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The lace, all red, bright, and itchy, beneath the bargain bin, looked sad in its abandoned pile. There must have been an employee who passed by with something strong, because a saccharine rose clung to the fabrics despite the way it was buried. The seams looked flawless—no fraying ends, better than Tomura could say about the rest of the fabrics he ended up dusting in disgruntlement. Magne would know whether it was usable or not. The phone that she insisted he carry (a sliding phone, an ancient relic, that he accepted with a sneer) weighed in the front pocket of his raggedy jacket. When he bent forward, it rolled out, glaring back at him from the sun.
He picked up the phone and it subsequently dissolved into dust. It was no such loss. He grasped the lace a little more carefully and threw them into the little basket that a worker in the front had shoved into his arms.
The cashier gave him a beleaguered look as he approached the register with his head low, drawn in, and half-hidden by his hand clenching the zipped-up collar of his jacket. Shigaraki fished out a two-thousand note that Kurogiri had given him while teleporting a ranting Dabi away (you sack of shit, we need that money for supplies, don’t use it on something as stupid as Toga’s—) and placed it on the countertop, along with his basket.
He thumbed the corner of his jaw, barely skimming it with his nails as the cashier processed his purchase. Though he had no reason to rush, it felt like the cashier was deliberately unfolding the fabrics to find a label of some kind as slowly as possible. He would glare at them if it would not have drawn attention to his eyes—red and bloodshot. Instead, he glowered at the floor as though it had any responsibility. And it must have, because it seems to frown at him back, at the fact that it was still underneath his feet.
He didn’t know what to make of it. He itched harder. The cashier handed him his purchase in a plastic bag and waved him a faux friendly have a nice day. He did not think he would.
.
Toga Himiko was made of cracking dreams held together by her friends alone. That much she knew. The concrete between the lines wore away with time. Inevitable. She had a shrink once. They didn’t know where to begin with her; they weren’t very helpful in the end. But there was one thing she learned from them: everyone needed a friend, no matter how black their heart had become.
That was why she kept hers close. Really, really close. Enough to smell their blood, their life, grin around the little pinprick teeth marks she made in their limp skin. She could smell their fear; read the loss on their face—who rejected them? Died? Maybe it was their mother. They had such a refined purse that they clung to like a lifeline. A present from a lost mother? Toga couldn’t imagine grieving over parents. She remembered sharp relief, as sharp as her knife covered in their blood. Her imagination filled the blanks in for her.
Her favorite song rang as she propped up her new friend against the concrete wall of the new school built just last year. It was still so sterile, and Toga’s inner artist could not bear to leave it empty. She picked up her phone to her ear, where Magne’s voice came through from the other side with sweet excitement in her voice. Toga giggled along, more than curious about what surprise (Magne didn’t call it that, but Toga could hear it from her voice) was in store. She lovingly wiped her finger across her new friend’s neck and drew a thin heart on the wall. It ran out halfway through, a grim sign in terms of their friendship. Toga balanced her knife on one finger. It fell with a damning thud.
“I’ll be back in a few,” she promised to the cellphone.
.
The door swung with an obnoxious creak. Spinner hacked dust on the age of it. Something bacterial had festered in the air too, but he willfully ignored it. Of more immediate concern was the ceiling patched with rotting, wooden boards that threatened to collapse at any moment. He glared at it before feeling pathetic for blaming the non-sentient building for their misfortune. A loose phrase of turn. It was easier to think of that than the reality. It was like the knives he didn’t have that he promised Toga and the puke in the back of the van that he preferred to pretend wasn’t there—on his mind but left unaddressed until they went away.
He tried to remember what it was like to believe in something. It felt like a lifetime ago that he watched that shaky video. Stain’s convictions, singular; Shuichi, given purpose. He rummaged through another shed, looking for anything that the League could use or sell. He was doubtful that he would find anything in here, but they were also desperate. How grim their situation had become after Kurogiri left a month ago. Meanwhile, god knows where Dabi was. He had all but abandoned them to burn thugs in alleyways, allegedly for the cause, but really because he was bored. Some fellow Stain follower he was.
Then again, Spinner was a paltry imitation who threw his lot in with a cause that didn’t resemble Stain’s, and he was feeling more and more like a failure every day. If he could just recall that instant of connection, an electric realization that he was part of something greater. He counted the cracks in his immediate vicinity and kicked over the trash bags in his way. Meanwhile, Shigaraki was moping back at base. He missed Kurogiri—they all did—and they already lost… So Shigaraki didn’t inspire, Dabi didn’t care, and the rest were off elsewhere.
There was a feather on the floor, spindly and auburn, spilling from the torn bags. He picked it up and brushed it off, realizing that it was a brighter red than he initially thought. It looked pitiful on its own, though it must have rightly been part of a magnificent plumage. He stared at it with questions unasked. His answers, not in front of him, he dropped it and tread over the forlorn feather.
.
It was a peculiar thing, what Magne could see that no one else quite. Threads, red, that lapped the world in its weight.
She used to try to tug on them but only found herself in a man-made wasteland. She wandered for a time, often in the dark, before she happened to fall, and Shigaraki, Kurogiri, Toga, Twice, Compress, Spinner, and even Dabi caught her. When she opened her eyes, Magne was amazed to see the strings that connected them. When she reached out, they accepted her.
So it was strange when one of those threads snapped suddenly, and she was flung across the room in bits and pieces. That last part didn’t quite register at first, but she had died. Was floating. Imperceptible to Twice—Magne wanted to assure him it wasn’t his fault.
She watches their threads fray, and she worries.
It was wrong of her to underestimate Shigaraki, she realized later as he deftly weaved the convictions of the league into his own. She breathed a sigh of relief, knowing they would be more than okay without her.
.
Twice had never seen the red string before, but it fell limply from both of their wrists, snipped off at the end.
He stared at it. At Magne’s.
“An infinity of this?” He asked.
“No. Perhaps.”
Magne held up her hand where the circlet of red was tied delicately around her wrist.
“They seem sad, don’t they?”
“We could tie the ends together,” he offered.
She smiled.
“That would be nice.”