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The bar is massive, especially when Tomura is alone.
He wanders the place often, shuffling his feet through the empty halls. It was never quiet at hom— it was never quiet before. When Father was home, arguments would rise and stain the very walls with a sickly tone of anger and annoyance. Even when it was silent, the echoes of voices past would whisper in Tomura’s ears, filling the space with his quickening heartbeat in his ears.
But here, at Master’s home, at his home, it is quiet. Quiet and empty.
Well, mostly.
Tomura peeks out from the hallway into the main room of the bar. The mist man is still behind the counter, silently cleaning the sparkling glasses. He’s been too timid to approach, unsure if he is allowed. But his Master wasn’t here, and he was insufferably bored.
(Tomura doesn’t think that despite promising to be there, Master rarely was here in person. When he was here, there were whispers of “the others,” “the doctor,” and “the hospital.” He resigns himself but can prove that he deserves to be here. He’ll be the best.)
Tomura straightens and huffs a deep breath. He’s not afraid of some stupid fog with eyes. He marches forward, arms crossed over his chest. He beelines to the stools of the bar and pushes himself up on the seat (definitely not swinging his legs uselessly for a good couple of seconds as he struggles.) Slamming his palm on the counter, he juts his chin up like he saw in the movies he’s been watching lately. “I want your stronger stuff,” he demands, voice low and super manly.
The mist man blinks slowly. Then he turns to the fridge and grabs a gallon of milk.
Tomura sputters, awfully offended. But the mist man doesn’t flinch as they pour him a glass. He pouts, though he still grabs the cups moodily. Silence rings in the mostly empty bar. Puffing his cheeks in annoyance, Tomura peers over the bar at the clean glasses and largely untouched bottles. He sips at his milk (very evilly because that is the only way you can do so with dignity) and glares over the glass. “You must be broke. No one ever comes here.”
The mist man says nothing.
Tomura’s scowl deepens. “Your bar sucks,” he eggs on. “Your milk sucks, and your cleaning sucks.”
Still nothing.
He slams the cup down, not caring as the milk spills out. “Why won’t you answer me!”
Misty, or whatever this dude’s name is, looks over from where he had turned around. His yellow eyes flicker in a way that Tomura is suspicious is laughter. Tomura squints his eyes and turns his chin up. “Is there someone you need to be, Master Tomura?”
Master Tomura. He sits up straighter, a smug smile spreading on his face. “Well, duh, I am on very important business, um…” He had no idea what to do, so he came out to bother him. Screwing up his face in thought, he says, “I am… managing you! And your business! So you must listen to me and everything I say because I am your Master.”
Misty hums and goes back to cleaning the already clean glasses. Tomura blinks, surprised there is no rebuttal. “As your first order, um, make me…” He points to a big bottle in the corner, the largest one on the shelf. “That! And I want it to be ultra strong.” There it is. The guy can’t say no to that.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because no.”
Tomura pouts again and slumps a the chair with his arms crossed over his chest. Misty sucks, too. He kicks his feet in the air, somehow even more bored than before. “…So. You gotta name?”
Misty places a glass back on the shelf and grabs another. “Noumu don’t have names. I am here, and that is all I need to be.”
Tomura scrunches his nose in distaste. “Well, calling you ‘Misty’ in my head is annoying. I’m gonna call you…” he looks at the wispy, black fog encompassing the man, flickering like cold flames. “Kurogiri.”
He looks over, yellow eyes narrowing in more interest than the entire time Tomura has been out here. Rude. “Kurogiri, black mist.” The man hums. “It is not awful. I shall see.”
It sounds a lot cooler than he had meant it, and he scowls at that. “Better than Misty,” he grumbles, though the point of Kurogiri was to be making fun of the misty way he looked. It wasn’t supposed to sound cool or whatever.
(He definitely doesn’t smile smugly when others around him and Kurogiri himself begins to go by the name. Absolutely not.)
Tomura is now seven years old and a self-proclaimed engineer.
Emphasis on “self-proclaimed,” especially as he sits on the floor of his room with an array f batteries and plastic pieces scattered around him. Sensei is on another far away mission, meaning he wasn’t here per usual. It was fine, though, because Tomura knew he was better than any other people Sensei could find. He was the best. He was gonna prove that, someday, taking Tomura in was worth it.
For now, though, he struggles with the console box in his hands, pinkies lifted.
He’d found it in his closet's top, dusty corner while poking around. Standing on his tiptoes and brushing away the cobwebs, it sang like a siren. Precariously, Tomura dragged it down and excitedly blew off the excess dust. But there was no batteries, no cord, and virtually no instructions on how to get it to work. Tomura frowned, lifting up the console, and looked under it. Only to abruptly cough at the dust that dropped in his face.
At home the place before here, he used to play video games with Hana. This model is much older, probably older than his great, great, great grandma. Thus, an ill-placed screwdriver, many frustrated yells, and four hours (half an hour) later, he sits here with everything thrown around the room.
He blows a harsh exhale and flops onto his back, glaring at the ceiling. There probably aren’t any games here for the relic, anyway. What a blow.
A shadow fills the doorway, and Tomura glares harder. “Go away,” he bites.
“Your lunch is ready, Master Tomura.” Kurogiri slides into the room silently, surveying the state of the room. “It looks as though you are having fun.”
Tomura sits up with an overdramatic huff, kicking at a spare battery. “It’s this dumb thing. Can’t get it to work.”
Kurogiri walks over and crouches, his face doing that eerie, wispy thing. Carefully, he arranges the different pieces and matches them together. After his anger fades into curiosity, Tomura peeks over his shoulder. It only takes a few minutes to reassemble, and Kurogiri plugs the console into the wall by the television. A few more cords connected and clicked later, and the thing was running.
Tomura gaps at the gaming system and then snaps to Kurogiri. “How did you do that?! How did you know?!”
Kurogiri shrugs. “Easy. Now, let’s go before all your food is cold.”
Tomura continues grumbling on his way to the kitchen about how he could have solved it and done it by himself, and he didn’t need some half-baked fog machine to do stuff for him. Kurogiri only hums in acknowledgment, making Tomura pout more.
He’s tall enough to climb up the bar stools easily, now, though his feet still dang off. “...thanks, I guess,” Tomura mumbles, chin in his chest and long hair covering most of his face.
“As I said, it was simple.” Kurogiri is back behind the bar, moving around easily and comfortably. Tomura realizes that Kurogiri leaves about as much as he does. “There may be games in the drawers in the attic if you want to look after you eat.”
With his head still tilted down, he smiles. Not a smug or angry one, but a genuine, slight grin. “Heck- hell yeah.”
(Kurogiri can’t exactly smile, but Tomura misses the small curve of his eyes with his head down.)
Sensei is still gone but with decent reason this time.
Gone physically, at least, but very much in the television's camera in the living room. Tomura is fourteen and bitter as he pulls his knees up to his chest, scowling from the couch.
The image across from him is unsettling. Sensei’s entire face is wrapped in yellowing bandages, save for an open space for his mouth as he speaks. His voice rattles with every breath he takes. Beeping rings out in the background, but whatever room Sensei sits in is too dark to make out more than bulky, wiry machines.
“There was a fight, but do not worry. I am still strong and will be in good shape soon.” Another inhale. Another staticky wheeze. Tomura clenches his fists in the fabric of his pants.
“When will you be ready to return,” Kurogiri’s smooth voice asks from behind Tomura. At the same time, Tomura mutters, “Who did it?”
The visual part of Sensei’s mouth tilts up. “All Might has his share of suffering in the present and the future. However, for the time being as I restore my true power, Kurogiri, I ask that you look over Shigaraki.”
Tomura’s teeth clench. Of course it was fucking All Might. All that man does is cause destruction in every way. He wants to kill him.
He blinks at the thought. No rebuttal comes after.
As for the second part, Sensei saved him, but he was hardly ever here. He was gone recruiting for his Big Plan or whatever, or fighting, or doing whatever he did that lead to catastrophic injuries such as this. Again, Tomura didn’t care because he was the best and he knew he was the best. No question about it. But Kurogiri had essentially taken care of him from the moment Tomura was deemed well enough to be semi-alone.
Tomura pauses at the realization. Huh. Kurogiri had been there more than most people everyone in his life.
Kurogiri takes the mantle in stride. “I will be his guardian, sir. We will be attentive to your commands in the time it takes for you to recover.”
“It is but a small bump in the road to our grand plan.” The funny thing is Tomura doesn’t know the “grand plan” despite living here for so long. It was “good of the people” this and “best way” that. But Sensei knew what he was planning, and Tomura knew not to question. “I must leave you now. Observe your duties well, Kurogiri.”
“With my best ability, sir.”
The screen goes black. Kurogiri starts to move away. Tomura presses his lips together, tightening his fist one last time, before looking over his shoulder with a sort of desperate fervor. “Did you mean that?”
Kurogiri stops, yellow eyes flicking in what Tomura has learned to read as a sort of confusion. “What do you mean, Master Tomura?”
He opens his mouth, then closes it, face turning to frown at the floor. Anger was easier than any other emotion. “You give a shit, I guess,” he mumbles.
Kurogiri’s eyes relax. “It is my duty to protect you. To look after you. Even before Master commanded it, I would say.”
Tomura, for the first time, doesn’t have anything snarky to say back right away. He flushes, looking down at the floor. But, when no one else was there, Kurogiri was. It wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t even whole but… Tomura smiles a tiny bit. It was his.
He coughs, clearing his throat. “Yeah, whatever. I wanna go kick your ass in a 1v1, come on.” Marching forward toward his room, he huffs. This little “family”, however loose the term, was good. It was enough.