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The dead were never hungry. It wouldn't had made sense after all, it wasn't like their muscles even needed energy to keep themselves strong. A dead man had no need to sustain himself; that was just a fact.
Mitsuba looked, sitting dejectedly on the ground, at the enormous glass wall that prevented him from continuing into that strange border where Tsukasa had thrown him, and he sighed. He was sighing a lot nowadays; he was getting good at it. There wasn’t much else to do, after all.
“You can't stay in the mortal realm because you're too weak and pathetic,” Tsukasa had told him, “So stay here and eat a supernatural. Okay?”
What did that guy expect from him, exactly? Was he supposed to chase the specter of a rabbit or a pig? A cute boy like him shouldn't even cook for himself to begin with, let alone get his hands dirty hunting. And then, it wasn't as if he had given him anything to help even if he dug in any way the idea to kill a poor creature -and he didn’t, he absolutely won’t, what the hell-, Tsukasa-kun still didn’t hand him anything; not a knife, not a rope, a rifle maybe… nothing. Mitsuba was certainly no hunting methods expert, but he wouldn't have started looking for a lunch to kill with his bare hands.
And, to add to that, even after overcoming all the problems already listed, there was only him and an infinity, or little less, of mirrors all around.
Mitsuba only had a few days of memory for himself, and he was already tired of that immense solitude—exhausted, in fact.
The only one who knew he was there was Tsukasa and Tsukasa was also the only one between the two of them who was aware of how to get in and out of the boundary.
But he never did what was expected of him, his attitude simply did not include predictable actions from Mitsuba, so that also concluded the only one who knew that Mitsuba was in complete solitude in that strange environment full of terrifying mirrors, was the only person that Mitsuba was not sure would ever come back to get him. And, yes, truthfully he didn't know anyone else to compare him to, Tsukasa was the only person Mitsuba had ever met from what little he remembered, but the standard of the average student in that school had to reach higher than Tsukasa-kun‘s bar, right?
Perhaps it was these unhappy thoughts of his that changed everything when he felt a cold grip on his ankle.
“Ah!” Mitsuba jumped up with a high-pitched cry. “What- wha…!”
He looked down, spotting 5 luminescent pink fingers wrapped creepily around his shoe. Mitsuba turned pale.
“Pervert!” He screamed, kicking his offended foot towards the glass wall. What had attached itself to him, as he discovered when it broke away to crash badly against the wall, were not just 5 perverse fingers, but an entire arm, severed and neon pink which- ...no, didn't improve the situation of the poor ghost at all, who in fact screamed again.
“An arm! A molester’s arm!” He accused it, finger pointing, trembling, in front of himself, knees left mushy in fear. “Just-! –Just because I’m dead and I don’t remember anything doesn't mean you can do what you want with me, you know?!”
The arm had slid toward the ground at a slow and sonorous pace, leaving a smudge behind. It waited until being completely on the ground before answering Mitsuba, who had remained watching the scene in silence, at a safe distance. Still visibly tired from the blow received, the newcomer's response was one and only: a middle finger. Silent yet clear as ever.
“Rude!” Mitsuba, who was taking way less than expected to get used to talking with a freaking fluorescent severed arm, crossed his arms in offense, but immediately panicked as he saw the thing begin to sink into the ground.
“Wait, don't go!” He called it back immediately, running to it and bending down on his knees. “I'm sorry! Did I hurt you too badly?” He tried to ask, too scared to reach out and touch the weird visitor. “Don't go away just yet! Please I- …I really don't want to be left alone again.”
He didn't know if an arm could feel pity for him, or if it was able to hear anything at all (it was an arm), the fact was that it was no longer disappearing under the floor and it was enough to reassure Mitsuba just a little bit.
“Are yh- …umh— …Are you okay?” He made a point to ask, now finding himself embarrassed as the hand gave him a slow thumbs up in response.
“How did you do that? The-” Mitsuba lowered his hand, mimicking the action of sinking. “The thing you just did. Because— I mean, I certainly can’t do that. Can I? Can- …Can I do that, too?”
Mitsuba looked at the hand, which didn't answer him back. “Can you…” he found himself asking in a trembling voice, pathetic and weak. He ran a hand over the length of the wrist, as if he were petting a cat near the ears. “Can you find someone who knows how to get me out? I don't want to stay here forever. P-…Please…— …Please?”
It took it a while to answer, but before disappearing under the floor as it had wanted to do right away the hand gave him an "okay" thumbs up again and Mitsuba, for the first time as far as he could remember, felt fully hopeful.
A few hours after his peculiar request, Mitsuba’s belly was full for the first time in his entire existence. Not life, existence, not only because he was dead, but because what little he thought he knew about himself was discovered to be false: he had never been alive, he was nothing more than an artificial copy of someone else. A fake. That’s it. And what he had eaten, the someone that Tsukasa-kun had killed for him and whose heart he had literally sunk his fangs into, would forever be the first meal of his entire existence.
But how could Mitsuba complain? He was the one who wanted this, wasn't he? Of course, he had just eaten the heart of a bird-man of factually poor perception of the objective beauty of others -the bottom of the best, ah. As if!— but now at least he had something. He was no longer a something unspecific with nothing in his hands, now Mitsuba was School Wonder number 3 and soon Tsukasa-kun would have turned him into a human, as he had told him.
He just had to wait.
Crazy-Knife was probably right to call him the furthest thing from a human being, though, right now Mitsuba couldn't help but feel like one.
He was looking at him at that moment, the elusive number 7, Tsukasa-kun's brother to whom he had seemed so fond despite him and his friends having undeniably been the enemies on that stressful afternoon in his new home. Mitsuba was hiding behind his mirrors waiting the same way Hanako was, looking around thoughtfully, no one to talk to; until the bell started ringing throughout the school, a sign that the last lesson was finally over, a sign that, after a few more minutes, finally -
“Hanako-kuuun!”
"Oi, Hanako!"
Mitsuba continued to observe them from behind his mirror as they began to talk about all their this’ and all their thats.
Just a minute, or two. Nothing more. Mitsuba wasn't a weirdo, with the way he looked others were supposed to spy on his absolute beauty hidden in the shadows, not the other way around.
That’s why Mitsuba, who was neither a weirdo nor a stalker, after a minute, two at most, turned away from the bitter sight, placing his eyes on an equally unhappy territory.
He approached, without touching the book that he had given him, abandoned in the corner. The first thing he ever owned, the first gift, the first- But it wasn't for him, that was clear. Mitsuba had already observed every page with the utmost care, eyes widened, tension skyrocketing, but that book had left him with nothing at all. Not a memory, not some positive emotion of any kind.
It had slapped him if it counted, that book and the boy with the worst taste in earrings in all creation. If it counted, they definitely had given him a firm slap across the face, but nothing more than that.
It had been nice regardless, at least for a second, to feel eyes on himself who seemed so genuinely happy to have crossed his. Even if in the end the affection of that rude boy belonged to him as much as the book itself did, it still had felt nice, just for that second, and not even his old self would ever be able to take it away. That feeling was just his to keep.
Maybe Crazy-Knife was right to call him the furthest thing from a human being, and Mitsuba couldn't help but feel like one, but it was only momentary: he would have become human, full of people happy to meet him for him, hobbies and things to do.
He would have had it all.
╡╬╞
Mitsuba's second meal involved real food even less than his first did. But what importance could reality have now?
The fake cute senpai had taught fake Satou and Yokoo how to make cookies and he, as fake Sousuke, hadn't even had to ask to be made part of the lesson. And the feeling of belonging that he forced himself to hold on to turned out to be as sweet as the cookie itself; he just needed not to think too hard about it. It would have been enough for him to be a fake Sousuke until the sweetness of the fake meal made him forget everything else.
Minamoto-kun was stupid for not having come with him.
╡╬╞
The last time Mitsuba reminded himself to count his meals was the third, maybe his very first real food ingestion of his existence, gently offered by Kou’s packed lunch itself.
Minamoto-kun wasn’t as concessive at first, he was always looking for new excuses to rough Mitsuba up like the bully he faked not to be, but if a moment before he was looking hot-headed and ready to exorcise him, the moment after he was teaching the spirit how to crack an egg the correct way. Like humans do.
He had no excuse, Minamoto-kun, he could say he was doing it so as not to have his lunch stolen, but in the end they were passing time in that kitchen solely and exclusively to make Mitsuba happy. And the rolled omelette tasted as much of eggs and dashi as it did of new beginnings.
╡╬╞
Next thing he knew, Number 7 ruined everything for him.
The Severance completed itself as quickly as it started and Mitsuba had time to do nothing but accept what was happening to his body, the same way he had to accept everything else in his existence. A short existence, with everything always out of his and Minamoto-kun’s control.
Looking back, it would have been fine to end it there. Melancholy, poetic. Sure, it sucked to die with so many desires still out of his reach, but he still felt like himself back then, just him and Kou, while breaking in pieces like an old toy.
And, looking back, dying next to Kou would have been better than being here, right now, with no way to set a distinction between real food and fake food anymore, not with how more complicated everything ended up being.
Tsukasa caressed his head while Mitsuba used his scarf to rip open the chest of the wounded being that he had brought him. The creature let out an animalistic shredded cry, and then nothing more came of it.
“Good job, Mitsuba.” he murmured, not caringly- Tsukasa didn’t care, not for him- but interestingly. Mitsuba was an interesting experiment to the spirit: a movie with a plot that could go anywhere.
Mitsuba had no brain to respond to him and the blood flowing in his mouth felt sweeter than candy. When he came back to himself he didn’t find any trace of the creature left behind. He had eaten it all.
╡╬╞
Kou handed him that fish heart with trembling, bloody fingers and the tears of a baby in his eyes. Mitsuba was shocked and confused, fully unprepared, yet, even before doing so, he already knew how to proceed. He sent the appetizing, disgusting organ down his mouth in quick bites, not even giving the flavor time to make itself felt before it was sliding down his throat along with everything else. Anything to make him stop being sad, really.
As his body grew stronger again, Mitsuba gently caressed his back with a hand; Kou continued to cry for a few more minutes in his hold, absolute silence between the hiccups, and Mitsuba had all the time in the world to realize just how much Kou Minamoto, the ugliest crier he'd ever met, was a person simply, purely, completely illogical.
╡╬╞
Tsukasa wasn’t always present, but if he knew he was starting to feel hungry, he always made sure to watch him. Once Mitsuba asked him why he always stayed, he couldn’t be making sure he ended up eating, Tsukasa certainly knew better than him that he, in fact, always would have, whether he liked to or not. It always ended the same way, so why bother checking?
“I know,” he had told him, a child-like grin of child-like joy. “I like seeing you eat.”
And Mitsuba never wanted to continue talking about it ever again, because he really didn't want to know what he liked about his loss of control. He didn't even want to think about it.
╡╬╞
Nene offered him a little detour after their fun shopping outing and, after leaving him on a bench to guard all their bags, she surprised him with an ice cream, all for him.
Everything was so nice for a moment. In some ways she reminded him of Minamoto-kun, but a child passing by was all that he needed to put his shoes on the ground once again.
She was just like Minamoto-kun, in more ways than just gifting stuff to him.
The step from wondering how her Hanako situation was going and asking exactly that was short and easy to make, because it was always less difficult to talk about other people's business than his own.
He called her and Minamoto-kun stupid, then, because it was objective that they were. Only stupid people would become attached to supernaturals willingly, after all. Of the worst kind, too, in their case, like him and The Seventh.
Nene proceeded to flush in red and had it written all over her face that a kiss had happened between the two and something inside Mitsuba rotted; he could feel it in his stomach, something growing big and rancid. If those two were continuing their path despite the situation being what it was, Mitsuba realized in complete turmoil, then Minamoto-kun's tears weren’t as illogic as they needed to be.
Mitsuba didn’t continue that thought either and tried to forget the taste of fish blood by biting into the sweet treat. It didn't even come close to it, but that was exactly why Kou should choose to wake up brighter than Nene before the festival started. He sincerely hoped he would, but he also kind of knew he would not.
╡╬╞
Mitsuba was looking at himself in one of the mirrors of his boundary. There were no more signs of the carnage he had found himself in as soon as he regained lucidity, but the intoxicating smell seemed almost indelible in his nostrils.
“You ate a lot today!” Tsukasa said. He was looking at him from above, while playing balance on the railing. Mitsuba's boundary, his lifestyle, his entire existence: it was all just Tsukasa's playground to amuse himself in.
“Are you still hungry?”
“Only a bit.” Mitsuba told him, because every day he grew more afraid that those amber eyes were able to read inside him enough to detect even the smallest lie if he ever dared. And the infesting smell all around was already making his mouth start to water again.
╡╬╞
Kou picked up a new habit after the festival: packed lunches. Lots of them, by the way. All for Mitsuba.
And it would have been a sweet gesture, like when they cooked together, and maybe it kind of was still, but Mitsuba had every right to wonder who this nasty exorcist was doing it really for.
“What the hell are you looking at?”
He asked him such a question with only the last shrimp meatball between his chopsticks. The rest was already finished, devoured; because Mitsuba had never eaten meatballs or shrimp before, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t normal for neither to melt in the mouth the way the ones prepared by Kou did. It probably wasn’t common, at least.
But, above all, he asked him such a question after Kou had watched him eat with eyes as big as a grouper, absentmindedly responding to him as if he were only half listening to their conversation.
"Eh?" He said, absent-minded, in fact.
“You keep staring at me.” Mitsuba proclaimed, because there was no other way to describe what was happening. “What? Am I eating it wrong? What is it?”
Kou flinched, as if he'd just been caught doing something he hadn't been doing openly and shamelessly just a second before. He looked away, far from the supernatural, suddenly annoyed. “I'm not looking at you.”
And he was lying, it was so obvious he was aware he was blatantly lying. So obvious that Mitsuba had to occupy his mouth with the last, delicious, shrimp meatball, dreaming of an impossible existence in which after every bite of food cooked for him by Minamoto-kun he would feel fuller instead of hungrier for more.
╡╬╞
He started to leave school to hunt. Never going too far, it would have been stupid and full of risks to do so, but he couldn't bring himself to eat something inside the gates if it could be helped. Maybe he subconsciously didn't want to dirty his house more than he already has, or maybe it was because if he broke down in parts he wasn’t much different from what he was actively seeking. He factually and simply despited to, it was all.
It was also stupid and full of risks to go around the school perimeter looking for some low-level spirit left to die by the simple passage of time, or by an unfortunate encounter with Tsukasa, but, even while seeming like an empty search, Mitsuba had quickly found out just how easily he came across small creatures, weak and conscience-less, like they were moths attracted to light. And the light was something, or someone, inside the school. Perhaps it was the presence of the 7s, perhaps the number of borders in the same place, or, much more probably, Tsukasa himself, who looked like one of those fish with a lantern hanging from its forehead, attracting lunch to their deaths and enjoying their ignorance.
Yes, if Tsukasa were a fish, that would probably be it.
While he kept walking, something moved behind him, a soft rustle from behind some trash cans and that was all he needed. A quick gesture was enough, a movement of the scarf without even turning around and Mitsuba was observing the strange creature wriggling in mid-air from up close. A rat, approximately, but with a multitude of thin and dark legs, like those of an insect. Usually he didn't even look before killing them because there was no pleasure in satiating while thinking you're eating rats and insects like a damn racoon, but the creature caught his eyes and slowed down the process when, tightly tangled up in his scarf upside down, it began to shed tears.
But creatures with no conscience couldn't ask for mercy, so they didn't need to receive it.
His dinner trembled one last time.
And Mitsuba quickly broke its neck.
╡╬╞
One day, Mitsuba convinced Nene to eat with him during lunch break and Hanako's complaints about not stealing his assistant from under his nose were of no use because, according to Mitsuba, that was a meeting for people not-bounded to a toilet-only.
When they sat on the roof to eat, Nene asked where the packed lunch Mitsuba was holding had come from and he only had to say “A traitor.” as he brought the first bite to his lips for Nene to start giggling.
“What did Kou-kun do?”
Mitsuba was already ready to reply about who the hell even mentioned that loser to begin with, but who was he kidding? It wasn’t like his circle above the acquaintance's level extended much beyond Lame-Earring and the person already in front of him, after all.
“He said he needed to study,” he explained, giving up the play pretend before it could even start. “And that I would end up being a nuance If I tagged along.”
“Kou-kun gave you a hand-made lunch?”
“And then called me a nuance!” He repeated, making sure to give much more emphasis to the important part before it could get lost in translation. “A– nuance—, senpai! He’s the worst! He’s a bully! I’m not speaking to him ever again!”
He vomited all out, one word after the other: offend him, offend him, offend him! How dared to say such mean things!
He quickly ate another bite of his katsudon, Nene watched him in silence, still without having touched anything edible.
“Can you ask him if he’s mad at me, daikon-senpai?” He asked immediately after having freed his mouth to speak with. Nene chuckled, trying not to choke for the surprise. “That was quick.”
“He invited me to study with him in an empty classroom!” Mitsuba started to complain once again. “Him! He did it first, I don’t get it! And I was good! I’ve been so good, senpai! He brought me one of these too and I kept quiet until I was done eating, I swear!”
“And now he just gave you the food?” She asked him, probably trying to picture what kind of weird interaction they had to have for every piece of the puzzle to fit together in a cohesive story.
“He gave me the food and called me a nuance! He was just trying to make fun of me, I swear! He did all that just to invent a reason to call me annoying to my face! He’s the annoying one! He’s so annoying!”
“C’mon, Mitsuba-kun…” Nene shushed him, still trying to appear supportive of both. “Kou-kun would never call someone-”
“He would never call you that.” Mitsuba corrected her. There was no bite in his statement, it wasn’t as if he envied her for the treatment she received.
“Because you’re a girl.” He specified. “And human. That’s another world for me, Minamoto-kun’s secretly twisted.”
“Secretly …twisted.” Nene repeated, less supportive than before.
“Yup.”
“Uhuh-…”
A pause happened between the two when both simultaneously took a bite of their respective lunch boxes, before the girl continued, a new question in mind. “Can I ask you something, then, if he’s so bad and untrustable?”
Mitsuba looked up to her again. “Sure.”
“Why accept his hand-made lunch, then?” She wondered, looking up while losing herself to her own fantasy. “Even if the hottest prince came to me to gift me the fruit of his hard labor, if I were mad at him I wouldn’t accept it.”
Mitsuba stared at her, unimpressed. “Is that what you tell yourself?”
“I so wouldn’t! I wouldn't even budge!” She boldly stated, before starting to feel the foundation of her made-up castle begin to crumble. She brought a hand to her chin, feeling a little embarrassed. “No, well, maybe a little bit at first if he’s like— really hot, ahah- But—! But I wouldn’t accept it in the end! Because I’m way more mature than before!” She concluded, a proud and giddy grin on her sealed lips, the hand busy with the chopsticks on her hips, now, like she was posing for a victory that was happening anywhere outside her own head.
Mitsuba eyed her severely before bringing a piece of his fried meat into Nene's container, stopping her without saying anything.
“Uh-?“ She questioned, looking at the new addiction in confusion. “For me? Why?”
“Because that’s the answer.” He replied, resuming to eat once again.
Nene did the same, picking up the offering and biting into it. She started to blush a second after, her mouth trembling in a satisfied sigh of joy. “Gosh, I forgot how good Kou-kun’s cooking is! Do you get to eat this periodically? That’s so not fair!”
Mitsuba nodded, cheeks full of delicious food and head coming up with a nasty thought he decided to keep for himself since the girl was his friend now.
But she could have had that if she really wanted to, he thought, like a jerk. Minamoto-kun liked her first, after all. And the thought made him grin, too, while looking away, hands on the precious container, eyes towards the building where the traitor had said he was going to study.
“I’m gonna say his lunch sucked.”
“That’s just mean!” She immediately complained.
╡╬╞
“Miiiitsuba!”
“Hi- —Hi! …Hi, Tsukasa-kun.”
He floated to him, all energetic and driven, hand hidden behind his back: one of the worst possible things to perceive so early in the morning.
“I’ve come up with a game!” He exclaimed like it was good news to both -it was not, far from being it, too. “Wanna hear what it’s about?”
“…No… Not really, Tsukasa-kun I-” Mitsuba quickly mumbled in the sweetest voice he could come up with on the spot, praying for a plausible excuse to move his attention away from whatever he was still secretly holding for them, but the room didn’t help at all to wake up his imagination on time. “…You see-”
Tsukasa showed him what he had in his hands as if he hadn't heard him at all, smiling brightly, in all possibility for their next group activity. With or without Mitsuba’s enthusiastic consent, it seemed.
The School Wonder took a breath in preparation before even lowering his eyes, finding Tsukasa’s hands roughly wrapped around two little spirits, both the size of his palms, so that you could easily spot his dirty fingers wrapped around the dirtier little bodies.
“Don’t worry, I didn't kill them just yet!” Tsukasa trilled, proving his statement with a light twitch of his fingers to squeeze both at the same time, like the most fucked up collection of stress balls.
Immediately the two creatures shrieked, crying out low-pitched sounds drowned in chilling gurgling.
Mitsuba tiredly passed his sight between the two with no words to speak out loud. On his right hand Tsukasa was holding something similar to a big fly, fully covered in teary eyes, all set on him, as if to plead for something, as if Misuba had any power over what happened, was happening or was gonna happen from then on.
He didn’t, that fly was just stupid, and so Mitsuba looked away from it, to the other one. The creature was rounder than its companion, looking like a normal toad with just a big eye for the entire face. Or, at least, it must have appeared that way before meeting Tsukasa-kun, but he was covered in so much of its own blood that Mitsuba wasn’t able to figure out whether the cavity was still filled or not.
”Let’s dissect them! Like in science class!” The spirit exclaimed, hands thrown up in the hair with still his victims in them. Mitsuba kept his eyes fixated on the ground, thankful for the momentary loss of both on his retina. “And let’s make you try part for part! In the end, we’ll decide who’s the winner! Sounds fun, right?”
Mitsuba tightened his lips in a forced smile, swallowing a sob that seemed about to escape from his throat.
“Of course…!”
╡╬╞
“Here.”
Kou and him were sitting together on a bench in the back of the school's building furthest away from the entry. The school day was already over now, and no one would have been around to interrupt the hangout of just the two of them. Everything was just perfect.
Mitsuba stared at the wrapped cylinder in the exorcist’s hand with a questioning look. He observed, then, the tense expression on his face, quickly assuming made-up nonchalance.
“What is it, this time?”
“New receipt.” He immediately clarified. “A sweet one. Try it.”
“Ah!” Mitsuba exclaimed, moving a little to the side, his tongue already out his mouth to belittle him: “And if I say no? Bleeeeh—! I’m not your taster, stupid! Stuuuupi— ow!” His mocking expression muted in a pained grimace. “Don’t pinch me!” He complained, slapping the foreigner's hand away and making a show to clean the touched part of his arm.
“Why even decline something you know you’re gonna like!” Kou said, showing the signs of the audacity of Mitsuba’s last action leaving him livid, despite the obvious and conscious effort to hide it.
As if he could ever be able to, Kou Minamoto was transparent.
“Ah! So full of yourself!” Mitsuba continued, bringing his clothed hand up to his face for the sole purpose of badly hiding the end of his snickering. “As if I've ever– Stop-! …Stop it! —You’re gonna spread it all over my face like that!” He screeched like an animal, trying to break away from Kou’s response to his very specific choice of amusement: he had taken the spirit by the arm, sliding him close to himself once again and pressing the so-called gift against his face, a sadistic grin painted on him.
“You don’t have to force it to my face, I get it, God!” Mitsuba continued to complain until finally being let go by the exorcist, who watched him, relaxed once again, with a satisfied little smile.
Without saying anything he looked Kou up and down, mouth frowned and back curved forward, wrapped damn thing between his fingers, ready to attack back if the exorcist even tried to move closer to him once again.
“What?” Kou asked back, jokingly. “Thought you liked insolence? Or is it funny only when you do it?”
Mitsuba unwrapped the dessert with an offended scoff, eyes set on his work in progress. “It is only funny when I do it.” He made sure to point out. “Youu… lack humor. And wit!”
He looked up to his face again, glad to see his smug smile turned back into a frown. “You’re just a lame-earring exorcist, after all…!” He shrugged his shoulders with condolence. “Who’s only good at being a brute to tremendously appealing young ghosts— Don’t come closer to me! I’m eating! I’m already eating! See?!”
He made the effort to pick a big bite from the familiar stuffed roll, internally sighing in pleasure when he felt sweet bread and cream mix in his mouth just a second later: it was even better than the one he tried the previous week.
There was also this magnificent new thing he had absolutely never tasted before that was starting to take over the flavour, making him almost tear up from joy.
He realized too late the internal sigh was, in fact, pretty damn external, only while hearing the horrifying sound of Minamoto-kun starting to chuckle. He tensed his shoulders, slowing down his chewing until he was completely done. He looked back at him, not shocked to find Kou staring back, fixed blue eyes, waiting for him.
Mitsuba averted his sudden happiness, looking gloomily ahead of himself. “Still staring, eh? You perv—”
“So?” Kou ignored him. “How is it?”
“Shut up.”
“I mixed the cream differently. And added cinnamon.”
Mitsuba took another bite in a silent complaint, feeling every hair of his body rise up for how damn good whatever the hell that thing was. For the stress.
“Have you ever tasted red beans?” Kou continued to ask, completely unaffected by his lack of response or enthusiasm. “Yesterday I bought more of what I needed for the house because they were on sale. I can let you try some taiyaki if you like! The fish-shaped ones we saw at the festival? Next time, I mean. You said you wanted to try them.”
Mitsuba looked at him with a new sigh, completely won over, totally demolished.
“Wha- What? …What is it?”
“Nothing.” The spirit replied, turning away from him far enough to have him face his back. “You just suck.”
“Repeat that if you’re-!”
Kou never finished that sentence, not after Mitsuba leaned back against him, looking still at what remained of his stuffed roll. Kou kept his mouth shut until Mitsuba finished to reply: “Sure.” he told him, voice low, “Let's try that one next.”
╡╬╞
“Does your friend eat supernaturals?”
Mitsuba looked at him, taken aback. “Huh?”
“That one.” Tsukasa told him. They were standing next to each other, the mirror Mitsuba was using before his arrival a little bit further ahead of them. It was reflecting Kou's class and Tsukasa floated closer to it.
Mitsuba didn’t even notice it had caught his attention, he would have hidden it if he did. But it was too late now, and Tsukasa tapped the exorcist’s back with his nail, a gesture that, in its simplicity, sent a shiver down the other's spine, as if Tsukasa was bringing his hands closer to the real one.
“Does he?” He repeated the question without looking away.
“No… obviously not, Tsukasa-kun. He’s-” Mitsuba just murmured, feeling lost between the confusion and the scare of having Minamoto-kun suddenly at the center of his attention. Everything but that. Everything, everything but Kou, at the centre of his attention. “He’s- …he’s human, don’t you see? And also an exorcist. …Humans don’t do that.”
“Yes, they do.” He firmly replied, like he was sure, like he knew objectively. “But only sometimes.”
Mitsuba stared in silence, too many questions in his head for even one to come out of his mouth. If the air around them had always been chilling, now everything was starting to freeze. Tsukasa observed Kou's back for a couple of seconds more, an immutable smile on his face, his eyes dark and inexpressive, fixed on the exorcist. Mitsuba felt more shivers down his back, he wanted him to stop looking at Minamoto-kun.
“Tsukasa-ku-”
“Well, I'm bored again now!” He stated out of nowhere. He floated higher, flying in a circle around the boundary before coming back way too close to Mitsuba’s face for his comfort. “You’re close, right?” He asked. “Tell me if he tries to eat you! I wanna know if they still do that!” Saying that, he just floated away again, this time out of The Hell of Mirrors. “Bye-bye, Mitsuba!”
The Third Wonder, after allowing himself that second required to calm down and thank whoever needed to be thanked for ending the situation, laid his eyes on his only “companion”, observing the corpse Tsukasa had brought him.
He sighed in annoyance.
First that guy creepily suggested he should start eating just because he was bored, then he grew bored of that too, said weird stuff and just fucked off, leaving him to do all the work.
Humans eating supernaturals… What a load of bullshit. Tsukasa-kun was so weird; he was probably just trying to scare him. He tended to do that, anyway, when he was bored.
Or also when he wasn’t. Tsukasa tended to do that pretty frequently no matter how he felt. Scaring him, that is.
And he made him lose the little appetite he had, too.
“You two.” He murmured, tiredly, putting the mirror of Kou’s class away and eyeing the two arms that were sneakingly coming back in the boundary, now that Tsukasa was gone. “Help me dispose of this mess, I don’t want it here anymore.”
╡╬╞
One day Kou asked him: “What mochi dish do you prefer?” and Mitsuba ended up not even knowing what he was talking about. Kou didn’t say anything more, then, changing the subject easily.
The matter seemed to end there, until it came back to them the next day, as in: right now, at this exact moment, while he was handing him a boxed lunch, one of those with multiple levels stacked on top of each other.
Maybe Tsukasa-kun was right, Mitsuba was left thinking, observing the gigantic monolith in front of himself, because now it really seemed like Kou was trying to fatten him up. What an irony that would have been, the human eating the supernatural cannibal.
“I talked about it once with Senpai and Hanako.” He explained, still holding the tower of contained food in offer. “She likes kinako mochi, he prefers the isobe ones. And I wanted to do what I liked best, too, but I couldn’t decide what to pick, so I picked all three at once! This right here is called zoni. This one is a small mochi pizza, Tiara loves it so maybe you’ll like it, too. And here there’s some fried mochi-”
“Did you make all of this?” Mitsuba asked, interrupting the detailed description of his multi-floored idea of a normal lunch.
“Yeah!”
“Why?”
That seemed to shock the exorcist, who didn't reply, looking with concern in Mitsuba’s direction, who, likewise, looked thoughtfully still at the container.
“It’s not… like I need it, anyway.” He let out, in the end. His voice was low, not necessarily trembling, because Mitsuba wasn't afraid of the thought, it was just… that. A thought. Said out loud, in a low tone.
“It won't be able to sustain me, it’s- …It’s wasteful.” He looked up at Kou, their eyes met as quick as the action took. “Using food supplies on me it’s a waste.”
And Minamoto-kun stared, mouth left a little open, like Mitsuba was the one who has purposely taken every word out of him by force.
And he suddenly felt like that, like having made Kou assume that face turned him guilty.
“Oh! But you worked hard! So-” He exclaimed, a nervous smile on his tensed face while he yacked the gift away from the other’s grasp to open the top of it.
He brought something in his mouth, not knowing what it even was. Isobe mochi maybe? He wasn't paying attention when he toured around it, his head was filled with the thoughts he already regretted having let out. “Mh-mh! See?” He continued, starting to munch on the freaking delicious weird piece of food. What the hell was even in this? “I’m eating it. See? So…” he gulped the treat down, freeing his throat. “...So don’t do that face, Minamoto-kun.”
Kou didn't react as soon as he expected him to; he took his time, like he needed to recharge before moving again after the low blow Mitsuba had just thrown at the both of them.
Until, finally, he took a step to find himself closer to Mitsuba, lifting up the middle box with his left hand and using his other hand to point at something in the container at the base.
“Try this one next.”
How bossy. Mitsuba felt the need to make fun of him for how he didn't lose a second to become strict and demanding. Mitsuba just needed to show the tiniest bit of compassion after an informal rejection for him to ask for more. It was typical.
And he wanted to make him angry again, because it was always mad funny to do so, but that interminable second of silence between them had just scared him enough to keep quiet and obey the request.
He brought the food to his mouth, discovering quickly it was something sweet; he started to eat it whole with a satisfied hum.
“Ah! You like it!” Kou celebrated, mouth widening in an open smile. “I knew it! Mitsuba! I think you have a sweet tooth!” And he said it with an outburst, like it was something interesting, something worth telling and knowing.
A sweet tooth.
“What does it mean?”
“It means that you like sweets!” He said, starting to count on his fingers. “Like candies! Or chocolate! Or- Or sweet jelly!”
Mitsuba nodded, then, taking another thing from the container just to assure himself he had secured the other’s happiness once again. But Kou grew silent anyway, the atmosphere shifting back.
“…It’s not wasteful.”
Mitsuba felt the urge to lift his eyes to Kou’s face, but he fought it until he managed to. He kept gawking at the fried ball in his hand instead, without replying.
“It’s written all over your face when you like something.” Kou continued, finally making Mitsuba look back at him.
The spirit let out a small smile, mockingly. He felt a bit tired doing so, but he waited long enough already. “Is that why I can’t watch you study anymore? Because my very pretty face is distracting to you?”
Kou frowned, like he often did after Mitsuba spoke his mind freely. He roughly closed the whole container again, letting the two top layers he had been keeping collide into the half Mitsuba was still holding and making him almost lose his balance.
“Hey!” The spirit had just the time to catch himself without falling before almost losing the view of Kou looking away from him, the hint of blush on his cheeks.
“Seeing your food getting eaten is- …I mean… All cooks would like it, anyway.”
Mitsuba stared at him, forcing his own mouth closed. Kou had brought his hand behind his neck, like when he was stressing, or starting to feel exposed. “Is there something-?” He murmured, then, he heard the blonde’s voice tremble, just a little bit. “…Is there… something you want to try?” He lifted his eyes from the tiles of the pavement, fixing them on Mitsuba’s shocked expression. “That you’re still curious about?”
“I don’t know…” He admitted. “I mean, …probably. …There probably is, …right?” There was so much still to try, after all. So many experiences still to make.
“I’ll tell you if anything comes up.”
Minamoto-kun couldn't help but show the little grin his response resulted in; he's always been damn transparent, after all.
“I’ll look forward to it!”