get this done before the end of the day.”

“Take it home,” Mr. Yagi says. You nod. “May I make a suggestion?”

“Please.”

“My son, Izuku, is very good at projects such as this one,” Mr. Yagi says. You’ve met Izuku. He’s simultaneously the friendliest and the most intense kid on the planet. “You won’t need to give him much background information, and he’s on summer break. Both of you can read over the information and share conclusions. Two heads are better than one.”

You nod. “In addition,” Mr. Yagi continues, “there are conjurers who do not engage in the practice of binding spirits. I’ll reach out to my contacts there and see what they know.”

“Thank you,” you say. Mr. Yagi nods, taking the last sips of his tea. “Sir, um – why are you helping me? I know I’ve been difficult the last few months. I’ve been slow. And this morning, I –”

“I’ve had no concerns with your work. And I knew all about your office demeanor when I hired you.” Mr. Yagi cracks a small, skeletal grin. Then his expression softens. “As for why I would help you, there are three reasons. First, because it’s the right thing to do. Second, because I care for you. And third, because it would have helped my wife immensely to have met someone who could explain the nature of these things, rather than having to find out on her own.”

“Oh,” you say. You weren’t sure what you were expecting him to say. Probably not that he cares about you, but it’s true, isn’t it? He’s the nicest boss you’ve ever had, and his first reaction to seeing Tomura’s marks on you was to offer to help. Even if you felt judged. Maybe the feeling of being judged was just you. “Thank you, sir. It means a lot.”

Mr. Yagi nods. “Be careful,” he tells you. “This world is more dangerous than you realize.”

You could take that as paternalistic, patronizing, if you wanted to. You’ve never doubted that the world of ghosts and conjurers was a dangerous one. The first time you learned of Tomura’s existence, it was because you saw him kill something, and even if everyone else on the street is incredibly blasé about it, you never let yourself forget the kind of neighborhood you live in. It’s almost a relief to hear Mr. Yagi’s reminder. “Don’t worry, sir,” you say. You aren’t scared of Tomura these days, but careful of the rest? Careful you can do. “I will.”

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flamme-shigaraki-spithoe

1 year ago

Beetlejuice would be fun with the situation they are in even if its nit my fav its the first that came to my mind !

Jumanji or a funny film could have pretty funny reaction maybe ? Idk

Or a classical (idk if it count but sometime like titanic or pretty woman)

Anyway, love you fanfics<3

asking for help from anybody who read LLG: if you read it and have any stake in Haunting for Beginners please help me generate a list of movies for the reader and Shigaraki to watch

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