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Kusuo Saiki had, to be blunt, stuck his fingers in a lot of human-shaped pies. The genome was irrevocably changed. So had been the traditional understanding of things like physics, chemistry, and science. It was rare to find someone he hadn’t poked or prodded at, genetically speaking. Which was the exact reason Kusuo presently found himself so confused as he stared across the classroom. He was zoning out, but that was fine- it would be child’s play to skim the lecture off of the surface of a passing student’s mind once class got out.
But there were more important things to worry about right now. Two rows from the front at the far right of the classroom, closest to the door, in the seat with one leg two centimeters shorter than the other three, there was a perfectly normal girl. No, he meant it. Her eyes were narrow and black, and her hair was pin-straight and coarse, perfectly engineered for Japan’s humidity. Her skin was a dark tan, her uniform was ironed, but the top two buttons were undone, and she was bouncing her leg under the table. Just by skimming her thoughts, Kusuo could immediately label her as a quiet thinker- someone who didn’t broadcast their thoughts as far, usually introspective and solitary. Right now she was worried about her grades (they were fine, she would pass every class with straight As) and was admiring the way the chalkboard absorbed the light coming through the higher windows.
It was like everything he did had never touched her at all. There was an ugly bruise on her left knee that she had gotten a good week ago and still hadn’t healed, instead of focusing on any one subject her mind wandered even as he listened from grades to video game graphics to makeup to women’s rights- Kusuo slips on his germanium ring. Now he remembered why he had simplified things.
He didn’t know when it had happened. When it did, it must have been entirely involuntary, a flex of psychic muscle that hadn’t even registered. Minds were usually straightforward. His grandfather was a tsundere who held a strong dislike for his son-in-law, therefore he would never speak the truth of his emotions and would always hate Kusuo’s father. Nendo was an athletic idiot, therefore he would never perform well in academic classes and would regularly underestimate his strength and misinterpret social cues. It was just how Kusuo had made it.
And then there was Yua Takahashi. It would be very hard to have a more common name than that. Kusuo would like to see someone try. After she had experienced some truly tragic bad luck in group projects in class 1-D, Takahashi-san had very politely requested a transfer and had, indeed, been granted one. And now she was here, and Kusuo had a new enigma to pretend he wasn’t staring at. He had been poking through her mind for a week now, which made him feel slightly guilty, but the buzz of curiosity had no morals. She truly was an interesting case. She was born in the town and had never left it. Both of her parents were middle-class citizens who earned average wages. Her mother was firm and the one that got after her about the grades, her father was the cook of the family and had been born and raised in China before moving here.
Was it okay to be jealous of that? Kusuo’s mind drifted to his parents and their… interesting dynamics. And then he thought about the Takahashis. Mild-mannered, a bit distant, fairly good parents excluding a tendency to forget their child existed. Asked about jobs and volunteer work hours, and what Yua wanted to do after school. Yeah, he was jealous. And then there was the girl herself. She liked to cook, but her favorite subject was zoology and she found the world interesting. She was bilingual and held about as much interest in romance as a cicada did in shutting up. She liked spicy food and didn’t have many friends, and sometimes she was okay with that, and sometimes she wasn’t. A tumultuous case for sure. Listening to her thoughts was like watching the waves roll in. You couldn’t predict where they would go.
It wasn’t like Nendo, where there weren’t any thoughts at all. It wasn’t like Teruhashi, a reversed hurricane where the actions on the outside were softer than the howling on the inside. Her thought process was like nothing he had seen before. It was like she sifted words through a series of sieves, and double-checked her sentences before they ever left her mouth. Before raising her hand in class, she would calmly count to 20 and only then would raise her hand, even if she knew the answer beforehand. It was practical, it was methodical, and it made Kusuo let off foul curses in his head. A bit of copy-pasting couldn’t hurt could it? He could see it now: a universe where there were a million Takahashi- he didn’t think he would ever have a migraine again.
But no. That would be a trivial use of his powers, and Kusuo gave himself a firm mental wack over the head for fantasizing about a world filled with practical people. He had rolled his dice, and they were cast where they lie. Although… Nendo kicked the underside of his chair from the desk behind. He still had a headache from the premonition the supermarket would be out of coffee jelly after school. If he took the ring off the daydream of the girl in the back thinking vivid thoughts about sex with the teacher would probably be echoing in his ears for the next half hour. When he stared in the direction of the hallway for too long, he could see two girls playing hooky to make out in the third-floor broom closet. A homeless man was digging through the school trash bins, and in thirty seconds the school chef would round the corner and start making a fuss about it.
...he would think about it.
In the meantime, he would continue to abuse his clairvoyance and poke through her personal life, as one does. He let a metaphysical eye flicker over the house she and her family resided in, the same neighborhood as seemingly everyone else in school. Two bedrooms, one bathroom, cheap and empty. Both of her parents were at work- her father as a baker(he made a note of the workplace and address and menu, for curiosity’s sake) and her mother as an accountant. No pets, no siblings.
He squints at her(furrowed his eyebrows a millimeter) and scowls(his lips twitched downwards momentarily). He could read all of her thoughts, browse her life like a magazine off the rack and figure out exactly why she was unaffected by PSI abilities. He has full power, and full control, and if he were to pluck the answers out of her skull she would never be the wiser. But… that didn’t seem very fair.
He could approach her in person.
The thought is cast aside almost immediately. Kusuo is not a person that approaches. He was the person approached. He thought back on his current circle of friends- each and every one of them had taken the social initiative, despite his obvious reluctance and disregard for their presence. No, that would not be an option for the psychic. But now he was stuck, a rare position, and one that disagrees with him. Reluctantly, he reconsiders. Kusuo is the sort that’s only pleased about a plan of action if there are ten other options should it fail, and in this case, he could barely scrounge up two. One: by some miracle, Takahashi-san approaches him herself for unrelated reasons. Two: He implants the suggestion of an approach into her mind. Three: He orchestrates one situation or another so that they end up meeting.
A headache comes and goes, and Kusuo gets a very brief but very vivid image of a positively enraged Takahashi-san covered head to toe in what looked like blood. Not her own, which was reassuring, but all the same… He tossed plan three immediately, and the vision and its accompanying headache faded away. It is a small relief, but he’s back to square one. Nendo kicks his chair again, and Kusuo has a brief but wonderful fantasy of drop-kicking the delinquent into the upper atmosphere. He turns around in his seat and glares, but Nendo simply seems to take it as a form of acknowledgment and instantly brightens. He can virtually feel the value of the day going down.
“Hey pal,” the other teenager says at full speaking volume in a quiet classroom in the middle of a lecture by the strictest teacher in school. “What did you get for 14d?”
There’s the audible, recognizable sound of a chalk stick snapping in two. Like a hero out of legend, Taro-sensei launches his broken writing utensil with pinpoint accuracy. His aim strikes true, and Kusuo might be imagining how the chalk buries itself into Nendo’s forehead like a bullet from hell but he certainly recognizes that the way he faceplants onto his desk, immediately knocked out, is very, very real. He can only be grateful that he was not the target. Across the classroom, Kaido wiggles his eyebrows like he wouldn’t have immediately burst into tears upon confrontation, and Kusuo can hear audible teeth-grinding from Hairo in the back, positively appalled by the disrespect for authority.
Almost against his will, Kusuo finds himself sliding a glance in Takahashi’s direction. She has a slightly worried frown on her face, eyes flickering between Nendo and the teacher and the door. Despite himself, he takes off the ring and is(of course) immediately assaulted by a steady stream of hormonal fantasies from his classmates. It’s a hard task to separate Takahashi from the rest. Her mental voice is quiet compared to the volume their peers hold, and Kusuo finds himself having to honestly put some effort into tuning out background rambling to listen to her mind specifically. I hope he’s okay, that looks like it hurts. Does… does Nendo-san need to go to the nurse's office? I don’t want to raise my hand, but it doesn’t look like anyone else is going to say anything. But then again, I have pain medication in my locker, I could always give him some after class so I don’t make a fuss. Sorry Nendo-san, it’s up to you to survive the rest of the period.
Seemingly having come to a conclusion, Takahashi grimaces and turns back towards her desk, rolling a plain wood pencil between her palms. I should still have enough time to study for the advanced physics test between giving him the medication and lunch, and if worst comes to worst I’ll just eat after school and skip attending the mess hall entirely. From there, it’s more off-topic thoughts about what hair products the guy sitting in front of her uses and when the next big school break is coming up, some heavy pondering about the exact identity of the interesting bug she had seen on the railing earlier.
It seems like these little quests are a regular task she assigns herself, because under the cover of a textbook he sees her extract an insect identification manual from her desk and start digging through it. He doesn’t get it, he really doesn’t. If Takahashi was interested in bugs, he would have to avoid her. Luckily, with some rather heavy-handed x-ray vision, he notes that there are several other identification manuals. One for mammals, one for reptiles, and one for plant life. In the process he also noticed that her wisdom teeth were coming in wonky, she had broken a clavicle early in life, and there was a very slight case of scoliosis, but that was beside the point.
They shared Advanced Biology class… maybe they could end up partnering for a project, with some light abuse of psychic powers. The more he thought about it, the better it sounded. Yes- it was decided. He would orchestrate a group project so the two of them were paired, ask his questions, and be done with it.
Easy. Simple. Satisfying. Nothing could go wrong.
But then Nendo went home early, and Kusuo had sat in their usual lunchtime spot, and somehow didn’t see how it had gone awry until he heard a distinctive, quiet mind making a beeline directly for him. Between this tastes so good and the day’s almost over, maybe I should just play hooky there was: I think I’ve seen Nendo-san sitting over here before- he’s friends with Saiki-san, right? I hope he doesn’t have any medicine allergies… maybe I should eat with them for lunch just in case something happens. Oh, who am I kidding? I just want to put off studying. I’m totally prepared for that test! I think…
Kusuo stopped chewing on his onigiri immediately. This was outrageous. This was unfair. Absolutely unforgivable. His lunch was going to be interrupted, and his plans of only interacting with Takahashi in a classroom environment were disintegrating before his eyes. And then, yes, he saw her coming around the corner- plain as ever. Unbuttered toast if there ever was. Unaware of his attention(good) she continued a long internal ramble. Hopefully, I don’t make things too awkward. This might be a good way to break the ice with my new classmates! And-
She turned the corner. Well, shit. Does Nendo-san not eat here after all? I should probably still say hi to Saiki-san though, he’s one of the more normal people in the class excluding the, uh, hair accessories. I wonder where he bought them? Very cyberpunk. Kusuo was very, very glad he controlled when and where he laughed because if he didn’t he probably would have snorted. Takahashi lifted her head high and approached him with a light, easy smile. Honorifics, honorifics… -san would probably be the most polite, right? “Hello, Saiki-san. I saw what Taro-sensei did to Nendo-san last class, and I wanted to offer him some pain medication…” the confidence wilted before his eyes as Kusuo’s face remained blank.
She was honest. That was nice. Did I do something? She checks her watch. Hmm, no time to study even if I wanted to. “Would you mind if I sat here? I planned to give Nendo-san the medication, but you two are friends, right?” Kusuo mentally cringed at the thought. “I want to start making friends with my new classmates, and you two seemed like a good place to start!”
She smiled. Gross. But again… he squinted at her and the intentions ran clear and true. He seems like a nice guy, and we have a lot of classes together. Maybe a study group... “Ah.” He said. Feeling gracious, Kusuo even threw in a head bob. She beamed at him like he had proposed. Again, gross. Emotions made him uncomfortable, and the psychic genuinely couldn’t help the secondary scan for malicious intentions. It came back blank. No plans of confession, no internal whispering about infatuation. She was not planning to bleed him of his money or trick him into helping her cheat on tests.
Very suspicious. Kusuo squinted at her again, but you couldn’t tell because nothing happened to his face except for perhaps a slight twitch that could have easily been misconstrued as an instinctual reaction to a dust mote. Takahashi was rambling about mathematical algorithms or something like that, and Kusuo(upon reflection, probably rudely) interrupted. “Where are you from?” Is- Is he calling me a gaijin?
On the outside, Takahashi was polite, throwing in a small incline of the head for good measure. “Haa, the way I was born is the only interesting thing about me. My mother and father used to live in Hong Kong but decided to move here while kaa-san was still pregnant.” Here, she sheepishly rubbed the back of her head, even as thoughts dissolved into insulted muttering and a gloomy, self-deprecating ramble. “I, uh, was a bit earlier than expected. You could say I was born in the sky, or you could say that I was born in an airplane. Both would be true. It kind of sucks, but I have a frequent flyer’s pass for life, so that’s nice!” Well, that explained her apparent immunity. When Kusuo first applied his changes to the human race, he had (somehow) forgotten about the ones that were in the middle of a flight. So there was nothing special about her. No fantastic ability that rendered her safe from psychic powers, no hidden talent for the mental arts.
Why am I like this, Takahashi groaned despairingly. Aside from the way she was cracking her knuckles, the girl seemed otherwise completely at ease. To someone who wasn’t a psychic, that is. Kusuo, despite himself, felt a bit panicked. It mixed with his disappointment about the truth quite exquisitely. “Your voice is accented, I assumed you moved here-”
Oh, thank god. “No, no apologies needed! Chinese is my first language, so I guess my Japanese would sound a bit strange, hah?” she relaxed back into her seated position, grabbing a (very heavy-looking) textbook from her backpack as she continued talking, considerably more cheerfully. “Did Nendo-san leave early today? I hope he’s okay.” Her empathy was pretty genuine, and while Kusuo wouldn’t mind patting her on the arm and informing her that due to his extraordinary powers injuries gained for comedic effect healed extremely quickly unless plot-relevant, breaking his secret wasn’t on the agenda for today.
So instead, he simply said “He looked okay last time I saw him. He should be back tomorrow.” As an afterthought, “Thanks for asking.”
It’s nice that he cares about his friends. “It’s nice seeing Nendo-san has someone in his corner! He seemed pretty isolated before.”
Kusuo, in the privacy of his mind, politely asked her to shut up. Obviously, she did not hear him, choosing instead to crack open the monster of a textbook (which he now recognized as the official advanced physics text, good grief) and ramble about torque for a good ten minutes. It would have been more entertaining if he didn’t already know everything, but her enthusiasm was admirable. It would be rude to let her be the only one speaking though. He was tired of talking out loud (boring, plebian, next please) and simply returned to spearheading thoughts directly into her head and pretending really, really hard that he was moving his mouth.
“I’m pretty good with physics if you need any help with it. My strongest area is quantum field theory.” She stared at him for a long second. Are you fucking serious?
Ah. This is what it felt like to be insulted. He would be leaving to join his brother in England come tomorrow. That was the only option. Kusuo was in the middle of using his clairvoyance to research what he should pack when Yua interrupted his spiraling thoughts.
“Are you saying that the hardest section of the class comes the most naturally to you? I knew he was smart, but this is perfect. If he teaches me about quantum theory, maybe I can exchange that knowledge and help him study a weak subject of his..” Well, that felt nice. His ego was now sufficiently stroked for the day.
“I suppose I am if you want to see it that way. It’s easier once you have a good grasp of field theory, relativity, and quantum mechanics. You have to have a good understanding of all of those before you start approaching quantum field theory. If you haven’t studied those yet…”
“I’ve been reading ahead,” she said bluntly. “I skipped those chapters, but now I know that was pretty dumb… We may not be talking about it for the next two months, but I-” I was an overeager idiot. Moving on. She gives her head a firm shake. “I got excited.”
“But,” she added on eagerly, “if you have the time, I would be honored to exchange notes with you! Are there any classes you’re having trouble with specifically?” She looked hopeful. She sounded hopeful. And Kusuo still didn’t have any weak subjects. Except for perhaps… his x-ray vision zeroed in on the insect guide she was carrying in her backpack.
“I hate bugs. If I help you with physics, you have to help me with the entomology unit in biology this year. But- ah… I’ve never taken a physics class before. I don’t have any notes to give you.” Takahashi looked like a kicked puppy, and he was hasty to add “but I’m willing to tutor if you can get me time away from my friends.” Peace was rare in his life, and Takahashi-san was quiet and honest enough that he wouldn’t mind spending an hour talking about something interesting if it meant not having to follow the local idiots around and play babysitter.
“That’s great, Saiki-san! If we’re going to be studying together, you can call me Yua!” These honorifics are a pain… I hope that wasn’t rude. Crap, I should have thought of that before I said it, it probably was- hastily, she tacks on one last bribe. “I like to bring study snacks, I can sneak them into the school library in my backpack. Any requests? Oh, I guess we should sort out times first- do you even want to do this in the library?”
Kusuo was pleased. This was paying off quickly. “There’s a cafe near here. Would that work? It’s quiet.” Takahashi- excuse him, Yua-san, nodded enthusiastically. Librarian’s prickly anyways. Besides, if there’s a cafe, there’s bound to be... In his mind’s eye, or, well, Yua’s, she was sipping hot coffee in a cozy cafe with an absolutely monstrous pile of books beside her as rain fell heavy outside. He could see the attraction. And he was tossed in there (like an afterthought, insulting but considering they had just met today understandable). It looked fun.
More relaxing than hanging out with Nendo, anyways. Time and place for that, time and place. And, well, coffee jelly… It was easy to agree. “Ah,” he said again, bobbing his head. “Do Wednesdays work for you, Yua-san?” Her mind buzzed momentarily as she ran through a rather extensive schedule.
“That would be perfect! Oh, and if you wanted to turn this into a study group, tell Nendo-san and your other friends about it! We can make it a regular thing.”
Absolutely not. “I’ll ask next time I see them.” To reiterate, not a chance in hell. To know she would be actively seeking them out, working against him… Kusuo chewed his rice furiously. This would be a problem. Today was Monday, their first meeting would be on Wednesday… Genius struck. “Don’t worry about it, seriously. I’ll bring it up. They can be pretty prickly though, they might say no.”
Are they all like Saiki-san?? What the hell is that supposed to mean? Are they all just shy? I wouldn’t mind…
Saiki Kusuo was not shy. This theory needed to be eradicated immediately, it was an insult of the highest order, sacrilege in its purest form- “If I’m calling you Yua-san, you can call me Kusuo-san. It’s only fair.” There, that would prove it for sure. Kusuo would not stand for this. Calling him shy- misinterpreting shrewdness and silence for poor self-esteem? Good grief. This aggressive intimidation tactic would prove to her that he would not tolerate a pushy classmate-
Does this mean we’re friends? Oh my god, I think this means we’re friends. I made a friend. By myself. This is brilliant. A friend who doesn’t mind studying, and prefers to be serious instead of joking around- thank you Nendo-san, for leaving early today.
Ah. She didn’t get it at all. But she was happy, he guessed, judging by the way her thoughts were running in circles and she was beaming at him. “You got it, Kusuo-san! Would you mind if I kept coming here for lunch? We don’t have to study-”
Hmm. Was it a betrayal to his friends if his immediate response was a yes? A person who wasn’t constantly thinking about sex, who valued education, saw the world through the lens of a scientist, was true to themselves and honest… Ah. Yua-san had the right idea. Thank you, Nendo, for leaving early today. He inclined his head. “No, I wouldn’t mind.”
For such a plain girl , he noted as she whipped out a small bento and gave him another stunner of a grin- she has an amazing smile .
-=-
It was almost an afterthought. Almost. But everything had aligned so perfectly- Aiura had been looking in his general direction, and Yua-san was looking in a different direction…
“Hey. What would you say her aura color is?” The busty girl swiveled towards him, tilting her head innocently. How the hell do you expect me to tell when you aren’t putting yours away? Kusuo slipped on the germanium ring and everything went fuzzy. Without as much as a second question, Aiura turned towards his newest interest and hummed. She looked back at him and gestured to take the ring off.
“Well?” the gyaru shrugged helplessly. She doesn’t have one, Saiki-kun.
-=-
Kusuo had barely been paying attention during the break, honestly. Toritsuka had been up to his usual tricks, bugging students about their spirit guardians and generally having a great time. And then, well, he heard a name of interest. “Ah, Yua-san, do you want to know about your spirit guardian?”
Her response was short and clipped, and even a quick skim of her thoughts showcased healthy doubt. “No thank you Toritsuka-san. I’m not interested.”
“Great!” was his enthusiastic response as he went about doing it anyways. The spirit-seer squinted, and stroked his chin in an approximation of thought. He walked quietly around her desk, making quiet hmm sounds all the while. And then, with a wise look on his face, he stepped back and said: “You don’t have one.”
Yua-san looked unimpressed. “Thank you, medium-san. Can I return to my studies now?” She turned to ignore him but it finally seemed to have set in.
“W-wait, you don’t have one?” Toritsuka squawked, windmilling his arms as a spectacular voice crack rang across the classroom.
“Hn. That’s what you said.” Now fuck off, was her fantastic mental add-on.
“But that doesn’t make sense!” he wailed, tugging frustratedly at his sweatband. “ Everyone has one.” A frantic thought, directed at Kusuo- Help me out here, psychic-senpai!
“No.” It was an automatic response, and not one he wanted to take back, but that was more because he was curious himself. Yua-san truly was average, and in that she was remarkable. Although, Kusuo thought wryly, perhaps her lack of spirit guardian is made up for with her internal strength. Because at this point he truly doubted there was a person in the world that could make Yua-san do what she didn’t want to do.
-=-
Kusuo was pleased. His friends had not found out about Yua- he wasn’t sure what would be worse. Assumptions of a romantic relationship (assuming they continued the trend of ignorance that came with ignoring his asexual and aromantic ways that he suspected Yua found commonality in), or poor Yua-san getting sucked up into the mess that was their group as a whole. He could see it now… No literally, he could see it now. With the thought had come an ugly premonition of the first sane person he had met so far in this life moving to Austria, where she would grow up to be a hermit in the mountains that never answered the door.
Kusuo would not stand for it. But that wasn’t what was important right now- he was meeting up with Yua at the cafe they had agreed on, and with that came coffee jelly. And, unfortunately, the discussion of insects (why had he said that, why ) but everything had pros and cons. He anticipated wonderful discussion of science soon- something he had not had the chance to do since his brother had left for England.
And of course, it was then, the cafe only a tantalizing block away, when Kaido swept up from behind like some sort of biblical monster. “Hey, hey, what dark forces are you planning on conquering today?”
“The library.”
Disgusting. Good. “Well, I’ll be off then- I hear the distant screams of a child in peril- if you don’t see me at school tomorrow, you know the truth. Don’t grieve for my death, Saiki-kun!”
Don’t worry, he wasn’t planning to. With that, Kaido vanished once again, and Kusuo gave himself an internal sharp reprimand. He hadn’t taken the ring off after school- he rectified that now, quietly slipping it into his pocket. The world instantly became 5x more obnoxious, but if that was the price he had to pay to protect his new friend from his old ones- so be it.
-=-
Yua stared in awe. Kusuo squirmed. She never had thought she would see the day -the squirming increased- where Kusuo would show more than one expression within a day.
In the past two months, it had mostly been him helping her with physics. It had been fun and lighthearted, more of them discussing recently published theses than any actual completion of homework. And maybe his face would twitch, or he would look especially happy eating some sweet or another. On the rare occasions one of his school friends wandered by, she could almost perceive the tiniest spark of terror before he dove under the table or made a break for the bathroom. Which still hurt, honestly- was he embarrassed about her?
Kusuo gave her a truly injured glance at that. Like she had eaten his pudding or something. Honestly, this boy. It would make this session all the more entertaining. As if remembering it himself, the pink-haired boy grimaced compulsively. Yua watched with fascination as facial muscles she was sure should have atrophied by now contorted in miraculous directions.
Truly, a feat of engineering. But that's beside the point- it was finally her turn to repay Kusuo for all the things he had done. It was time to be a good friend. It was time to talk about bugs and try not to make him run out of the cafe screaming. Which really, she hadn’t thought was a possibility, but this state of heightened anxiety was genuinely worrying.
She patted his hand. “Kusuo-san, we can do this another day if you want. Do you just want me to text you a video or something? We can go at your own pace.” He shook his head. “Like a bandaid,” he said like a man going to war.
“Like a bandaid,” Yua echoed dryly. “So, are there any insects that you feel more comfortable with than others?” There was a pointed silence. The silence continued. It stretched. Their neighboring diner got a particularly nasty surprise in the form of her plate shattering into a million pieces. In an incident completely unrelated, of course. “Okay,” she started cheerfully. This would work even if it killed her. “Then let’s start with how to tell the difference between venomous insects and harmless ones. Spiders come later.”
“They’re all dangerous,” Kusuo informed her grimly.
“Venomous versus harmless!” she overrode without remorse. She clapped her hands together and drew out an entomologist encyclopedia. The same one Kusuo had first seen her reading in class. The fond memory was a temporary distraction as Yua thumbed through the pages, before finally settling on a picture of a spectacularly unnatural-looking creature. Just looking at it made him shiver.
A monstrous orange face walking on six legs, shiny like it had been preserved in wax. The creature cast a shadow over the nature which it lay upon, and Kusuo knew without a doubt that it was a demon. “So, would you say this bug is venomous or not?”
“It is a demon,” Kusuo answered bluntly. “Of course it’s venomous.” Yua breathed out a sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose, counting to five in the solace of her head.
“Actually,” she informed him, “this is called a man-faced stink bug. It’s completely harmless!” She gave him a winning smile. He scowled. Another new facial expression… she would add it to her growing collection. He scowled harder. Somewhere, a few tables away, another plate met a gruesome end. The waitress who had been cleaning up the first mess burst into tears.
Yua flipped to another page and again showed him the illustration. He examined it closely, and for once Yua dared to hope- “Venomous or not?” It was a ladybug, it was a ladybug, kindergartners knew this-
“Look at the red of its back,” Kusuo said in a knowledgeable tone. “The color of blood is not to be trusted. And the dots- symbolic of yet another connection to Satan?” but his eyes were teasing, and a faint(very faint) smirk tugged at the edges of his lips. Yua snorted. Kusuo’s humor was roughly dry as the Sahara, and she suspected he had a steady internal inner monologue that kept up a ready amount of sarcastic quips that never made it out of his mouth. He gave her a strange look, eyebrows twitching inwards and mouth puckering slightly. Confusion, maybe? Surprise? Whatever. He seemed more comfortable, at least.
“Okay, are you ready to talk about spiders then?” She began digging into her backpack with exaggerated excitement. He shook his head frantically, glasses almost falling off, and Yua let loose a genuine bark of laughter.
And the cafe felt a bit warmer now, didn’t it?
-=-
Kusuo was fully aware that Yua swore like a sailor. Quietly of course, and softly, in the supposed privacy of her mind. It was amusing and little else- he quite frankly saw no value in cursing but if Yua did, that was her prerogative. He could admit it was pretty entertaining watching her trying not to cuss him out when he pretended to slip up in their study sessions.
But she had never sworn out loud before- her thoughts told him it was only proper to avoid such language in public. Which was dumb, but everyone had opinions. Hers was just wrong. And Yua kept cursing, and Kusuo kept pretending he couldn’t hear. And then Nendo happened. It was always Nendo, wasn’t it? The teen had brought them together and instigated every meeting. And now he was stirring the pot for the tenth time. By actively provoking the local psychic when his guard dog was near.
This was reason two Kusuo found himself enjoying Yua’s presence- she could tolerate a lot. He at his most foul and snappy, his parents at their most sappy and disgusting. But there was one button that could always be pressed, and that was the swell of outrage that took her when someone invaded privacy.
It was beautiful. Because she had heard Nendo before she had seen him, bumbling around the corner directly towards their little alcove, and she had stood. Huffing and puffing and snarling, menacing as any senior, she had stood before him as Kusuo was allowed to peacefully eat his rice.
And then Nendo had rounded the corner and waved hello but was cut off rather sharply. “No,” Yua said ominously. “No,” she repeated. “Kusuo-san is eating, and he didn’t sleep well last night. Save it for after school.”
Nendo went around her and the girl bristled like a cat. The psychic watched with entertainment as a foreboding aura began to take shape over her head, prioritizing paying attention to his more violently inclined friend over his oldest one, who was happily talking at him about ramen. He kind of wished he had popcorn.
“Get out!” she roared, finally taking action with a perfectly executed turning kick that despite the large height difference managed to hit Nendo directly in the solar plexus. He blinked at her and scratched the back of his head, and Yua looked like she was about to fall apart with anger. “Out!” she shrieked again, landing glancing blows against a back incapable of feeling the hits. Kusuo-kun is out of it today, you hairy bastard! Bother him after school! Hmph. I guess I have no choice- let’s see what he thinks of this...
Kusuo gave a mental wander to peek over a mental shoulder and almost started preemptively clapping. But that would ruin the effect, so instead, he relaxed against the wall and focused. It would not do well to miss this. Yua took several long, huffing breaths, winding up for the pitch, and punched Nendo one last time. Finally pushed past the borders of idiocy, he turned to acknowledge her and was met with a snarl.
“You snail-skulled little rabbit. Would that a hawk pick you up, drive its beak into your brain, and upon finding it rancid set you loose to fly briefly before spattering the ocean rocks with the frothy pink shame of your ignoble blood? May you choke on the queasy, convulsing nausea of your own trite, foolish beliefs. You are weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable. You are grimy, squalid, nasty, and profane-” Kusuo took a quick peek into Nendo’s head. Static, as expected.
None of this was getting through to him, which was a shame considering the creativity and solid use of memorization of the long string of insults required. Which also, in the process, made all of this huffing and puffing on his behalf useless. Good grief. It wouldn’t do good things to her esteem if she realized Nendo just wasn’t processing anything, and that would make their study sessions inadequate. So, yeah, maybe he abused his powers a bit. A twist of a metaphysical knob there, a bounce of an immaterial lever over here…
“Okay,” Nendo said agreeably. And then he left. Yua gave a mental victory screech, and he had a very sudden, very vivid image of a vengeful valkyrie in his head. And then she turned to him and it was mostly just worry. It… felt good, he wouldn’t deny it.
“Are you okay, Kusuo-san? We can skip today's study session if you need to sleep that badly. You look exhausted.” He shook his head.
“I’ll be fine Yua-san. But thank you for leaping to my defense,” Kusuo communicates dryly. She scowls. See if I do it again if this is how you respond.
“I have some cookies in my bento if you want them,” she offers. Hmm. A peace treaty. Kusuo can do that. He stares at her and tries to communicate a positive confirmation through sheer effort, but apparently, it doesn’t work too well.
“Stop staring at me. Do you want the fucking sweets or not?” Shit! Shit! Should not have said that, oh if my mom was here she would kill me, and then my dad would hide the body. I always knew my foul mouth would lose me a friend, but I didn’t expect it to be this soon…
Good grief, he wished she would stop moping about it. It was depressing. So instead he said, “Of course I do.”
-=-
Oh, dear. Yua stared down at the table in horror. Not even the weather outside, breezy and cold enough for the cafe door to be propped open, could shake her mood. Because this was the end of a friendship. She and Kusuo had run out of things to study.
It started with an exchange of physics and entomology. And then just working on math homework together. And then proofreading essays. And slowly but surely, over the school year, they had run out of things to do. Their study sessions had made a heroic temporary return for finals week, which consisted mostly of Yua stress-eating and trying to convince Kusuo to study, and Kusuo pretending to listen.
But now, well. It was the last Wednesday of the school year, and Yua had no clue if this would continue into the following semesters. She wanted it to. That was for sure. But surely, that wasn’t something you just casually bought up? So she continued to gloomily eat her caramel flan as Kusuo rifled through the latest Jump magazine under the table. He seemed to be relaxed at least, Yua bitterly reflected. The guy was probably glad the year was over and done with. If he had just studied even the tiniest margin, he probably would have aced the tests instead of squeezing into the exact middle-class ranking. But no, sweets and watching her flip out about it were ten times more interesting. Bastard.
As if he had heard her thoughts, Kusuo took a rather obnoxious bite of his cake and squinted at her through the green of his sunglasses. Yua pulled down her eyelid and he rolled his eyes before going back to his magazine. Dammit… we hadn’t talked at all so far. If I can just…
”So, what are your plans for summer Kusuo-san?” He grunts at her and shoves another forkful of cake in his mouth.
“Sleep, stay at home, and relax. I’ve had enough adventure this year to last several lifetimes. You?”
She sighs and pokes at the last bit of her flan. “Nothing much, it’s not like I’m going anywhere. Might go to the beach a couple of times, but aside from that, it looks like we’re in this together. Do you want to keep meeting up over break here? Just to hang out?” She holds her breath. Mentally, of course. Please say yes. Kusuo bobs his head affirmatively.
“Sure. We’ve finished pretty early today.” That sounds like an invitation if Yua had ever heard one. But maybe it wasn’t. To avoid coming into internal conflict, Yua takes a sufficiently large bite of flan to avoid talking. Silence stretches. Between them, such a thing is comfortable- this time, it is… distinctly not.
She finishes chewing and puts her fork down. Let’s start slow, right? “So do you want to go somewhere else? We’re pretty much done with the cake if you want to swing by the convenience store or something. The new Jump manga should have arrived today if you’ve finished reading that one already.”
He waves her off and shows her the cover. “Just rereading. This is the February issue. I was planning to get the new one later today anyways, might as well do it now.” Yua runs some quick numbers through her head.
“We’ll probably still have some free time after that if you need to go grocery shopping or anything. My schedule’s completely free today, so I’m down for whatever.” Kusuo can only muster a noncommittal shrug before he closes his magazine and places it back into his school bag. “Ready to go, I’m assuming?” her voice is dry but humorous, and the lingering awkwardness fades away like a stale breeze. Business as usual, she supposed.
He grunts at her again. Someone’s expressive today. She piles their dirty dishes before they leave, and Kusuo seems to wait impatiently at the doorway the whole while. “Just wanted to make it easier on the waitress,” Yua defends, arching a challenging brow as the door swings shut behind them. “That eager to buy more snacks at the store, huh?”
-=-
It was early morning when he ended up sending the text. No, early morning. He meant it. At 3 AM his body had decided it was going to do something ridiculous and in an hour his back pain was worse than ever. His parents liked to joke about how it was something that came with having the world on his shoulders, and Kusuo was starting to think they were right. About ten minutes after he had sent the text his phone started blowing up, which frankly just pissed him off because even if he wasn’t in bed Yua definitely should be.
But he answered. Eventually. Apparently, "won’t be able to make it tomorrow. Sorry." isn’t a sufficient warning. Was this a girl thing, or just another social policy he had somehow missed over his 17 years of life?
Despite previous showcasing of worry, Yua refused to respond to his clarification that he has "crippling back pain. Seriously, can’t." until 8 AM. At which point she texted him one word:
"Address?"
His response was immediate. "No."
She fired back without mercy. "I can always call your mom, Kusuo-san. I have her number, you know. And before you know it, I’ll know where you live with or without your consent. Gimme. I’m bringing goodies."
He can’t help falling for the bait. He recognizes its bait and dismisses it as such, but without his permission fingers seem to type out his hopes for him. "Coffee jelly?"
There is victory in the pixels she replies with. "Coffee jelly and the strawberry tart you like from the bakery."
Kusuo hates being bribed. He really does hate being bribed. He hates Yua specifically. He knows she is playing hooky to bring him desserts and keep him company. That is upsetting. He doesn't want her to do this. He wants his friend to go to school and take her classes and have fun without him. And then he thinks about having to stay home all day listening to his parents think about each other, completely unable to move. He thinks about all of that without coffee jelly. He thinks about all of that without Yua. He texts her the address.
She doesn’t reply, but his phone seems to emanate smugness anyways.
He hears her mind first, water over rocks that lead into an ocean. Thoughts of him, anxieties, and a review of what she knows about back pain and how to fix it. She greets his parents cheerfully, they’ve met before, and she practically bolts up to his room. He can feel her worry vibrating in his molars and feels slightly guilty about making her wait for a text back earlier. Slightly.
And then she shows up and she does have the coffee jelly, and she does have the cake, and to his mild surprise, she is more than strong enough to bodily haul him under the kotatsu with her so they can watch TV in comfortable silence. And later they get bored and she tries to fix his stiff shoulders and back by jumping on them, and even though it doesn’t really help, her maniacal cackling is doing wonders all its own. She leaves him with takeout for dinner and the remote within arm’s reach, and a notable absence in the Saiki household that Kusuo is having more trouble shaking than he thought he would.
-=-
Kusuo felt a bit queasy. That was a new one. But then again, the experience of introducing one friend to another is also a new one. Other people made friends and those people became his friends. He was not the connection. Ever. But now he was. Kusuo wasn’t sure how much he liked it.
Yua had her reservations about it as well. Verbally, she was going along with it- sounded excited in all the right places, remembered all the right names. On the inside was the kind of different story that made Kusuo question his comfort levels as a psychic. They are going to hate me, she thinks with a horrified certainty. And Kusuo-kun is going to prioritize them, and I’m going to leave, and he’s never going to talk to me again, and Teruhashi will rip me in two. No, she won’t she’ll make her fan club do it and it will be ten times worse. Why did I agree to this?
Kusuo doesn’t think she expects an answer, but if she did the best he could give her was a helpless shrug. This was not his idea. He had wanted to keep these two sides of his life far away from each other as possible for… obvious reasons. Images of a Yua turned delinquent danced in his head like nightmares. And he can’t exactly tell her that as a psychic he will most certainly be helping things along and poking his rowdier friends into politeness, so he just reaches down and gives her hand an awkward squeeze. That was what people did, right? He pats it for good measure. Yua stares at him like he’s an alien. What the fuck? He makes to drop the hand, careful not to drag her arm with his, but she moves her hand up to his wrist and tightens it to a vice-like grip. It doesn’t hurt. He says it anyways. “Ow.”
She pinches him and says stop being an idiot with her mind. It’s childish enough that he snorts. Yua pinches harder and then twists, and Kusuo lets out a decidedly unmanly yelp as he twitches. It’s all play, he firmly tells himself in his mind.
Of course, it’s play. In the same way a mother lion will pretend to be scared by her cubs and encourage confidence and hunting skills, he is… encouraging violence?
He stares blankly down at Yua’s black head of hair. Yeah, he’s encouraging violence. He should probably stop that. But that voice is tiny compared to the one that is reveling in the contact, in the touching, in the casual physicality of this new development, so he pinches her back. Lightly, of course. He doesn’t want to skin her. Fuck off, Kusuo-kun, she thinks cheerfully, and that’s the only warning he gets.
She punches him hard on the bicep and yowch, that one hurt somehow. It’s kind of insulting. He could end the world in three days, and this tiny slip of a girl, ordinary in every conceivable way, had just punched him and it had hurt. Huh. He fakes a sniffle and Yua cackles in his face like the witch she is. Her thoughts tell him that it serves him fucking right.
But she isn’t anxious anymore, and Kusuo thinks he can call that a success.
-=-
Yua was meeting Nendo first. Of course she was. That made perfect sense. All of the previous thoughts are sarcasm. Kusuo must be thinking similar thoughts, the asshole, because she can see his lips quirk up at the corners. She wants to kick him. She really wants to kick him.
And it’s amazing how comfortable she is now, comfortable enough to do that. She remembered when they first met she had gotten all wound up about honorifics and upsetting him, but now she was confident enough to curse him out like she would anyone in the privacy of her mind. School was dedicated to the Yua who bows to her teachers, and gets straight As in all of her classes. School is for the Yua who is polite and never swears and always does her best. But the second she leaves those gates… Yua swears like a sailor kicks like a mule, and laughs like a dog. That’s the real her.
And now it’s the Yua that Kusuo knows best. It’s nice. She doesn’t know how he can always tell when she’s getting spectacularly sappy, but honestly, she just appreciates the gesture when Kusuo dramatically stoops (she’s not that short, damnit) down to hold her hand, and gives it a tight squeeze. Even though he doesn’t need to be, he’s bent almost double. Okay, fine, he’s 10 centimeters taller. That’s not too big of a difference. It’s certainly not enough for Kusuo to be pulling shit like this.
She pulls her foot back for a front kick. Sensing danger, her friend hastily disentangles himself and puts some healthy distance between them. Fucking asshole. He gives her a wry salute, and the affront melts away like frost in the sun’s light.
The worst thing, by far the worst thing, about Kusuo, is that you can’t stay mad at him. It’s impossible. He’s impossible. Fuck him. He giggles at her again(yes, it’s a giggle. Not a snicker, not a cackle, it’s a giggle, stop saying it isn’t). And now he’s pouting. Psychotic bastard.
She ignores him in favor of turning her thoughts back towards Nendo. The first of many friends she will meet this week, and probably the most predictable. And great, now Kusuo’s laughing again. One day Yua will figure it out. One fucking day. He laughs harder. It’s annoying, and she tries to think about Nendo-san again.
He’s a pretty simple guy, right? Yua knows his heart is always in the right place, and that’s something she can respect. And he likes ramen? She scours her brain for more but comes up empty. That’s it. That’s all she knows about her friend’s friend. That’s kind of depressing.
As if summoned by negative emotions, he appears. No, he doesn’t walk up or run out of a store, he’s just not there one second, and the next he is. Like a demon. She has vivid flashbacks to the bug study sessions, which in truth is a bit more terrifying than the actual guy himself, who greets them with a simple “Yo.” Between one person and the next, suddenly he was there, barely 3 feet away.
Could she be faulted for the strangled whimper that exits her body? It scares the absolute shit out of her, but there’s nothing much to do about it. The first thing she notices is that this man is fucking tall. And built like a brick shithouse. Had he been held back? Yua had seen him from across campus and in the boys’ gym class, of course she had.
It was how she had recognized him- a magnificent buttchin and truly the most awful haircut she had ever seen. But she had never seen him up close. First consensus: mild terror. The second consensus: okay, his smile seems pretty genuine. She could grow to like this guy- he has a childish innocence about him. Kusuo chooses his friends well. And then he opens his mouth.
“Hey, pal! Who’s the chick? Your girlfriend?” he pokes at her like an animal, and it takes literally all of her willpower not to take his inquisitive finger off with her fucking teeth. She’s going to kill him. She is going to rip out his eyeballs and choke them down his trachea so he can watch her flay him alive-
Looking a bit apprehensive, Kusuo gives her a gentle head pat and she almost kills him too. Graciously, she decides not to. Graciously, she decides to calm down. She answers the question that wasn’t directed at her with the politeness of a rabid raccoon. “Nendo-san, we are study partners. My name is Takahashi Yua, pleased to meet you.” She sticks out her hand with the expectation of it being shaken, and her smile is about as friendly as the curve of a guillotine blade.
Nendo seems entirely oblivious to her menacing aura- Kusuo is distinctively not. He takes her up on the handshake. Which, well, Yua had the understanding was a bad idea. She knew she had a strong grip, she knew it hurt, and oh boy did she want it to hurt. But that smile stayed stuck. She squeezed harder. Not even a twitch in facial expression. “Sorry, Neko-chan! I didn’t know. Do you want to get ramen sometime?”
The words seem to echo in her head.
Neko-chan.
Neko-chan.
What. A. Fucking. Cocksucker- The world went dark just as she was winding up a prize left hook.
Yua dropped neatly into Kusuo’s arms, sound asleep. Honestly. Nendo blinked drowsily. No reaction at all. Of course not. “Is Neko-chan okay?” He scratches the back of his neck.
“Good grief, I think so. She’s just tired.” the sentence is dry enough to rob an ocean of moisture, but Nendo doesn’t seem to notice, giving an understanding nod.
“My uncle is narcissistic too pal! I’m reading your vibe.” The man offers a smile and Kusuo very politely does not slap him or the currently snoring girl he’s still carrying for some goddamn reason. That had gone… better than expected, quite honestly. He gave a quick goodbye and a promise of ramen and teleports Yua back to his house. Good grief indeed.
-=-
Kusuo has not been this proud of Yua for quite a while. But watching her listen to Kaido’s ramblings with a polite face as she has those thoughts… it’s truly spectacular. Tch… eighth-grade syndrome at its finest. He’s a sweet kid, but when will he stop talking?
Kaido took a breath and Kusuo could feel Yua’s relief from two tables away, where he was quietly minding his own business and eating cake. His older friend was saying something about weather manipulation and the dark brotherhood, but hmm, the symphony of sweet and sour in the cake competing with the crunch of fresh strawberries, the snap of perfectly tempered chocolate singing joyously with the creamy frosting and perfectly spongy cake…
Yua glanced back at her friend in a moment of need and knew immediately she was on her own. There wasn’t much that could distract her pink-haired companion, but the cake was definitely one of them. How aggravating. She felt bad for interrupting the blonde when he was on a roll, but… vengeance had priority. Sorry chuunibyou boy. “Ah, Dark Wings-san. Would you like some cake?”
She wasn’t sure what he was more excited about- the promise of cake or the use of his fictional name. He nodded eagerly, and without preamble, Yua sauntered over to Kusuo’s table and stole the cake right off his plate. Even as the pink-haired boy started to come out of a pastry-induced trance, she placed it in front of the other teenager and gave him a big, bold thumbs up. He trusted her, which was probably the first mistake. The second was attempting to eat the cake. Considering the local sweet fanatic, it had not been the most intelligent of choices.
Yua had felt bad about it, so she had taken Kaido out for cake on his own as an apology, but Kusuo threw such an absolute hissy fit about it that at some point she had just started shoving sweets at Kaido whenever she saw him in a fit of petty revenge against her friend.
Kaido was just happy to have cake and had zero problems with being in between.
-=-
Kusuo felt bad. He wasn’t a person who felt bad often, but looking quietly at his sleeping friend, he felt like shit.
Yua would have once upon a time looked like every other Japanese person. Straight dark hair, tan skin, slanted black eyes. And now, because of him and his mistakes as a child- forgetting to account for those more than a mile into the sky when he used his mind control powers was idiocy and nothing but- she would never be as she could have been. What used to be the majority was now the minority, and something about that itched him the wrong way.
And surely it couldn’t hurt, to see what Yua might have looked like if she was not born in the sky. It was a single tap. That was all he needed to do, and suddenly Kusuo was staring at a stranger. Dark green curly hair, porcelain skin, full lips, and a subtle youthful glow about her.
Kusuo tried to imagine this person laughing as Yua did, head thrown back and mouth wide open, teeth glinting in the sun. He couldn’t.
Kusko pictured this person studying like Yua might, pencil between her teeth, leg bouncing irritably. No matter how he focused, the image never came.
Curiosity, that was all it was. But Kusuo could not stop the queasiness as he sent a stranger back to the grave that she never had a chance to enter, and Yua burst out of a coffin.
He would have problems touching her for a while. She didn’t say anything. She thought about it, she thought about it an awful lot, but she didn’t know that he knew that and for her understanding he was grateful.
-=-
Aren and Yua are best friends, Kusuo reflects gloomily. In retrospect, it should have been obvious. They both have an unhealthy love of violence, they’re both blunt smartasses with a foul mouth. It’s a wonder he didn’t have a premonition about it, honestly. Even as he sulks thinks about the situation in a mature manure befitting a psychic, they’re chatting animatedly to one another about motorcycles or something. Ugh. He could see it now, the slow but steady transformation of his only ally in sanity into a punk delinquent with a leather jacket and black lipstick. That would be unfortunate. She would pull it off because of course she would, but still. That would be unfortunate. Kusuo wasn’t pouting about sharing his friend. He wasn’t.
And then, as if she had heard him, Yua called out loudly. “Oi, Kusuo-san! Stop moping and get over here!”
“Wasn’t moping,” Kusuo corrects sulkily. But he gets over here anyways, and so what, maybe his heart is a bit lighter when he sees Yua’s smile brighten at his approach. And okay, maybe he notices her excitement about meeting another metalhead (yet another thing he never would have expected from her on their first meeting, but by now is just a fact of life) and sees that okay, Aren’s thrilled to find someone who can teach him new cuss words. Yeah, whatever, maybe he feels happy seeing the two of them get along.
Because right now all Aren’s thinking about is how to commit the Chinese curse words she taught him to memory, and Yua is hastily writing down the bands the former yakuza punk recommended. And she’s ecstatic about the tattoo parlor he’s informed her of, of course. He can see the address slipping away into her brain, burying itself forever. And even with the excitement of a new person, the relief of a first impression gone well, as he walks over Kusuo sees the happiness that bubbles up at his approach, how her mind instantly starts chattering about how to relay this wonderful new information to him.
Aren is much the same- as he turns to the psychic his mind is racing, doing doughnuts in the parking lot. He wants to thank Kusuo and probably crush his hand in a shake, impress upon him the amount of meaning this show of trust has. It’s… nice, seeing his people get along.
It’s still not appreciated when Aren starts throwing around invitations to his old motorcycle gang though. Kusuo has to draw the line somewhere.
-=-
It was cold. No, it was beyond fucking cold. Yua sneezed five times in rapid succession and huddled further into her enormous parka. That was a new record- she had only ever had a streak of three before. The homeroom class looked as miserable as she felt. Hairo was doing his Very Best to provide warmth to his classmates (perhaps unintentionally, considering his carefree expression) through the sheer kinetic energy generated by his squats. The teacher was nowhere to be seen, which was understandable. Maybe I should just play hooky, she considered.
Yua entertained the thought. Going home and huddling under the kotatsu, watching old Sailor Moon reruns in an empty house, it sounded like a perfect afternoon... but no. She couldn’t abandon Kusuo-kun to this fate. That would make her a horrible friend. She restructured her plans around his inevitable class attendance. Pull him aside after the teacher takes roll, muscle him out of the school and into her house and then they could watch TV together and drink coffee or eat sweets in an empty house- and more importantly, they could cuddle. Well, Kusuo didn’t call it cuddling, but Yua honestly didn’t know what else you could. Sharing body heat in an intimate manner?
Nah, that just sounded like a euphemism for sex. Her nose crinkled at the thought. Kusuo was aesthetically pleasing. She liked cuddling with him(she didn’t care what he called it frankly, as long as it kept happening). She valued her relationship with him more than she did in other relationships. He was important to her. But no kissing. Or sex. Thanks.
Yua gripped broodingly at her empty coffee canteen. It was cold now, but the placebo of holding something that used to be hot was soothing. Hairo-san was beginning to look a bit tired. Understandably, the students surrounding him were beginning to look a bit panicked. Several cliques had formed huddles like penguins in a blizzard, low to the ground, jackets pulled up over their heads and arms tucked into their sleeves. They looked ridiculous.
As if hearing her disdain, god decided to direct a decidedly bitter wind her way that bit straight through the parka. Okay, yeah, they looked comfy. Of course, it was at the point that she was finally considering giving in and just dying where she sat, quietly drafting a mental will, that Kusuo and his friends walked in. He looked completely fine and was only wearing two layers. That was not fair. That was absolutely not fair.
Kaido and Nendo had already taken it upon themselves to make a beeline for the walking heater that was their class representative. She, meanwhile, made a beeline for her friend. Yua had already taken it upon herself to spread as much misery as possible to Kusuo, who was looking far too comfortable right now. He bobbed his head at her, practically an enthusiastic shout and wave. She spread her arms threateningly and motioned at him. “Hug,” she intoned. “Now. I’m cold.” He made to run, a slow sarcastic half-pivot. As he had probably expected, Yua pounced immediately.
She wrapped around her friend like a limpet, careful to avoid the antenna or knocking off his glasses. It was astoundingly similar to launching herself at a wall, but by fuck he was warm. Hmm. A heater then? Or just a warm wall? She hit his arm in a fit of jealousy.
“Why are you so warm? Share you greedy bastard.” Yua wormed vengeful icy fingers up his jacket and shirt and clung to his back in an approximation of a self-sufficient koala. Kusuo hissed at her like a cat, but that was to be expected. She hit him again. Sometimes violence was the only language people would understand. He made a half-hearted attempt to shake her off, but his soul wasn’t in it. She took that as permission to bury her head in his neck- wow, he smells fucking delectable- and just, kind of, stays there for a while.
Kusuo huffed and puffed and groaned like a grumpy old man but he just maneuvered his hands under her thighs in an evolved piggyback before migrating them to the far corner of the classroom, collapsing with an exaggerated groan. Coincidentally leaning the entirety of his not inconsiderable weight against the smaller girl now pinned to the wall, of course. “Get off me. You eat too many sweets.” she smacked him for a third time, but it was fairly light and her tone was joking.
“Don’t want to,” he grunted at her. There was a smug undertone to his naturally echoing voice. “I’m comfy. Hey, unzip your parka so we can share.” Kusuo knew it wasn’t necessary- he could probably warm the entire classroom with his pyrokinesis if he wanted to. But as his friend unzipped her extremely large parka, his suspicions were confirmed. It was only big enough to share if they cuddled shared body heat in an intimate manner. Excellent, his plan was coming together.
The two rearranged themselves, and Kusuo could smell coffee and old books and some sort of flowery laundry freshener. It was nice. And even though the heat his own body was emitting, he could still feel the incomparable warmth of another person. It was nice. And he guessed that maybe Yua wiggling around so she could lean against his shoulder and puff tiny little breaths against his chest… that was nice too.
Yua wiggled out her left arm from behind his back and curled it around his arm, a band of ice. “I kind of just wanted to play hooky, you know. There’s a bunch of Sailor Moon reruns going on right now, and I have an electric kotatsu.” she sounds reproachful but relaxed, and her voice thrums nicely in his chest. “But this works too,” she said with quiet, offended dignity. “You bastard.”
-=-
Somehow she had never expected her first visit to France to happen via Kusuo Express. But there was a cockroach, and he panicked, and, well, now they were sitting on top of Notre Dame. Yua was pretty sure this was illegal.
“I’m a psychic.”
“Ah. How many rules of science does your very existence negate?”
“A lot.”
“Can you fly?”
“I can do anything.”
“Yeah dumbass, but can you fly?”
“...”
“Take me flying, Kusuo-kun.”
“Yua-chan....”
“Don’t Yua-chan me, let’s go to Nepal, you mind-reading bastard.”
“I thought you wanted to go flying?”
“Kusuo-kun, I want to do everything.” And she had smiled at him, and it had been guillotine blade and sunshine and her mind was a hurricane and a storm and a quiet river, and there had been something beautiful, for a moment, in the way her hair spun the moonlight and black eyes that he had never touched.
“But I think the cockroach is gone, Kusuo. Can you take us, uh, back to your kitchen now?” And he had been embarrassed for once, and it had been the juxtaposition of power and empathy, the ability to destroy and misunderstand in equal values, and the wind had whipped his hair into pink ghosts and there had been something beautiful, for a moment, about a crooked smile and fond, exasperated eyes and hands that could destroy the world in three days.
And then they broke the laws of time and space together and left the steeple of Notre Dame for the quiet of suburban Japan. And they laughed, and they laughed, and they laughed because the only alternative was tears and no one felt like crying. And then Yua killed the cockroach and everything was simple again.
-=-
Ah. It was raining. Yua would be happy. He was early for their study session today- it gave him time to cram in a few extra coffee jellies before she arrived. Of course, they were in Japan, so the rain was hot and humid rather than refreshing in any way, but in the cool, air-conditioned cafe you could almost pretend it was relaxing. Excluding the spectacularly unhappy thoughts of passersby. But then again, he was the only one that had that problem. Yua would adore it, he was sure. Which was troublesome in its own way- that he was sure. They had a strong friendship now, cemented by many afternoons whittled away in the cafe and numerous accepted sleepover invitations. It was childish, but they got along well. Why not? Well, reason number one why not slid into the booth across from him, dripping wet and apologetic smile.
“Sorry I’m late, Kusuo-kun. I know it sounds stupid, but I forgot my umbrella.”
She raised a finger as if expecting protest. Kusuo watched her tiredly. She looked like she should be miserable. Positively soaked to the bone- no raincoat, no wellies… he tutted despite himself, shoving some pyrokinesis her way. But even before he had started drying her off as best he could, she was absolutely over the moon about something. He poked at her mind like a grade schooler might at a dead animal, and quiet, cheerful thoughts doused his foul mood immediately. It’s raining, it’s raining, it’s raining, and I get to hang out with Kusuo-kun! Oh, I read the most wonderful article yesterday- hmm, the grey light makes him aesthetically pleasing. Oh, and there’s the candy- Candy? Kusuo perked up immediately.
“But!” she interjects, grin growing wider. “My Canadian cousin came to visit and look! Goodies!” from out of her miraculous backpack, the never-ending portal to heaven, she hauled three plastic bags and practically tossed them onto the table. Quietly, Kusuo kept one of the bags rolling off the table entirely with his powers. It would be a tragedy for a sweet’s life to be over so soon.
From the first bag came maple syrup. Not the oily stuff, Grade A honest to god sap from a maple tree. Three containers, each almost a gallon in size. Followed by several other assorted maple goodies. Maple sugar, which Kusuo could already dream about on top of coffee jelly. Maple taffy, born to be consumed with soda water on a hot summer day. “Blarg,” he announced expressively.
And that wasn’t even the end of it- Malteasers, Winegums, Big Turk bars, Cadbury Caramels- There were at least five of each, and with every delicious artifact placed before him Kusuou could feel worship of his sole sane friend grow. And then it stopped. He almost didn’t notice her exaggerated pause, but then he looked up. At first to thank her- but she was wiggling her eyebrows at him. There was still a bag left on the table. There was a big box inside. He really, really wanted to use his x-ray vision. It was so tempting. But he kept his eyes firmly stuck on her right hand as she gestured dramatically, tapping out a clumsy drumroll with her feet. And then, the plastic was whipped away, and his friend sat there grinning like a satisfied cat.
Ah. A 64-count bulk box of coffee crisp bars. The fluorescent lights from the restaurant across from them exploded in a spectacular, completely ordinary fashion. Kusuo tried to find words but apparently, they had all fled in the string of drool escaping his mouth. He wiped it away hastily. Not fair. Absolutely not fair. Positively criminal. He would kill her for this. It would be easy. All he would have to do was snap his fingers, Kusuo reminded himself as he ripped open the box. He had total control over the situation. He owed her nothing. A piece of cardboard that had once made up the opening flap decided to break the sound barrier and make a quick exit through five inches of hardwood. On its own, of course.
He could hear Yua cackling in the background, the witch. The wrapper was floating somewhere in the stratosphere, and he was pretty sure the lid of the box had evaporated what with the strength he had torn it off, but he would be taking a very long time to eat this strange Coffee Crisp. Every bite was an emissary from heaven wearing a toga patterned with red maple leaves, the milk chocolate outing melting away to meet the subtle bitter crunch of the coffee-flavored wafer underneath, the rich silt of the Nile to the azure waters that ran above it. And there were still 63 in the box.
It was around this point that Kusuo realized that if he wasn’t asexual and aromantic, he could have quite possibly found it within himself to play tonsil hockey with the completely ordinary girl across from him.
It was around this point that Yua realized if she wasn’t asexual and aromantic, she could have quite possibly found it within herself to play tonsil hockey with the absolutely extraordinary boy across from her.
But whatever, both of them thought. Yua was chewing contentedly on a Big Turk bar, and a blissed-out Kusuo was on his third Coffee Crisp. This is better anyways. In the silence, the rain continued to fall.