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Shadows dance across the walls as the candlelight flickers, even though the doors and windows are firmly shut and the air is mostly still. The candlelight, and the flashlight Sako’s placed beneath his chin, are the only sources of light in their room.
It’s stupid, in Touya’s opinion — there are perfectly functional lights that they could use, and he knows that their deposit more than covers the cost of the electricity bill.
He doesn’t speak up though. If he’d thought it’d make any difference then he would, but…
“When she looked at the painting out of the corner of her eye again, it looked like it had at the very beginning — there was only a white snowfield, and the figure seemed to be further away now. So why did she feel like she was being watched? Or the better question would be: why was the creeping sensation up her spine more intense than it was before?”
“Get to the point already,” Touya growls. Beside him, Keigo nods and shuffles just a little closer.
Sako doesn’t say anything back, but his lips curl in the smallest of smiles.
“She wanted to escape, but there was nowhere to escape to. She wanted the sensation to stop, but how could she when nobody else could feel it? Unable to hide and unable to trust in anyone else to save her, she summons up the last of her courage and looks directly at the painting… and then,” Sako whispers with no expression on his face, “she saw it.”
“Saw what?”
“Shut the hell up and stop ruining the mood, Touya,” Rumi snaps.
Touya snarls, half-rising to his feet, but Keigo latches onto his arm and tugs on it. “Let’s let the man finish his story, all right?”
“It’s a crap story,” Touya begins saying — until he sees the wan look on Keigo’s face and closes his mouth.
It may be a crap story, and Touya still hates the unnecessarily deep shadows in the room, but he’s all too aware of Keigo’s hand firmly holding his arm. Touya sits back down and takes great care to let their sides touch (while doing absolutely nothing that’d get Shigaraki dry-retching at how ‘soft’ and ‘gay’ he was for Keigo).
There’s a moment when he thinks Sako might point out how close he’s gotten to Keigo, but then the moment passes and Sako leans further into their circle. “The white wasn’t the white of the snowfield at all. The black dot wasn’t a figure returning home for the night.”
Slowly smiling, Sako whispers, “The white was a sclera, and the black — was a still pupil, staring straight at her.”
“Oh shit.”
“And that,” Sako says seconds later, “was the last anyone ever saw or heard of her.”
“Like anyone’s gonna believe that load of crap,” Touya immediately snorts. “If that was her last moment alive, then how the hell would you be telling her story?”
Keigo cackles, a high, wavering noise that chills Touya to the bone. He scowls like nothing’s wrong though, and keeps scowling when Sako shrugs, switches off the flashlight, and gets up to finally switch on the room’s light.
“Believe it if you want… or don’t. After all…” Sako waves a hand airily at the muddy-coloured painting on the wall beside them. “Who knows whether that ghost is looking at one of us now?”
“There won’t be much to look at, unless one of us sleeps naked.”
“Did I want to imagine you naked, Shigaraki? Did I ask for that mental image?!” Kamiji smacks the back of Shigaraki’s head and shudders. “Keep your nasty thoughts to yourself, you damn shrivelled prune.”
Kamiji smirks when Shigaraki whips around with a snarl, rolling her sleeves up with little finesse and assuming a fighting stance. “Well, what’re you gonna do — fight me? Maybe I’ll lock you in a room with a painting, three candles and a mirror when I’m done with you.”
“That sounds great and all, but could we tone down on the bloodthirstiness a little?” Keigo lets go of Touya’s arm to shuffle between Kamiji and Shigaraki, leaving Touya to rub the cooling spot on his arm and maintain his customary scowl. “C’mon, guys — we had our scary stories, so it’s time to hit the hay.”
“Spoken like a true country hick, Hawks.”
“Bite me, Bunny.”
Rumi laughs and tousles Keigo’s hair. “You sure you want me doing the biting?”
Keigo’s face turns so red that it makes the wings on his favourite short-sleeved shirt look pale. Touya narrows his eyes at Rumi after making sure nobody’s eyes are on him — just in time to catch Rumi winking at him.
Or maybe her eyelid happened to twitch when she looked in his direction. If Touya doesn’t have proof that Rumi knows about his crush on Keigo then he can pretend she doesn’t know about it.
Whatever it is, Rumi (thankfully) doesn’t continue pestering Keigo or himself. She turns to Kamiji and drags her to her feet, much to her friend’s protests, and heads out the room with a backward wave. “Sweet dreams, everyone!”
“Yeah, I’ll dream of eyeballs and skulls coming out of mirrors,” Shigaraki mutters. “Won’t that be sweet.”
Keigo laughs again, but it’s not much better than his last one. Touya manages to squeeze his hand while Shigaraki and Sako are distracted with getting to their feet and, though Keigo’s hand is clammy, it’s warm when it squeezes his back.
It’s not until he and Keigo are the only ones left in the room that Touya notices the candles and empty snack packets still scattered across the floor though, but it’s too late (and too dark) to go out and call them back in.
“Sneaky bastards,” Touya curses under his breath. “At least take your rubbish with you.”
It could be worse, he supposes. He could be alone or with someone like Shigaraki, whining about the mess and trying to make Touya clean it all up, but that doesn’t stop Touya from scowling at the nearest glob of drying wax — or glancing at Keigo out of the corner of his eye.
Even if the candlelight is barely adequate to see by, it’s clear that Keigo’s tired. It’s also clear, for all there’s dark circles beneath his eyes and his face is paler than it should be, that Keigo is handsome.
“C’mon, Touya,” Keigo says, almost startling a flinch out of Touya. “Let’s get this cleaned up and go to sleep.”
There’s a not-quite smile on Keigo’s face when Touya looks at him properly. It’s too unsure to look anywhere close to happy or at ease, but it’s not as though Touya’s exactly comfortable with all the horror stories they’d shared that night. He’d laugh at anyone else (particularly Natsuo), but because this is Keigo…
Touya nods, fixes his most relaxed expression onto his face, and cleans up silently beside Keigo. He says nothing about their intertwined hands or the way Keigo brushes their shoulders or arms together, even if it’d be quicker to clean up separately. When Keigo finally lets go and slips beneath his blankets though… Touya slips beneath his own, curls his hand to keep Keigo’s lingering warmth in his palm, and closes his eyes with a smile.
Seconds later, with his hand still loosely in a fist, Touya opens his eyes and shifts to stare up at the ceiling instead. It’s not long after that before his smile’s gone, too.
“Hey, Touya… you awake?”
“This is an automated message to inform you that Touya is asleep.”
Shuffling noises come from across the room — Keigo, hopefully, shifting to look at him. Touya smooths his facial expression and looks over in time to see Keigo saying, “Ha, ha — very funny, asshole.”
Touya snorts and smirks at Keigo, who’s lying on his side and looking at him with too-lucid eyes. “I’m a riot, I know.”
Something too watery to be a chuckle comes from Keigo’s direction. A twitch of the curtain with one foot is enough for Touya to realise two things: that very little time has passed since he first laid in bed, and that Keigo is trembling from head to toe.
Someone else might ask if Keigo was cold or afraid. Touya, being Touya, grunts and says, “If you don’t have anything to say, I’m going back to sleep.”
Natsuo, if he were here, would groan and slam his head against a wall. That Touya’s thinking about his brother in a bid to keep his thoughts away from Keigo and the night’s horror stories is irrelevant — what is relevant is Keigo’s throat-clearing and the rustling coming from his side of the room.
Just as Touya begins seriously contemplating the idea of going back to staring at the ceiling, Keigo clears his throat again and sits up in his bed. “I don’t exactly have anything to say —”
“Then shut up and sleep.”
“— but I wanted to ask,” Keigo says, with a flash of teeth that might be a smirk, “if you wanted to…”
“What, Keigo? Stop hedging and spit it out.”
Keigo, being the little shit he is, dithers for so long that Touya really does turn back to the ceiling. When he hears a sigh and louder rustling though, he turns his head in time to see Keigo stride across the room.
“None of those stories are true, right?” Keigo kneels beside the head of Touya’s bed, unaware (or uncaring) of how still Touya’s gone beneath the blankets. “Sako’s can’t be, and even Kamiji’s one about the pen fairy was just cliched… but I just can’t shake off Rumi’s Bloody Mary one.”
Touya grunts. It’s all he can do, when Keigo’s breath is puffing against his cheek and he can feel Keigo’s body heat.
“I guess it’s a bit stupid — no, make that very stupid — but I don’t think I can sleep until I know at least one of them’s a fake.”
I’m scared, Touya mentally translates that as, and he grunts again — only to see Keigo press his hand against his through the blanket and whisper, “Will you come with me?”
If this were anyone else, Touya would get up and beat them senseless against the headboard. Even now, faced with Keigo’s pleading expression and the stupid crush he has on his friend, Touya almost acts on that impulse.
He doesn’t want to see if Bloody Mary is fact instead of fiction. He really doesn’t want to think about what might happen if Rumi’s story was true, and the mirror did change just as she said.
Because this is Keigo asking and because he can’t back down when Keigo’s trying to be brave, however, Touya grits his teeth and flings his blanket off his body. “We should make Rumi do this. Alone.”
“And have her sacrifice us to the powers-that-be when — if it comes true?” Keigo shakes his head, picks up three unlit candles from the stash left in their room and nudges Touya’s shoulder with his own. “Look, I don’t like this either, but if it means I can sleep afterwards then I’d rather just do it.”
“Nobody in their right mind would like this, Keigo.”
“Does that make you out of your mind for joining me, then?”
Touya grimaces, though the urge to snarl and hit Keigo almost overpowers him, and opens his mouth to continue bickering with Keigo. Anything to take his mind off what he was about to do was good enough, right now.
It’s as they’re leaving their room and Keigo’s practically plastered to his back that Touya hears, “Thanks for coming with me. I — I really appreciate it.”
You’d damn well better, Touya tells himself.
What comes out instead is another grunt and a jerky shrug. If Touya’s face is burning a little — it’s not like Keigo can see it, so he can pretend it’s just not there.
It had been Kamiji’s idea to spend the weekend in the mountains — to bond, supposedly, though they could’ve done that at the arcade or even a karaoke bar. The plan had been to hike and bond around a campfire after, though none of them had boyfriends or girlfriends and Shigaraki bitched like nothing else when faced with the prospect of exercising. Touya, having a gym membership he irregularly used whenever Keigo (and Rumi or Kamiji, on occasion) invited him along, was content to follow along.
After all, Keigo was there. Fuyumi was busy cosying up with her boyfriend over the weekend, Natsuo had too many assignments to even think about tagging along, and Shouto was too young to have much to do with Touya’s friends — so there would be no interference from his nosy siblings.
Which was probably why Touya lucked out and they’d arrived at the cabin under a heavy storm. With hiking and campfires out of the mix, and only a pack of cards to entertain them (Shigaraki, the idiot, had only packed video games without their corresponding chargers), it hadn’t taken long before the cards were discarded in favour of stupid horror stories.
Touya does wonder, in between shutting the bathroom door and helping Keigo with lighting the candles, if it would’ve been better to cancel the trip and head back home early. Even heading down the mountain for some beer and dealing with his overly-loud, drunken friends would’ve been better than this.
He sneaks a glance at Keigo when they step back from the candles, but Keigo’s face is a mask of indifference. Touya, himself, is keeping his face neutral too, if only to keep his true reactions from showing. How embarrassing would it be to scream when he’s trying to impress and protect Keigo?
Which you could’ve done without doing a hacked-up ghost-summoning ritual, but we can’t all be sane or halfway intelligent.
That the voice in his head sounds suspiciously like a disappointed Fuyumi doesn’t help. Neither does the situation at hand though, or the way Keigo’s giving him a look Touya can’t decipher.
“You ready?” Keigo asks, still with that indecipherable look.
“What will you do if I say no, pack all this up and go back to bed?” Touya shakes his head and forces himself to look into the mirror — at the candlelight flickering across their reflections’ faces, and the gloom beyond the candlelight. “Let’s get this over with.”
“…Yeah, might as well.”
They’re alone in the bathroom, apart from each other. They’ve lit the candles in front of the mirror and made sure they, along with the candles, are visible. They checked the time as they’d left their room, and it’d been well past midnight.
Here goes nothing then.
“Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary.”
Nothing immediately happens.
Rumi hadn’t said how long it’d take for the ghost to appear but, as the minutes pass, nothing continues to happen. Touya shifts, glances over at Keigo, and raises a brow. “Should we try again?”
Something flickers in Keigo’s expression — it looks like disappointment, but what does he have to be disappointed about?
“Keigo?”
“…must be an issue with the signal…”
“Keigo.”
Keigo twitches and turns to Touya, smile stiffening for a moment before it slips off his face. “Do you have spare candles? As much as I don’t want to…” Keigo sighs and rubs a hand tiredly over his face. “I think we’re gonna have to try again.”
“You can’t be serious —”
All three candles sputter and die.
“Look,” Keigo says in the pitch darkness, though his voice is so shaky that Touya almost can’t make out his words. “I get that you’re annoyed at being dragged out of bed for this, but did you have to blow ‘em all out in a snit?!”
“What makes you think that was me? The candles went out on their own, Keigo!”
With no light to see by, the echo of Touya’s voice sounds all the shriller in the bathroom. Even he can’t deny that he sounds more than just irritated — he’s terrified, of the dark and the ghost stories he’d heard and the unsteady breathing he’s hearing. He knows he should be taking care of Keigo and putting on a front for him, but it’s Keigo who fumbles for his phone light and switches it on.
Not that it helps much, when Keigo’s hand is shaking visibly.
“Hey, I’m sorry, all right? Let’s look for the light and get out of here.”
Touya opens his mouth, takes one look at the sweat beading on Keigo’s face, and shuts it. He turns to look for the bathroom’s light switch too, which he would’ve done earlier if he hadn’t been scared shitless, but there’s something other than Keigo moving out the corner of his eye.
“Keigo,” Touya hears himself say in a very calm voice. “Stay right where you are.”
“Touya?”
Touya turns, despite the voice of alarm screaming in his head, and looks straight at the mirror. If Keigo’s moving, the mirror isn’t reflecting it. Neither is it reflecting the beautiful blond lady Rumi said it should, telling him who his soul mate will be.
What it is reflecting are tendrils of shadow winding around Touya’s hair and arms, cloaking him in black darker than anything Touya’s ever seen before. Wisps of red crawl out from behind Keigo’s reflection, almost seeming to reach out of the mirror. What should be a perfectly normal bathroom, with two idiots too stupid to stay in their room and sleep, is so far beyond normal that Touya’s back is soaked with sweat.
He could deal with a human ghost letting Keigo know about Touya’s big, fat crush on him. He could even deal with Shigaraki leaping out from behind the bathroom door — after he’d pummelled the asshole into the ground.
Supernatural smoke in mirrors though?
“Touya,” Keigo says in a very quiet voice (that does nothing for its shakiness). “I think we’d better run, man.”
Touya reaches back and manages to find Keigo’s hand, just as sweaty as his own. If this wasn’t a life-or-death situation, he’d realise that this is their first time holding hands, but how can he care when they’re in a life-or-death situation?
“On the count of three,” Touya whispers back in an equally shaky voice. “One, two…”
“Three!”
They throw themselves back, crashing through the bathroom door after too-long seconds of panicked fumbling. Keigo’s the first one out but Touya’s close on his heels, slamming the door shut behind him and dragging Keigo down the corridor when he doesn’t move fast enough.
Can they outrun the shadows? Touya doesn’t know.
Is he going to try? Damn right he will — like he’s going to die here, of all places.
Touya doesn’t stop to look back and neither does Keigo (he thinks — but then, why would anyone want to look back?). The seconds seem to stretch into minutes as they run, each breath harsh and pulled desperately from too-cold air, but his lungs burn when he finally sees their bedroom door.
They tumble into the room in a mess of limbs and rough gasps. When Touya struggles out of Keigo’s grasp and closes the door, the wan cast of the electric light is both comforting and ridiculing in its regularity.
Even though they’re sweat-soaked and panting, there’s nothing else out of the ordinary in their room. It’s hard to imagine that he’d seen what he’d seen in that mirror, when everything is quiet and bathed in the warm glow of their light.
The only solace is that Keigo’s too nice to point out Touya’s disarrayed state. Touya himself knows how he reacted though, is all too aware of how damn scared he’d been and how he hadn’t hid it at all, and it takes everything in him not to slam his face against their door.
“Let’s go to bed with the light on,” Keigo says quietly, and Touya squeezes his eyes shut before he turns back to face Keigo.
“Yeah, whatever.”
It’s cold when Touya lies back down on his bed, and even the ceiling looks like it’s mocking him when he stares up at it.
Dawn, Touya suspects, is going to be a long time in coming.