Work Text:
Chikara tried not to look too annoyed at the fact that his boss was currently berating him for nothing in particular. If he looked annoyed at it, his boss would probably just take that as an excuse to yell some more, and he’d really rather this just be over with already.
If half because once this was done he could leave, and he had plans with his partners. He and Keiji were taking Mai to the beach, which was two towns over, meaning she’d never been.
It was actually their first time purposely going out of the city for a date, although not the first time either of them had left the city and taken some piece of Mai with them. She was rather possessive and didn’t like to see them going beyond her reach without at least some help.
The other half of why he’d rather this not run long was Mai would probably come looking for him if it ran too long, and he’d rather his boss not get eaten. Mostly because it would mean he would have to answer a lot of questions he didn’t have good answers for when his boss’ disappearance was noticed.
Finally, his boss ran out of steam and dismissed him, and just in time too, since Chikara could feel Mai settling in under his collar, peeking out and judging whoever he passed. She must have gotten impatient, since he was still on time.
He waved goodbye to various people as he left, careful to keep his smiles closed mouth so he didn’t scare anyone. He just preferred not to scare all his poor coworkers who had done nothing wrong.
Once he got out to the street, he made a sharp turn into the nearest alley so he was mostly out of sight when Mai left his collar and popped a body out of the shadows.
“All good at work?” Mai asked cheerfully, looping her arm through his and towing him back out of the alley.
“Yep, all good. Excited for the beach?”
“Well I'm not totally sure how impressive it'll be, but I like going places with my boyfriends so I'm excited for that!”
Chikara grinned, not bothering to keep his teeth hidden, even though several passerbys glanced at him and visibly shuddered, probably seeing more sharp teeth then should fit in a normal human mouth.
The consequences of being romantically involved with an eldritch entity.
“I'm sure you'll at least like it,” Chikara said, leaning down to bump their heads together. “Even if it's not impressive.”
“We should get ice cream there,” Mai said decisively, adjusting so they were holding hands instead.
She did like ice cream, even if she didn’t need to eat.
“I'm sure we can arrange that,” Chikara agreed amicably, finally spotting Keiji from across the street. He didn’t have Mai with him, at least not in a physical form, so he probably had her in shadow form tucked under his collar or in his hair or something. He waved, and Keiji waved back, although it took some walking to get somewhere that they could cross the street from.
“Ready for a train ride?” Keiji asked, a sliver of impossibly dark shadow slipping out from under his collar and merging into Mai's arm. “And the beach?”
Chikara scanned his boyfriend, realizing he'd evidently had the time to go home and change out of his work clothes. “Less ready than you apparently, but I do have sandals.”
“We can drop by your apartment,” Keiji offered, checking his watch. “We have time.”
“We always have time with me here,” Mai contributed, batting her eyes innocently. She had a point, the benefits of a girlfriend that was the city was that she had the power to essentially teleport them across it by pulling them through the shadows.
“Sure, let's do it. We can grab something for the train ride too. Can't have you getting bored,” Chikara nudged Mai teasingly, and she just stuck her tongue out at him.
“Let's maybe do it somewhere that isn't the middle of the street,” Keiji said mildly, although he was smiling.
Good point. Chikara knew there were at least a couple suspicious social media circles that were very curious to know what was going on with them and Mai, and they did not need to feed that particular beast.
Lucky them, there was a shadowy alley nearby. Well, it was probably less shadowy most of the time, Mai just liked to make alleys shadowy whenever she was nearby to see if she could convince them to go in them for kisses. And it was convenient for letting them disappear. It was her city, she could do things like that.
It didn't take Chikara long to change into something a little more beach appropriate, but it was evidently long enough for Mai and Keiji to decide he was taking too long and to get into his snacks.
“I thought we were having dinner at the beach town?” Chikara asked teasingly, coming up behind them and taking an oreo from the package.
“Oreos are tasty,” Mai replied innocently.
“What she said,” Keiji said, taking one more and letting them each take one more before closing the package. “Besides, it's not like a few oreos will ruin anyone's appetite.”
“I don't even have an appetite!” Mai added cheerfully. The other joys of an eldritch entity, she did not ascribe to human things like getting hungry, or getting full. Keiji was almost as bad, except he did occasionally get full, it just took an occasionally unholy amount of food.
Chikara just rolled his eyes dramatically, taking the closed package and putting it away when Keiji was too slow. “It's still close to dinner, and the oreos aren't going anywhere. You could have just waited and successfully conned me into having some after we got back.”
“But then it wouldn't be crimes,” Mai said, grinning. “This way it's crimes.”
“Eating my oreos while I took five minutes to change is hardly crimes.”
“Crimes or not we should be off, we do need to get going if we want to arrive for dinner. You can get us to the train station, but you can’t get us to the beach.” It was outside the city, so it was outside her sphere of influence, and thus out of range for her pulling them through the shadows. Hence the train.
“Of course! Well then, my dashing boyfriends, shall we be off?” Mai cheerfully offered a hand to each of them, and they both accepted without hesitation.
Being pulled through the shadows was an interesting experience. It had, admittedly, slightly freaked Chikara out initially, but he’d gotten used to it fairly quickly, since Mai did it pretty often, especially in the early stages of their relationship where they were still figuring out how this was all working and how to get Mai to remember to ask before doing something. That had been a long process, but Chikara was just glad they were past it now.
The shadows were cold, even when you were just passing through, the feeling of brisk wind stealing any warmth that managed to escape the grip of the shadows, but it was over just as fast as it began, and even when it wasn’t that fast, there was always Mai’s warm hand in his, the sense of her power at the edges of his consciousness, something that had been intimidating at first meeting that was now impossibly comforting.
Consequences of dating an eldritch entity he supposed. He wasn’t about to complain. It wasn’t anything normal, but it suited them just fine.