Chapter Text
In summertime, the air smells like mint.
It’s been hot for weeks, a simmering, susurrus slumber for sleepy Sunday afternoons. It makes the world drowsy and malleable like the oceans of light which bounce over the pavement at three pm. It is quiet. In the garden, tucked nearer to the door so that visitors may get a whiff as well, are the mint plants with their evergreenly ruffled skirts and salient demeanors which demand nothing less than utmost admiration. They are modest and vain, cold and sweet, the distant cousin to hickory bourbon, on their mother’s side.
When the sun is out and the air is still then sunlight will bake the mint leaves, little green bakery rolls who puff out blissfully, reaching outwards. You smell sunlight as a new perfume when the mint is strong. She is clean and gentle, coating the back of your tongue with jubilee sweetness. Even the dirt over the welcome mat is freshened with a new green memory.
Shouto places the leaves around his room as soon as the herb is ripe and potent every summer. One leaf in his vase, one beside his dresser, one under his bed, and then another kept near the door to his bedroom. It’s a smell which brings him good memories and one which he wants to keep making memories with, so he keeps it close.
Fuyumi doesn’t like it all that much. She says that the oil will stain her hands and make her smell like the plant for days. Shouto doesn’t see that as a problem but it’s a bother to others besides him. So Shouto takes the mint in his bag while Fuyumi keeps sprigs of rosemary and bay leaf in hers. A simple trade of responsibility and consequence. He waits for her to cut off the last sprig of rosemary they plan on taking home, all the while she complains under her breath about having to sharpen her knife once they get back. The blade has gone dull. Shouto would offer his own, but he’s learned that sometimes Fuyumi does things her own way to prove to herself that she can do them, even if there are some easier options. The knife works well, just not great, and therefore she will continue to cut things with it. She dislikes waste.
“There we go!” She sighs happily, tucking the sprig in the carrier strapped to her back. She looks like she’s an archer with little rosemary arrows bundled in her quiver, the same quiver Natsuo used for actual arrows before she decided it would be very useful as a backpack instead. Natsuo was never very good at archery anyways.
“Mom will absolutely love these.” She smiles at him. “Do we want to get anything more?”
Shouto stares over the herb garden, passing over plants and checking in the back of his mind if they have enough of each. Marjoram and cardamom and dill and lemon balm. Their bags would begin to get heavier if they took anything more back and Shouto didn’t want to struggle so much on their hike back home. Not when the sun was so hot outside of the grass shade. He shakes his head at his sister and she agrees.
“Mom wants to make tomato skin sandwiches for lunch tomorrow. Can you and Natsuo get pepper from the kitchen while you’re there?”
Shouto hums as confirmation and watches his sister lead the way through the dill forest, their trunks thicker than Shouto’s arm. He and Natsuo are going on a borrowing tonight. They ran out of sugar two days ago as well as bath soap just yesterday. He’s looking forward to the soap. Most of the time they can get everything from the downstairs and have no need to venture to the house’s second floor, but the untouched upstairs bathroom means there’s less of a chance the being of the house will come in. They can take little chips off the soap bar without anyone even knowing they were ever there.
His family had gotten lucky to have found a large house with only one being residing in it. A borrowing family attempting to live in a home with more beings only multiplies the chance of being caught and killed. They are more fortunate now than they had been before. They’ve learned from their mistakes.
They cling to the wall of the house, out of sight of the sunlight and birds overhead. The herb garden is placed at the front of the house beside the flower patch which the being tends to almost daily. To borrowers like Shouto and his family all beings are giants, but this one is exceptionally large. But he is quiet and doesn’t have people over often, so he is tolerable. Today is a Monday. The being does not garden on Mondays but works in his craft shop on the bottom floor, so Fuyumi and Shouto were able to go to the garden and get their herbs. They have his schedule memorized down to hour and minute. He is a consistent being, they are grateful for this.
One of the mint leaves strapped to his back brushes up against his neck, tapping at the underside of his hairclip and tugging at his hair as a result. He keeps marching while readjusting the bundle he’s carrying and then clipping his hair back again. Fuyumi had gotten it for him as a birthday present maybe three years ago. She found it in the pantry, a little red clip made for keeping herb stems together while you chop them, all forgotten behind a can of tomatoes. At that time Shouto’s hair was just beginning to reach his shoulders and constantly pushing it behind his ears was becoming tiresome. Now that his hair is much longer, the clip is a necessity. Fuyumi is a godsend who knows just what he needs.
They’re at the edge of the garden. Splintered wood of the soil box scrapes up against the outside of the house in a perfect collection of foot holds for both of them to use when they travel down. The vent to the basement isn’t far from here, and from there it’s only a few minutes to home. Their mother will be happy at the good time they’ve made for their garden run; she doesn’t like them to be out very long.
“Alright.” Fuyumi tightens the quiver across her chest. “Let’s not drop out bags this time around cause I don’t want to make a second trip today.”
She sends him a look to which Shouto replies with a stuck-out tongue. The last time they were out here together, he suggested them just throwing their bags to the ground and climbing down afterwards to lighten the load. To them, garden herbs can grow to be fairly heavy, to the brittle breeze that morning, they weighed nothing more than dust and were blown away in such a manner. Fuyumi had not been happy that their work that morning had doubled.
Just as Fuyumi sits to begin climbing down the garden box, the noise of shifting gravel crawls out over the yard.
Shouto twists in the direction of the sound.
Through the clustered aspens which line the driveway he can see a car pull up, stopping just in front of the garage roof and killing its thunderous engine. Shouto hates cars. They’re too loud to be of any use and he doesn’t understand why beings don’t just walk everywhere. It really can’t be that hard to do so. It is not a car which has come by the house before – he'd recognize it if it was since he keeps track on the comings and goings of beings onto the premises – and the realization of that makes his stomach fall. Too many beings means too many chances of getting caught.
Shouto hears Fuyumi stand up to watch with him. He doesn’t tear his eyes away from the driveway across the garden, but in the corner of his vision he can see her arms wrapped around her middle. She brushes her shoulder up against his.
The car doors swing open and from its insides step a young boy and a woman, their faces made dusty and obscure by sunlight so far away but Shouto can see that they are smiling. They look alike, a mother and son, they move in a similar manner as they approach the front door of the house. When the door slams open Shouto can feel the vibrations through his feet overtop the garden box and outsteps the being whose home they’ve shared for the past decade.
“Inko! Izuku, my boy! What a pleasure to have you both here.”
As far as beings go, the one who lives in this house is by no means the worst. He gardens, and listens to quiet music, and works in his craft room at the opposite end of the house which isn’t a bother to Shouto and his family. But if other people come over, volume control is merely a concept to him.
The woman walks up to him with arms outstretched, pulling him down into a tight embrace and rocking him back and forth a couple times. Their height difference is startling to look at.
“Toshi, it’s so good to see you again! Sorry we couldn’t have visited earlier but, life has a way of keeping you busy, you know.”
She lets him go, patting his face once with her pudgy hand before turning back to her son. The way she moves is soft, as if she’s passing through water with every motion; there are no jagged edges to how she presents herself. The son steps forward, his white shirt collar askew enough that Shouto can see it from so far away. The taller being lays a hand on his shoulder.
“I know perfectly, my dear,” he says. “And young Izuku, you have grown since I saw you last! Do you have your luggage in the trunk? I can take it inside-”
He moves towards the car but the boy stops him.
“No, I can get it, it’s alright!” He waves his arms out in front of him to stop the man. He has none of his mother’s fluidity as he stoops into a slight bow. “Thank you for letting me stay here. I promise I’ll be a good house guest.”
A house guest? Shouto thinks. That means these people aren’t simply visiting, or at least the boy isn’t. They’ll have a new person to keep track of which is a very labor-intensive process composed of memorizing schedules and habits to know how exactly to avoid an encounter. His mother and brother will not be happy to hear about this. Damn it, he’s not happy to hear about this. A whole other being is a load of extra work every single day, but if that being is a child? The young are erratic and prone to falling out of habit which means they’re more dangerous and harder to avoid. They’ll all have to be extra careful from now on.
“You are no guest, my boy, you are family!” The man’s voice grows even louder and Shouto flinches at the sound. He reaches for the front door, pressing it open as a welcome to the other two. “I have some tea boiling now. Inko, before you head back to the city why don’t we all sit down for a bit and-”
A shrill hiss fills the air and Shouto can feel the hair on the back of his neck stand up. His eyes scan the garden for the source of the noise, a familiar swish of tall grass or a patch of orange, things they’ve learned to keep their eyes out for. He grabs Fuyumi’s arm in preparation to run if they have to, but a bright blot of orange catches his eye and he stops. The vicious house cat known for stalking their movements in attempts to either eat or simply maul them is kept secure in the arms of the boy. Shouto isn’t sure if he’s ever seen the mangy animal held before.
“Katchan! Did you miss me? You’ve gotten even fluffier since I last saw you.”
The cat hisses again but doesn’t bother to break free of the boy’s hold tucked close to his chest, like an infant bundled in orange swaddling. A very hairy, very angry infant.
“It’s a good thing you’re staying here, Izuku.” The older man rubs at the back of his neck. “Now maybe that mangy cat will have someone else’s pant leg to tear at.”
“Katchan doesn’t mean it, he just gets restless.” He bounces the cat around in his arms a bit, scratching behind his ears and earning a low growl in return. Shouto watches the whole exchange, wondering how exactly this being managed to get on the good side of what he’d consider a demon in a cat’s body, but his musing shatters when the animal’s ears flicker and its eyes turn towards him and Fuyumi. It claws itself out of the boy’s arms like a bat out of Hell.
“See, like that.” The boy says. “He’ll go bother a mouse for now.”
“Shit,” Shouto hisses and yanks his sister to the edge of the garden box and dropping down the height rather than waste time with a rope. His ankles sting when he hits the ground but he doesn’t have time to worry about that as the sound of rustling grass grows closer and closer. Fuyumi lands beside him and is immediately on her feet, snatching his sleeve and sprinting.
“Go, go, go!”
They scamper through dense patches of grass and clovers, the plants catching on their clothing, green and sticky. When they reach the concrete bordering of the house, muscle memory kicks in where Shouto immediately drops down and laces his fingers together for Fuyumi to use as a foot hold as she hauls herself upward then turning to reach down for him. They’re fast now after so many years of practice. A rolling thunder of hurried steps comes to a crescendo behind them as they pass through the rusted metal bars of a ventilation grate. The cat follows right after, its arm sliding through the bars and slashing at the air with bloodthirsty haphazard, but it’s too big to fit in all the way. It meows and hisses and struggles for a bit before relenting, slinking back into the garden to bother some other unfortunate creature.
Shouto sighs in relief while Fuyumi sticks her tongue out at where the animal disappeared. “That damn cat,” she mutters. “One of these days I’m going to- the rosemary!”
Shouto looks over to find his sister frowning at her nearly empty quiver slung over her shoulder. A single sprig of rosemary rests lonely in its hold. Fuyumi groans. Shouto pats her back as she mourns the loss of their harvest and begins guiding her towards the inside of the crawlspace, towards home.
“Next time,” he says.
Fuyumi tucks the sprig back into her quiver, holding it close to her chest. “Next time.”
________________
Shouto watches as his mother drops the knife in her hand right into the bowl of rosemary she has been dicing.
“A child?” She asks. “Are the parents with it as well? How many more people are staying in the house?”
“Only one,” Fuyumi replies, her voice light in an attempt to quell their mother’s worries. “It’s an older being, not far behind adulthood, so no small children to worry about snooping around.”
His mother’s shoulders drop down in relief and she picks out the knife from the herbs she had been working on prepping. She hates to hear about any extra people visiting the house, which luckily for them, the being who lives here doesn’t often keep company. But still, this news isn’t good by any means. Rei goes about slicing the rosemary leaves again, twice down the length of it and then chopping the strands finely enough to be used in everyday cooking or to be dried for later when winter comes. Herb bread is a staple food in their household once it gets too cold for anything in the garden to grow. Her hands are wiry but strong and Shouto loves to watch her work in the kitchen or when she’s sewing; she makes things which keeps them all healthy and comfortable and the amount of work she does every single day makes him admire her assiduity.
Footsteps down the hallway catches his attention as Natsuo steps into the room, a sealed thimble full of water carried in his arms. There’s a small leakage from one of the water pipes which acts as a perfect well for them whenever they need cool, fresh water. Natsuo heaves the thimble up onto the counter beside their mother.
“Well, kid or no kid,” he sighs, “we still have work to do. Shouto, you still comin’ with me tonight?”
Shouto nods his head. “Like always.”
“Wait, wait, hold on for just a moment.” Rei stops her chopping to set her hands on her hips, staring at both her sons with a worried look in her eyes. “Are you sure you still want to go borrowing tonight? This new being in the house may throw off the normal schedule and I don’t want you boys throwing yourselves into any more danger than what’s already there.”
“Mom, it’s alright.” Natsuo smiles, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Shouto and I wouldn’t go out unless we were confident we can keep ourselves safe, you know that. Plus, we’re just hitting the kitchen and upstairs bathroom, easy and simple.”
Her mouth is a thin line as she glances between Natsuo and Shouto, hesitation to let them go thick and holding her down with a damp anxiety. Then with a sign, she relaxes and offers them one of her faint smiles which they all know to mean that she really doesn’t enjoy the current situation, but that there’s nothing else which can be done. Living the life of a borrower is often like this. You have to play with the cards you’ve been dealt and most of the time the cards involve risking your life in various ways just to survive. But tonight’s borrowing should be fine, it has to be, otherwise their whole way of living collapses. How else are they supposed to live in a world which is constantly trying to kill them?
“Well before you leave, the both of you are eating dinner. The upstairs bathroom is a long way and you boys need your energy.”
“As if we would ever say no to your cooking, mom.” Natsuo bumps her shoulder jokingly and Rei shoves him back. The brooding atmosphere in the room vanishes and is replaced by their usual warmth and comfort. With the promise of a hot meal soon to come as well as a long climb up to the second floor, Shouto leaves to his room to get ready for the evening ahead.
Walking to his room he steps purposefully on the crooked floor board about two paces in front of his door, just to hear it creak in the muffled tune it never fails to sing. It’s a habit now that he does this. It accomplishes nothing except for some weird checked box in the back of his mind that demands he steps on this creaky board every time he goes to and from his room. But it still counts as an accomplishment.
Shutting his door behind him, Shouto takes three careful steps before falling backwards onto his bed with a bounce against his quilt. The patchwork is gentle and checkered blue-white, sewn with care from his mother years ago. Most of the things in his room were either made by her or simply found somewhere around the house which he’s repurposed – actually, most things in their home were made by her. There’s a long set of curtains out in the living room which were once a satin ribbon tied around a boquet of flowers for a holiday some years ago and when the flowers wilted and were thrown out, the ribbon went with them and was eventually found besides the trash can in the garage. Rei spent a whole day sewing and fitting the ribbon to hang perfectly in front of the vacation card they use as “windows” in the living room. White frames for the Fukuoka coast with brightly crested waves and blond shores.
Sometimes she switches out the card for another with multi-colored felids of flowers printed over the card stock. There’s a windmill in that one, placed right under a large script in a language Shouto doesn’t know. And in the white sky behind it lies dollops of color he takes to be balloons of sorts. Very large balloons, ones he doesn’t see the purpose of. It looks like a beautiful place to be, though, which is why she’ll put it up.
He closes his eyes for a moment, placing his palms over them for the satisfying pressure of it all. He thinks of the little meadow right outside the yard of the house, stitched up with poppies and daffodils, and he imagines what it may be like for a kaleidoscopic scene like that to be a dozen times its size, the size of the fields in the vacation card. Not that he would ever be able to see a place like that with his own eyes, which is why it’s nice to imagine all the places he could go, all the things which exist outside of his own world. It’s a grounding exercise, he tells himself, but really he just likes daydreaming.
Shouto breathes in deeply and on the exhale raises himself from his bed to change into different clothing for the borrowing tonight. His shirt smells like mint from earlier as he takes it off. The scent is fresh, lovely and spruce blue. He presses the fabric against his nose for a minute before casting it aside to pull a dark long sleeve over his head, red and inviting. It could get cold in the wall space they have to climb up through to get places within the house.
He clips his hair back again away from his face, gathering up the loose strands of his hair from the nape of his neck to his crown until they’re all bundled together. It’s down to his shoulder blades now after years of failing to trim it back. Some days he wakes up with it hot against the back of his neck and imagines cutting it short like how he wore it as a child, but those thoughts don’t last very long. They’re unfruitful musings.
He bypasses his mirror in lieu to pluck his climbing shoes from by his door and heads back into the hallway to enjoy the company of his family before leaving with Natsuo that evening. With the life that they all live, he never knows what day may be the last that he’ll get to see them all.
_____________
“Sugar and soap and soap and sugar, sugar and soap and soap and-”
“I swear, if I knew you’d be singing this entire time then I would have had Fuyumi go with you instead.”
Shouto nudges Natsuo’s shoulder to shake him from the tune stuck to the roof if his mouth for a few minutes now. Natsuo gets bored a lot on their climbs up through the house and will make up songs of the things they’re set out to borrow that night. Tonight it’s sugar and soap; sugar from the kitchen and soap from the unused bedroom upstairs. They had to wait quite a while for the beings to finish up in the kitchen and move to other parts of the house. He and Natsuo would be arriving home pretty late tonight, especially since a trip to the second floor would double their usual borrowing time, but soap wasn’t something they could go without for very long and they never risked scraping from the kitchen stock. Little divots in of a bar of pristine soap would be too noticeable.
“Oh, come on, Shou.” Natsuo’s voice echoes in between the wall space they’re hiking down. The sounds of their footsteps and breathing reach upwards to crawl along the wiring and rust-leaking nails, melding together with the thunder of the house’s insides. A house is loud and it never stops settling. They reach a long stretch of nails up ahead, each one sticking out of the wall just enough to act as footholds for climbing. Natsuo steps up first to scale their crooked ladder, he has the lantern after all.
“There’s no use in having a voice if you can’t sing with it,” Natsuo says, looking over his shoulder to grin down at him. “You’re just jealous since your singing sounds like the cat.”
Shouto reaches up to hit at his brother’s legs as they continue climbing. “I do not,” he says. “And when have you ever heard me sing?”
“The shower isn’t sound proof, you know.”
Natsuo laughs as Shouto takes another swing at his calves and quickly pulls himself onto a wooden frame to escape his brother’s fury. It had taken years for them to create the intricate patchwork of ropes and boards and miscellaneous hooks which now acts as their climbing maze throughout the house. There are certain parts of the wall space which naturally helps them to the second floor and so on, like the nails, but then they have to get creative in making their own ways upward. Broken rulers and thick postcards are some of the bridges and ramps they’ve had to lug up this high to continue building all through the house.
Luckily for all of them, Fuyumi is a certified genius at engineering. In a fit of creative determination, she designed a pully system which would work to take up a single person at a time from the ground floor of the first story all the way to the second in a matter of seconds. It's a spring-based system almost like a wound-up doll. A simple rope and toothpick to stand on, kick the lever, the rope goes up, drops you off, and then you lower it down to build up the wound pressure again for the next time. Shouto hates to use it because the sudden rush gives him a headache, but he can’t deny that it’s a hundred times faster than climbing the entire way up.
He and Natsuo will have to use it later after their stop at the kitchen.
The wall space is pitch black even during the daytime. Where the lantern they use was once their sole source of light, a dim patch of silver up ahead tells them that they’ve arrived at their first destination. There’s a crack in the wall right behind the kitchen’s massive china cabinet just large enough for them to shimmy through to the wood trimming around the cabinet. From there it’s only a few steps to the left by carefully shimmying along the trim, paying mind to the drop to the floor below, before reaching a crack in the cabinet’s back. It’s a bit of a squeeze, but that crack leads them to a perfect hiding spot where they can survey the kitchen before going out into the open.
Little hand painted teapots and dishware are displayed over the shelves, gifting them a plethora of places to hide away if need be. The house’s being isn’t prone to snacking after dinner time, but with the arrival of a new one, he and Natsuo will have to be particularly vigilant.
Shouto places his bag through the cabinet’s break first and then follows after. He makes no sound when a few strands of his hair catch on the coarse wood. They cannot afford sound. They must be quieter than mice. After they both pass through, it’s a heedful walk to one of the teapots on the corner – white with blue painted figures and far-away places – where they can scope out the kitchen.
The clock overhead the sink reads out just a few minutes past eleven. They should be safe to go.
Natsuo sets his pack down and looks at Shouto purposefully. He points a finger towards himself, then to Shouto, then curls his hands into loose fists, moving them up and down a couple times like unenthusiastic thumbs-ups.
Who is going, you or me?
Shouto points to himself and begins unpacking the supplies in his bag. He brings out a fishing hook with a long, curled string tied securely to it and pulls on the string a few times to double check that it’s not loose. Finding it acceptable, he peers around the belly of the teapot, cheek nearly pressed to a blue willow branch, and slowly creeps out to the ledge of the cabinet. There is no movement from the living room or halls to shake the cabinet so Shouto thinks that the beings are upstairs at least and occupied for now, but that doesn’t mean they won’t come down within a moment’s notice.
He steps out to the ledge, casting one final look around – especially for that damned cat – and places the fishing hook into a little crevice in the cabinet’s wood. Most of the furniture in this house is old, meaning there are lots of cracks and chips to use to their advantage.
He secures the thread under one of his thighs and then around his shoulder, making sure his grip is tight enough before slowly walking himself down along the cabinet glass. This is always the most stressful part in all of this, the descent or the climb. If anyone were to come in then he would have no choice but to drop down and hope that the most he would get is a sprained ankle or something similar. That would be better than hanging in plain sight and getting caught. At least he knows he can survive a sprained ankle.
After he reaches the floor then it’s just a hasty jog over to the kitchen table and he’s back to climbing again. After years of borrowing in this house they’ve all developed a few tricks to make things much easier for them. A couple years ago, Natsuo spent weeks at the kitchen table, crafting tiny notches behind one of the legs so that they wouldn’t have to use any rope and make the clean up more complicated. The downside: no security rope on the climb up the leg, the upside: Shouto is a fantastic climber by now. He spits into his palms to make them stickier and begins his ascent to the tabletop. If anyone were to see the little divots in the wood then it could be made out as bugs, or age, or poor wood quality or anything else. No one would think then to be footholds.
Shouto’s fingers ache once he reaches the top but he pays them no mind as he rushes out to the sugar pot at the corner of the table, hidden behind a few boxed snack foods and laid overtop a thin base of napkins. He grabs at the lid, wincing at the noise of ceramic scraping against ceramic, and moves it just enough to reach in and pull away a single sugar cube. It’s probably as large as his head but it fits in his bag just fine as long as he tucks a few things aside. With their goal secure, Shouto moves the pot hat back into place and walks to the ends of the table to give his brother a thumbs up. One room down, only one more to go.
______________
It’s warm in the upstairs guest bathroom.
For whatever reason, it seems that all the heat in the house travels up into this particular corner, heating the floorboards and causing the walls to crowd around each other to preserve the humid air. It makes the soap softer to chip away at, so Shouto doesn’t mind much, but Natsuo hates the heat and can’t help but complain every time they come up here.
“You knew we were going here for the soap and you said ‘oh, Shouto , it’ll be fine, I won’t complain, I promise,’ you know, like a liar?”
They’re both scraping off little curls of pale green bar soap in a wall hung cabinet right across from the sink and placing them into Natsuo’s bag so that they won’t taint the sugar. His brother has his jacket stripped of and thrown near their lantern up against the back board, their only source of light in the otherwise pitch-black room.
“But Fuyumi went this morning,” Natsuo huffs. “I didn’t want to make her go out again.”
“Hmm, tough luck.” Shouto flicks a piece of soap at him and earns a crude gesture in return which makes him smile. Despite his brother’s sluggishness in the heat, Shouto is glad that they got to borrow together tonight. His siblings always make him feel better even when he isn’t sure if he feels down or not, and the way they interact with the world – ways which are so different from his – are refreshing to experience. Whether it’s with Fuyumi who is always trying to find smarter ways to do things and improve their lives, or Natsuo, who loves to explore the house’s crevices and try to find something new, something interesting. Despite the danger all of them are perpetually in, they find ways to make him forget how unsafe he feels, even if just for a short time.
Shouto doesn’t see the world how they do. He has too much to lose to try and change his mind.
“Do you feel that?”
Natsuo’s voice has turned stiff. In the diluted lamplight casting over his features, Shouto can watch the rigidness of his body feel out for different, constant vibrations in the building, deciding if there are any to be concerned over. Shouto touches his hand down to the shelf and waits.
From the stairs, growing with intensity, the indisputable feeling of footsteps.
A creak from the door hinge in the next room picks him and Natsuo up from their spots by the soap bar, demanding for them to hurry back into the wall space, where they could be hidden. Natsuo snatches up his bag and the lantern while Shouto scrambles to clean away their soap shavings as best he can. There is movement in the room over. They all figured the beings would stick to the lower floor, this upper guestroom never having been used in the entire time Shouto and his family have lived here. They thought the bathroom, logically, would be undisturbed, but it looks like they were wrong.
The bathroom is lit up by a faded sheet of light crawling out from underneath the door, reaching and bright like fire at the base. Natsuo is already by their escape, the cabinet’s crack hidden from sight by a small stack of hand towels. He frantically waves Shouto over.
“Hurry up, hurry up,” he whispers and Shouto can feel his blood rising because he knows, he just needs to get everything. With the soap shavings pushed off to the side and their knives in his pocket, Shouto stumbles off after his brother, but stops in his tracks half way there.
The sugar.
His bag is slumbering behind the bar of soap, cradling their sugar cube and not minding that it’s been left behind. Just as Shouto is sprinting back to retrieve it is when the bathroom door opens. A barrage of florescent lighting pricks at his eyes as he makes it to his bag, tucking the strap around his chest and curling up in the corner of the shelf, out of sight. He catches Natsuo’s eye at the opposite end of the shelf board. His brows are drawn and there’s enough strain to the muscles in his neck that Shouto can see them all the way from over here. His hands are shaking as he raises them for Natsuo to watch, both index fingers pointed upwards and then moved down to point directly away from him.
Go.
Natsuo doesn’t move and before Shouto can repeat the word with more urgency, their silence is broken.
“Goodnight, Uncle Toshinori! I’ll see you in the morning!”
The bathroom door is pushed open even further, the sound of footsteps on tile flooring hanging itself up inside the room’s humid air like crumbled, patchy lace. He’s humming, the being. The sound of it is loose and thin, but it tells Shouto that he’s thinking about other things, not paying attention to the shelf behind him.
Shouto raises himself to his feet and crawls along the side of the soap box he’s hiding behind. His cheek is nearly pressed against the surface of it as he peers around the corner. All he needs are just a few seconds of distraction for him to make the sprint over to Natsuo and their escape without being noticed. If the being turns the bathroom faucet on then he may not even hear his footsteps if he ran. But he doesn’t. Shouto watches him open the mirror above the sink to the cabinet behind it, housing a hoard of bottles and boxes and soaps and towels all thrown together in some manner of organization on the narrow shelves.
Many of the bottles are orange. Actually, upon further inspection, Shouto would say that most of the bottles are orange. Almost a dozen medicine canisters which he can recognize, possibly some of the other bottles also medicine which he can’t make out at first. The being takes one of these down from its collection, popping off its little white hat and turning it sideways for two little pink drops to clutter into his palm. He sets these on the sink side and does this again with another bottle, and then another, until there’s a pied mound of frozen dewdrops keeping warm together on the cool porcelain. Shouto hates that he finds himself a bit distracted by the display; he should be fully alert to his present circumstances of fleeing with his brother back to the safety of the inner walls, but the drops make him curious.
The being also pulls down a small cup from the cabinet and fills it under the tap for a brief moment, not long enough for Shouto to consider getting up just yet. Setting all the drops snugly into the palm of his hand, the being funnels all of them into the water cup and then tilts his head back to drink it all down. Shouto himself swallows involuntarily. His movements were practiced, fluid, showing signs that this was more of a nightly routine than anything else.
The being then starts busying himself with capping all the bottles and placing them back in their respective spots in the cabinet. Shouto sees his chance. He raises himself up quietly, conscious of the silent room and knowing that if he moved too quickly then he’d draw attention to the sound of his footsteps. He makes quick eye contact with Natsuo as a reassuring gesture before turning all his attention back to the being. Two bottles are back in the cabinet, caps screwed on tightly so that its contents wont’ be able to breathe. Shouto is about halfway to the end of the shelf now. When they first arrived it seemed to only take a moment to get from one side to the other, but now that he is aware of his movements, that he is fearful of them, then the trek is undoubtedly further along.
Six more steps, a third bottle, the lid won’t click on.
Shouto doesn’t blink as he watches, only a single movement from the being before him and he’s bolting, noise be damned. His hands fumble with the white cap as he curses underneath the thinness of his breath. Faint clicks fatten themselves up in the silence of the room and land on every other count of Shouto’s footsteps. He watches him struggle a moment longer, wondering how hard it is to screw a cap into place before realizing the problem isn’t the bottle but the being’s hands.
They’re shaking, Shouto thinks. He actually slows for a moment, not stopping, but putting more focus into the clumsiness of the being’s movements and his growing irritation at the task at hand. With a long sigh, the being hastily places the bottle and separate cap onto the shelf with its sisters and closes the mirror door. Shouto spends only a fraction of a second looking at his own reflection now shining back at him in the mirror glass before his feet move and he’s sprinting to where his brother stands. He hears the slightest intake of breath from the being before having himself ushered through the wall’s crevice by Natsuo who’s rushing right behind him.
They make it a few inches into the wall space before slowing and start to come down from the adrenaline high. Shouto can feel his heartbeat breathing up the back of his neck.
“Holy shit,” Natsuo groans. “That was nerve-wrecking. Ugh, Mom isn’t going to like this when we tell her what happened. But, hey, at least we got the soap, right?”
“Yeah,” Shouto says, glancing down to Natsuo’s bag which contains the spoils of their escape. Shouto straightens himself out to catch his breath but freezes when he finds that the heaviness of his own satchel isn’t leaning against his hip any longer. He immediately fumbles with his bag to find the inside of it empty save for a few lengths of string and a couple emergency bandages. His blood immediately turns lukewarm.
Natsuo seems to notice their slip and drops his shoulders in defeat. “Fuck,” he whispers.
Somewhere out in the guest bathroom, unforgotten, lies a single sugar cube.
__________________
They didn’t tell Fuyumi or their mother.
Natsuo came up with the excuse that they stopped by the bathroom first, encountered the being, and waited for a while before trekking back home, the sugar bowl in the kitchen left untouched. Fuyumi and Rei were by no means pleased at the news that this new being would be a major issue for them, but things would have been received much differently if he and Natsuo explained what they left behind.
So they kept quiet.
And they decided to wait out the storm.
The next day is restless and stiff. When Shouto wakes up in the morning and steps outside his bedroom to make himself breakfast, he finds Fuyumi sweeping the floorboards and her hair tied back with a square of cloth. She smiles at him and wishes him a good morning when she notices his presence but then goes right back to sweeping, digging the edge of the broom into the corner where the wall meets the flooring. Like their mother, Fuyumi stress-cleans. It’s better than being messy when stressed, but it also isn’t a good sign to see when it’s only been one day with a new being in the house. Shouto really hopes that this initial tension will pass soon enough or else his sister may try and venture into his room to destress and nag at him for not folding his clothing properly.
Natsuo had gone out to scout out the house, his mother tells him. It’s a boring task of making sure that all their passages in the walls are working, but it’s something which must be done every so often to reassure that they can move around in a state of emergency. In the event of a disaster which forces them to flee, it would be a shame to be stopped by a damaged escape route. He would be gone for most of the day if Shouto had to guess.
So while his mother continues to sew traveling clothes – being prepared for the worst keeps her hopeful for the best – and his sister deep cleans the house, Shouto makes a goal for himself to get out of the house as much as possible so as to not wither under the anxious pressure this day will keep coughing up.
After a quick breakfast and dress, he decides to mimic Fuyumi and tie his hair back with a blue patterned cloth square. He ties a bow with the corners and sets the knot at the nape of his neck, out of the way and secure. He may spend time checking all sides of the trash pile which they use as disguise for their home. A few bricks and tarps laying around in a house’s underbelly isn’t an uncommon sight, which is why every so often they make sure that there isn’t any indication that something may lie beneath the filth. Discretion is the cost of safety for them. Shouto doesn’t mind spending his day making sure their guise is secure.
Before that, though, he should take care to answer the door when opportunity comes knocking. Today, that knock is the pattering of rain out over the yard.
The tap drip which leads into their well has good enough water, but fresh rain carries none of the risks which house water may have, like rust or other sicknesses. He’ll spend the first part of the day collecting water and then the second half checking on the house’s outside, simple overall but still humid with the promise of work. Shouto tucks a stray hair out of his eyes as he steps down into the well area of the house. There is a broken teacup attached to the wall which acts as the water basin to collect the pipe’s leak and then drips out to the outside of the house with excess water. Shouto grabs two patched thimbles and a stick to carry them with over his shoulders. The thimbles’ holes are plugged with baked clay so that the water won’t pour out. One thimble on either end of the pole makes it much easier for Shouto to carry more buckets at a time. When he brings the thimbles back, he’ll have to cover them with fabric so that the water won’t dirty before they can use it over the next week or so.
He swings the pole over his shoulder and grabs both of the pail handles before venturing back up to the living room. His mother offers him a break in her thin singing to smile as he passes and then Shouto is out the front door and securing the pail handles in their little notches in the wood. He then sets the pole on his shoulder and sets off.
The house’s crawlspace doesn’t exactly have the best landscape views so he instead keeps his attention on the thimble swinging back and forth ahead of him, moving in tune with his gait. Rain song flushes into a rosy pink as he walks nearer to the same drain gate he and Fuyumi had escaped through only the other day. The air is soft here. It is humid enough to be gentle but not suffocating as Shouto takes in a deep breath. He holds the hollowness at the bottom of his lungs until he can’t any longer. His parting sigh takes the shape of baby's-breath and long mornings. He already feels tired enough for a nap despite having woken up just a short while ago.
He walks through the bars of the drain gate and surveys the rain-speckled yard, keeping an eye out for cats or birds who may enjoy spending their time out in the storm. Drops splatter just a bit in front of him but Shouto remains dry under the gate frame for now; if the rain were worse then he’d have a harder time staying dry.
He lifts the pole off his shoulder to lower the thimbles down to the concrete grate. They shake a bit at the force of rain falling into them when Shouto pushes them forward, but then turn docile and wait. Shouto waits with them. It won’t take long for the buckets to fill up and then he’ll have to head home and repeat the process. He watches the rain for a moment, eyes scanning over the tall grasses when the edge of his vision is clouded by something which shouldn’t be here on the gate with him.
Shouto turns and finds, to his utter horror, a sugar cube.
It rests at the other end of the grate, small and unbothered. One of its corners has been taken off, maybe from a fall, maybe it hadn’t even been there in the first place. A sickness rises up in his chest as Shouto begins to walk over to the little cube, the closer he is the more certain that this is the same sugar from last night. His fears are fully confirmed when he notices the strip of paper slipped underneath. Shouto glances over his shoulder and then out to the rest of the garden, making sure that he is fully alone before bending down and lifting up the sugar, the paper below clinging to it for a moment. His hands feel damp and wrong holding it. He should leave it all alone. He should, but he’s more willing to feed his curiosity than his self-preservation. Shouto uses the toe of his boot to move the paper up just a tad, enough to read what’s hidden inside.
You dropped this.
He reads the line once, and then again, and then lowers the paper back down. He places the sugar back on top, exactly how it was before, checking that the edges of it and the paper line up in the same manner he had found it in. Shouto walks back over to his thimbles, lifting the pole onto his shoulder and making his way back down into the crawlspace and back towards home. The buckets are overflowing. He does not remember the walk back.
____________________
A day later, the sugar cube is still there.
As well as a spool of red thread.
Shouto touches neither of them but decides to tell his family his findings anyways. Despite how much he detests worrying his siblings and mother, it would be better for them to remain in the light of the situation. They are lucky that the being is a child; it is easier for children to simply be curious while an adult may spend the day tearing their home apart if they think that there is somehow an infestation of little people within their walls. But Shouto still doesn’t like the attention they’ve brought unto themselves.
Day four, there are three buttons laid out by the sugar and thread. The sugar cube is half gone since the ants have taken it away, grain by grain, to their kingdom in the high grass. They are all gifts, Shouto realizes. The being is attempting to appear amicable, but it’s all in vain. His mother has begun pacing in the kitchen again, something she does only when under utmost stress. Fuyumi has run out of things to clean so she makes messes in the kitchen cooking and cleans those. Natsuo is out on most days; Shouto doesn’t know how he feels in all this. It all comes to a boiling point, their waiting, the evening when Shouto returns home and tells them about the buttons. The being seems adamant on showing them he knows they exist.
“We can still hold out,” Natsuo says, clearing away plates from the dinner they had just finished. “The new one will only be here for a short time right? Two months? The summer? We can hold out.”
Dinner had been tense. There is a poignant lack of their normal chatter while a velvet veil of unease snags on the wicker chair backs. They all make a show of not addressing the matter until the end of their meal, when there was nothing left to be distracted by. Natsuo, the chariot of their family, was the first to speak what is on all their minds.
“Well what if we can’t?” Fuyumi sits up straighter in her seat. “What if it gets just as bad as last time and- and there’s just no way to tell. He already knows that we’re here, so we’ll have to be on lockdown for God knows how long.”
“We’ll wait. It’s what we’re good at.”
Shouto rises to help his brother cleaning in the kitchen. Fuyumi isn’t satiated by his suggestion if going by the sparks over her hands or the disquiet carved into the cliff face of her tired eyes. He hates to see her so shaken.
“Shouto is right,” their mother says, studying the ripples in her tea. “We wait and watch and listen like we always have and keep our heads on our shoulders. Circumstances change all the time and this will too. Maybe sooner than we all think.”
Her words weigh heavy through the remainder of the evening and Shouto finds himself dwelling on their troubles more than what may be deemed healthy. He lies in bed and thinks. Fuyumi’s restless hands and Natsuo’s skittishness, these things cannot continue. To see his family plagued by worry, by patience once more is something he does not have the strength to watch over again. So he thinks.
And tomorrow, he decides to act.
______________________
Shouto’s hands, by now, are dulled after so many years of arduous borrowing missions and general living. Callouses rise up over his fingertips and palms, the edges of his feet. He can no longer feel them and pays them no mind besides blue moon moments of curiosity where he searches out the irregularities on his skin. Although, there’s so much irregular that he can barely call it such. In a more veracious sense, there is smooth, undisturbed skin, and then the rest. Not that he cares much. The mirror in his room is for practicality, not vanity. And callouses have a great deal more use to them than turning your once babied skin to leather.
If Shouto lacked callouses then he is sure that his fingers would be quite swollen by now.
He watches his knuckles become milky-colored as he pulls himself upward onto the first roof tile. There is a staircase of ivy blushing over the house’s yellow paint and roof tiles which reaches from the peak of the building all the way down to the grass at its feet. He has climbed it before. It is a quick way to get to the second floor rooms facing to the west without having to travel through the wall space. The vines are easy enough to climb, and he’s been moving around the house enough after all these years that it takes very little effort for him to make it all the way to the roof.
He pulls himself up onto the roof tile by a leaf larger than he is and steadies himself on it into standing. He catches his breath a moment, looking out over the garden and the forest beyond the yard. There is a small creek which bubbles up at the outline of the yard; just beyond lies a gazebo which lays tired from idleness.
To Shouto, the world exists only as far as he can see past the treetops on the outer edge of the meadow. He knows there is more, much more, but not having an inkling as to what could possibly inhabit a reality beyond his own, he prefers to believe that there isn’t much more out there besides what he himself knows. The alternative, to be aware of a much grander, unsolved world, is too draining. He keeps his perspective simple, otherwise he thinks he’d go mad musing over how much he doesn’t know.
With his eyes dozing over the yard now, he thinks that his world is rather lovely, albeit small.
Shouto turns his attention back to the ivy clad roof behind him. There is a window up ahead, its blue painted frame bright in the late morning sun. That is his destination.
The roof tiles have little patches of rust on them which makes an easier, rougher trail for Shouto to walk up. The ivy leaves act as large umbrellas to keep the sunlight off his back and cool him as he climbs upwards to the window and the room which lays beyond. The screen is old and damaged at the corner, allowing Shouto a clear view into the guest bedroom while still remaining hidden against the ivy.
The being lies in bed, reading. The covers are neat despite him being tucked beneath them and his pillow is propped up against the headboard to support him sitting up. Despite the midday, he is still in a set of pajamas, blue and buttoned up to the collar. He is still enough that if his eyes weren’t open then Shouto would think him to be asleep, but the book in his lap is unyielding in keeping his attention, which is usually good for Shouto to stay hidden, but this time he has a desire to be known.
He looks around the window sill and spots a tiny rock stuck in the frame. Picking it up and weighing it in his hand, Shouto deems it heavy enough to draw some attention towards him. He steps closer to the torn screen, still making sure to remain concealed behind an ivy leaf, and tosses the rock down into the room. It clicks as it hits the floor and rolls a little ways towards the ends of the bed. There is a pregnant moment of silence before he can hear an intake of breath and quiet rustling of bed covers.
“Is that you?”
Shouto’s heart beats against the walls of his chest. The boy’s voice is soft, a stark contrast to the thundering of most beings whose mild speaking hurts his ears at times. He had planned on being direct and abrupt in this confrontation, but now that he is here his shoulders are tense and he is not as sure of himself as he was when deciding to come here. But he can’t go back now, not without saying what he needs to. He steps a bit closer to the screen, unable to see if the boy knows where he is or not.
“I am here to tell you to leave us all alone,” Shouto manages to say. “We do not need your help.”
“So it is you.” The being’s voice is marked gold with disbelief and Shouto can hear the telling signs of covers being thrown aside. He sticks a bit closer to the ivy at that. “And you were the one in the cabinet as well, right? I brought your sugar cube back for you, did you get it?”
Shouto feels annoyance appear beneath his ribs and stain the underside of them yellow. This being shouldn’t have such a casual attitude while Shouto is trying his best to preserve his family’s safety in the face of adversity. “You’re worrying my family,” he presses his voice through tight lips. “If you meddle anymore then we may be forced to leave. I don’t want that.”
There is quiet for a moment before the being speaks again.
“So, you have a family... like siblings and parents? How many of you are there? Is it just you and your family living here?”
“There’s just us. We’ve been here a long time so you being here is bothersome.”
“I didn’t mean to cause you any trouble, I promise. I only meant to-”
“That’s just it,” Shouto interrupts. “You didn’t mean to but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any consequences. You beings are dangerous even if you don’t want to be. It’s the reason why we left our old home. It became unsafe. My father and brother are gone now because of actions like yours.”
He hasn’t felt so enraged in such a long time that the heat of it makes him ill. This isn’t the first time they’ve had trouble with a being before. After the disappearance of his older brother at their last home, they were forced to move to this one, only to have his father become injured on the travels over here and pass away soon after. It's not that Shouto ever really enjoyed his father’s presence, but losing a family member is something inherently damaging in the sense that it’s something familiar being forcibly taken away from you. If they were to try and move again, then he doesn’t know what outcome will await them this time around.
“I’m sorry... to hear that and for the disturbance I’ve caused you,” the being says. “I won’t meddle anymore, sorry.”
Shouto feels himself calm at the remorse found in his voice and decides that he can do no more here, so he may as well leave. “Good,” he says and makes his way to travel back down the ivy and to home.
“Wait! Um, do you have a name?”
Shouto pauses. “Of course I do, what sort of question is that?”
A lavender laugh awakes on the other side of the window screen. “Sorry, that was stupid of me to say. My name is Izuku, what’s yours?”
He considers a moment on what to say. It’s not as if protecting his name would somehow keep himself a secret, he’s already known. There’s no harm to give a name, is there? None that he can find now at least.
“Shouto,” he replies.
“Shouto, Shouto ...” He hears his own name whispered in pale and just barely pass over his ears. Your own name on the voice of a stranger is a sound that he doesn’t think anyone ever grows used to. He finds that he’s not all that angry anymore.
“That’s a lovely name.”
Shouto raises a brow. Lovely? There is another set of rustling bedding which catches on his ears and picks at his attention.
“Could I... see you? Just for a moment, and I'm over here on the bed so I promise I won’t get close to you.” Shouto’s shoulders seize up as he twists his head to the underside of the ivy leaf as if he could see through it and into the room beyond. The most pressing rule of someone of his kind is to not be noticed, to not be known under any circumstances by beings. The results are unpredictable and far too risky to be considered. But... he’s already disobeyed much of that contract already hasn’t he? Still, his instincts prod and poke at his neck and the backs of his hands, danger, leave, keep quiet . If he had any sense then he should turn around, protect himself in the only way he knows how. But he didn’t have any sense in coming here in the first place, did he...
“Don’t be afraid, okay?”
There must be something broken within him because rather than feeling threatened, there’s comfort warming his back when the being speaks. His voice is gentle and airy and, and small... It’s small and familiar even with never meeting it before. Shouto stares a moment at his hands, the cuts and scarring there from so many years working just to live comfortably and without fear. They are still.
He brushes his fingertips over the ivy concealing him as his mind makes itself up and steps around it to pass through the tear in the screen. The room looks different in the day with all colors illuminated from the window’s bashful sunlight. Sitting atop the bed, hands placed behind himself non-threateningly, the being watches him with wide, bright eyes, completely still, as if Shouto is a little bird a sound away from flying. Behind the boy, also over the covers, rests the orange cat he and Fuyumi had nearly gotten eaten by the other day. Even as it sleeps, curled up and unassuming, it looks just as ugly and menacing as ever. But the boy lies between him and the animal, creating an ample distraction to something he would normally have all his attention towards. Shouto turns his eyes below to the wood flooring at the base of the bed, knowing that if he looks up then he may lose his resolve. The room smells like mint.
“Oh.” Shouto tenses at the being’s voice and considers just leaving now before anything else can keep him staying but his next words completely take the air away from his lungs. “You’re beautiful.”
His heart goes silent and he slowly raises his head. The boy sits just as he did before, unmoving, but his eyes are focused on Shouto in such a way that he isn’t quite sure if he could even move under them. He hadn’t ever considered reactions if he were ever seen by a being. How it played out in his mind usually would be that he would be noticed and then panic would ensure, a cacophony of distress and incomprehension, but now that he is being faced with one of his most frequent nightmares, he realizes that he was inexplicably wrong. As this boy looks at him, there is nothing there but awe.
Shouto manages his composure to a more threatening aura before he speaks.
“No one will believe you if you say anything about this,” he warns. “They’ll think you’re insane.”
The boy tenses, waving his hands out in front of himself as a sign of no ill intent.
“I-I wouldn’t tell anyone! I’m not- I wouldn’t do that.” The stiffness in his shoulders relaxes marginally. “My Uncle Toshi would tell me stories about little people living beneath the floor boards, but I always thought he was just saying things to try and get me excited as a kid. He made a house for you, you know!” He jumps off the bed and rushes over to the other side where a large doll house stands tall and pristine on a little table. He opens up the front facing frame of the house, opening it like one would a door to reveal a complete replica of an old, western style home. He shows it off in a such a way that he believes Shouto has never visited every single inch of this entire house before, including the houses within it.
“Well, he makes doll houses anyways but this one is fully functional with an operating kitchen and everything. Is there a reason why none of you ever took any of this?”
“Too dangerous.”
“Oh, I see. You’re afraid it’ll be noticed.” The boy visibly deflates at his response and shuts up the doll house again. He sits back on the bed with a bounce in the springs. “How did you get up here anyways? Do you live nearby?”
Shouto turns slightly to point to the window behind him. “I climbed the ivy,” he says.
The boy’s eyes widen again in awe. “All the way up here! That’s amazing! I can barely go upstairs some days, to climb all that way is just incredible.”
“Are you ill?”
“I am.” Despite his unfortunate answer, the boy is still smiling. “I’m not contagious, I promise,” he jokes, the lightness of his voice not comforting Shouto in the slightest. He thinks back to the pill bottles stacked in the bathroom cabinet from days before, far too many for only a single person. He doesn’t know too much about beings and their little pebble medications, but he can recognize excessiveness when he sees it.
This lull in conversation pricks at the back of Shouto’s neck and he decides it’s time to finish what he started. He looks the boy over once again before turning around to the patchy window screen.
“I am going to leave now,” he announces, making his way out.
“Wait!” Shouto spins around at the sound of the bed sheets moving again and finds the boy standing this time, still a safe distance away from him, but he could move at any moment. Shouto is still, training his eyes on the boy and watching for even the slightest indication that he’ll come closer. The boy must notice this, since a second later he backs up a step, still standing, but acknowledging that there is space between them. He fidgets with the sleeves of his pajamas.
“I want to know more about you, please don’t leave just yet. Maybe... I could see you again, after this? I know that’s a stupid thing to say since you come here to tell me to leave you alone and even talking to me must be a difficult thing to do but...but maybe we could become friends?”
Shouto stares in disbelief at the boy standing across from him. This mission has not gone the way he originally anticipated, but then again, he doesn’t truly know what he had been expecting. The boy is still fidgeting with his sleeves and keeping his eyes trained solely on the interesting threading there. He doesn’t appear threatening in the slightest, which eases Shouto into a sense of false security since he knows exactly how chancy this interaction alone is, how much he is risking just by being here. To consider companionship is just ludicrous. This boy obviously has no idea what sort of position Shouto is in if he believes that proposing this is a plausible course of action, but the fact that Shouto is spending time considering is telling as well.
No, now goodbye, is what he should say. Let’s pray we never see each other again. But he doesn’t say that. He doesn’t say anything. He stands and considers and watches shaky fingers pick at loose threads. He considers, gods what sort of test is this that he finds himself here?
Shouto gnaws at the inside of his cheek, thinking, and after landing upon a response, decides to speak. Or, at least attempts to. Before a single syllable could pass his mouth, a shrieking hiss fills the air and in an instant he finds himself pressed against the corner of the window frame as the mangy house cat – thought to be asleep on the bed – slams into the window screen.
A clamor of hissing and incensed meowing hits Shouto full force, bringing heavy pangs to his ears from the sound overload. He risks a glance up through the cat’s writhing and sees that in the race to murder Shouto, the animal had put its paw through the window screen and is now trying desperately to free itself. It thrashes and screams and still tries to swipe its other paw at Shouto who is stuck in the corner, simply trying not to get hit by the cat’s tail or caught on its claws. There’s so much motion that the world seems to blur and skew itself. He tries to make out where the hole in the screen is so that he can escape out onto the roof, but the tail which keeps threatening to knock him down forces him to be more preoccupied on not injuring himself.
But within that chaos, drenched in heavy breaths and adrenaline, Shouto feels the world stop around him.
Suddenly he’s no longer on the window sill, but held out high above the ground in the palm of a hand while the boy tries his best to pry his cat out of the window screen, the whole experience seemingly horrid for the both of them. He is held out at a safe distance, cupped like a sip of water. The boy’s hand is warm, and clean, a distinct lack of callouses over its entirety. And despite his distraction, he doesn’t hold too tightly onto Shouto, just enough to keep him secure. If anything, Shouto feels more on edge by this than he does the cat.
Amidst the struggling and meowing, Shouto hears motion for the other side of the room and finds the being who owns the house standing in the doorway, eyes wide and shoulders scrunched at the display he had walked in on.
“Oh my god, the cat!”
With steps that shake even Shouto, the being races over to take control of trying to get his cacodemon cat out of the screen. The boy steps away and sits back on the bed, his hands held behind him to keep Shouto protectively out of sight. His mind kicks back into gear and he climbs out of the boy’s palms, racing towards a crease in the bed covers so that he can slide down onto the floor. As he flees, the hissing stops and Shouto can guess that the monster had been freed from its prison.
“Damn cat, running around like a menace to society,” the older being speaks, his voice loud and grating on Shouto’s ears. His feet touch the flooring and he disappears under the cover of the bed.
“I think Katchan saw a bird outside and that’s what excited him. He didn’t mean to get stuck.”
Shouto races underneath the bed to the table on the opposite side where the doll house is kept. There is a moveable socket there which he can pass through to head back home by the wall passages. He keeps his ears tuned to conversation and any signs that the cat was let down again. If going by its insistent meowing, Shouto assumes that it’s being held at the moment.
“Oh, my boy!” Another boom on his hearing. “I didn’t even think to ask after you. How are you feeling? Did this excite you too much?”
“I feel fine. Katchan just surprised me a little.”
“But you are feeling well? Your chest doesn’t hurt at all? Should I get your-?”
“Uncle Toshi, I promise I’m okay. I think I just need to rest a little bit.”
Shouto’s hands hurt as he climbs an electrical cord to the broken socket. The backside of the doll house keeps him hidden, looming over him with a massive shadow. He’s almost there.
“Well alright. Lunch should be ready here soon, would you like to eat or rest?”
“Eat, please. I’ll rest afterward.”
“Alright, my boy. I’ll come to get you when it’s ready. And I’ll take this hazard with me.”
Another hiss, heavy footfalls, and then the creak of a door hinge before Shouto knows that it is only him and the boy in the room again. He eyes the socket for a moment. All he had to do is pry it back and escape, what he should have done in the first place, but like before, something prevents him. He creeps to the edge of the doll house and peeks around the ends of it to the quiet room.
The boy is searching the bed and surrounding floor, pulling up covers and checking below the frame. He sighs aloud in finding nothing, realizing he’s alone. Shouto watches on as he unceremoniously flops back onto the bed and sticks his arm out straight in front of him. He turns his hand over and back, examining both sides before gently resting his palm to cover his eyes. Shouto looks on a moment more at the boy’s stillness, the silence in which he lays, before turning around.
The last sound in that room is the click from the socket cover sliding back into place.