Chapter Text
By the time Hagakure has made her way back to the dorms, Ectoplasm is already there, watching two small men in coveralls scurry back and forth through the dorms, hauling various toolboxes into the basement. The teacher sees her coming as he steps onto the porch and walks over to meet her.
“They’re here to fix the furnace,” he says simply, gravelly voice emphasized by the clicking of his exposed teeth. “Nedzu says you were informed. I am here to supervise.” His pale eyes narrow just slightly, as if in thought; she wonders if he’s questioning Nedzu’s unusual judgement of her situation.
Hagakure sighs. “Thank you,” she answers softly, to which Ectoplasm gives a sharp nod and follows the repairmen downstairs, quietly closing the door behind him and leaving Hagakure alone with her thoughts.
She’s been trying not to spend very much time in the common areas, even before Nedzu advised against it. Aside from the painful memories that resurface, she’s already seen a—well, a ghost, she supposes—in the living room, as well as whatever specters still floating through the rest of the building. But glancing around, she sees that the rooms no longer look quite the same as they did earlier that week; the few articles of clothing had been gathered up and set aside, folded neatly, and the dishes that she’d been allowing to fester in the sink now sat drying in the rack. The thought of Ectoplasm, tall and intimidating frame hovering over the counter as he painstakingly scraped crusted noodles from the bowls, makes her cringe. She hopes he doesn’t think badly of her for leaving them so long.
There are other remnants of her classmates still scattered around the common area, however. Though Thirteen had gathered up the pieces of the board game that had been strewn across the dining room table and put them into their rightful box, they obviously didn’t know where the box belonged, opting to leave it on the table instead, next to the folded clothes. Hagakure can also see remnants of glitter in the gaps between the floorboards, the pale pink reflecting the morning sun through the windows—still stained with Mineta-goop. She saw where someone had tried to scrape it off with a metal scraper—predictably, perhaps, the scraper was stuck to the goop and the window.
She sighs to stifle the tired laugh that threatens to bubble up. Some things can only be learned by living with someone, she thinks to herself. Though she and Mineta weren’t friends for obvious reasons, they shared a home with each other and their other classmates, leaving scratches on walls and burns on the sofa and glitter in the flooring. Things happened. Mineta’s grapes stuck to things on accident and on purpose alike, and she knew full well the only way to remove the sticky purple stain was with the strongest cleaner known to mankind—
She crosses the living room and enters the kitchen, opening the cabinet under the sink to see just a few inches of liquid in the small spray bottle. The bottle remains unmarked except the sharpie scrawled across one side—Anti-Mineta. The concoction had been crafted by Jirou, with Mineta’s assistance and instruction, and had a strong, bitter smell that permeated the common room with a single spritz—Hagakure considers the bottle for a moment, then opts to snap on a pair of rubber gloves and a face mask before she picks it up.
The Anti-Mineta makes the residue clump up and peel away from the window easily, allowing her to scoop it onto the scraper and deposit it in the kitchen trash. She spends a little more time trying to catch all the tiny chunks of it that still stay behind, re-spritzing wherever she missed. There’s still a bit of cleaner left in the bottle when she’s done, too—maybe when someone comes to take Mineta’s things, she’ll offer them the rest. She shudders to think what a mess Mineta’s room must be.
Like jump starting an engine, Hagakure finds herself cleaning the common area. She uses the little battery-powered vacuum Yaoyorozu kept in the broom closet to suck the glitter from the floorboards, slides the board game back to its rightful place next to the TV. She takes the clothes to the laundry room, deciding against running them through the wash in favor of just leaving them on the counter. She knows she can’t do much with the couch; a spiderweb of clever stitching and bits of Sero’s tape holds the cushions together, Bakugou’s scorch marks just being a little extra decor and a product of one too many horror movies. She dusts it off, anyway, running a cloth along the TV and the shelf it sat upon.
It doesn’t offer the same kind of familiarity and comfort that the monthly cleaning day the dorm’s inhabitants had. It’s missing the quiet chatter, the soft music Jirou would play to keep them motivated, the scraping of couches across the floor as Midoriya or Shouji moved them to sweep beneath them. She hums a song she loved in middle school, helping to fill the silence between the clanking of metal and machine coming from the basement. But it keeps her busy, and it takes her mind off of everything. She only finds herself crying once—she finds a CD that slid behind the couch and settled against the windowsill. She doesn’t feel the tears falling down her face until she sees them splash on the familiar kanji that spelled out Ojiro’s name on the label.
There’s a knock at the door that interrupts her thoughts. She sets the CD down on the coffee table and crosses the room to the front door. A peek out the peephole reveals that it’s Reiko Yanagi. She opens it, and Yanagi’s eyes brighten a little to see her. She carries a plain canvas tote bag over her shoulder, and she passes right to Hagakure before she even says hello.
“As promised,” she says, “one Ouija board.” Her eyes take in Hagakure’s rubber gloves, the bandanna she’s tied her hair back with, and the oversized apron she found in the pantry that she’s rolled to fit her better. “A little spring cleaning?”
“I needed something else to think about,” Hagakure answers with a sigh, taking the bag and hefting it onto her shoulder. “Ouija boards are rather heavy, aren’t they?” she queries, wondering at the weight. As she peers into the bag, however, she sees two large bento, still hot enough to leave condensation on the clear lid.
Yanagi shakes her head. “Kendou sent some food for you. As an apology, I think.”
Hagakure pries the lid off one, revealing a steaming stir-fry. “Oh, I don’t think she needed to apologize,” she exclaims. “But I certainly won’t complain. I can’t possibly eat all of this, though, won’t you have some?”
For a moment she thinks Yanagi will reject her offer, but then she nods once. “I have to show you how to use the Ouija board anyway.”
The two sit at the kitchen counter—Yanagi politely doesn’t ask that they sit at the large dining room table—and eat quietly. The girl from 1-B doesn’t make much conversation, pointing out some slight variations from their dorm to hers, but expresses some jealousy over the walk-in fridge, apparently only having one very large industrial fridge themselves. Hagakure doesn’t bring up the fact that her class had had two food-fueled Quirks and one Kirishima.
“Don’t tell Monoma,” she warns jokingly instead. “He might think it’s because they like us better than you.”
Yanagi gives a puff of an exhale around her food, which Hagakure had realized by now was how the other girl laughed. “S‘not all bad,” she remarks. “Obnoxious, but it’s just for the attention. Noisy, nosey, bossy, and a pain to live with.”
“How appealing,” Hagakure remarks sarcastically.
Yanagi hums in reply. “At least he pulls his own weight, though.”
Something smells... good.
They perk up a little when they notice it—something lemon and ginger, with lots of onion. Normally they wouldn’t be hungry for such a thing, but for some reason the only thing they remember eating recently was their father’s bland eggs.
They follow their nose to the kitchen door, listening for the voices in conversation. They hear a woman speaking—mother, of course.
“Don’t tell—“ they hear, wait—who was she talking about? Them?
“S’not all bad,” her inflection sounds strange, she’s normally so well-spoken, “Obnoxious, but it’s just for the attention.”
... Oh. Why would she say that about them? Sure, they liked to be a little flamboyant, but with the weather so bleary and the news so dreadful and everything so—so gray, they’d felt so... quiet, and lonely. Sure, they were starting at their new school soon, but they thought maybe it was just some anxiety, a little seasonal depression—unless that’s the part that was being obnoxious?
“Noisy,” completely unfair, “nosey,” well, they are eavesdropping, “bossy,” excusez-les, comment ose-t-elle, “and a pain—”
“How appealing,” comes a sarcastic answer.
“Hmf,” then, “pulls—own weight, though.”
So, what, that’s the only reason she kept them around? Because they did chores? It felt so random, so out of the blue, out of the gray around them, that their mother would say something like that, to some random friend—
They burst into the kitchen, snatching up a plate that looks like one of her fancy ones, the white and gold wedding-present china that they always imagined they’d inherit and treasure. They want to scream, want to shout and say it’s not fair, how dare she not love them the way they knew she did, something wasn’t right but it was all wrong—their mother doesn’t look like their mother but like gray smoke and there’s no one else here—but they’re so angry—
They choke up and can’t say a word.
They smash the plate into the wall, shattering it and dashing from the room.
CRASH!
Yanagi and Hagakure both jump in surprise at the sudden noise. Hagakure whirls to see the scattered pieces of porcelain covering the floor. Yanagi pulls her stocking feet away from the floor as Hagakure, still wearing shoes, dashes to grab a broom. “I’m so sorry!” she cries. “I must’ve set a plate too close to the edge of the counter while I was cleaning,” she reasons—though she doesn’t remember doing it.
“It’s okay,” Yanagi assures, peering down and watching Hagakure hurry to sweep up the bits. Heavy footsteps thud up the stairs of the basement, and Yanagi looks suddenly stricken, the most expression Hagakure has ever seen her give, as Ectoplasm opens the basement door, concern evident in his posture.
“... I heard a crash,” he informs.
Hagakure waves one hand dismissively, forgetting she took off her gloves to eat. “We dropped a plate.”
Ectoplasm turns to Yanagi. “Does Vlad King know where you are?”
“No, but class rep does. I brought Tooru a hot lunch.”
“...Okay.” Ectoplasm seems to be trying not to notice the first-name basis. Then he turns and heads back down the steps, closing the door behind him.
Yanagi turns to Hagakure, back to her natural, neutral expression. “You might have ghosts after all, Hagakure,” she remarks. “After all you’ve got Ectoplasm in your basement.”
Hagakure freezes halfway through dumping the plate in the trash. “Was that a pun.”
When they’ve finished eating, they get out the Ouija. Yanagi allows Hagakure to decide where they’ll use it—while she knows that she’s seen some things on the third floor, Hagakure eventually decides on the common room. Yanagi kneels, motioning for the other girl to do the same, and sets the board down on their knees between them.
“Kaibara says it works better if you’re close,” she says, pretending not to notice Hagakure feeling flustered. “Here, put your fingers on the planchette. Like mine.”
Hagakure copies her. “I’ll be the medium for this first session,” Yanagi decides. “We can both ask questions, but I’m in charge. Don’t ask anything stupid. Don’t ask how you’ll die, don’t ask for proof, sometimes it makes them angry. And if we get Zozo we say goodbye.”
“Wait, what’s Zozo?” Hagakure stammers. “Wait, are we going to talk to someone? Right now?”
Yanagi shrugs. “Maybe. Maybe not. Zozo is an urban legend, he comes with the board. Now we’re gonna warm up the planchette, move it around—slower, much slower, now more gently—“
They slowly circle the board, Yanagi instructing her motions and advising future endeavors. “You always need two people, it works best at night, and you always, always close a session by saying goodbye and removing the planchette from the board. That part’s important. Don’t leave it open. But be polite. Stop moving, now we ask them to reach out to us, and we wait.”
She clears her throat. “If there are any spirits in this place, we invite you to speak with us.”
There is a pause. Hagakure stares down at the English letters, pulse thundering in her ears—everything’s happening so fast, and Yanagi made it look so simple. What if she did something wrong, what if they reach someone? What would they do if—
“You’re panicking,” Yanagi whispers. “It’s not that deep. It’s really just a lot like texting someone, and if we don’t get anyone, that’s okay, too.”
She sighs. “Sorry.”
They sit like that for several minutes longer, occasionally circling the planchette around the board a few times. Yanagi shakes her head a little at the fifteen-minute mark. “If we haven’t gotten anyone by now, we probably won’t. At least not until tomorrow, maybe.”
“... Five more minutes?” Hagakure asks. Her back is starting to ache from sitting on her heels so long, but she doubts she can ask Ectoplasm to help her use a Ouija board.
“... Five more minutes,” Yanagi agrees.
Her pulse is finally beginning to slow when she looks down to see the planchette gently drifting across the board—in a straight line.
“Yanagi, look—“
Yanagi shushes her gently. “‘H’,” she reads, where the hole in the planchette has paused over the letter, then moved to the next. “E, L, L,” here it shifts slightly, then resettles back on the letter again, “O. Hello.”
“You speak English?”
“I live with Pony. Hello, spirit.” Yanagi pauses, her eyes flitting over the board in thought. “What is your name?”
There is another long pause. Yanagi stares at the board intently, but it takes such a long time to answer that for a second Hagakure isn’t sure that the board actually spelled out anything, and that the encounter never happened.
“A,” Yanagi begins to spell, but then pauses. The planchette doesn’t shift away from that letter.
“Maybe it’s screaming?” Hagakure whispers.
“Probably a placeholder name,” Yanagi replies. “Maybe they can’t remember. A, we seek the spirit that has been haunting Hagakure and these dorms. Is it you?”
The planchette moves firmly to No. Hagakure looks to Yanagi, who does not try to meet her gaze. “Do you know who it is?”
Yes.
“Who is it?”
The letters spell out K-I-D. Yanagi translates, making Hagakure frown.
“Do you know their name?” Hagakure asks, though Yanagi tries to shush her. But the answer is No.
Yanagi sighs. “A, do you know if there’s a reason why the kid is haunting Hagakure? Is there some way we can appease them?”
The planchette moves to Yes. Then—
“L-O-S-T,” Yanagi spells, “S-T-U-C-K.”
“So they’re just... afraid,” Hagakure murmurs. “And lonely.”
“That’s a lot of dorm for one ghost to be haunting,” Yanagi mutters.
Immediately, the planchette moves to No, to which Yanagi asks, “Do they mean Hagakure any harm?” No again. Hagakure breathes a sigh of relief, and Yanagi nods at her. “So you’re safe, at least.”
“As long as the dorms don’t fall apart around my ears.”
Yanagi gives a little laugh-breath, and then says, “Thank you, Spirit,” and firmly moving the planchette to “Goodbye” before taking it off the board. “And that’s it.”
“That wasn’t... hard.”
“Nope.” Yanagi stands, stomping her feet to return circulation. “Thank you for lunch.” She slips on her shoes and leaves before Hagakure can even climb to her feet.
As if on cue, Ectoplasm pops back up the stairs, the two servicemen following behind him, tools in hand as they carted them outside. Ectoplasm glances around. “Yanagi-san left?” he inquires.
“Yeah, she went back to the 1-B dorms.” Hagakure motions to some of the leftover lunch—though it has by now grown cold. “Want some?”
“I am not hungry, thank you.” Ectoplasm replies. “I see you got my scraper off the window, may I have it back?”
“What? Oh, sure, I—“ Hagakure turns to grab it from the kitchen, where she left it sitting right beneath the window she’d scraped the Mineta-goop off of.
But—
He wakes, to his purple.
He’s familiar with his power, with the way people look at him, at his gross quirk and his sticky balls—he’s familiar with all the disgust gets, what he both does and doesn’t deserve.
He’s never feared his power before. It’s gross and weird but face it, he’s gross and weird but he works hard anyway, earned what little respect he has and he’s never feared his power—he could always count on his Quirk to get him out of a sticky situation.
He wakes to his purple, and feels fear grip him before he even realizes why.
His purple—he’s right, it’s growing and it’s going to swallow him whole.
He struggles, like he does every time, when did this happen before?—he frees one hand, then the other; rips a grape away from his face before it envelops his mouth and nose and flings it as far away from him as he can. For a second he thinks this is the farthest he’s gotten, the best he’s fought off his own—
And then his purple becomes an inky darkness, and he cannot scream as it seals his airways—
...
He wakes to purple, growing, swelling, climbing like fear up his throat and into his eyes.
But the gross purple residue is still on the window, as if she had never touched it.
“That’s, uh. That’s quite an impressive uh. Stickiness, that is, that he had.”
Hagakure turns back to Ectoplasm. “What, who, Mineta? Yeah, sure, I hated him though.”
“Oh.” The teacher wisely decides to follow the servicemen outside without addressing Hagakure again.
She’s not sure there’s enough Anti-Mineta left to get rid of this one.