Chapter Text
The night air is cold enough that it bites.
Okarun walks beside Momo, hands stuffed deep in his hoodie pockets. She’s bundled in her jacket, collar zipped up, her breath curling in the dim streetlights like smoke.
She yawns. “That was brutal.”
He glances sideways. Her eyes are half-lidded, cheeks pink from the cold, hair still a little damp from her earlier shower. Her first shift at the part-time job left her drained—he can see it in her posture, the drag in her voice—but she’s still smiling. Still trying.
“You did good,” he says, voice quiet.
“Good enough to not get fired, at least,” she laughs. “Barely. My legs are gonna fall off.”
He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t trust his voice to come out steady.
The walk back is silent after that, but not uncomfortable. Just quiet. Momo doesn’t press. She never does when he’s like this.
When they get to the house, she kicks off her shoes with a groan. “I need something hot or I’m gonna die.”
He trails behind her, slow. The warmth of the house slaps into him all at once—the faint smell of fried food, old wood, floor heater ticking in the corner.
Laughter floats from the dining room. Aira. Seiko. Turbo Granny’s throaty snort mixed in.
Momo pads to the kitchen and grabs her thermos, still half-full of lukewarm tea. “Hot enough,” she mutters, and flicks on the kettle just in case.
He watches her sip it, steam curling around her face. She sighs and leans against the counter, eyes fluttering closed.
For a moment, everything is still.
Then, from the dining room:
“Damn it—”
A sharp clatter.
Jiji jerks back from the table, soy sauce dripping from his hand, a dark stain spreading across his sleeve. The little ceramic dish clatters to the floor and spins.
Everyone freezes.
Jiji’s breath catches.
His head tilts sharply, eyes unfocused—then go white.
Okarun’s gut turns to ice.
“Move!” Turbo Granny shouts, but it’s already too late.
A rush of pressure floods the room like a vacuum sucking the air from their lungs. Glass rattles. The floorboards groan.
With a blink, a shimmering wall of light snaps into place—clear as glass, invisible until it isn’t. A barrier.
Momo’s hands, holding the tea thermos, are outside the boundary unable to splash him. The rest of her body is in.
The Evil Eye turns.
And lunges.
“No—!” Okarun shouts, charging forward.
He slams against the barrier already transformed. It holds.
Inside, Momo slinks back, eyes wide, her back pressed against the barrier wall as the Evil Eye wraps clawed fingers wrap around her throat.
Her feet kick. Her back arches.
“MOMO!”
Seiko shouts something from behind him. Turbo Granny beats at the barrier from the bottom—it’s useless.
Aira’s already crying. “We have to do something!”
“I am doing something, brat!” Seiko barks, hands glowing as she slams the barrier but it stops seemingly mid-air.
It doesn’t work.
Okarun slams his fists against the barrier again and again. “Please—! Let me in!”
Inside, Momo’s knees buckle.
The Evil Eye snarls. Cold and detached. Like Jiji isn’t even there anymore.
Then—
A sudden jerk. A twist of her shoulders.
Momo spits.
A spray of scalding tea hits the Evil Eye full in the face.
He recoils instantly, shrieking, hands flying to his face. The barrier cracks with a sound like shattering ice—and explodes outward in a burst of air.
Jiji collapses to the floor, coughing, eyes wide, face slack with horror.
Momo drops to one knee, gasping, rubbing at her throat.
Everyone rushes forward.
Seiko’s already moving, steady hands on Jiji’s shoulders, guiding him out of the room. “Come on. It’s okay. It’s not your fault.”
He doesn’t resist. He just goes.
Okarun doesn’t follow.
He drops to his knees next to Momo. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” she rasps, then clears her throat. “Just a little sore. No big deal.”
He stares at her.
“No big deal?” His voice is thin. Wrong.
She shrugs. “Seriously. Don’t make a thing out of it.”
Then she gets up and walks past him like nothing happened.
Later that night, the house is too quiet.
Jiji doesn’t come back out of the guest room.
Aira tries to talk to Momo, but it turns into a short, sharp argument—something about whose fault it was, about being more careful, about how none of it matters now. Doors slam. Seiko pretends not to hear. Turbo Granny pretends not to care.
And Okarun?
He’s curled over the sink in the hall bathroom, blade in one hand, elbow braced against the mirror.
His breath is shallow.
His hand is steady.
The cuts come fast. One. Two. Three. Four. Deeper. Sloppier.
Blood splashes the edge of the sink.
His hoodie sleeve is soaked.
He can’t get the sound out of his head—Momo choking, gasping, her feet dragging the floor. His fists banging against the wall of nothing. His voice breaking when nothing he did worked.
You’re weak. You’re useless.
The blade slips. Gashes too deep.
He gasps and nearly drops it.
Then a voice cuts the silence like a blade.
“Are you kidding me?!”
The bathroom door slams open.
Turbo Granny storms in—small, furious, and very much not in the mood. Her tiny, furry form perches on the edge of the sink, eyes blazing like twin headlights.
“Son of a bitch—what in the...?”
Okarun freezes, caught mid-breath, blood dripping steadily down his wrist. The box cutter clatters into the sink, its blade stained and shaking in the pale light.
She doesn’t hesitate. “Let me see it.”
She hops over to him with a grunt and yanks his arm up, heedless of his flinch. Her small paws aren’t delicate—but she’s precise. She pulls the soaked sleeve up farther, revealing more of the damage.
Blood smears her fur. She doesn’t care.
“Goddammit, kid…”
He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t try to defend it. What’s the point?
She jumps down from the sink and grabs him by the pant leg with her claws. He doesn’t resist as she drags him out of the bathroom like some lost toy.
They end up in the laundry room—door shut, light harsh.
Turbo Granny tears open the first aid kit with her teeth and spits gauze rolls at his feet.
“Sit down and shut up.”
He does.
She climbs up onto the counter beside him and grabs his wrist again, cleaning the wounds with brutal efficiency. It stings. A lot. But he barely reacts. He just stares at the wall.
“You planning on carving yourself into pieces every time something goes sideways?”
Silence.
She looks up at him, fangs bared in something that isn’t quite anger anymore.
“Start talking. What the hell is going on in your head?”
Okarun swallows. “…I don’t know.”
Turbo Granny snorts. “Bullshit.”
She tapes the worst of the cuts, then gestures with her paw.
“Hoodie. Off. Now.”
He hesitates.
“I need to see what else you messed up,” she says, softer this time. “Don’t make me claw it off.”
He strips the hoodie off slowly, wincing as the blood sticks to his skin in places. His shirt rides up with the hoodie but he pulls it down.
She circles him, climbing up the side of the laundry hamper to inspect his back, shoulders, arms.
No new cuts—but tension coils through every muscle.
“Lift your shirt.”
He does.
Her sharp eyes narrow. “Thin. Tired. Bruised up. You think hurting yourself more’s gonna fix anything?”
He doesn’t look at her.
His voice comes out flat. “Ever since I got these powers… I just feel worse.”
Turbo Granny tilts her head.
“Worse?”
“Not just tired,” he says, voice barely audible. “Hollow. Like pieces of me didn’t come back. Like I’m not even me anymore.”
Silence.
Then, quietly:
“When I change… when I use your power… I feel like something’s still chewing on me after. I try to act normal. I do. But nothing feels right. It’s like I’m stuck watching everyone else live and I’m just—” He chokes on it. “Just… pretending.”
Turbo Granny doesn’t say anything for a long moment.
Then, to his shock, she hops up onto his knee and sits.
Her voice, for once, is calm.
“You think I wanted to end up like this?” she mutters, motioning to her small cat body. “Cursed spirit. Stuck in this stupid vessel. Watching humans screw things up left and right with their soft little hearts.”
She looks up at him.
“You’re not broken. You’re adjusting. You’ve seen things that fry most people’s brains into soup—and you didn’t curl up and die. But yeah. It’s not fair. And no, you don’t get to tap out just because it hurts.”
He blinks.
“I’m not saying it’s not bad,” she adds. “But you’ve got power now. Power that matters. You can’t use that power right if all you do is bleed in circles and pretend it means something.”
Her eye twitches once.
“You wanna feel real again?” she asks. “Come with me.”
The school is abandoned—long since gutted by time. The moon filters through half-broken windows, soft and white and cold.
She doesn’t talk much as they walk the cracked halls.
Just drags him along by the wrist, blood-stiff gauze still wrapped around his arm.
When they reach the old music room, she kicks open the door.
“Sit.”
He sits.
She hops up onto the dusty piano bench and lifts the fallboard. Keys yellowed with age stare back.
“Combat rhythm,” she mutters, slamming down a chord. It rings out—off-key, jarring.
“That’s what you’re missing. You flail. You react. You don’t move in time. The Evil Eye? He doesn’t just attack—he flows. Like music. Every hit, every dodge—it’s in rhythm. And you? You’re off-beat.”
Okarun stares at her, too tired to argue.
“So what?” he mutters. “ You’re gonna teach me how to dance?”
“Don’t tempt me,” she mutters, then plays a strange, off-tempo scale. “But no. I’m gonna let them do it.”
The portraits on the wall begin to twitch.
The air drops in temperature.
A soft, resentful voice whispers: “Who dares disturb our slumber?”
Another groans: “This playing… is atrocious.”
“It’s an offense to all music!”
Six portraits peel themselves off the wall and hover in midair, ghastly, translucent, surrounded by dissonant scales.
Turbo Granny smiles.
“He’s the one who played it.”
Okarun blinks. “What? No—”
“WHAT?!” the spirits scream in unison.
Energy flares. Musical notes materialize in midair—like daggers of sound, glowing with menace.
Okarun steps back.
Still hurting.
Still bleeding.
But he doesn’t run.
He breathes.
Listens.
And when the first note flies toward him—
He moves.