Chapter Text
In this world there are all kinds of people we don’t know, people we know are out there and sometimes we don’t want to know, as well as there are some that we want to come across in the street and never again separate from them; we should all be aware of our wishes. We meet ordinary people, we, who have engraved the name of our soulmate on our skin, as a stain or as a sacred gift of destiny, according to each human being; but those individuals we do not want to know also exist. Although in much less quantity than us, people without soulmates are unpleasant and irritable beings who do not want to be noticed and with whom no one wants to relate, due to their bad reputation. However there is also a third category, one that has always been formulated as an impossible legend.
Why was there the miserable idea of a living being with more than one soulmate? It was to be a sin beyond anything ever mentioned in any historical, scientific and philosophical book. The Bible and religious practice against homosexuality was never a limitation for love and new beliefs spread throughout the world until it reached this point of existence, but why so much displeasure towards this type of people? It’s a legend anyway! Why the rejection? We humans don’t like to share much and the thought of a person taking away their soulmate terrified them, because it would ruin us all to lose the person we love the most, our soulmate.
But there are always exceptions in this world and we should not be surprised that, even so, it was a secret. That Kageyama Shigeo, such a calm and simple child, is the only one, is what people would call "the myth come true". Kageyama "Mob" Shigeo throughout his life accumulated names of people, most of the time barely known, on his skin. And he, just at the age of 5, already knew that his existence was a mistake for it. What worse than having more than one soumate? To be an esper. Between handling telekinesis, seeing ghosts, exorcizing them, absorbing other people’s power, and many more... For Shigeo that was not a blessing, it was another punishment he had to bear. He blames himself for so many things, his life has reached a point where his mind cannot bear itself and fate doesn’t know where to take him at all. Becoming naive before life, he locked himself in a bubble and deprived himself of his own feelings, erasing himself from his own planet.
Hanazawa Teruki is someone who was born without a soulmate written on his skin. From the day he turned 5, he was denigrated by his own parents, believing that he knew what their son’s future would be like. The dealings of the adults led to a bitter development, with the blond wanting to impress his parents with anything he could. Is it that he couldn’t be treated like a normal child? The stress and high feeling of rejection made him develop a series of incredible powers, over the years he created a facade of himself to hide from humanity, to be superior, a casanova adored by all, but deep down, he was still just a selfish, lying person. Over the years he was unable to live without his psychic powers.
It’s the opposite, but so similar, to Kageyama Shigeo. The other half that no one would really want to know. A handsome and popular teenager who invented an identity to fit into a world where he was unwelcome, a world that he lives to the fullest without worrying about the welfare of any other human being. Fending for himself from the age of twelve, when his parents abandoned him in Japan, going abroad with a huge job offer, they left Teruki with a bank account guaranteed, full of money, clothes, food and an apartment just for him, but no one to share with at all.
Without a person to love, to look for; this was one of the reasons why Teruki has come to forget the importance of his own life, overexploiting it, without thinking about the consequences that his actions could bring to others. Because he does not need to be loved or love others to live, because he has never felt the need to protect someone, to feel love unconditionally even. He is just a machine following the order of his negative and selfish impulses, which have led him to a "perfect" life without love. He could not develop the ability to love or to be loved.
Those were the secrets, which Shigeo and Teruki have promised not to tell anyone, are hidden from the real world, where love is one of the most important things in existence. One does not want to love the wrong person, and the other, just does not want to love, but instead does want to be loved and acclaimed by the rest.
Shigeo is not afraid to show his fear to his close ones, as to Ritsu, his younger brother, about his so demeaning secret. Teruki is just him alone, he can’t prove anything to anyone, because he doesn’t trust other people, he wouldn’t have to relate intimately with them, why? To be abandoned too? He wasn’t going to allow it.
The day Teruki and Shigeo met was a few weeks after Shigeo joined the bodybuilding club activities.
He had been dragged into a trap, he must have imagined that something like that would happen, but he could not understand why they called him of all people. They made him believe that a girl wanted to ask him out and he, innocently, fell into it.
"She must have my name on her skin" he thought, it thrilled him. Although it was he who had multiple names engraved on his body, he had never met anyone who had his name on their skin. His body trembled at the thought, perhaps that’s why they had chosen him, who looked weaker than all the others. And the slight emotion that his body could hold vanished from one minute to the next when it only turned out to be a fight between antagonistic schools of which he had been a victim. He was the last in place after all the fuss that Teruki’s (and his own) powers had caused.
"Don’t use them against others" was what Shigeo told Teruki when he realized what was going on in the fight. He approached the blond with quiet steps into the courtyard of Black Vinegar Middle School, having so easily freed himself from the ropes they had used to hold him captive, "Your psychic powers, I mean."
How had he been able to say those words so calmly? Teruki was offended and couldn’t bear the rage, he lost his composure; another esper in Seasoning City would be a torture, a disgrace that was not welcome in the perfect world he had created for himself, he should eliminate it. The mission to eradicate the insignificant Salt Middle School student became his personal hell, it revealed more information than he would ever have wished for, because after that fight, Shigeo had seen his body exposed and weakened, Shigeo felt like apologizing but, unconsciously, his eyes ran through Teru’s skin and what he found... It was absolutely nothing.
He wanted to speak, he even went so far as to separate his lips to emit the first word, but he was interrupted by the call of his Club members, they were looking for him to return to his middle school. He followed them without looking twice behind them, where Teruki was looking silent.
He had been amazed by the uncontrollable power of that boy, but also by something else.
He stood there, kneeling as everything flowed in his head as Shigeo walked away with each step alongside his club. He did’n’t realize that everyone would see him there, in the middle of the ground, completely naked, and his secret would be revealed, but to his luck, people were more surprised by the state of his hair and, of course, the school completely destroyed. After the humiliation that Shigeo had put him through, he went home, fell on the couch and kept thinking for several minutes; there were so many things he thought, it was uncontrollable, that person could not leave his head.
When the sun was already going and several stars appeared in the sky, Teruki got up from his place and went to look for the laptop he had in his room and the first thing he looked for was what everyone had always believed was just a myth.
Because his eyes had not deceived him, in the middle of the fight with that boy, when the bandages that boy was wearing around his limbs slid down to leave him exposed, he had something, many things, so many names.
Shigeo had more than one soulmate and Teruki had discovered it.