Chapter Text
After the four of them finish dinner, which seems to last forever with how many dishes Fat eats alone, Fat asks Tamaki a few more questions about what a life with a witch entails and what kind of things they should expect from him and Nejire living above their heads before saying goodnight and letting Kirishima show them their new room. The stairs up to it are out the back of the bakery, facing a wide and unused backyard, and are creaky in a way that makes Tamaki flinch with each step they take.
After saying his longwinded and overly joyful goodnights, Kirishima leaves them with a quick, "glad to have you here with us."
The room is better than Tamaki expected honestly, and while it is pretty dusty, and everything needs a good scrubbing, it's spacious and homey. A little kitchenette sits on the far end of the room, an old and roughened table in the center, and an old metal-frame bed sits tucked into one corner. The mattress atop it is covered with a thin sheet, and while the sheet looks dusty, it just means the mattress underneath should be clean enough to sleep on for the night.
The ceiling is sloped, making it feel a bit like the little attic above his home. The beams above their heads look perfect for hanging potion ingredients from, like in his mother's potion room back home, and there's definitely enough space for him to practice his craft. But what catches Tamaki's attention the most is the wide double window obscured by grime along the front wall of the room, facing in towards the yard.
While Nejire is running in circles around the room, leaving little paw marks in the dust behind her, he drops his bag on the table and makes his way to the window. After inspecting for a moment, he grasps the latch and tugs. It takes a few jerking pulls but it eventually unclasps and he's able to shove the window open, both dirty panes opening to the side to reveal a view he's only ever dreamed about.
From the window, he has a view up and over the little squat homes lining the winding streets down the cliffside and straight to the ocean. The last few rays of sunlight are peaking over the horizon, casting rich purples and cool blues into the sky. Waves shine as they tumble towards shore, bouncing with the light of the setting sun. In a few minutes, this sight will disappear, giving way to the dark of night and glimmer of lamp posts, so for now he lets himself lean out the window and enjoy it.
Tamaki lets out a heavy sigh, feeling his shoulders relax as he watches the waves roll. "Nejire, come look. We can see the ocean."
Nejire trots over and hops up to the windowsill. "Ah! You're right! It's so pretty! I wonder if the sun always looks like that over the ocean. Is it the reason the city formed here is so popular? I wonder what it looks like to be on a boat down there while the sun is like this." She continues to ramble on, the familiar drone of her wondering a peaceful background noise as Tamaki leans on the sill, head out of the window as he takes in the view. The light breeze makes his hair float around him, smelling of salt and the lingering scent of warm bread.
"Nejire, I think I could get used to a place like this."
He looks down to see her sending a gentle little cat grin at him, and he matches it with his own.
The next morning is filled with cleaning. Nejire is banished to the yard after she knocks over a bucket of soapy water all over the table and dares to blame it on a mouse. After she leaves, yowling complaints the whole way, Tamaki spends the next two hours on his hands and knees scrubbing away the grime coating the wooden floor. He could do it with magic, enchant his sponge and mop to move on their own, but he's always loved cleaning by hand, the slow methodical act of clearing away a mess always lets his brain relax and the anxiety twitching in his chest to nap.
Around noon, he's finished with the majority of the room, with only the bed to make and the kitchenette to stock. And while it was okay to sleep on a bare mattress for one night, he'd need something for tonight. So, he takes off his apron, rolls down his pant legs, and grabs his wallet and shoes. Once he's ready, he steps outside and calls for Nejire.
"Nejire! I'm going shopping, do you want to come with?"
She comes trotting across the yard from where she had been peeking around in the bushes. After running up the stairs, she crouches down like a spring, wiggles her butt once, before jumping from the ground straight to his shoulder, twisting around so she faces front.
"Hell yeah! I want fish!"
They go downstairs, and after Tamaki pokes his head into the bakery to tell Fat that he's going shopping, they set out.
"Okay. So, Fat said that the nearest grocery store is three blocks to the east, then two blocks north. So, we should be able to get there and back without too much trouble carrying everything. I really don't want to have to levitate anything in public…" Tamaki whispers to himself, staring down at the cobblestone as he walks. Eventually he quiets down, listening instead to Nejire's chattering about some cute white cat living next door that she wants to talk to.
"Nejire, you're a menace, you know?"
Tamaki grumbles down at the cat, who's trotting with her tail high in the air and the new sky-blue lace collar she just convinced him to buy partially buried in the thick black fur around her neck. Unlike Tamaki, pretty things like that ruffled, lacy collar fit Nejire, making her like some noble lady's cat instead of the familiar of a simple shy little witch.
"Oh, c'mon Chicken Heart! It's no big deal, we had enough money for all the other stuff, and there's even a little left over for next grocery trip! But Gods! Just look how good it looks on me! Now that snooty with the white booty next door is sure to notice me…" Nejire's excitedly rambles to him.
Sure, it had been an expensive collar, but seeing his best friend this happy doesn't fail to bring a hint of a smile to his face. And she's right anyways, they had bought everything they needed before they even looked at the collar, so it's not like it cut into their food money or anything.
His mind moves to other things as they make the trek home, particularly how he's going to enjoy copying his spells and recipes into the new leather journal he just bought. But as it seems, this city has a habit of showing Tamaki things by making him walk right into them, which happens once more when he's startled out of his thoughts by the sudden appearance of a low hanging branch right in his face.
He splutters, stepping back just enough that it doesn't smack him in the face like it almost did. Nejire is cackling up at him from the sidewalk, and while normally he'd find himself embarrassed, he can't find it in him when he looks up to see those branches he almost walked into attached to a wide fruit tree, absolutely swarmed by butterflies.
Sunlight streams through the leaves, bouncing off the little fluttering wings as they feast on the ripe fruit. He notes that the tree, branches heavy with plums and the little winged insects, is rooted within the confines of a stone fence, it's long branches hanging out of its yard and over the sidewalk he's upon.
The little things aren't even bothered by him, feasting their little hearts out on the sweet fruit, giving him a close-up view. Ignoring Nejire's goodhearted teasing ("Geez Chickenheart, you really can't help yourself with those little bugs can you"), he reaches up and plucks a plum from the branch, letting his fingers dig into the soft flesh and tear the little fruit in half, unbothered by the juice staining his fingers red. Several butterflies land in his open hands, feasting on the torn fruit. Their little feet tickle his palms, bringing an unabashed smile to his face. Their wings open and close as they eat, showing off the orange sunsets painting them.
Back home, Tamaki used to spend so much time in the meadows of the woods behind his house, among the flowers and the flitting butterflies. It was his favorite place to study, with a blanket across the grass to protect his clothes and his books piled up around him as he tested out various spells he didn't feel comfortable trying in front of others. The butterflies would fly from the flowers to his little picnic, attracted by the colors his hair and magic flashed in the light. He'd talk absentmindedly to them, and Nejire liked to joke that he spoke more to the butterflies than he did to his family.
Of course he didn't only love the butterflies, he loved the birds with the way they sang and danced together through the meadow, he loved the little animals that would peer at him from the trees before moving on, and he loved the flowers that sprung up around him when he let his magic seep into the ground and feed them, growing into massive plants with wide petals and mushrooms growing in their shade.
His mother had only joined him there once, surprising and catching him in the middle of testing how large he could get a wild daisy to grow. He'd been so embarrassed, not just at getting caught showing his magic so freely but also from his mother's praises, that he made her promise she would never come out there again when he was there. He's sure she broke that promise, coming out to watch him practice, even though he could never catch her doing it.
The butterflies enjoying their little offered meal in his hands suddenly scatter, surprising him out of his reverie. The sound of a car screeching to a stop is the cause, making him flinch and jerk his head toward the road. He drops the plum from his hands when he catches sight of that same blonde who saved him yesterday, Mirio-something if he remembers right, leaning out the window of a beat up old truck, absolutely packed with other teenagers, and waving excitedly towards him.
All the peace Tamaki had felt just a moment ago drains out of him in an instant.
"Hey! It's you, the witch from yesterday, right??"
Tamaki nods back slightly, collecting his dropped bags.
Mirio flashes him a wide grin before turning back to his friends.
"See guys! I told you!" Mirio looks back at him, eye flashing with energy. "Tamaki, right?" He continues after receiving confirmation in the form of Tamaki's tiny, shy nod.
"Wow! I've never met a witch before, that's so cool!"
The words stab into Tamaki's chest, and the world around him seems to blur, the blonde's excited chatter sounding distant and underwater as memories bombard him.
"Wow, I've never met a witch before, is it true you curse boys into being slaves for you?" The little girl in front of him asks, a devious little smirk spread across her face as she corners him outside the market his mother is shopping in, leaving poor 7-year-old Tamaki outside so he wouldn't panic in the cramped space. His mother's kindness wasn't enough to save him from this girl's sneers disguised as smiles.
"You can't play with us kuz you're a witch and momma says witches put spells on people!" The children at the playground in town yell at him, taunting him with their cruel words. That day, Tamaki comes home with scrapped knees, and despite Nejire's persistent attempts to get through to him, he doesn't speak for weeks.
"Wow, a witch that won't use her magic, you should really work on that confidence dearie," the old woman says kindly, a gentle smile on her face despite the way her words cut him.
"What, you're a witch?! Ew!"
"A witch?!"
"Witch?!"
"Girl, you must be such a disappointment."
Mirio's not sure what he said or did wrong, but the boy, Tamaki, seems to shut down at his praise, face turning expressionless and shoulders hunching in on himself. It's like watching a flower wilt, and it hurts to see. Not even a moment ago, the boy had looked like a vision stepped right out of a dream, all oil spill hair framed by early afternoon light, the butterflies dancing around him like he was some fairy tale prince, and now he's gripping his grocery bags till his pale fingers turn white knuckled, face pinched and eyes hard.
Mirio is about to call out, ask what he said wrong, apologize, anything to fix what he just messed up, when the boy turns on his heel and walks down the street away from them, long legs taking even longer steps as he once again escapes from Mirio. That midnight black cat trots hurriedly at his heels just to keep up.
His friends all groan good naturedly, more than one of them giving him comforting pats on the back. He flops back into his seat, letting out a defeated sigh.
"Wow dude, you really messed up something there. Never seen a guy reject you that hard before," one of them says, laughing at his misery.
Mirio can't help but stare out the window, distracted, towards where the witch was standing just before as the car starts back up, heading away from where Tamaki walked towards. He'd spent all the previous night unable to stop thinking about the boy, captivated by the way the witch had just turned and flown into the sky like a dream, half convinced he'd imagined the entire encounter up. But now that he's met him once more, he's messed it all up and he doesn't even know how.
He can't help but hate himself just a little for whatever it is he did wrong.