Work Text:
Sometimes the exorcist’s seal on Hanako-kun of the Toilet’s cheek itched a little, around the edges. He fiddled with it, then, but of course he couldn’t pry it up even the tiniest bit. That seal was like a drain, through which Hanako’s spectral powers (or whatever you wanted to call ‘em?) trickled away like water down into the sink. It was a pull on his soul, blurring him like a pencil drawing half-smudged away by somebody’s finger.
Hanako thought reminding his assistant, Nene Yashiro, about the seal too often might make her worry about him. About what he’d been like before he got all sealed up, maybe — about other sides of him she hadn’t seen yet, but that could be a little difficult to recognize. (Or explain, honestly.) Maybe Yashiro would wonder about Hanako’s younger brother he told her he’d killed — Tsukasa... or maybe it would make her think a little more about how there were serious-business exorcists around the academy who might be able to cast him away, with his powers bound like they were.
Hanako knew Yashiro called for him when she was scared, nowadays, even when he was nowhere in sight. What if she called for him like that, trusting he’d come, knowing he wanted to save her and hang out after school every day, and he just couldn’t? And he’d already dissolved away into crackling holy blade-lightning, into Teru Minamoto’s seething judgment.
“A troublesome ghost that goes unstable at the drop of a hat. Self-serving and violent.”
Hanako imagined what Yashiro’s expression might look like, if she heard the guy she seemed to think was just so special say stuff like that about a supernatural she claimed as her own friend despite everything... if she knew which bits Hanako may’ve even agreed with, down in the secret, carved-open-chest core of himself. Hanako imagined that moment when Yashiro’s calling for him cut out, and she realized he wasn’t gonna be able to answer her anymore. A change coming over her face. A knowing, deep inside, that he wouldn’t be waiting in the school bathrooms to grant any more of her wishes.
Did Yashiro feel safer, knowing Hanako had his ghostly powers sealed? Or had Kou Minamoto — that infamous Teru’s younger brother, and actually a pretty funny kid — told her about the moment when it had seemed like maybe Hanako couldn’t fight off his exorcism for too much longer? Hm. It wasn’t the kinda thing Hanako was planning to bring up in casual conversation. “Hey, Yashiro — did the kid tell you about that time I almost got banished from the near shore? If that happens for real, I want you to delete my search history! Kidding. I’ve never used a computer. Just try not to worry too much about whatever the mini-exorcist told you, okay?”
Yeah. No. Yashiro deserved a more serious warning than all that, but Hanako wasn’t sure how to bring it up to her. Whether it would do her any good to know. Any of that. And so he’d kept quiet.
“A troublesome ghost.”
“Self-serving and violent.”
Hanako fiddled with the edges of his exorcist-seal when he was thinking, too, sometimes. When he was remembering what the seal meant, especially — what it was keeping bound, for him... and when he was worrying about other seals, too, like the one on his Yorishiro, which Yashiro still hadn’t asked him too much about. (Thank the god who’d appointed him as Honorable Number Seven of the School Mysteries for small mercies, right?)
Hanako was remembering his own Yorishiro just then, cleaning the bathrooms, actually. That battery for his supernatural powers, binding him to his rumors. Yashiro and Kou Minamoto were scrubbing away at the floors together, see, talking through some of the stuff that’d happened over the last while. Specifically those super eventful, Hell of Mirrors-related days, it sounded like. Hanako was looking over Yashiro’s science homework for her, propped up by the window, for his part... for some reason, Yashiro really thought he knew his stuff when it came to science. Hanako’d tried telling her his grades were always pretty bad, honestly, but it was hard to say no to her when she got all hopeful and trusting like that. Hanako was just seriously hoping he actually remembered five examples of metamorphic rocks!
But then he heard Yashiro and Kou talking about a conversation he’d been a part of, on the Misaki Stairs with Yako the Kitsune, School Mystery Number Two, and he glanced over to them again. He felt his insides sinking, and the eternal strangeness of his exorcist-seal on his cheek, and he hoped Yashiro wasn’t worried about this one specific thing that sometimes occurred to him when talking about rumors getting corrupted around the school.
“Yeah, that Kitsune — uh, Yako-neesan? — said she was still herself, when her rumor’d been changed. When she went rogue like that. She was different, obviously, but it was more like parts of her that were already there got pushed to the surface. She could still understand us.” Kou was talking with his hands, here — miming Yako’s enormous battle-scissors, talking about her “going rogue,” and beating a hand all wet with dirty mop water against his heart talking about Yako understanding them when they spoke. There was so much raw enthusiasm, so much hope, in an explanation like that. The intensity in that exorcist kid’s eyes might’ve almost burned somebody, but Yashiro just looked thoughtful. It was good Kou was opening up to discuss strategies or what have you with Yashiro, again, probably. Hanako knew she’d been getting worried, before they went to that supernatural festival together.
“Mmm... I see! So you’re thinking about Mitsuba-kun,” Yashiro said. “About how even if this isn’t the ‘original’ Mitsuba-kun... no matter how completely he changes... you might still be able to reach him, somehow?”
Kou Minamoto fiddled with his mop a little bit, then — wringing out the soapy water, thinking carefully, teeth grinding together so hard Hanako almost thought he could hear them. “I told him my name again, like I said. I told him to remember it,” the kid said, finally. “I think as long as there’s even a little of his mind in there, maybe he can sort of hear me. It’s still worth trying.”
“Yeah,” said Yashiro. Was it Hanako’s imagination, or did she glance over at him, there? Sweeping her eyes from his swinging shoes up past her science homework, to his eyes? As if trying to imagine what he’d be like, if (when?) somebody tried to twist his rumor into something worse... if (when?) she had to fight past whatever was hiding inside him, whatever lurking self would be dragged to the surface, and maybe take out his Yorishiro, too. “Yeah, I think it’s always worth trying,” Yashiro said, and Hanako felt a little like she was reassuring him. Claiming him, again.
That was... that was silly, right?
Yashiro wasn’t telling him, “Whatever you turn into, Hanako-kun, I’ll still try to reach you.” They were talking about something dangerous, right? About an artificial ghost Tsukasa’d mashed together out of straggling, desperate spirits, and a true-born supernatural that wanted to pretend at being human even if it defied the order of everything. This wasn’t Kou’s classmate, Sousuke Mitsuba. Couldn’t be, not like back when he was a complete ghost just warped into something monstrous by a wish Tsukasa, uh, “granted.” That was what Number Two’d been talking about. Twisted rumors, not whatever the heck this was.
But if Hanako was acting beyond himself... if Hanako became changed... would Nene Yashiro hold onto him like that, too? She meant what she said there, truly. Hanako could tell she meant it, meeting his eyes and telling him it was always worth it to try and reach somebody. She smiled a little, too, even. Sort of soft, sort of carefully. And then she went back to talking with the kid.
Hanako was shaken out of his Earth Science homework analysis again soon enough, though. Yashiro said, “Hanako-kun, you’re messing with the seal on your cheek, again. I brought some anti-itch cream in my backpack today. Just let me wash my hands and I’ll get it for you, okay?”
“Huh?” Hanako said. “I’m really fine. You don’t have to do that.”
But Yashiro was already washing her hands. She tossed Hanako a gentle look, with lots of words behind it he could only guess. “Please?” Yashiro asked. “I wanna see if it helps.”
“Hmm... okay. Thanks.” Hanako really, really, really hoped Yashiro never had to worry about him like Kou Minamoto was worrying for that artificial ghost of his. For “Mitsuba.” But the way she’d met his eyes back there, he thought maybe the concerns about his Yorishiro... about his rumor... had crossed Yashiro’s mind, too. It wasn’t as if a creature like he was could ever be completely safe, after all. Every rumor could be changed.
Yashiro swabbed living human medicine around the edges of Hanako’s seal, and she braced herself against his arm as she worked. Hanako wanted to tell Yashiro he would always try to listen for her, when she called for him; he wanted to say that whatever happened he would try his best to be by her side. However people changed his rumors. Whatever seals were released, in their time. He wanted to say his cheek already felt better, even though it sort of didn’t, yet. Give it a second to kick in.
Hanako tried not to draw too much attention to his exorcist-seal, from day to day, but Yashiro had noticed him fiddling with it anyway. She handed him the little tube of medicine and told him to read the label before he used it by himself, and that she wasn’t totally sure how much good it would do for a supernatural, but hey, couldn’t hurt to give it a go. She asked him how much more of her science homework he had to read through, and he told her he’d gotten to the bit with the rocks.
A normal conversation, in place of all the things Hanako knew he really should tell Nene Yashiro. Just like there was a seal and an occasionally-obnoxious itching where a great dark pit of his ghostly powers should be. Hah. Sort of fitting, in a horrible way.
Hanako did his best proofreading Yashiro’s homework for her, and he only doodled in her notebook a tiny bit before she caught him. Don’t worry. The doodles weren’t anything bad.