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1.
It’s fun while it lasts, but it doesn’t last long: the kid in the black school uniform’s out like a light already, despite the fact Shou’s been generously pulling his punches just enough to keep the kid from reeling straight into merciful, KO’d unconsciousness – generously crushing him beneath the weight of just enough gravity that it doesn’t stop his lungs from functioning – generously slamming him into masonry just gently enough that the majority of his bones remain intact...
Shou’s gone easy on him. It’s pretty obvious that’s still the hardest anyone’s ever gone on him.
The kid’s silent now, unmoving, sprawled on his back in a wreckage of disrupted concrete and settling dust. He doesn’t react when Shou gives his shoulder a gentle kick. He doesn’t react when Shou gives his shoulder a less gentle kick, just to check he isn’t faking. Even unconscious his expression’s still black as hell, glowering up at the ruined ceiling that hadn’t been ruined until Shou slammed him bodily through its reinforced concrete a couple of minutes ago.
I’d fuck you up if I had any idea how to do it, that poisonous glare had said, back when its owner was conscious and furious and refusing to admit it out loud. I’d fuck you up if you weren’t like a million times stronger, I’d fuck you up if I could and I sure as hell wouldn’t go easy on you...
Skip past the concussion, skip past this whole tedious Seventh Branch clusterfuck, skip past the torrential flood of his dad’s endlessly mortifying bullshit – if he could, Shou’d skip straight to the good bit. He’d skip straight to the bit when the kid in the black school uniform’s awake again, and pissed off again, and glaring at Shou again like there’s nothing he’d like better than for Shou to drop his guard and let himself get the shit kicked out of him.
He’d never be able to do it, obviously; he’s way too weak. But Shou’d love to see him try.
+++
2.
“Yeah, it’s for the newsletter,” lies Shou, unshakeably confident. “The, like – onsen newsletter? Competition winners, all that crap. Happy holidaymakers, whatever. You know the kind of shit I mean.” He’s eyeing three-quarters of the Kageyama family through his phone’s camera app. Only one member of that party isn’t beaming in bemused delight. Only one member of that party is glowering at him with deep, wary suspicion, radiating hostility in every ethereal aspect of his aura, and his name is Ritsu.
“Ritsu,” says Shou, and Ritsu’s scowl darkens. Ritsu hasn’t personally told Shou that his name’s Ritsu, but the fact that Ritsu’s name is Ritsu was the first and most basic piece of information that Shou dug up on Ritsu after deciding firstly that Ritsu would be the ideal sidekick-in-training and secondly that Ritsu would be Shou’s ideal sidekick-in-training. “C’mon, lighten up,” commands Shou, and snaps his fingers at him. “You think we’re gonna publish a face like that in our newsletter? No one’d ever wanna visit again. One look at you’d scare them the hell off forever. Relax!”
Ritsu does the opposite. Shou takes the photo anyway. He examines it. He zooms in on it. Well, they’re on a tight deadline here; it’ll just have to do. He saves it, and kicks the next stage of the plan into action with a combination of ultra top-secret signals: a significant glance, a surreptitious hand gesture, a deafening bellow of, “Team! Let’s go!”
One trusty lackey hustles the Kageyama parents off into their private car for the holiday of a lifetime, probably – last-minute bookings are what last-minute bookings are. Another trusty lackey hustles the mistrustful youngest Kageyama out with them on the pretence of issuing them his touching farewell. And Shou races back inside, to meet the third and final of his trusty lackeys where he’s waiting patiently for Shou’s arrival in a bedroom with its futon rolled off to the side and its floorboards occupied by a highly nutritious pile of fruit and meat and vegetables.
“Check it out,” announces Shou, bursting into the room and tossing his phone across it, “I got us reference pics. I got you reference pics. I got one with all of them and I got an extra one of Ritsu; that one’s in case you wanna make him look extra pissed off. For, like – realism. Though,” philosophically, “I guess no one’s even gonna know about that after the whole place burns down.” For a moment he reflects on this. It’s a brief moment, and then it’s over, and Shou high-fives his trusty lackey as hard as though he’s pitching a baseball and races off to levitate half a dozen petrol cans in through the bathroom window.
Several diverting minutes pass by as he splashes the reeking contents of those cans through the Kageyama household. When he returns, the pile of food is gone. In its place are three replicate humanoid figures in varying shades of deathly grey.
“Oh, gross,” Shou says approvingly. He tosses the last of the empty petrol cans aside. A few drops splatter on the outflung arm of the Ritsu-thing. “Ready to light it up, then?”
“You poured that stuff already?” says his trusty lackey in horror. “Leader, I’ve been using huge amounts of psychic energy! I could have set it off at any time!”
“Don’t worry about it,” says Shou, with the kind of self-assured authority that makes it a command rather than advice. He takes his hands from his pockets. “Listen, I’m gonna set this place on fire now, so you’d better run. Probably better just go out the window, actually – faster that way. You want a countdown? Nah – I’m kidding, the countdown already started. Go!”
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3.
Ritsu’s studying the view: lane, gutters, skittles. He steps back. He steps forward. His usual deadly serious focus is both more deadly and more serious. He hefts his bowling ball—
“Ritsu!” yells Shou, and slaps him on the back. “Get a strike and I’ll buy you a Pepsi! Do it!”
“Suzuki—!” Ritsu snaps around so fast he’s lucky he doesn’t smash any of Shou’s ribs with that bowling ball. “Why the fuck are you so close?”
It’d be a more impressive demand without the reflexive guilty glance to make sure his precious brother didn’t hear him swear. For the sake of Ritsu’s dignity, Shou pretends he never spoke. “A strike,” he says again. “None of that half-strike shit! Don’t tell me you can’t do it!”
“I didn’t tell you I can’t do it,” says Ritsu, aggrieved. A moment later his expression settles, though – he almost kind of smiles. He turns back to his study of the bowling lane, and hefts his ball again. “Now get out my way before I put this through your head.”
Delighted by the threat, Shou gets out the way at once. Ritsu does his best – Ritsu always does his best; Shou wouldn’t even need to be watching to know that Ritsu does his best – but he is watching, and Ritsu does do his best, and it’s just unfortunate that it turns out Ritsu’s best isn’t quite good enough yet: there’s one pin left standing when he’s done.
“Ritsu!” Shou yells, directly in his ear, and Ritsu nearly jumps out of his skin. “Ritsu! Listen up! You’ll get the strike next time, okay?” From someone else it might be encouragement. From Shou, it’s a watertight guarantee. “I’ll show you how an expert does it,” Shou tells him consolingly, although Ritsu appears less consoled by this than Shou feels he ought to be. “Watch and learn!”
He proceeds to demonstrate exactly how an expert does it. He grabs a ball from the rack. He heaves it up above his head. He launches into an ultimate unbeatable expert-level technique for gathering momentum which he’s never tried before but is already certain will guarantee success; every time he whirls the ball around he can feel the chances of his success increasing with its speed, the chances of a devastatingly accurate strike increasing with his bowling ball’s whirling momentum—
It hits something.
It’s being whirled over Shou’s head at the time that it hits something. There’s a sound like something very heavy colliding with something else very heavy.
Ritsu steps backwards, and steps backwards again. His expression is vague, and a little surprised. He sits down. Then he topples over onto his side, and lies there on the polished wooden floor of the bowling alley. He doesn’t move.
“Fuck,” says Shou, who’s built up too much momentum by now not to throw his ball – so he does, and it’s a whirling orange bullet with the perfect speed, perfect spin, perfect style. Perfect everything, if it weren’t for Ritsu lying silently concussed on the floorboards at his feet.
The ball slams down a perfect strike. The scoreboard lights up in celebration. Shou barely notices. He’s shaking Ritsu’s shoulder and yelling motivational slogans into his ear, none of which so far seem to be working.
Footsteps approach behind him. “Kageyama-kun’s gone to the bathroom,” says Hanazawa, and kneels at Ritsu’s other side. “You’re very lucky he missed that. We’re... all very lucky he missed that, I think.”
“Nah, it’s fine. Ritsu’s got a really thick skull,” says Shou, and gives it a confident rap with his knuckles to prove it. “He’d never let it get smashed in. Listen, let’s just move him out the way, all right? Let him nap it off. He wouldn’t wanna hold up the game.”
Hanazawa gives him a doubtful look. He’s holding his palm above Ritsu’s mouth, testing for breath. “Medical attention seems like a better—”
“I know Ritsu!” Shou bursts out, in a voice of sudden ferocious passion. “You don’t! But I do, so I know what he’d want! And he wouldn’t wanna hold up the game. All right?” Whatever reply Hanazawa’s about to give, it’s probably the wrong one. “All right!” yells Shou, and bounds to his feet.
He’ll float Ritsu back to the seating area; he’ll dump him on one of the benches; he’ll give him a bit of space to sleep it off. Mob will get back from the toilets sooner or later, and then the two of them can keep each other company. It’ll be a nice surprise for Mob, probably. He’ll enjoy having some quality time with his brother, probably. Ritsu knocked unconscious is about as outgoing as Mob himself, so Mob’ll probably enjoy his company even more than usual.
Probably, anyway. Possibly. Either way it’s not worth stressing about it; Ritsu wouldn’t want to hold up the game.
+++
4.
Shou’s always believed in making the best of a bad situation. It sucks for Ritsu that half their brand new treehouse headquarters collapsed from its tree just as he was clambering into it, and it sucks for Ritsu that he smacked his head on a branch and now he’s passed out in the dirt, and it sucks for Shou that now he’s got no one to talk to until Ritsu hurries the fuck up and regains consciousness – but Shou’s choosing to look on the bright side. It’s a sunny day, which means the lighting’s great, which means all the photos Shou’s snapped of Ritsu napping in the dirt have come out hilariously clear. They haven’t had lunch yet, which means their picnic’s still untouched in Ritsu’s backpack, which means Shou’s free to practise cramming as many crisps as he can into one mouthful without Ritsu getting on his case about it.
And the woods are rustling gently around them, which means it isn’t silent, which means Shou’s got some plausible deniability for any weird sounds that might accidentally happen while he’s working hard on his latest hobby. It’s only become his hobby since the crisps have gone, and his weak phone signal’s faded, and Ritsu still isn’t conscious, and the boredom’s set in and been replaced by an urgent need to find distractions; but now it is his hobby, and Shou applies himself to it like he does to all his hobbies: with ferocious, single-minded determination to succeed.
Astral projection: if Ritsu’s brother can do it, Shou can do it. He thought he astral projected once when he was a kid, but in hindsight he was probably just dizzy from hanging upside down off the climbing frame for so long. This time, though, it’s gonna be the real thing.
He makes himself comfortable, lying down, gazing up at the treetops and the mottled sunlight, using Ritsu’s stomach as a pillow. This way, Shou’ll be comfortable enough to relax and slip out of his body, and he’ll know about it straight away if Ritsu stops breathing: two birds, one stone.
He breathes in. He breathes out. He lets his eyes fall closed, and he tries his best to relax.
A few minutes later, it occurs to Shou that a soul without a body is, essentially, a spirit. And a spirit, without a body of its own, can stake a claim on the body of anyone else it wants to.
If he gets the hang of astral projection, he can move onto possession. If he gets the hang of possession, he can hammer through Ritsu’s psychic guard-wall with sheer brute strength of will, take control of Ritsu’s body, and pull off so many hilarious pranks at Ritsu’s expense that just thinking about it gives Shou the jolt of pure, energised determination that he needs to wrench free his soul, spit it through his teeth, and send himself catapulting victoriously into the sky like a glorious psychic firework.
+++
Ritsu’s inbuilt self-defence system hasn’t yet given way to Shou’s persistent attacks when he hears voices in the woods. He soars up to the treetops, high enough for a view of any newcomers, keeping an eye on his and Ritsu’s unprotected bodies down by the foot of their tree—
“It was the photos Suzuki-kun kept sending me,” says Ritsu’s brother, as he hurries through the woods beside his master, stumbling in his haste. “I think something’s wrong. Because Ritsu looked... He didn’t look well. So I just want to see them. I want to make sure no one’s attacked them, or—”
“Mob,” says Reigen. He’s in the clearing now. He’s looking down at the two lifeless bodies at the foot of the tree with an expression of uncharacteristic seriousness; and Mob makes a tiny sound of dismay, which would be by anyone else’s standards a scream of heartwrenching terror and distress, and falls to his knees to take a pulse from Ritsu’s wrist.
Fuck, thinks Shou, who’s a ball of glowing, sizzling orange energy bobbing alone and unseen at the height of the treetops. There’s no chance he’ll be able to dive back into his body unnoticed, not with Mob here. And he can’t afford to let himself be noticed – there’ll be too many questions. Questions like what happened to my brother, and was it your fault, and do you wanna bet how long you’re gonna last once I lose my shit, though that’s probably not how Mob himself would phrase it. Whatever – Shou can read between the lines.
Down below, Reigen is scooping Shou’s body over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. Wrapped in the flickering psychic outline of his big brother’s telekinesis, Ritsu’s body is floating above the leaf litter. Given how overinvested Mob is in things like Ritsu’s general health and safety, it doesn’t seem likely that he’ll separate himself from Shou and Ritsu’s side any time soon...
...but Shou’s got no choice: he’s just going to have to stay astrally projected until his body gets left unsupervised, and then he can hurl his soul back inside it like a striker scoring at an undefended goal.
He floats higher, and begins to follow along to the hospital at a surreptitious distance.
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5.
At three in the morning on the blank grey concrete rooftop of an office block, Ritsu slumps over sideways and begins to snore.
“Wake up,” commands Shou, but Ritsu fails to obey. Shou sets his can down on the roof beside him, and then he grabs Ritsu’s shoulder and shakes it hard. “Wake up!” he yells into his face, encouragingly. “Ritsu! Wake the hell up!”
Ritsu rudely doesn’t.
“Whatever,” says Shou, whose knack for invisibility means experiments with underage drinking are a matter as simple as strolling into any shop of his choosing, browsing the shelves at his leisure, and leaving money surreptitiously on the counter. He gets laboriously to his feet, and drags Ritsu to his as well.
Some fifteen stories down, the pavements are deserted at this grey, unfriendly hour of the morning. With one arm he gets a grip on Ritsu’s waist; with telekinesis he gets a grip on the rest of Ritsu; with optimism he steps off the building and into thin air, and accidentally catapults them both a dozen metres higher than he meant to in the first misjudged moment that his powers kick in. Zigzagging peacefully through the sky, meandering at peculiar angles, launching with unpredictable degrees of acceleration into the dawn, Shou flies Ritsu home.
The windows of his room are closed, but not locked – that’s how he snuck out in the first place. Shou slides open the balcony door and floats Ritsu in, smacking his sleeping body against the frame only once or twice; he clambers in after him, bleary-eyed and yawning with exhaustion, and releases his psychic hold over Ritsu’s sleeping form.
Ritsu’s sleeping form plummets for a metre, and hits his mattress so hard that the bed’s frame slams back against the wall.
In the next room there’s a muffled cry. Then movement – footsteps, a door opening – and Shou goes from a lethargic standing start to full-throttle telekinetic warp speed in half a second flat – across the room, out the window, into the night, so fast that he’s unpleasantly sober by the time he skids to a mid-air halt somewhere above the city’s shopping district. If Ritsu’s big brother wants to know why Ritsu’s slamming his bed around at four in the morning while smelling of cheap beer, then it’s Shou’s opinion that those are questions Ritsu’s more than capable of answering alone.
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6.
Sometimes – if he really makes the effort, if he’s really feeling motivated, as a special best-friends-forever sleepover treat for Ritsu – Shou can occasionally manage to hold back his energy levels from hitting their immediate maximum setting the instant he wakes up.
But not today. It’s already light outside when Shou springs awake. The curtains open at a flick of his hand: watery sunlight floods in. If Ritsu’s really that deeply asleep, then a bit of daylight won’t wake him – and if he’s not that asleep, then it’ll wake him the rest of the way up, and they can get their day off to a roaring start.
Shou waits, and waits, and optimistically waits. After thirty whole seconds of optimistic waiting he concludes that Ritsu’s not about to burst into energetic wakefulness alongside him, and he scrambles out of his futon to go and check up close and personal that Ritsu’s not just faking sleep to wind him up – which Ritsu’s done before, more than once, because Ritsu’s sense of humour is as vengefully passive aggressive as the rest of Ritsu.
But even up close and personal, Ritsu still looks disappointingly asleep.
Shou studies him intently for a minute or two, kneeling beside his bed. Then he takes a deep breath and blows in Ritsu’s face, just in case that’s the last little bit of encouragement Ritsu’ll need to wake himself the hell up and join Shou in blasting open all the rich seams of possibility in the brand new day that’s stretching out before them—
All that happens is Ritsu frowns a bit in his sleep. Ritsu’s always frowning in his sleep. Unconsciousness never makes Ritsu any less stressed than usual.
“Ritsu,” says Shou. He’s very considerate; he doesn’t yell it. He just whispers it directly into Ritsu’s ear. “Ritsu.”
“Hmm,” says Ritsu, dissatisfied by whatever he’s dreaming, and sleeps irritably on.
Shou goes to the wardrobe and takes out Ritsu’s winter hat, winter scarf, and a pair of novelty light-up antennae violently shoved down at the back of a shelf that Shou’s pretty sure Ritsu was coerced into wearing at Mob’s last birthday party. He returns to Ritsu’s bedside. Carefully, he slides his hand between Ritsu’s pillow and Ritsu’s wildly tousled hair; carefully, he lifts Ritsu’s head. Carefully, he wraps on the scarf, and pulls on the woolly hat, and pushes the antennae on top.
It’s a good start.
Shou casts a speculative gaze around Ritsu’s sunlit bedroom, and gets to work.
After a while, Ritsu yawns. Then he yawns again, and stirs, and rolls over – except he can’t roll over, because his other side’s blocked in by his desk chair, which Shou levitated down into place with excruciating slowness so the sudden weight on his mattress wouldn’t wake him. He rolls the other way instead, which knocks over the tiny potted plant Shou brought in from the balcony and nestled into place between Ritsu’s shoulder and Ritsu’s cheek.
Soil spills across the sheets. Soil spills inside Ritsu’s baggy pyjama shirt too. He sits up – he can’t sit up; Shou’s stacked a haphazard pile of Ritsu’s own schoolbooks on his chest – he knocks the schoolbooks aside, yanks the desk chair from his mattress with a vicious spike of psychic energy, and then he sits up. He sits up so forcefully that the novelty light-up antennae quiver on their springs. He fumbles across his head; he grabs the antennae and the winter hat and the sheaf of meticulously written study notes tucked inside and rips them all off and throws them aside.
The intricate scaffolding of pens and pencils Shou’d been carefully constructing between Ritsu and the high-rise tower he’d built from Ritsu’s shoes collapses, rattling and clattering, into Ritsu’s lap.
“Suzuki,” says Ritsu, and does what he does best: ominously glowering.
“Took you long enough,” says Shou, unfazed. Ritsu’s looking fully awake, fully aware, and fully ready to fight, which happens to be exactly how Shou likes him best. “Listen, you wanna get some breakfast? Artificial Flavouring City’s kind of a way away, so if we wanna get to that haunted hospital in time for a picnic we’re gonna have to fly. So we’ll need to get our energy up. So we better get some breakfast. You probably wanna wash your face before we go anywhere, though,” Shou adds, considerately.
Ritsu’s black stare moves slowly from Shou himself to the marker pen in Shou’s hand. He touches his cheek.
“I got some great photos,” Shou assures him. “I sent them to your brother already. He says hi, by the way. He doesn’t sleep in as long as you. You ever considered taking a leaf out of his book, Ritsu?”
The look Ritsu gives him could have killed the dinosaurs. “Oh, once or twice,” he says with brittle sarcasm, and gets out of bed wearing a glower so familiar and menacing that it warms Shou all the way through to his heart; that’s friendship.
Knowing which buttons to affectionately press in order to provoke Ritsu out of bed: that’s friendship, too. No day can properly get started until both of them are part of it.