Chapter Text
Tendou Satori wasn’t fond of normal people. They irked him down to his core. They were utterly, painfully boring. And Tendou always thought it was a challenge to be nice to them. A challenge he very easily failed. Every. Goddamn. Time.
“Oi, Tendou!” Semi kicked him awake.
They were at a local bar, supposedly drinking until they dropped but his two friends - no, Tendou didn't really consider them friends. Acquaintances was a more fitting term - wouldn’t let him drop apparently.
“You can’t fall asleep here, we don’t know where you live,” said the grey-haired man. Tendou always wondered why Semi chose to dye his hair that way. What miserable event could have given him the idea that it would be cool to have the same hair color he would have 50 years from now? Tendou didn’t understand. But that made Semi interesting, or at least interesting enough for Tendou to hang out with after work.
“What’s this I heard about you making another student cry?” It was someone else’s turn to speak. Tendou had to squint his eyes to recognize the man opposite to him. Ah, right. Shirabu. Another person who was only interesting because of his hair.
“Huh? It’s exactly as you heard duh,” Tendou answered, trying his best to not slur his words. The booze was running the course of his entire body, but it didn’t stop him from wondering who the hell cut Shirabu’s hair and what evil energy drove him through making sure the bangs would look symmetrically asymmetrical.
“Stop being mean to the kids,” the guy said. Tendou almost rolled his eyes.
“They’re not kids!” he retorted, “They’re adults with so much free time in their hands that they actually have the luxury to enroll in an art class and attend it every freaking week!” He rubbed the sides of his head. Talking that much made him want to puke. He silently wondered if the two people in front of him would mind if he did the technicolor yawn.
“You’re just jealous because my class has more enrollees than yours,” said Semi, hitting the nail on the head. But of course, Tendou wasn’t one who acknowledged childish remarks - or so he liked to think.
The three of them were teachers in a vocational school that offered arts, cooking, and other unnecessary stuff people liked to indulge in and call it learning. Tendou handled the baking class, Semi the art class, and Shirabu was a med-student who part-timed as the- Tendou stared intently at his drink, trying to remember who the guy was. Ah, that’s right, he handled the class that freakishly smart people attended. Gross.
In the few years that they’ve been colleagues, the other two have been used to Tendou showing up in their respective classes, totally uninvited - and unwanted at that point - to act as the second teacher. That was how much free time he had because apparently, people thought it was useless to pay for a baking class if it could be learned at home. Tendou had always wondered what kind of wretched monster planted that thought inside people’s heads.
“Stop taking your anger out on our students,” said Shirabu - who, ironically, was the youngest of them. What a smartass.
“But I'm not,” Tendou was just pissed at that point. "It's called constructive criticism Mr. Smarty Pants," he said.
“But nothing you say is 'constructive' at all.” These two just proved to be more and more uninteresting with each passing day, Tendou thought.
“But they’re trying so hard," reasoned the redhead, "And when you see talent-less people try so hard, don’t you just want to break their little hearts?"
Both guys' faces scrunched up, suddenly uncomfortable. Maybe even disgusted? Tendou mused.
“Well there it is,” muttered Semi.
“You know everyone calls you a monster behind your back, right?”
“Bah, as if I care,” Tendou chugged down Shirabu's drink which had been sitting idle since they got there.
The man snatched it back before he could finish the whole glass. “Care at least a little!" He shouted, "most of the dropouts this year were because of you, you know. You’re making people give up on their passion!”
Tendou stared them down. “If they were really passionate about it, would they give up that easily?"
Utter silence.
Tendou smirked, "Passion is just a term you normal people associate with the things you like, just to give yourself a sense of superiority because you think you like something a little more than everyone else,” he said. “There's no such thing. It's all in your head."
“You,” Semi said through gritted teeth, “You keep referring to us as 'normal people' as if you're not! You're the only one giving yourself a sense of superiority!”
Before Tendou could answer, the door banged open, and a tall, well-built man stomped in. He had what looked like the softest ball of hair that swayed with his every move. Tendou thought he looked good, but only because he was fuming. He bet that man looked annoying on his good days.
“Tendou Satori!” The stranger suddenly screamed. Tendou failed to process that he was the one being called and wouldn’t have realized it if the stranger didn’t dramatically point an accusing finger at him.
“Huh?” was all that left Tendou’s mouth. It was all he really had time for before the stranger grabbed him by the collar and dragged him out of the bar. Semi and Shirabu were too stunned to move.
Everything swirled before Tendou’s eyes. He couldn’t make out anything except that it was dark, and that he was ready to throw up.
Cold cold cement suddenly met his back and jolted him awake. It took a while before the guy in front of him came into focus. He was still clutching on to Tendou’s shirt.
“How dare you!” the stranger demanded, “How dare you do that to Iwa-chan!” he repeatedly shoved Tendou to the wall. It was cold and sharp, and it was starting to hurt. But Tendou wasn’t even sober enough to come up with anything. He had no idea who that man was, nor who this Iwachan was, and absolutely can't wrap his mind around the thought that a mother actually named her poor child Iwachan.
Unfortunately, the stranger took Tendou’s silence as a sign to keep harassing him. “He tried harder than anyone! He just wanted to draw to his heart’s content, and you tell him he “sucks ass?!” How dare you!”
Sucks ass. For some reason, Tendou felt like that phrase had just also left his mouth that very same day. But when was it, and to whom?
“Painting is Iwa-chan’s passion! And you just casually walked up to him this morning and told him he shouldn’t even bother trying because he sucks ass anyway!”
Ah, well that answered the question.
“You ruined his dream! Now he wouldn’t even lift a pen!”
Tendou urged himself to say something. Anything. He racked his brain. He just had to say something that would calm the man down and maybe talk some sense into him once he'd stopped forcing Tendou to become one with the wall.
The memory of that guy Iwachan’s drawing popped up in his head.
“Well, it really did suck ass,” he said.
Tendou Satori was honest to a fault only when lying mattered most.
A punch landed square on his face, forcing him to his knees.
“Then he gave me a long-ass speech about passion and dreams, and how I wasn’t human because I lacked them and how he was going to make me pay by making me look like my true self,” Tendou said, talking as fast as he could, believing the man in front of him got every word anyway.
He was now standing in the middle of a luxurious room, wearing nothing but an oversized sports jacket which he woke up to find wrapped around him.
He was telling the entire story to the man seated on an unnecessarily spacious couch. The man who somehow managed to find him in a cardboard box outside his house, and didn't even call the police which Tendou thought was a little -just a very little- worrying. Tendou would have thanked whatever god looked after him that he managed to end up in an expensive suite if only the person who lived in it wasn’t someone as boring as Ushijima Wakatoshi.
The man didn’t even crack a smile the entire time Tendou was talking, no matter how amusing Tendou thought his story-telling skills were. Not. One. Reaction. His eyes merely raked through Tendou’s body over and over. And it made Tendou itch. He wanted to do everything to induce any sort of reaction from the man.
The staring was understandable though. Seeing as how a pair of horns had grown out of Tendou's head and for some reason his skin has become even paler than before, anyone would have stared. But normal people would have stared with a certain reaction - either amazement or fear if he would guess. But Ushijima stared blankly. It was hard to read him and Tendou was at the end of his wits trying to figure out what the man was thinking.
Endless blank stares aside, nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary with Ushijima. He had normal hair, extravagantly normal bachelor’s pad, and a build that was for sure nowhere near the average but was still pretty normal for someone who played sports professionally. Ushijima Wakatoshi was probably the most normal person Tendou had laid eyes on - and it frustrated him that he had to ask for the man’s help.
“So,” Tendou started again, “That witch also told me that when I wake up, no one I know would remember me, even if I remember them,” he said, “So If I went back to my place right now and the landlord goes to check on me and they find someone they don’t know, it would cause all kinds of trouble and-”
“Sure,” it was the first time Ushijima spoke since Tendou woke up. There was something about Ushijima's voice that stunned him. “You can stay here until we solve the curse,” Ushijima said, “Did the witch mention how to break it?”
Straight to business, are we? Tendou thought how fitting it was that someone like Ushijima didn’t beat around the bush and tackled things head-on. He couldn’t help but grin. Maybe he’ll give him a chance to redeem his “normal” impression.
“Well, he did mention he will make me look like my true self and as you can see,” Tendou pointed to his horns, “He clearly meant I was a monster. So maybe I have to be more human or something?”
Ushijima was back to square one - staring. It made Tendou feel like he was speaking a foreign language. He groaned and tried to explain, “Have you seen beauty and the beast? The beast just had to do the opposite of what he did when he got the curse, right?”
The silence that suddenly filled the room was almost suffocating. The two were staring at each other and Tendou was starting to question his intelligence when Ushijima suddenly got up and walked to his room. Tendou stood in place, dumbfounded. Even more so when the athlete came back with folded clothes and a towel.
“Go clean yourself up,” Ushijima said, “I’ll make you something to eat. We can start planning on how to break your curse once you’re well-rested.” There wasn’t even the slightest hint of warmth in his voice, but Tendou couldn’t help but think that it was probably uncharted territory for the guy. And if he poked hard enough, he might be able to break through the robot-like surface.
“Thanks, Wakatoshi-kun!”
The athlete visibly flinched and Tendou grinned to himself. Surely enough, even having someone call him by his first name was new to Ushijima. That was the most reaction Tendou got from him, and he was more than satisfied.
Ushijima Wakatoshi wasn’t fond of normal people. He believed that people were like crops, and he was decidedly only interested in crops that were rare, and well cultivated.
Tendou Satori was probably the rarest crop there was. He had the meanest mouth -or at least to Ushijima’s standards having grown up in a strict household and all- but the most distinctive pair of lips. His hair was blood red against his pale white skin, which made him look enchanted. He had an animated way of speaking. His body swayed in every way as if he was always dancing to his own words. He always looked cheerful but his eyes never smiled. He looked at Ushijima like he had already passed judgment on him. And as if that wasn’t enough, he even found himself cursed by what was supposed to be a witch. There was no way Tendou Satori was an average guy. And Ushijima was more than willing to burden himself with the man’s problem if it meant he could witness his eccentricity longer.
Tendou was hexed. And so was he.
“Satori,” the name escaped Ushijima’s lips before he realized it.
Tendou almost dropped his spoon and Ushijima felt a tugging satisfaction inside him - like he had just won an argument he didn't know was there. “Can I ask you something?”
The redhead made a face and started swaying his spoon in front of Ushijima's face, “Just ask away. Do you know how nervous people get if you ask them that question?”
“You woke up with horns growing out of your head, buck naked in a stranger’s house, with the knowledge that people who know you won’t remember you anymore. But you don’t seem all that bothered about it,” said Ushijima matter of factly, “Are you really okay?”
Tendou chewed on his cheek, pondering. Ushijima’s eyes never left him, not letting a single movement go unnoticed.
“Well, this kind of thing has already happened in a lot of anime that I’ve watched you know,” answered Tendou.
Ushijima was caught off guard, that was far from what he expected to hear, “Anime?”
Tendou’s eyes lit up, “Yes!”
Somewhere between finishing his food and what probably was the hundredth time Tendou said the word “shounen,” Ushijima had tuned out. The other guy’s mouth was still moving vehemently. Whoever said Tendou Satori wasn’t passionate about anything had clearly never been in the situation Ushijima found himself in.