Chapter Text
It’s weird being back at school after Rebuild Week. It’s been a city-wide holiday since almost all of downtown was destroyed, and a lot of people still can’t get to their jobs. But for schools in the suburbs it’s more important for students to be prepared for their exams, so they go to school.
Tsubomi isn’t sure if the weird atmosphere she’s feeling at school is real, or if it’s just her who’s changed, but everything at school seems different. There’s a weird tension that has people looking around, jumping at noises; Tsubomi is having a hard time keeping her aura in check, like she feels she might need to fight. She wants Ritsu with her, watching her back. She wants Shigeo with her, just to know where she is. Instead she gets a lot of people endlessly telling stories of where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. It’s all things like, they were with their families watching it on TV, and their parents looked scared and told them to pack. Tsubomi is supposed to join in, but her head is buzzing too much to think of a lie.
“I was at my friend’s house,” she murmurs. “Watching it burn down.”
It’s a relief when nobody hears her; she doesn’t want to explain. It’s frustrating when nobody hears her; they think they know already what her story will be.
“My family got to the airport ahead of the rush,” says Amano. “My parents were so scared they bought a flight to China.”
“Aah, you’re lucky,” says Seida. “We couldn’t get anywhere, since we don’t have a car, so we had to hide in the basement of our building!”
Amano snorts. Sakamoto laughs and says, “Are you saying you’re too poor to have a car? I hope you didn’t starve during Rebuild Week. I can’t offer you any of my lunch.”
Everyone else laughs, for some reason, and Seida sinks down in her seat. “It’s not like she chose it,” says Tsubomi. “Being rich doesn’t make you better than anyone else, just luckier.”
The laughter dies down, and most of them look uncertain. Sakamoto makes a face at Tsubomi that might be disgust. “And why would you say something like that, Tsubomi-chan?”
Sakamoto is trying to goad Tsubomi into admitting she’s poor, which she’s not, really, her family is perfectly average. But it makes her angry. “It costs you nothing to be kind instead of trying to make people feel worse about themselves.”
Sakamoto opens her mouth to retort, but at that point the teacher comes in and starts taking roll, and she subsides. Tsubomi glances at Seida and then looks down at her folded hands on her desk. It was a lie, what she said. It does cost people like Sakamoto not to be cruel, because they have no other way of feeling good about themselves. She shouldn’t have said it, it won’t change their behavior anyway. And she’s made herself a target by criticizing the way things are.
If no-one does, it won’t change. But she can’t shake the feeling that she’s unsafe now. They might look past the surface, they might look at her. There’s never been any her for them to look at, before, and now she feels exposed.
The worst they can do is make her despised in one school. Shigeo has survived worse than that and come out the other side.
She’s edgy all through her morning classes. When her last class gets out she snatches up her bag and goes to look for Shigeo and Ritsu. Ritsu she finds first, trying and failing to be on the edge of a group of first years.
“Hey! Kageyama!” she calls, because she can’t quite bring herself to use his given name at school. “Lunch with me and Shigeo!”
He raises his eyebrows at her slightly. “I’m busy.”
The boys around him are whispering, looking a little incredulous that he’d refuse her. “Aren’t you dating?” she hears one of them ask. Tsubomi just rolls her eyes. “Guess I’ll be aallll alone with Shigeo then for our lunch period. See you.”
She catches Shigeo leaving the cafeteria—where does she usually eat?—and says, “Hey, Shigeo-chan. Do you want to have lunch together?”
Shigeo blinks at her for a moment. “Okay. It’s kind of loud in here, though.”
It’s also too cold to eat outside. They compromise by sitting in the stairwell. This isn’t really what Tsubomi was picturing, sitting and eating in silence with just Shigeo. She was hoping they could sit with Chika and Mifuyu and Kikyou and she could… well, publicly affirm that she and Shigeo are friends. Maybe that was selfish.
Shigeo must be thinking about Tsubomi’s friends too, because she says, “You don’t have to sit with me just because we’re friends now. I know I’m not very interesting and you have lots of real friends. I don’t even have emotions right now.”
“Er, I could give them back?”
“No, thank you. Something bad happened here. I don’t want them.” Her tone, though flat, is flawlessly polite. She still looks over Tsubomi’s shoulder while she talks. Tsubomi is starting to think it’s not something that’s wrong with her, just how she is.
“I don’t have lots of real friends, actually. Aside from you and Ritsu I have three. And I don’t want to sit with them all the time. Especially not now. Being at school is… surreal.”
“Being at school was always surreal, I think,” says Shigeo. It startles Tsubomi into a laugh, because it’s kind of true. “But you mean since you saved Japan.”
Tsubomi hides an embarrassed smile behind her hand and looks away. “We saved Japan. Wow. I didn’t think about it that way. We’re heroes, huh? I guess I meant more… I spent the weekend fighting espers and helping put your house back together after it burned down. And then I went back home and my family said they were really worried about me and we had canned food for dinner for two days until the grocery stores opened up again. And now everyone at school is acting like it was this huge disaster that just happened to them and it was… it was me. It was us. Sorry, that was kind of incoherent. I can’t make sense of it either.”
“That’s how I feel sometimes too,” says Shigeo. “It’s weird that it was big enough that people noticed this time. It’s weird that it’s at school now. I didn’t think espers would affect the school.”
Tsubomi nods. It’s that feeling that the two worlds ought to be separate but no longer are. A barrier has been broken, and now they’re standing right over the ruins of it, unsure which world they should be in. It almost feels, Tsubomi thinks, like she’s finally proved espers are real. If Chika says her uncle’s flat was destroyed by President Suzuki, Tsubomi is psychic. She’s psychic at school, and she’s starting to realize that her personality is different too when she’s psychic. She’s having more and more trouble not saying what she thinks. The mask that used to protect her is dissolving along with the wall between psychic and not-psychic. She wants to ask Shigeo for advice, somehow, but will she have any advice to give?
“You look like you’re thinking hard, Tsubomi-chan,” says Shigeo. When Tsubomi looks at her and makes eye contact for a moment, she turns quickly away. She’s still too embarrassed to look Tsubomi in the eye, even when she has no emotions…
“Um, I was just thinking about… This is kind of embarrassing. I guess I was thinking about who I should be when I’m at school. I don’t think you have that problem.”
“Who to be? Can you be anyone besides Tsubomi-chan?”
“I don’t always know who that is,” she murmurs. “It used to be that Tsubomi was the idol of the school who everyone liked because she only did what was expected of her. Before that Tsubomi was a little girl who was sick in the head and all she wanted was to be normal.”
“Ah,” says Shigeo. Tsubomi waits, but she doesn’t ever explain. Eventually she says, “Who is Tsubomi now?”
“When she’s psychic,” Tsubomi says, leaning against the wall, “Tsubomi speaks up if something is wrong. Sometimes she hits people, if she’s angry, and maybe she shouldn’t. She’s what comes out when the pressure valve is released. I just don’t know if I’m psychic now.”
“Aren’t you always psychic?”
It’s not really what you’d call an insightful question, but the more she thinks about it the more sure she is that it’s actually the answer. Psychic Tsubomi and school Tsubomi just need to be one person. Somewhere in the middle between the two of them, not too angry and not too hidden. She just has to have the bravery not to hide herself. It doesn’t matter if people look at her, because there is something to see, she doesn’t have to worry about being exposed as empty, just as weird. And she doesn’t care about their opinions anyway. Even if everyone at school decides they hate her she won’t be completely alone.
As long as she’s careful.
She reaches out to just barely touch the back of Shigeo’s hand; Shigeo looks around and understands, and takes her hand. Both their palms are sweaty with nerves, and so warm it’s like a furnace was lit between them. Tsubomi can’t say to her, don’t leave me. Because if she said that, no matter how tightly she contained her aura, Shigeo wouldn’t get the choice. So instead she squeezes Shigeo’s hand and sighs as silently as she can. And then she says, “Thanks.”
--
Ritsu is still thinking about what’s going on with Tsubomi by the end of the day. First, she wanted to have lunch with him. Is she done pretending they’re not associated? Second, and more important, are they practicing after school tomorrow? Everything has changed; she has Shigeo now; she probably doesn’t want to. He’s afraid to ask, and it’s stupid, it’s pathetic to be insecure about this.
He’s still wavering on whether to look for her after school, but it seems he’s unconsciously tracking her, because he almost knocks into her and Shigeo outside the locker room. His muttered apology dies before it leaves his mouth, and he follows their fixed gaze up to the roof of the school. Suzuki Shou is crouched on the edge like a statue painted in obnoxious red and green, peering down at them. “Ah! Ritsu!” he shouts.
Ritsu’s face does something involuntary that makes Tsubomi snort when she glances at him. “What is he doing here?” Ritsu says under his breath.
“I wish I knew,” says Tsubomi. “Distract him for a minute, will you? I have to unhypnotize Shigeo.”
He resigns himself to his fate. If it’s for his sister, he’ll endure more of Suzuki’s company. “Get down here,” he calls. “You’re not allowed on the roof.”
“Who’s gonna arrest me?” shouts Suzuki. “I like it up here.”
“I’m not talking to you if I have to yell,” says Ritsu.
A moment later Suzuki leaps off the roof, landing as lightly as if he’d hopped down from a wall. Ritsu has to admit, he makes it look very stylish. “All right, all right. So what do you do for fun around here?”
Ritsu gives him a humorless smile. “We don’t have fun around here. We’re busy studying so we can get jobs we hate and work until we die.”
“What?! Why?!”
“Because we’re in middle school,” says Ritsu, in the tone most people reserve for explaining really obvious things to small children.
“Listen, whatever! Come do fun stuff with me, come blow something up or something.”
“I can see you’re under the impression that I like fun. I hate it. Go bother someone else. Maybe someone whose house you didn’t burn down.”
“I rebuilt it, didn’t I?”
“Maybe someone you didn’t kidnap and fake their death,” says Ritsu over him.
“I’m sorry for saving your life, then! What’s wrong with you!”
Ritsu glances over his shoulder at Tsubomi and his sister, who are crouched by a tree a little ways away. It looks like Tsubomi is done unhypnotizing Shigeo, and she’s just leaving him to deal with Suzuki because she doesn’t want to. “Tsubomi,” he calls, “are you finished? Some of us have work to do.”
“I’m not preventing you from doing it,” says Tsubomi, straightening up. Shigeo stands, slowly, still looking at the ground. Her grip is tight on Tsubomi’s sleeve. “Will you be all right going to your club, Shigeo-chan?” Shigeo doesn’t answer. “She’s not here. She doesn’t even live in this city. And you have friends in body improvement club, right?” Shigeo nods jerkily. “And they won’t let her hurt you.” Another nod. Who is she talking about?
Shigeo unclenches her fist from Tsubomi’s sleeve and says, “Thank you, Tsubomi-chan.” And she turns and leaves, now clutching her bag to her chest.
“And you,” says Tsubomi, striding toward Suzuki.
“And me!” he says. “Ritsu’s being so boring, he doesn’t want to blow up anything. Please tell me you’re fun at least, most-powerful-psychic-in-the-city.”
Ritsu would not call Tsubomi fun, and apparently she agrees, because she gives Suzuki a sour look as she stops in front of him. “I’m trying to tell fewer lies, so I can’t say I’m fun. I can say I’m angry, though.”
It’s so satisfying watching Tsubomi punch someone else for a change. She really has it down to a science; she puts just enough aura in her fist to smash through Suzuki’s passive barriers, but not enough to take his head off if he doesn’t defend. As it is he’s too surprised, so he staggers back three steps before falling over, looking up at her, disbelieving, from the ground. “What the fuck was that for!”
“One, burning down Shigeo and Ritsu’s house. Two, faking Ritsu and his parents’ deaths, making Shigeo so angry that she passed out for a day and a half and leaving me to fight your father’s lackeys on my own. Three, kidnapping Ritsu. Maybe this doesn’t need to be said because he doesn’t want me defending his honor—” She glances sideways at him and smiles wryly—“but it was also an awful thing to do. Four is your bad attitude. And I think that about covers it. What are you doing here?”
“Well, that’s thanks to you,” says Suzuki. He snorts up some mucus and spits a bloody gob of it onto the ground. “Sending my dad home with me was a dumb idea. He’s just seething mad all the time but he can’t do anything so he just glares at the wall. It’s creepy as hell and somehow you made him an even worse dad than when he was trying to take over the world. Can’t you hypnotize him to, like, be good?”
“You want me to erase his personality?” she asks, in her polite-dangerous voice. Ritsu is very much content to stand back and watch her at work.
“No, just, make him good. He used to be good, make him like that again!”
“You want me to erase his memories.” Suzuki makes a face, shrugs, and wobbles one hand back and forth as if to say, yeah, basically. “Find a hypnotist with no morals. I’m sure he employed one.” And she turns on her heel to leave. Ritsu actually has trouble restraining a grin as he follows her; she must be able to tell, because she rolls her eyes and says, “You look like you enjoyed seeing me yell at someone besides you for a change.”
“One of life’s rare pleasures,” he says peaceably. And before he can second-guess himself, “Are we still training tomorrow?”
“Of course,” she says. “Why wouldn’t we?”
His next words stick in his throat. Because we already saved Japan sounds conceited. Because it makes no sense for you to associate with me now that you’re as powerful as you could want hits closer to the mark. What comes out of his mouth is, “You’ve already got what you wanted from me, after all.”
“I’m this close to slapping you, Kageyama. I’d do it if I thought it would have any effect at all. What I want is for you to trust me! And to feel like you have, you know, friends who like you! You’re really unbelievably dumb, you know that?”
“Why?” he demands. “You know what I am.”
She drags her hands down her face, and turns to kick him half-heartedly in the shin. “I have no idea why I like you. Because you’re like me. Because you’re having a hard time and I’m a bleeding heart. Because I remember what it felt like. Shut up, we’re getting popsicles.”
A quiet breath of laughter drags itself out of his chest, and this time he doesn’t try to keep the smile off his face. “Isn’t it a little too cold for popsicles? Tea would be more appropriate.”
Suzuki never does learn to leave them alone, but he does get easier to manipulate. He shouts less and laughs more, and Ritsu thinks he doesn’t spend much time at home. Once when he visits Reigen’s spirit agency he finds Suzuki leaning against the umbrella man—Serizawa, wasn’t it?—as he works on the couch. When Serizawa leaves, Suzuki does too. It seems that Reigen has taken them in, too. How distasteful.
Sometimes he shows up while Ritsu and Tsubomi are training, and insists on fighting one or the other of them. Ritsu finds himself strangely grateful that Tsubomi is there to absorb most of his enthusiasm; Ritsu doesn’t think he would like the person he’d be if exposed to Suzuki’s unbuffered energy. He probably would go along with Suzuki’s repeated suggestions to blow something up, ‘for fun!’ As it is, he’d rather keep his dignity.
--
Tsubomi is a dark forest again today, when they meet outside of the ice skating building. Shigeo thinks she likes to look a little scary. It offsets her prettiness so people are less likely to bother her. Today her coat is covered in large, staring eyes that almost seem to follow Shigeo—she supposes Tsubomi could make them do that, since she has illusion powers, but she’s probably not doing it right now. The forest part is her green scarf, which smells a little like pine when Shigeo gets close enough to hold her hand. Even now it’s hard to believe that Takane Tsubomi, a beautiful dark forest who saved Japan, would want to spend her Saturday ice skating with Shigeo.
“I also got you something,” says Tsubomi. “Since it’s… well, it’s kind of our first official date, so…”
Shigeo takes a soft tissue paper package from her and opens it. Inside is a scarf that stares at her with dozens of eyes to match Tsubomi’s coat. Unlike Tsubomi, Shigeo is not bold enough to wear something creepy like this. But maybe today she can be.
The scarf is very, very soft. She ties it around her neck with the special knot Hanazawa taught her, and ducks her chin to rub her face in it. “Soft,” she says, and Tsubomi beams. “Um, I got you a scarf, too. You probably have a lot, but it made me think of you.” The one she got for Tsubomi is orange and red leaves falling over drawing tools, compasses and those half-circle angle things Shigeo never remembers the name of.
Tsubomi ties her green scarf around her hips under her coat, and the autumn scarf goes around her neck. “I love it,” she says. “It gives this outfit a totally different look, don’t you think? Oh, we should go inside and get skates before the rink gets too crowded.”
They pay for skates and sit together on the bench while they lace them up. Shigeo is very careful. She makes sure they’re tight in the right places, and ties the laces securely at the top. Walking in skates is hard, but it’s a little easier with Tsubomi holding her hand (Tsubomi holding her hand!). Skating in skates is actually even harder, but Shigeo knew that already. It always takes her about half an hour to remember how to skate, but actually Tsubomi isn’t much better. Shigeo kind of expected her to be graceful and in perfect control of her body all the time, but when she says this Tsubomi laughs, embarrassed. “I do try to give that impression,” she says. “It makes me feel better. But I’ve ice skated about once in my life. Will you hold hands with me while I pick it up?”
“Holding hands actually makes it harder to skate,” says Shigeo. “It throws your balance off.” But she knows this is the wrong answer; you’re definitely supposed to hold hands while you’re on a date. Maybe there’s some way to…
“Oh, that makes sense!” says Tsubomi. “We’ll just skate next to each other, then. You’ll catch me if I fall, right?”
Shigeo’s face goes hot almost immediately. She nods.
To her own bemusement, by the time Shigeo picks up skating again Tsubomi still hasn’t quite figured it out. Shigeo does have to catch her a few times, and since they’re in public she uses her arms rather than her psychic powers. This turns out not to be the best idea, because it just causes Shigeo to fall over too and then they’re both sitting on the ice obstructing traffic. Tsubomi laughs when it happens, though, and smiles brilliantly and takes Shigeo’s hand, and every time any part of Shigeo touches Tsubomi the pot boils higher. It’s too… it’s too much. Shigeo needs to ease into this kind of happiness. She’s not used to it, she doesn’t know what to do. She wants to look away, to fade, but Tsubomi won’t let her. She’s like the sun, like a forest Shigeo is lost in, like a thing Shigeo doesn’t have metaphors to describe because she’s never experienced it before.
She manages to hold onto herself for two hours, until they’re done skating, but Tsubomi wants to hold her hand while they’re walking home and she can’t say no because they’re on a date but the pot won’t stop bubbling higher every moment and she’s so grateful that Tsubomi wants to be here with her (holding her hand) and when she sees Tsubomi’s face she’s smiling and she can’t take this much happiness.
The air trembles. Shigeo starts laughing.
“Shigeo-chan…?”
“I’m just! So happy!” Even Shigeo can’t tell if she’s laughing or crying, but Tsubomi looking at her isn’t helping. “To be here with you, Tsubomi-chan!”
“Um, I’m glad. Do you usually float when you’re happy?”
Shigeo giggles. It’s a sound that has never come out of her before. “I’ve never been this happy in my life. Never!” Something catches in her throat like a sob. “I almost can’t bear it!”
“Shigeo, are you all right?”
Shigeo is laughing too hard to talk.
Red flame blooms beside her. “Shigeo.”
“If—it’s because you’re—you need—it’s too much. Tsubomi-chan.”
“What should I do, Shigeo-chan? How can I help you?”
“I… d-don’t touch me. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, Tsubomi-chan.”
They fall, stuttering to a halt as Shigeo remembers to catch them before they hit the ground. It takes all her self-control to put Tsubomi down gently, leaving none to keep Shigeo herself from falling hard to her knees on the sidewalk. The ground has more sharp edges than it should. Looks down, and there are cracks running through. “Too,” she says, and can’t remember the rest of the words that should go with it. Tsubomi hovers over her, obviously wanting to help but unable to touch her. Things start to fall out of the sky.
“I—had—fun,” Shigeo manages. “Too much. Should… go home…”
“Did I do something wrong?” Tsubomi asks. Even Shigeo, who can barely read expressions, can see how anxious she looks. Or scared, maybe. Of Shigeo.
“No,” she says. “Me. Sorry.” She takes a moment to imagine Tsubomi being angry or disgusted and never wanting to see her again and calling her a freak, which steadies her because it’s familiar, it’s how things should be. “I’ll… go home. Don’t follow.”
“All right,” says Tsubomi. She looks even more worried/anxious/scared now. “Is it all right if I come by tomorrow to check on you?”
“Ah,” says Shigeo. She flees.
She wakes up later lying on the floor of her room, feeling drained and clean. It takes a moment to bring to mind why she feels like she recently exploded and stitched herself back together, and then she remembers the date. She has to wonder if she’ll ever be able to keep her emotions down to a manageable level when Tsubomi is willing to smile at her and touch her.
She realizes that what woke her was the sound of the front door closing, when she hears footsteps coming up the stairs. “I’m home,” says Ritsu’s voice again. “Nee-san?”
She sits up, trying to look like she didn’t pass out on the floor. “Welcome home. Ritsu.” She still can’t talk quite right.
“How was your date?” he asks, standing just outside the doorway.
“Good,” says Shigeo. “You can… come in. If you want.”
Ritsu comes in and sits down by the wall on one side of the door. “Is something wrong, nee-san?”
“I ruined the date,” she says. “I was too happy.”
Ritsu blinks silently at her. She can’t continue, though. She’s not even sure how to explain it to herself. “I had to tell her to go away,” she says, finally. “She said she wanted to come by tomorrow to check on me.”
“I see,” says Ritsu. “Perhaps it’s one of those things that you get better at with practice.”
Oh. She didn’t think of that. “I didn’t think of that, Ritsu. That’s very helpful.” There’s a silence between them. It’s probably fine, but she wants to break it anyway. “Where did you go on your run?”
“To the old bridge in the forest. It’s nice to run under the trees, even in winter.” He looks at her from under his eyebrows; turning his head, he looks from the corners of his eyes. He seems a little uncertain.
“I don’t go to the forest very much,” she says. “You should tell me about it.”
He tells her. He knows all the right words to put a picture in her head; has been writing things down to remember them better as long as he can remember. Of course, Shigeo thinks, Ritsu carries beautiful words secretly inside himself. He never shares them with anyone, and uses the plainest words he can find instead. He’s sharing them with Shigeo now.
Tsubomi comes the next day, and apologizes. She trips over Shigeo’s apology coming out at the same time, and laughs. “I can handle less romance if you can. Maybe we should get to know each other first, huh? And maybe at home.” Ritsu hands her a cup of tea, and she gives him a blinding smile. Yes—when Shigeo checks, Tsubomi has let her aura loose, just a little bit, so it will shine and let him see how she feels. To Shigeo it’s a gentle warm pressure, like sunlight in early spring. She looks down when the sun turns toward her, but she smiles down at the cup Ritsu gives her.
“Pull up a chair, Ritsu,” says Tsubomi. “I can see you trying to slink out of the kitchen, you idiot. We’re not on a date right now.”
Ritsu makes a noise that might or might not be a laugh, and pulls out a chair. “If you insist.”