Chapter Text
People watching, people interacting, people controlling.
They were all fun, and he couldn’t argue that, assumed to be a trait handed down.
The quietness of the hideout though, had its own appeal. Not exhausting, not worrisome, just a pure meditation. Kurogiri just gently puffed and flickered like a fireplace and said nothing to Shigaraki as he merely just laid his head across the bar top. Warm and cozy on this day of all days, to let the last branch of his past wither die. The only people who would have remembered it now being only the corpse in front of him, and a hazy memory of someone on the other side of a radio.
“I’m fine, Kurogiri”
He didn’t want pity or sympathy about the situation. That’d be an insult.
You don’t let infected limbs decay the rest of the body away.
Perhaps the same could be said of memories.
Teacher probably said that once.
It’s so warm and cozy here.
Maybe a tiny sleep
For a bit…ahh
...zzz
“Young Master-”
Oh hell. That idiot. Can’t he let him rest? It’s not like his back was gonna get better with his posture. Nonetheless the gentle Barkeep informed him that sleeping on the bartop was not advisable and that he can choose to warp to somewhere more comfortable. Declining with a long yawn to rival his owner’s loud mouth,
“And I must remark, because it was my instruction too. That I could not obtain you a small gift to mark the occasion…”
He’d made some dismissive noise out of his nose from the throat. Guttural and dismissive but not quite verbal. There was still a tiny want there even if it was another plain white dry sponge cake delivered from some place in Jakku barely suited for a hospital patient. Kurogiri apologising for not being allowed was probably closer to an actual gift than something insult he’d have to exist with. The lack of a response and a simple hand wave to the barkeep as he took another relaxed pose around his cold glass.
“I was right..! It’s Shigaraki...”
A...whisper…?
Shigaraki had perked up and snapped at Kurogiri to pass him his hands back. Snapping one to his face for protection, sprung his hand out behind him and looked around. Eyes darting around the corners of the room, walking with a hand out in his sandals making blacking noise on the floor.
“I felt...a Quirk”
Still happily wiping away fingerprints on a glass, there was a sudden longing inside Kurogiri. Something Spinner would call a smug grin done by people who were three steps ahead of their target. A poker face was much more helpful for his duty, but at times like this there was a hazy memory of a smile he could make.
"Kurogiri! Are you even listening to me?!"
From about the source of the Quirk peeled itself off and in front of the young leader a box was slowly lowered lowered down, tied badly with measuring tape. Following where it was coming from, a embarrassed, head rubbing gecko was awkwardly smiling while his Quirk kept him attached.
"Get down Spinner! I oughtta dust--"
Cut off not by the gecko mutant's existence or words but the smell that emanated from the box. As soon as the seal was broken, the pure sweet smell had gripped Shigaraki harder around the face than his family's hands and instantly ceased the swell of will that powered his Quirk.
"I’ve seen you, Tomura Shigaraki…” Opening the box gentle, the young leader kept one eye pinned on the gecko and peeled apart the edges of the box. Long fingernails slicing down the middle of the tape of the inner pearly-white box.
“..I’ve seen you smile at a high score...” the sweetness intensified,
“So I know you like a trophy...Ha-” The eye that stayed pinned on the gecko opened fully and the force of such zipped up Spinner’s mouth and pulled his hands up waving with some broken swallowed apologies for being dramatic. Shigaraki’s glare though was interrupted by the only person that could wrangle him in, whose smoke seeped through his defences like the knife through butter.
“Young master. Your eyebrows betray your eyes.”
Spinner kneeled down and spinning the cake the right way, declared with all the happiness he could muster;
“I even put your favourite flavour of pot noodle on it”
What once was a happily flickering Kurogiri.
What once was a Shigaraki letting his guard down.
Had vanished into the aether, almost instantly.
“Spinner, sir. These noodles aren’t icing?”
“You...are the biggest idiot ever! Nomus have more brain power than you! You stupid lizard! You’ve ruined the cake!...”
Standing up and going to raise a hand at the smiling gecko, standing pint sized underneath him and…
...just...
...let his face plant into the polka-dot chest plate of Spinner. Keeping his hands well away in his pockets. Simply resting his head on the gecko’s chest, where somewhere under the layers of hair and cloth there was a forbidden sight.
No hatred.
No nastiness.
No Teacher.
No master plan.
No chess playing with heroes and lives.
Something truly…
Being pushed off by Spinner, the geck gestured to the box that had vanished and wiped his hand across the line of Shigaraki drool down his chest. Quietly wiping on the back of the already grassed mess that was the off-white mop.
“Hey! Hey! Don’t drool over my costume! HowammI gonna look intimidating like you if I’m coated in baby dribble?!”
Kurogiri had absconded with the cake in the background and placed it on the bar top, poking at it with a cocktail prick. It was indeed noodles, coated in frosting. As the two had a bickering contest over the cake in the background, it was the caretaker’s duty to make sure the cake, or the rest of it at least was safe for consumption. It was only when the cocktail stick pierced the bottom part of the cake that the pair had stopped their internal bickering voer how to ruin a cake with pot noodles.
“Don’t you dare!”
“Only the main man is allowed to cut the cake!”
Side by side, opposite hands pointing at Kurogiri whose head curled around trying to be surprised as best as the golden eyes could. Retaining his leadership and composure back the birthday boy, requested his underling’s sword.
“If you not will correct your mistake, than I shall---”
Withdrawing the sword and attempting a flashing spin with it before passing it over, Spinner cut him off with a quip as sharp as his own sword.
“Drop the act, you just want to play abo---”
A cold glare and a flash of steel cut Spinners quip off, but it was replaced with a silly laugh at his boss. The flickering between child who wants to play video games with his friend and big boss man of a league was as much fun as the games themselves. Following behind him, Shigaraki duel-handed the sword above his head and leaned back using all of his bad posture for force and slammed down on the care, The crunchy, dried noodles shattered apart and both of the other two shielded their faces from the shrapnel, but the cut was clean, even down to slightly damaging the bar top. Passing it back to Spinner, Shigaraki gave another yawn and a stretch out.
“That catharsis was a present enough, Spinner.”
The cake was enough too, but the leader’s front would never admit it, so he had to half contort dried lips into some face of displeasure. Looking away into the corner distracted to quickly lick the icing that leaked down his chin. The chicken packet flavouring was disgusting, but it didn’t spoil it enough, the sponge was soft, the layers were equal in the middle. The little bit of touch of honesty, of personality, of something over than the plain white was almost...
“If you tell any of the others, Spinner I will turn you into a iguana-on-a-stick”
The Gecko himself dislocated his jaw and leaned back of the chair and ate a good quarter of the cake. The site to behold made Kurogiri stop wiping the desk down and Shigaraki to hide his face in his hoodie out of disgust. Once more over the hideout was a vicious spray of dried crunchy icing coded noodles and marzipan. It was as if winter had never left and Mr Compressed decided to shake his hat off. Ginning with a mouth still half full, Spinner shrugged the pair off.
“Whaaaaaa?! We gotta get rid of the evidence if you don’t want the others to know.”
Together as a pair they laughed together and Spinner offered that if Compress ever stole some watermelons. He’d liet Shigaraki go ham on them with his sword. It was better than sticking the sword through the television or slicing a controller apart.
Shigaraki declined, what Spinner that day, wasn’t something the dumb lizard would get through his brain. It was a personalised gift, something that was made about Shigaraki, not merely just for Shigaraki. If Spinner had drawn a child’s drawing of both of them as their video game inserts it would’ve had the same effect. Not that Shigaraki was bitter about the fact of his situation. What happened, happened. The past was the field from his quirk and hunger. To cut it off completely and be angry it would be turning the valve off. Kurogiri was no different than a lesser nomu, just follow instructions and copy from that what he could. An extension of the ‘father figure’ that the mere thought of was starting to burn Shigaraki’s Quirk on its own. No more plain white cakes delivered from the shadows by someone who pretended to care. Not another “special training” that would exhaust Shigaraki’s body to exhaustion. This cake-and-noodle strewn hideout…
It was something truly Shigaraki, truly ‘his’.