Work Text:
Tomura stared at Kurogiri like he had grown eight more heads.
“What is that?” he asked pointing at the box the mist man held. Kurogiri sighed.
“Shigaraki Tomura you are sixteen years old and you need to start learning some responsibility if you’re going to succeed you’re Sensei one day.” Tomura tossed his bangs out of his face.
“I am responsible.” He said angrily.
“When was the last time you cleaned your room?” Kurogiri asked.
“Uhhhh….”
“Alright, let’s try something else. When was the last time you picked up the garbage in your room and took it out?”
Tomura muttered and looked down at his sneakers. He had better things to do than tidy up his room. He’d thought several times he could just decay the wrappers and cans littering the floor but he didn’t want to touch garbage. Also, eventually Kurogiri got sick of it and cleaned up for him anyway so why bother?
Kurogiri closed his yellow eyes and counted to ten.
“This,” He said holding up the colorful box he was carrying, “Is a Tamagotchi. It is a virtual pet that you need to pay attention to and care for or it will die. I want you to care for this Tamagotchi and start applying what you learn from it to your life.” Tomura frowned.
“Why can’t I just get a real pet?” He asked. If Kurogiri had a mouth his lips would have tightened. He’d thought of that originally but decided that he wasn’t so cruel that he wanted an animal to have to die because Tomura either didn’t take care of it or got upset with it and decayed it.
“Pets are too messy and you don’t clean up after yourself now.” He covered. “Besides, this is like a video game, I thought you might enjoy taking care of this virtual pet because it is basically a game.” Tomura huffed at him.
“Fine,” he said reaching for it. But Kurogiri wasn’t stupid, he saw Tomura going in with all five fingers.
“Shigaraki Tomura if you decay this device I will tell your Sensei.” he threatened. Tomura scowled.
“Really? Over a stupid toy?” he whined.
“Your Sensei expects you to take your lessons seriously and this is a lesson you need to learn. You wouldn’t want to disappoint him would you?” Tomura growled in the back of his throat but swiped the box from him with four fingers.
“That’s a low blow, Kurogiri.” He said petulantly.
“I will be checking on it at dinner every night,” Kurogiri said, ignoring him. The best way to handle Tomura was to not stoop to his level. “So it had better be alive.”
“Whatever,” Tomura said, turning to leave and go back to his room.
“Starting tonight,” Kurogiri warned.
Kurogiri heard him stomp up the stairs and slam his door.
Tomura threw the box with the Tamagotchi on his bed when he got to his room. Stupid Kurogiri and his stupid “lessons”. He hated him. He knew that Sensei was too injured now to take care of him as he had when he was younger but that didn’t mean he liked it. Kurogiri was all business and no fun. Sensei had wanted to hear his ideas and let him do the things he liked, Kurogiri just wanted to make him a functioning adult.
He got on his computer, running a couple of levels on Infinite Mario to cool down. When he had stopped feeling like he wanted to destroy something he spun around in his chair and faced the bed, staring at the box. He just looked at it for a few minutes. He mostly didn’t want to open the toy because Kurogiri had told him to but he also didn’t want Kurogiri to tell Sensei he was being uncooperative or not learning, so he opened it.
Inside was a blue egg looking keychain with a small screen and a few buttons. He activated the egg and had to input his name and birthday into the egg and set the clock. He quickly glanced at his phone before setting the time. When he was finished the screen displayed an egg which wiggled for a few minutes before hatching into a pet. He was given the option to name the pet and, out of spite, he named it Fuckface.
He messed around with Fuckface for a little while. He looked at the different meters and the different functions to see what he could do with it. Mostly it looked like he could feed it and clean up after it shit and he had to do these things within a certain time limit or it would get sick and die. Tomrua was strongly tempted to just ignore it and piss Kurogiri off but the threat of disappointing Sensei loomed heavily over him. So he clipped it to his belt and went back to his computer to play a little more and try and get over his aversion to his new pet.
Kurogiri was a man of his word and did indeed check the Tamagotchi every night before dinner. He was not impressed with Tomura’s name for the digital creature. Tomura initially found it hard to keep up with the pet’s needs. He would forget about it for too long and it would end up sick or starving and he had to work to get it healthy again. It was annoying to lose progress like that so he had set up a timer on his phone to go off every so often to remember to feed the damn thing.
Kurogiri seemed pleased when he got the pet to go from the “baby” to “child” life stage. He said that meant Tomura was doing a good job of keeping on top of things. Kurogiri did not know about the phone alarm and Tomura was not about to tell him in case his misty guardian decided that was cheating.
Eventually, Tomura didn’t need the phone timer. He didn’t notice but he had begun to get invested in Fuckface. Kurogiri had been right it was like a game. Making sure Fuckface was healthy enough to move to the next life stage was like leveling up in his mind. By the time it had reached the “adult” stage Tomura was checking it on his own to make sure things were all fine and dandy in Tamagotchi world.
As his time with Fuckface progressed Kurogiri noticed small changes in Tomura’s behavior. He had loaded the dishwasher for Kurogiri one night. He had put his shoes in their proper cubby next to the front door instead of leaving them for someone to trip on. Kurogiri had actually seen him leave his room with a full trash bag. Kurogiri did not mention any of these things for fear that actually acknowledging these changes would make Tomura stop, considering his incessant need to do the exact opposite of whatever Kurogiri said, but he was pleased and proud all the same.
One day Tomura was in his room, as per usual, on his computer and up to his elbows in a World of Warcraft quest he had been working on for forever. He wasn’t playing much attention to Fuckface, he’d fed it before he started so it should be good for a while, so it alarmed him when the little blue egg on his desk started making a sad beeping noise.
“What the hell?” He muttered to himself. He paused his game and picked up the egg, peering at the screen. On the display was a small graphic of a ghost and a headstone.
“No, no, no!” Tomura yelled shaking the egg. What the fuck? He’d just fed it why did it die? He started to panic, dropping the egg and digging his nails into the tender flesh of his neck. Kurogiri was going to tell Sensei he had failed his lesson! He’d been working so hard on this stupid toy, he didn’t understand why it had just died out of nowhere! He looked at his clock, Kurogiri would be calling him down for dinner soon and then what was he supposed to do? He couldn’t tell him he’d let Fuckface die and risk Sensei’s disappointment!
He stumbled out of his chair, knocking the egg to the ground, and grabbed a disembodied hand from his bed before tucking himself into a corner of the room. He pressed the hand to his face and went back to scratching, unable to calm himself down.
Sometime later Kurogiri knocked on his door.
“Shigaraki Tomura, it is time for dinner.” he heard through the door. Tomura didn’t say anything, couldn’t stay anything. He was just staring at Fuckface’s egg on the floor through the spaces between the hand’s fingers.
“Shigaraki?” Kurogiri asked again, still nothing. Tomura saw the doorknob turn and light pour in from the hall.
“Shigaraki!” Kurogiri exclaimed rushing into the room and crouching down next to him. “What’s the matter? Are you alright?” Tomura started scratching again.
“The egg!” He warbled. “Fuckface…it just…it just died! I didn’t do anything! I was taking care of it and then all of a sudden it was dead! Please don’t tell Sensei I failed, I tried my best, I don’t know what happened!” He was frantic. Kurogiri calmly picked up the egg and looked at it. He nodded and then pressed the A and C buttons and handed it back to him. Tomura stared at the screen to see a new egg was wiggling and getting ready to hatch.
“What? But..it was dead? What did you do?” He asked looking up from the screen.
“The pets die of old age eventually,” Kurogiri said. “Didn’t you read the instructions?” Tomura scoffed a little.
“I don’t need instructions.” He said, somewhat meekly.
“I see,” Kurogiri said, patiently. “Well, your pet lasted it’s whole life so I think you were successful so there will be no reason to tell you’re Sensei you failed. Now, come down to dinner.” With that, he left the room, leaving Tomura staring at the egg until the egg hatched into a new pet.
“Humph,” Tomura grunted as he stood up. “I think I liked Fuckface better.” and with that, he clipped the Tamagotchi to his belt and went down to dinner.