Uber Eats

synopsis: What a crappy Friday night! You’re the only driver for your restaurant and you have to deliver to this Tomura S. guy. The worst part? He never tips. wc: 2.7k content: tomura shigaraki x female reader, quirkless au, oral (f! receiving), overstim, degredation, vaginal fingering, mdni cross posted to ao3

You hated this guy.

He ordered every week without fail, like clockwork.

“Do I have to make this delivery?” You ask your manager, wishing the ticket in your hand would burst into flames.

It did not.

The black ink only stared back at you as you stewed in your own misery:

Tomura S.

“You’re the only driver we have!” Your manager calls back to you, tossing some rice around in a wok before dropping it into a takeout container. “But after this, you’re good to go.” he placed the next order into the wok and the hiss of the food only added to the bustle of the restaurant.

You sigh, accepting your fate and crumple the receipt in your hand. It was the last delivery of the night so you find solace in at least being able to leave once you were done.

This guy was a known regular, and better known for not leaving a tip. Ever. It didn’t matter how big the order was and it didn’t matter what the weather had been outside — Tomura S. would not tip. And unfortunately for you it seemed he was more likely to order on your shift so you had to be the one to deliver. What awful luck.

Your manager waves you off after he finishes packing Tomura’s order and you step outside to your bike. It was about a fifteen minute bike ride, and the sweet promise of going home was all the motivation you needed to get it over and done. You put the order in the front basket of your bike and were off, hitting more than a few bumps in the road on your way.

Once you reach the apartment complex, you set your bike aside and head up to his door.

You’ve been here many times before, but that doesnt stop the nerves.

Tomura was an… interesting fellow. Never a smile on his face and rarely a thank you.

You steel yourself at the door of his apartment, taking a breath before raising your fist to knock. Maybe today would be different, you ponder, shifting your weight to cool your nerves. Maybe he would tip generously and send you on your way.

Everything could all be a big misunderstanding and you start to feel yourself get a little hopeful. He could be a nice guy under that rocky demeanor — maybe you’ve misjudged him.

The door opens with a little too much force and a vermillion glare meets your eyes.

You feel yourself falter under his gaze. “Um, Tomura?" You put on the best smile you could and extend your arm, the bag of takeout presented to him. "Here’s your order.”

He looks down at the bag and then back up to you — carmine eyes giving away ill hidden boredom before ripping it from your hand and turning on his heels. The slam of his door making you jolt as you strained to hear his muttered thanks. So quiet you’re sure you may have imagined it.

It would be generous to say you were shocked, but tonight had not been a kind night to you. A few too many potholes on your way here and a few too little tips given out has your lips pursed and fists clenching in anger. You had just about had it with this man.

What was his deal? You come all this way, make sure his food is hot — hell, you even smile and that's still not enough. Well, you were done playing nice and found your fist tapping against his door before your brain could process your actions.

In less than a few seconds the door swung open, this time a much more annoyed Tomura greeting you.

“What?” He rasped, face turned down into a scowl, much different from his earlier indifference.

You don't waver, “What is your deal?”

His brows shoot up in surprise, “Excuse me?”

“I said, what is your deal? I’ve been delivering to you for months and not a single time have you tipped me! You know that's how I make a living right? It's just unfair.” you huff, exasperated.

This seems to surprise him further, and if you weren't crazy you would think that was amusement on his lips. “Tip? Is that what you want?”

You are surprised, but you nod.

He huffs, taking a step back, “Fine.”

And then he’s gone.

You’re not sure if he intends for you to follow him inside the apartment, but you have an idea that he wouldn't leave his door open otherwise — so, against your better judgment, you go in.

It's dark in the apartment, and not very spacious. The dim lighting gives you little to work with but the blue light from the idle game screen playing on the tv in the living room helps you make out what you're looking at. Tomura has already gone deeper into the home, no doubt to his bedroom or wherever he may keep his money. You decide to stay where you are in the living room and look around a little.

The space wasn’t… awful, messy — yes, but not disgusting. It looked average to what any other twenty-something living alone would look like.

You try not to make a habit of getting to know customers you deliver to, but judging from the nintendo switch docked near his television, it seems you may have a little in common.

What surprises you are the anime figurines and plushies lining the bookshelf near the television. He didn’t strike you as a plushie enjoyer. Finding yourself smiling, you walk over to one. A green dino with goofy teeth and cute eyes. Cute. You reach out to touch it, the plushie feeling as soft as it looked.

The sound of footsteps on hardwood break your focus and you look back to see a grumpy Tomura, looking through his – assumedly empty – wallet, “I don’t have any cash on me.”

His hair is fluffy and white, but looks a pale blue in the hue of the paused game on the television screen. His frustration is prominent in his scowl and you take this moment to really look at him, carmine eyes focused and brooding. He was taller than you originally thought and his black shirt was loose around the collar area, exposing his collar bones and you find your eyes drifting lower. You could tell he was toned under the thin black shirt he wore but you had never had a chance to really notice. Unconsciously, you lick your lips.

“Did you hear me?”

Your eyes snap up, cheeks flushing, “Y-yeah!”

He huffed, irritation obvious but continued anyway, “well, what do you want?”

You don't know what you want anymore. If he doesn't have cash then it doesn’t matter. This seems like it may have just been an oversight on his part, so you may be better off letting this go. Maybe he would order again and tip you extra next time.

You take a few steps forward, every intention to walk by him and get to the front door when you stop, finally responding to his question, “nothing, just remember next time.” Your gaze catches his and then drifts lower, to his lips. Tomura catches the trail of your gaze and it forces you to look away. You swore there was a hint of a smile on his lips but maybe you were tired, it has been a long day.

You shift your weight, ready to continue on your way out when Tomura reaches for your arm, grip tight and demanding. It takes you by surprise, but surprises you even further when he dips down and crashes his lips into yours, rough ones meeting the softness of yours. The kiss is not smooth or slow, but needy and hungry, Tomura playfully nipping your bottom lip before pulling away.

“I have an idea,” he breathes and pulls you by the hand to his couch, falling ungracefully onto it and in an instant he's on top of you.

Your cheeks are burning as you place both palms onto his chest to halt his movements, “H-hey, what are you doing?”

His laugh is low as if you should already know the plan. “I’m going to give you your tip.”

And then he's down again, lips warm and demanding. A moan escapes your throat and you fist a hand in his hair, overwhelmed and desperate to get more of him. His tongue swipes your bottom lip and you waste no time letting him in. His large hand trailed down your side, and you pressed closer to him. He felt intoxicating, and arousal pooled in your belly as Tomura pulled away, panting. He was just as flushed as you knew you were, the wild look in his eyes only making the arousal between your thighs slicker.

Tomura trailed kisses down your jaw and neck, leaving soft bites in between licks. A particularly hard bite made you gasp, gripping his shoulder and turning your head, giving him better access to your neck.

He only chuckled, sitting back and looking down at you, “You look like whore.” he spat, teasing tone in his smile. “All spread out on my couch like this.”

His hands moved to your pants, popping the buttons and pulling them down. You should stop him, tell him to wait because you barely know him and it's a little soon, but his words have you biting your lip and lifting your hips to help him get your pants down and off.

That only makes Tomura shake his head in disbelief, a pleased smile betraying his false disappointment.

He reaches down and presses his middle finger to your clothed cunt, rubbing soft circles and laughs, “You’re soaked. Didn’t take you for such a slut.”

The words only spurred you on, spreading your legs further and closing your eyes. It felt good to finally get some kind of contact – he was right where he needed to be. Until he pulled away, leaving you more desperate and a complaint on your lips. You stop in your tracks though as Tomura leans down, tongue licking you through your panties.

Your hands fly to his hair, moan erupting from your lips. You’re unsure how thin his apartment walls are, but you don't care. The feeling sends pleasure shooting up your spine and your heart picks up its pace.

Tomura laps at your clothed cunt, fabric muting the full feeling but giving you enough to cry out. You find yourself grinding closer, body begging him to keep going and he obliges, only for a moment. He gives your cunt one more kiss before pulling back and pulling your soaked panties down and off, tossing them across the living room.

He wastes no time diving back in, tongue licking a strip from your hole to your clit and your back arches. The hold you have on Tomura’s hair is so tight, you're sure it’s painful at this point, but he only groans, wet muscle lapping your clit eagerly. Your thighs reflexively try to close, but Tomura is faster, hand stopping them and thumb rubbing soothing circles.

“Oh, god,” you squeeze your eyes shut, the pleasure building quickly and you will yourself not to go over – not yet. That would be embarrassing.

You feel the pressure in your abdomen tighten and it's clear you won't last much longer. Tomura took that moment to suck your sensitive nub and you spill over, mouth open in a silent moan and thighs quivering.

Tomura rides you through it, only pulling away from his ministrations once you catch your breath. “That soon, huh?” There's no bite to his words and you only give him a halfhearted glare, heavy lidded eyes still reeling from your orgasm.

You’re distracted and don’t notice Tomura’s not finished with his antics. It wasn’t until you felt a digit pressing at your heat, slipping in slowly and making you mewl in pleasure. You were soaked, and the pressure making your head loll onto the armrest of the couch. It felt so full already.

“Ah!” you gasped, feeling the familiar glide of Tomura’s tongue against your oversensitive clit once more.

It was almost too much, your cries reaching new heights as he pumped his digit in and out of your sopping cunt, juices from your arousal mixing with his saliva. He was taking his time building your next orgasm, moving slow and steady, making your toes curl in pleasure.

The push of a second finger against your hole had you tapping Tomura’s shoulder, “t-too much! Tomura!”

Your cries fell on deaf ears as he continued, tip of his tongue flicking your clit as the second finger pushed in to join the first, waisting no time fucking you in earnest. His fingers were thick and the feeling of being so full made you dizzy, pleasure spiraling as you tried to ground yourself mentally. You grabbed Tomura’s shoulder, fisting his shirt in your hand as you lost yourself in the pleasure once more.

Tomura’s motions ceased as his eyes met yours. You could only imagine how blissed out you looked in this moment, breath ragged and sweat clinging to your brow. Tomura wasn’t much better off — he was as desperate as you, hair splayed in wild directions after your hands ravaged through it. You open your mouth – impatient words on the tip of your tongue and Tomura curls his fingers, digits hitting that spongy spot inside that made you see stars.

He flattens his tongue, giving your clit a final lap and it sends you over – for the second time tonight.

Your back arches and your legs shake as your orgasm washes over you. The feeling sends waves of pleasure throughout your body, eyes squeezed shut and mind buzzing.

Tomura watches as you come apart, palming his erection in awe. You meet his eyes once you come down from your second high of the night and Tomura wastes no time in crashing his lips to yours, clumsy and wet. You could taste yourself on his lips and groan when he pulls you closer.

There's a trail of saliva linking the two of you once he pulls away, but Tomura’s heavy gaze is only on you. He leans back in once more to give you a much softer kiss, before pulling away again and giving the same soft kiss on your cheek — heat rushing to them for reasons entirely different from what just transpired between you both.

It was very… intimate – in a way you did not expect from someone who had just called you a slut.

It makes you want to reach out for him when he pulls away further, eyes seemingly pondering something you’re unaware of. He looked down at you one more time, before looking to his television and his unopened takeout bag on the coffee table.

“My show is about to start, so…” he starts, picking up the remote to change the channel of the television, screen lighting up and noise filling the room. You stare as Tomura sits back and gets comfortable, opening his takeout bag and removing the contents.

Was he… was he kicking you out right now? Seriously?

Your brows fly up, eyes widened in disbelief — his lack of reaction at your scoff only proves you right. He was kicking you out. Bullshit. The humiliation is evident as you scurry to find your pants, not bothering to find wherever the hell he tossed your underwear earlier, and get the hell out of there before you said something you would regret.

The only thing on your mind was the front door as you brushed by Tomura one last time.

“Hey!” he called, gluing you to your spot. Your heart jumped as you turned back to him vaguely hoping he would offer you to stay a little longer.

That small flame of hope died as soon as it came because Tomura was only extending your long forgotten phone to you.

You snatch the device from his hand and make your way out the door, face burning and legs still tingling from the way he made you come undone mere moments before.

Once you reach your bike you find yourself huffing in annoyance. What else did you expect? Him to offer you some of his takeout? That would just be silly. You’re walking your bike to the sidewalk, ready to hop on and go back to the restaurant – sure your manager is worried sick about his only driver – before your phone buzzes in your back pocket.

Tomura S.

Your eyes widened as you read a text from the name you knew you hadn't saved in your contacts before.

You forgot my drink.

Love Like Ghosts (Chapter 9) - a Shigaraki x f!Reader fic

You knew the empty house in a quiet neighborhood was too good to be true, but you were so desperate to get out of your tiny apartment that you didn't care, and now you find yourself sharing space with something inhuman and immensely powerful. As you struggle to coexist with a ghost whose intentions you're unsure of, you find yourself drawn unwillingly into the upside world of spirits and conjurers, and becoming part of a neighborhood whose existence depends on your house staying exactly as it is, forever. But ghosts can change, just like people can. And as your feelings and your ghost's become more complex and intertwined, everything else begins to crumble. (cross-posted to Ao3)

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8

Chapter 9

There’s something wrong with your house, but you knew that when you bought it, and lately it feels like the thing that’s wrong with your house is you. You’re constantly uneasy, at work and at home, to the point where Phantom glues herself to your side and cries when you try to leave. Tomura hovers. You can tell he wants things from you – more touches, more kissing, more sex – but with half the neighborhood out hunting conjurers, the insect deliveries have mostly dried up. Most of the time, mustering up a voice and a set of hands is the most he can do.

The conjurer hunt is on. Keigo’s taking time off from work, and whatever Spinner and Jin usually do during the day, they’ve put it on hold. Every morning, you or Aizawa or Jin’s mom gives the three of them and Atsuhiro a ride to the train station, where they get on separate trains, each taking a different route to the same destination. They’re checking cities and towns off the list, one by one, starting close to home and working their way outwards. They get back later and later every day.

Jin’s mom doesn’t like it. Magne doesn’t like it. Dabi especially doesn’t like it, given the clouds of smoke that are constantly billowing from Keigo’s house, and eventually you and Hizashi are dispatched to deal with it. Hizashi’s there for the intimidation factor. You’re not sure why you’re involved. “You’re close with Keigo,” Hizashi says with a shrug, when you ask him. “Hard to tell, but Dabi’s not thrilled with how things have been going there lately. Knowing you and Keigo might talk about him might make him behave a little better.”

“Oh.”

“That’s the theory, anyway,” Hizashi says. He bangs on the door with a closed fist. “Open up, Toasty. We need to talk.”

“Fuck off.”

“No can do. You’re about to get the fire department called on you,” Hizashi says. “How are you going to explain that one to your human when he gets home?”

“Like I’d know. He’s never here.” Dabi’s face appears in the front window, and a moment later the door cracks open. “He saw his first chance to get away from me and bolted.”

You can’t stop the incredulous laugh that sneaks out of your mouth. “He’s out there hunting your conjurer. What about that says he’s trying to get away?”

“I didn’t ask him to do that.”

“No, he volunteered.” Hizashi leans hard against the door and shoves it open. “You’re acting even dumber than the guy across the street, and that’s really saying something.”

“Hey,” you say listlessly. “Don’t talk shit about my ghost. He came up with the plan.”

“The plan that might get my human killed,” Dabi says.

“The plan that might save your ass,” Hizashi corrects, flicking Dabi in the forehead and ignoring the smoke that starts to leak into the air. “Enough with this little fit you’re throwing. Things are this way with your human because you made them this way. Your human treats you different than she treats her ghost because of you. If you want any of that to change, you need to get it together.”

“I’m not embodying,” Dabi says. “You can’t make me.”

“You can do better even if you don’t embody yourself,” you say. Dabi makes a disparaging noise. “Not lighting the house on fire would be a good start.”

“Why do you do that, anyway?” Hizashi is fully inside Keigo’s house now, and even though you know it’s going to drive Tomura up the wall, you follow him in. “Oof, this place smells. Have you ever heard of air freshener?”

You survey the front room of Keigo’s house. It’s messy. There’s a basket of laundry sitting on the couch, unfolded but clean as evidenced by the used dryer sheet sticking out of a sock on top. While Hizashi continues to hold forth on the odor of the house, you investigate further, checking out the kitchen. It’s also messy. There are clean dishes in the dishwasher and dirty dishes in the sink, and based on the state of the stove, Keigo’s been living on instant noodles, frozen vegetables, and not much else. You think of the time you were sick, of Tomura’s clumsy but well-intentioned efforts to help, and feel an unexpected wave of sadness.

It crystallizes into resolve a moment later. You head back to the front room and target Dabi directly. “Get in here. You’re going to learn how to do the dishes.”

“What?”

Dabi sounds baffled, and Hizashi is hooting with laughter. You raise your voice to be heard over him. “You want things to be better with Keigo, you have to do stuff,” you say. “Just not burning down the house isn’t enough. You have to help out. Don’t just say you want things to change. Make them change.”

“Like a man,” Hizashi says, still cackling. “This is what real men do.”

Dabi looks skeptical. You weigh the risk of the statement you’re considering, then decide to hell with it. “Tomura knows how to do all this stuff already.”

It’s quiet for a second. “If your useless virgin of a ghost can do it, so can I,” Dabi states, which sets Hizashi off again. “Teach me how.”

You’re tempted to tell him that Tomura figured it out on his own, but you also don’t want Keigo to have to deal with some of the mistakes Tomura made. “Let’s start with the dishwasher.”

After the dishwasher, you go through proper dishwashing technique, stressing the importance of cleaning up whatever mess gets made in the process. “It’s not helping if there’s still a mess afterward,” Hizashi advices from the kitchen table, where he’s going through Keigo’s record collection. “Shou and me went through that with cleaning the litterbox. It was bad.”

Dabi bitches his way through the dishes, but you think he’s grasped the basics. After that, you move onto laundry – or rather, Hizashi moves on to laundry, because you get a brief flash of what Tomura will do when he finds out you’ve been touching Keigo’s and possibly Dabi’s underwear and decide you don’t want to deal with that. While they’re working on it, you head back across the street to retrieve a spare air freshener from your house. Tomura pounces on you the instant you step through the gate. “What are you doing over there?”

“Trying to teach Dabi some life skills so Keigo doesn’t have to live in a dungeon,” you say. Tomura’s more materialized than he’s been in a while, just slightly more than insubstantial as he tangles himself around you. “I should be done soon.”

“You’re not going back.”

“I’m going back,” you say.”

“No, you’re not!”

“I am, and here’s why. Keigo is my friend. He’s trying to help everybody. You don’t care about everybody, but I do, and I don’t think my friend should have to live in a house like that with a ghost that treats him that badly.” You dig up an air freshener, plus a scented candle, ignoring Tomura’s attempts to reel you back in. “The only reason Dabi’s going along with it is because I told him that you know how to do this stuff already.”

It’s quiet for a second. “He’s not better than me,” Tomura says.

“You’re better than him. Keigo and Hizashi didn’t have to come over here and teach you how to do the laundry.” You head for the door. “I’ll be back soon.”

Tomura entangles you again, because Tomura’s an asshole, but he lets you go before you reach the gate. When you get back to Keigo’s house, Dabi and Hizashi are there, with a pile of folded laundry between them and identical weird looks on their faces. “What did you say to him?” Dabi demands. “He’s so full of himself –”

“Yeah, I haven’t experienced this level of concentrated smugness in a while,” Hizashi notes. He gives his head a shake, then shrugs it off. “You got the goods?”

You hand off the air freshener and the candle. “Light this up and start praying. I’m not sure how much of a dent it will make, but it’s better than nothing.”

You’re not really sure how well your lessons and Hizashi’s have stuck, and you’re not sure how Keigo’s going to feel about the fact that you were both in his house, bullying his ghost. You don’t even have a chance to warn him, since you’re not the one picking he and the others up from the train station tonight, and you find yourself watching anxiously from your front window as Keigo trudges up the stairs and into his house. “What are you worried about?” Tomura asks. “You did him a favor. He should thank you.”

“I shouldn’t have gotten into their relationship like that.” The idea of someone trying something similar on you and Tomura makes you almost as uncomfortable as the idea of raising the topic of you and Tomura in a formal relationship. “He might be mad. I’d understand if he was mad.”

“He should be grateful,” Tomura says. Your phone buzzes in your pocket. “I’ll make him thank you if he doesn’t.”

It’s Keigo’s number. You gulp, unlock your phone, and start reading the texts.

Keigo: so uh

Keigo: hypothetically

Keigo: did you go to my house while I was gone and replace Dabi with Hizashi in disguise

Keigo: because like

Keigo: the laundry got folded

Keigo: the kitchen is clean

Keigo: when I got inside he stole all my clothes so he could put them in the washing machine

Keigo: nothing is on fire except a SCENTED CANDLE

Keigo: what did you DO

Tomura is reading over your shoulder, and as he reaches the end of the text string, he bursts out into raspy laughter. Something twists in your chest hard and painful enough to knock the air out of your lungs. You don’t think you’ve ever heard Tomura laugh before, and you’re almost angry with yourself for how much you like how it sounds. “What’s funny?”

“He stole his human’s clothes.” Tomura snickers. “If I tried that on you you’d leave and never come back.”

You’re temporarily frozen with horror at the thought, but you break out of it by force to text Keigo back. Sorry. Me and Hizashi went over there because the house was a little too on fire, and when we saw what a mess it was we decided to try to help out.

So you did it, Keigo texts back. He’s saying he did it.

We told him what to do, but he did most of it, you explain. Sorry.

Don’t be sorry. Just like – how? He never does this shit. I have to beg him not to cut my brake lines and burn down the house.

You’ve got theories, but nothing definitive, you glance at Tomura, wondering if he knows, but either he doesn’t or he’s not telling. I’m not sure, you text. He really stole your clothes?

Two seconds after I got inside. I barely shut the door in time. Keigo texts again while you’re trying not to have a thing over Tomura’s renewed laughter. I would have texted you about it sooner except I was naked and it would have been weird.

Now you’re laughing, but Tomura isn’t. “He owes you now. You should make him do something.”

“I’d say we’re even.” You laugh-react to Keigo’s text and put your phone away. “He and everybody else here helped me a lot when it came to you. I want to help them out, too.”

“Him telling you things isn’t the same as you dealing with his bastard scar wraith all day,” Tomura says. “You did more. He owes you.”

“That’s not how it works,” you say. “People help each other for a lot of reasons. It’s not usually just so the other person will owe them. Is that why you help me sometimes?”

You regret the question the instant you ask it – enough that you take it back, out loud. “Sorry. Don’t answer that.”

“I –”

“Don’t.” You know you’re not handling this well. You just don’t know what else to do.

Realizing that you’ve got feelings for Tomura has been a disaster on every possible level. You thought admitting it to yourself might make things easier, but instead it’s unlocked a whole new circle of hell – one where you want things from him that you’ve got no business wanting, things you know he can’t give you, things he wouldn’t give you in a million years. Not being able to touch him at all makes it worse. You’ve never thought of yourself as being touch-starved, but there’s not really another word for it. You miss the cold. You miss him. And it’s pathetic, so you do everything you can to not think about it. The last thing you want is for someone to ask.

But apparently you’re not hiding it as well as you think you are, because Mr. Yagi takes one look at you the next morning and motions you into his office. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” you say, but it comes out watery and awful. “I’m fine, sir. It’s just, uh –”

What should you say? That it’s the time of the month? If you say that, Mr. Yagi will run for the hills, and you shouldn’t lie to him. “It’s ghost stuff,” you say, and Mr. Yagi nods sagely. “Things in the neighborhood are – hard right now.”

“I have something that might help,” Mr. Yagi says encouragingly. “Izuku’s completed his review of the files you’ve collected, and he’s hoping to present his findings to you in person.”

“Oh,” you say. “Um, okay. I don’t know if the neighborhood –”

“You’ll come to our neighborhood,” Mr. Yagi says. You blink. “This evening, for dinner. Izuku will present his findings to you and you can eat a meal in a place that isn’t so obviously haunted. Inko tells me that constant observation wears on a person.”

You’re so used to it by this point that you barely notice. It’s the explanations that start to wear on you. Lately Tomura’s been interested in what you’re eating, and you’ve been stuck trying to describe taste to someone who can really only grasp texture. It would be nice to go one night without having to explain that lettuce tastes like green but salmon doesn’t taste like pink. Mr. Yagi raises his eyebrows. “Well?”

“Thank you, sir,” you say. “I’d like that.”

“Excellent!” Mr. Yagi beams at you. “You have my address from the office party two years ago, yes? We haven’t moved.”

“Um – you might need to send it again.” You have a bad habit of deleting your old texts.

Mr. Yagi sends you his address and you add it to his contact in your phone. And while you’re in your contacts, you realize that there’s a contact you’re missing – and a ghost who’s going to have questions when you don’t show up after work. You still haven’t gotten around to getting Tomura a phone, which means you’re going to need someone to go talk to him. Somebody he’s not going to try to kill. You’d send Spinner or Keigo, but they’re both on the mission, and introducing Hizashi into the equation is a recipe for disaster. If you ask Shinsou for help, Hizashi and Aizawa will murder you. That just leaves –

Wondering what in the hell you’re doing, you text Magne for the first time ever. Hi. Would you be okay letting Tomura borrow your phone for a second?

You’re not entirely sure what Magne does during the day. Whatever her job is, it’s remote work – but it must be a slow period, because she texts you back right away. What does he need it for?

I won’t be back until late and I need to let him know.

Magne sends you a truly bizarre collection of emojis. That’s so cute! What time should I bring it over?

Noon, you say. Thanks, Magne. I owe you one.

A little bird name Himiko tells me you have a Sephora credit card. I’ll be expecting a top-tier birthday gift.

The ghosts don’t have real birthdays, so they celebrate either the day they were summoned or the day they were embodied. You’re not sure which one Magne picked, but Spinner definitely knows. You’ll ask him. You got it.

Your lunch break starts at noon, and your phone rings from Magne’s number at approximately 12:02. “You’re on speaker,” Magne shouts at you. Then: “I’ve got your human on the phone! She wants to talk to you. Let me in the yard!”

“Just throw it,” Tomura shouts back.

“This is an iPhone! I’m not throwing it anywhere!”

“I don’t care what kind of phone it is. You’re not coming in my yard.”

“Tomura,” you call out, trying to simultaneously be loud and keep any of your coworkers from overhearing this nightmare, “go up to the fence and borrow the phone from Magne. And don’t run away with it. Otherwise I’m going to have to buy her the entire Sephora franchise for her birthday.”

Magne cackles at that, but when she speaks, she’s not talking to you. “There you are! It’s a shame you’ve been hiding in that house all this time. You’re much cuter when you’re – you know, all there.”

“I’m not cute,” Tomura says. You’re smiling to yourself for about three seconds before he speaks up again. “My human said I’m pretty.”

Based on the cacophony on the other end of the line, Magne’s phone mission picked up an audience. Or maybe she gave it an audience. You can hear Hizashi cackling like a goblin, Shinsou snorting with laughter, and some squeaky little Eri giggles, which would all be really funny if it was happening to anybody else. Tomura’s on the same page as you are about it. “Why are you laughing?”

“She’s not wrong,” Himiko says from somewhere in the offing. The whole neighborhood is there, apparently. “You’re really pretty, Tomura! It’s only funny because boys usually say that to girls, not the other way around.”

“Honestly, we should use it the other way around more often,” Hizashi says. He projects his voice at a volume that makes your ears start ringing through the phone. “I for one could stand to be called pretty at least four times a day.”

He’s speaking so loudly that Aizawa can probably hear him from their house at the top of the street. “Dad, that’s gross,” Shinsou complains.

“I think it’s nice,” Eri chimes in. “I like being pretty. My hair and my eyes look like Tomura’s, so Tomura must be pretty, too!”

“Okay,” you say loudly, trying to regain control of the situation, “my lunch break’s not forever, and I really do need to talk to Tomura, so –”

“Of course! Shoo, shoo!” Magne hopes into action. You’d better start saving for Magne’s birthday gift yesterday. “Here. The phone. I’ll be in my house. Just shout when you’re ready to give it back!”

“I’ll just throw it. That’s faster.”

“He won’t throw it,” you say. Magne makes some kind of agreeing sound and leaves. Tomura must have the phone now, but he’s not saying anything. “Are you there?”

“Am I supposed to say you’re pretty?”

You facepalm with the hand that’s not holding the phone. “No,” you say. “Not unless you think so. I said you were pretty because that’s what I think. And that’s not why I called you.”

“Why did you call me?”

You brace yourself. “I won’t be back until later tonight. Later than usual. I wanted to let you know.”

“Why?”

“I’m meeting someone who has information. About the second conjurer.”

“Who?” Tomura’s voice darkens so abruptly that a chill goes down your spine. “I don’t need you to tell me. I’ll find them. I’ll –”

“It’s my boss’s son. He’s fifteen. He’s been looking at the same documents I have, except he actually has time to read them.”

It’s quiet for a second. “You could have said it was a kid,” Tomura says reproachfully, and you almost laugh. “Your boss the ghost has a kid?”

“I don’t really know how that worked.” You don’t want to know, either, and you really don’t want Tomura asking questions about it, so you change the subject fast. “I’m going over there after work and I’ll be back when I can. Are you okay to feed Phantom, or should I ask someone to –”

“I’ll do it. She’s our dog.” Tomura cuts you off. “Don’t be stupid. And be careful.”

You’re tempted to point out that being careful is most likely rolled in with not being stupid, but you keep your mouth shut. A moment later Tomura speaks up again. “Come back fast. I miss you when you’re not here.”

“I will,” you say, trying not to implode. “I, um – I miss you too. Please don’t throw Magne’s phone.”

“Fine.” Tomura hangs up. You need to get Tomura a phone. You also need to teach Tomura phone etiquette, like not hanging up without saying goodbye. Except he said he missed you, which – what was that? Was it a guilt trip? Tomura’s never tried to guilt-trip you before, and he’s not subtle in general. If that’s what he was doing, you’d see it coming a mile away, which means that this wasn’t a guilt-trip. In fact, he took the news that you won’t be back until later fairly well. The weird feeling you’re getting is because it was a normal conversation. The kind of conversation you’d have with a boyfriend who wasn’t crazy. Most of your boyfriends have been crazy.

Tomura isn’t your boyfriend. You’re being weird. You text thank-you to Magne again, drop a line to Spinner to ask when Magne’s birthday is, and head back inside to grab your lunch. It’s a nice day. It might be nice to eat outside.

At least that’s what you think, until Nakayama drops down on the bench next to you. “Who was that on the phone?”

“None of your business.” You grit your teeth as Nakayama pops open a salad in an excruciatingly loud plastic clamshell package. “You were eavesdropping?”

“Nobody used to call you,” Nakayama says matter-of-factly. “Honestly, you seemed like the type who’d bang your boss.”

You almost choke on your sandwich. “But now Mr. Yagi seems kind of like your dad. Not in a daddy way, just a literal dad,” Nakayama continues. “So who was on the phone? Why do you miss them?”

“No one. Go away.”

“Is it your boyfriend?” Nakayama asks. “I’d say that to my boyfriend if he was clingy. Is your boyfriend clingy?”

“It’s not my boyfriend,” you say. You’re pretty sure your face is on fire. “Don’t you have anywhere else to be? I thought – uh, I thought you and Woods from the DA’s office were a thing.”

“We are. But he was being judgy about one of my cases, so I ditched him for today.” Nakayama crunches down on a bite of salad. “I’m surprised you knew that! You don’t usually care about office gossip.”

You don’t. But you’re desperate to get out of this conversation without having to think or talk any more about Tomura. “I pay attention, but I’m sort of behind, I think. Can you catch me up?”

Nakayama grins at you around a mouthful of lettuce. “I thought you’d never ask!”

Asking about gossip is going to be your new go-to for avoiding talking about your personal life with your coworkers. Nakayama talks straight through lunch, and afterwards you throw yourself into your work, doing everything you can to avoid thinking about Tomura and what Tomura said and what the actual hell is happening there. You end the day a half-day ahead of your inbox, and you duck out early, swinging by the store to pick up some flowers to bring as a gift for your hosts. And then you sneak into another store, to pick up something for someone else.

You’ve been to Mr. Yagi’s house before, but it was a while ago. The neighborhood you’re driving through feels mostly unfamiliar. The houses are medium-sized, but on big lots, and you know from your homebuying exploits that this much space costs a ridiculous amount of money. The land one of these houses is built on probably costs as much as your property and your house put together. The last time you were here, you remember thinking somewhat uncharitably that Mr. Yagi must have family money. You’re even more confused now that you know he’s a ghost.

Mr. Yagi’s house is yellow with green trim, bright and pretty. It feels friendly when you walk up the front steps, and the doorbell’s ring somehow sounds cheerful. Mr. Yagi opens the door, smiling. “Come in! What are these –”

“For you,” you say. Your parents might not have been very affectionate, but they made sure you had manners. Mr. Yagi accepts the flowers. “Thank you for hosting me.”

You take off your shoes and make your way into the house after Mr. Yagi. The rest of the house feels just as friendly as it looks. Whatever’s being cooked smells really good, and Mr. Yagi’s wife smiles at you though a cloud of steam when you approach to ask if you can help. “I have it under control. And I have my assistant,” she says, elbowing Mr. Yagi lightly. “Go out to the backyard, if you’d like. Izuku’s waiting.”

You make your way through the house and onto the back porch, which overlooks a garden about ten times as pretty as yours. You can’t help feeling a surge of envy, which is only partially helped by reminding yourself that this garden’s had a lot more time to grow than yours has, and that this family doesn’t have to worry about buying delicate or expensive plants for fear that a ghost will get impatient and kill them in order to materialize fully. The only shadow in the garden comes from a large, lush shrub with purple-green leaves that’s resisting every effort made by Mr. Yagi’s son to extract it from the ground.

You come closer. “Do you need help?”

“No,” Izuku says, out of breath. “I don’t want to chop it down, but it has to go. It’s invasive.”

“Oh,” you say. “Did you know that when you planted it?”

“We think it was mislabeled,” Izuku says. “Or I read the label wrong, or something. I don’t want to kill it, and I think I can get it out alive, but we can’t plant it anywhere else.”

Something occurs to you. “If I help you get it out alive, can I have it?”

“Dad said you have a garden, but why would you want – oh!” Izuku breaks off suddenly, grinning. “Based on the size of this bush and its relative age compared to the lifespan of similar plants, it contains about ten years of life energy! Ghosts usually burn through energy between forty-eight and fifty-five times faster than living things, depending on their power level, and Dad said your ghost is extremely strong, so if we assume a consumption rate of seventy times faster than a living thing and if you take this tree and he uses it, that should give him roughly two weeks of complete embodiment. Longer if he stays incorporeal sometimes.”

You can only stare at him. He keeps talking. “When Dad was still a ghost, he went through life-force really fast. Mom says he kept wanting to do things for her – like hold the door open, or pull out her chair so she could sit down, or carry her groceries. One time her car got stuck in the snow and he picked it up and carried it for her. Oh, I guess that’s another thing! If a ghost is exceeding the physical abilities of their embodied form, the consumption rate doubles. What kind of things does your ghost like to do?”

“I have a dog and they like to play together,” you say. There’s no way you’re bringing up the rest of it with a fifteen-year-old. “How did you find out about all this stuff? Is there an equation or something?”

“Sort of! I can show you if you want. Of course, it’ll be approximate, since there’s not a great way to measure power levels and you kind of just have to vibe it, but it should tell you about how much complete materialization time you’ll get. What kind of things does your ghost usually drain?”

“Small plants. Weeds or mushrooms, and sometimes blackberry bushes,” you say. “And the people in the neighborhood bring us bugs for him to use.”

“He must be conserving power really well if he can get complete materialization from insects,” Izuku says excitedly. “Do you think there’s any way I could meet him? I haven’t met a real ghost in ages, and one that powerful –”

“Izuku,” Mr. Yagi says warningly from the porch. “That ghost isn’t safe for most people to interact with. And his reaction to you would be difficult to predict.”

“He’d know I’m not a threat. He could read it off my aura,” Izuku says. He looks at you and explains before you can ask. “I’m half-ghost. Mom got pregnant with me before Dad embodied himself full-time.”

Your first thought, as incredibly stupid as it is, is that you might need your box of condoms after all. Your second thought is that you really didn’t need to know that much about your boss’s sex life. Then you remember that Mr. Yagi can see Tomura’s marks on you and decide that it’s even. “Um, what does that mean? Being half-ghost.”

“Like being an embodied ghost, but I didn’t have to drain anybody,” Izuku says. “I can see other ghosts, and feel what they feel. I need to blink, but my eyes still do the thing Dad’s eyes do, so I have to wear contacts. And sometimes when I dream I can see into the world between.”

You sit there with that for a moment. Izuku looks to Mr. Yagi. “Once I get the butterfly bush out, she’s going to take it home so her ghost can use it. Did you know he’s only been using bugs?”

“I didn’t,” Mr. Yagi says. He glances at you, and you will your face not to flush. “We’ll all work together to dig up the bush after dinner. It’s time to wash up.”

You follow Mr. Yagi and Izuku into the house, feeling like you handled things well. It’s not until you’re washing your hands that it occurs to you that Izuku, who’s half ghost, can almost certainly see Tomura’s goddamn handprints all over you. It takes you way too long to muster up the courage to do anything but bolt directly out the door and drive until you run out of gas. But you make it out to the table and sit down, avoiding everyone’s eyes. You’re sitting with two ghosts. They can see the handprints. They know. You’re screwed. There’s no way they’ll let you have the butterfly bush now.

Mr. Yagi’s wife reaches across the table and pats your arm. “It’s all right,” she says, and you look up to find her smiling. “I’ve got them, too.”

You can’t see handprints on her, but she must have them, if she was involved with Mr. Yagi before he was embodied. You’ve never met anybody other than Keigo who was involved with their ghost when it was still a ghost, and you feel yourself relax a bit, just like you do when you and Keigo hang out. You manage a smile in response, then pick up your utensils and start eating. The food tastes really good. And it’s nice to know that you’re not going to have to spend twenty minutes explaining why cheese comes in different shapes, colors, and sizes without becoming something other than cheese.

You have to explain other stuff, though. Izuku has questions. “How many ghosts are in your neighborhood? Are they all adults or are some of them kids? Was your house built before the rest of the neighborhood or is it just the only house with a ghost in it?” He uses the pause provided by your answers to inhale half the food on his plate, then jumps back into the breach with even more questions. “Dad said there was a scar wraith. Have you met him? Scar wraiths are technically half-embodied ghosts, right? How many of his powers does he still have? Which of the former ghosts on your street is the most powerful? Do you think my dad could beat Magne or Atsuhiro or Hizashi in a fight?”

Mr. Yagi chokes on a sip of water. “I won’t be fighting any ghosts in that neighborhood. My ghost-fighting days are long over.”

“You used to fight ghosts?” you ask.

“Yes,” Mr. Yagi says. “That’s what I was summoned for.”

You want to ask. You really, really want to ask, but you don’t want to pry. Mr. Yagi’s wife finally elbows him. “Just tell her, Toshi.”

Mr. Yagi sighs. “When we first spoke of this, I mentioned that some conjurers don’t bind ghosts. Rather, they form mutually beneficial alliances – sometime simply to extend their lives, sometimes in an effort to do good. The conjurer who summoned me was named Shimura Nana. She hoped to do good, and I wanted to help her. Together we pursued evil conjurers and unquiet ghosts, ending their reigns of terror wherever we could.”

He glances guiltily at you. “I believe we once crossed paths with Hizashi, from your neighborhood. My master judged there to be greater threats than him.”

Hizashi wouldn’t like hearing that. Maybe you’ll tell him the next time he tries to scare you for kicks. But there’s a different question you’re considering. “How do you kill a ghost?”

“We’ll get to that,” Mr. Yagi says. “In any case, as the years passed, my master and I came into contact with the same conjurer over and over again. He was interested not in short-term havoc, but in long-term destruction, and he chose his ghosts accordingly. Many of the worst ghosts my master and I faced had been captured by him – taken as children, isolated for decades, their power growing unchecked until it outgrew the haunt containing it.”

Unease twists in the pit of your stomach. You’ve heard a story like that before. The one you were told was about Eri, but when you consider the details – the length of time, the complete isolation – it sounds like someone else, too. “These ghosts had no chance to make a bargain with their conjurer,” Mr. Yagi continues. “It was likely never explained to them why they had been imprisoned in this world. Many ghosts are curious about the human world, initially, and form opinions once they’ve been allowed to explore and interact with it. By the time this conjurer’s ghosts are allowed to interact with the world, they’ve grown to despise it as a prison. They destroy everything in their path, until they’re stopped.”

“Dad stopped a lot of them,” Izuku says.

“His master called it merciful,” Mr. Yagi’s wife – she’s told you to call her Inko – says. She looks troubled. “I don’t know about that.”

“There aren’t any left in the country. My master and I made sure.” Mr. Yagi folds and unfolds his napkin. “Ghosts may not approach the world with the same view of mortality as humans do, but it still takes time to create such a violent, hateful ghost. We were certain we’d found them all. And then –”

Suddenly you’re certain you know what he’s going to say. “You found my house.”

“It has every hallmark of our enemy’s work,” Mr. Yagi says. “An immensely powerful ghost, firmly entrenched in a house that can barely contain it. How long has he inhabited that house?”

“A hundred and ten years.”

“That fits!” Izuku says excitedly. He gets up from the table and bolts down the hallway, coming back a moment later pushing a wheeled whiteboard that you’re pretty sure disappeared from the conference room at work. “So! Thanks to the map Mr. Aizawa made, and the list of identities you found, I’ve been able to track where this conjurer’s been over the last two hundred years. A lot of the haunts have been destroyed, but nothing gets built there again, so they’re easy to find. The conjurer starts out way to the north, two hundred years ago. He binds a ghost to an old temple, and sixty years later, the ghost breaks out. Did you get that one, Dad? Do you remember?”

Mr Yagi nods. “Okay,” Izuku says. “Seven years later, he’s right here. Just a little ways south. This time the ghost is in an abandoned palace. That one only lasts twenty years before the haunt gets destroyed, and Dad gets that one, too. Seven years after that, the conjurer goes big and summons a ghost to haunt this entire mountain range by binding different parts of it into different caves and cabins –”

It would take an idiot not to see the pattern that’s emerging. The conjurer moves steadily south, spending seven years in each location – no more, and no less. In each location he leaves behind a haunted house with a lonely ghost, a ticking time bomb that won’t go off until long after everyone’s forgotten it was there. When he reaches the border, he turns around and heads north again, still spending seven years in each location. “Why seven years?” you ask. “If he’s worried about being caught, shouldn’t he switch it up?”

“Summoning and binding ghosts take time,” Inko says. “If it’s not done well, the ghosts can get out. And this conjurer doesn’t want his ghosts to get out.”

Yeah, no kidding – if they can get out, they won’t go crazy like he wants them to. Izuku keeps going over the map, seven years and a few miles at a time. Then he stops. “Here there’s a big gap,” he says. “In distance and in time. He doesn’t show up again until fourteen years later, and he’s way too far north. Plus, his name is wrong. You were right about how he steals names from people he knew in his previous identity to build the new one, but his name in the new town isn’t related at all to the last one.”

“It’s an insult to my master,” Mr. Yagi says. The scowl on his face is way too scary for your liking. “Shimura Tenko.”

You remember that name from the files. “So what happened? Did he just take a break?”

“After ninety years of doing the same thing? No way,” Izuku says. He opens his mouth, closes it, and turns to Inko. “Mom spotted it. Mom should say.”

Inko smiles at him, then turns to face you. “Look at the space that’s missing,” she says quietly. “There should be a haunt somewhere here.”

You look at the spot she’s circling on the map and your heart sinks. “We’re not the only city around here,” you say hopelessly. “It could be any of those –”

“We checked. There isn’t.” Izuku is bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. “The guy my dad fought is the same guy who summoned your ghost. And it took him a while. Either your ghost really fought or really tried to escape, because the conjurer never spent more than seven years anywhere else. He spent fourteen years here.”

Your heart is racing. You look to Mr. Yagi. “How did you and your master not find him?”

“There was nothing to find,” Mr. Yagi says. “Every other haunt became a place of violence and terror, the instant the ghosts began to attain their full power. There were incidents, accidents, mysterious deaths – things that signal the presence of a ghost. There was no such thing in your house.”

No, there wasn’t. You checked. If there had been any sign of trouble, you wouldn’t have bought it. “What I don’t understand,” Inko says, “is why your ghost didn’t turn out like the others. From what Toshinori says, your ghost radiates malevolence to such a degree that no one’s stayed long inside the house. The isolation is what’s supposed to drive them crazy, and that would make him more isolated, not less.”

“That’s a weird move for a ghost with a lot of power,” Izuku agrees. “Especially given what all the other ones did. Obviously ghosts have different temperaments, like people do, but if all the others destroyed their haunts and he didn’t –”

He trails off, and Inko doesn’t try to fill the gap. They’re both looking at Mr. Yagi, so you look at him, too. It’s a while before he speaks, and when he does, he’s avoiding your eyes. “Initially, Tomura wouldn’t have had sufficient power to harm anyone. Once he did, it seems he made a conscious decision to use his powers to deepen his own isolation rather than wield them against others. He’s undeniably malevolent, but not particularly hostile. As far as any of us can tell, he’s never attempted to break out of his haunt, much less wreak the kind of destruction one might expect from a ghost in his position. In the eyes of his conjurer, he represents a failure.”

Even though failing at this is exactly what you should want for Tomura, you still don’t like hearing people talk about him that way. “What does that mean?”

“It means that Tomura’s conjurer is likely to return at some point,” Mr. Yagi says, “and attempt to turn Tomura into the symbol of terror he was meant to be. My understanding of Tomura is limited, but based on the available evidence –”

He gestures awkwardly at you. “The fastest way for his conjurer to do that would be to remove you from the picture.”

“Wouldn’t Tomura just kill him?” Izuku asks. “I mean – if someone hurt me or Mom, that’s what you’d do, right?”

“Yes,” Mr. Yagi says, “but this conjurer is too cunning to make it easy. He’d likely kill her far from the neighborhood, which would force Tomura to destroy his haunt to pursue him. Tomura would likely leave immense destruction in his wake as he chased the conjurer. Which is what the conjurer wanted him to do all along.”

You feel like you’re going to be sick. You imagine the house blowing apart from the inside, just like the fence did; or worse, you imagine it crumbling, falling apart in a wave of dust that billows out, consuming everything in its path. He already looks down on the neighborhood. If he found any way to blame them for your death, he’d wipe them off the map. And then he’d move on to everything else.

No. Tomura wouldn’t do something that crazy just for you. You’re out of your mind. “I’m not that important to him,” you say. “I’m not – he’d kill the conjurer to punish him, maybe. He wouldn’t go on a rampage. Why would you say that?”

Mr. Yagi doesn’t answer. He looks uncomfortable. “Even if he succeeded in killing the conjurer, it wouldn’t bring you back,” Inko says softly. “He’d still be loose in the world, still angry, still destructive, with no one to aim his anger towards. Haven’t you ever been so angry that you didn’t care who you hurt?”

You have. You don’t want to admit it, but you have. “So have I,” Inko says, which is hard to imagine. “But you and I are human, with societal expectations that make it unlikely that we’ll act on those feelings. Ghosts don’t have that. They follow their feelings. They don’t see consequences until it’s too late.”

“You’re wrong,” you say. Your jaw is clenched, your hands curled into fists out of sight. “I believe you about all of this – who his conjurer is, and why it happened, and all of that. But you’re wrong about what will happen if his conjurer kills me. He doesn’t care enough about me for the rest of it.”

You see Mr. Yagi and Inko trade a glance. Izuku is staring, too, waiting to be let in on the secret. “Perhaps we’re wrong,” Mr. Yagi says. “Even so, no one wants you to be hurt. With that in mind, we have a gift for you.”

“Toshinori’s master made these for me, back when Toshi was still a ghost,” Inko says. She pulls back her sleeves, revealing narrow bracelets on each wrist. “They hide the traces of ghostly power. When Toshi and I met, he and his master were still battling the conjurer. Wearing these kept me from being noticed and used against him.”

You hadn’t known that. Now you understand why Mr. Yagi is so certain about what Tomura will do if you’re killed – it’s what he would have done, or wanted to do, if he’d lost Inko. “My power’s faded enough that it’s almost undetectable,” Mr. Yagi says. “My master would be pleased if the bracelets went to someone who needed them.”

You argue. Of course you argue. A lot, in no small part because going to Mr. Yagi’s house for dinner and coming back with his wife’s jewelry on is going to convince everybody at the office that you’re sleeping with him. Once you lose that part of the argument, you switch tactics to arguing that something that fits Inko’s wrists is going to be too small for yours, only for Inko to tell you, completely straightfaced, that the bracelets are magic and can grow or shrink to fit whoever needs to wear them. You sit there with that for a moment, chagrined, before she bursts out laughing and tells you to try them on first. You do. They fit perfectly. Maybe they’re magic after all.

You help Inko with the dishes while Izuku piles up paper after paper after paper on the counter for you to take home and review, including a list of six possible names Tomura’s conjurer could be going by at this very moment. Then all of you head to the backyard to extract the butterfly bush. It’s a four-person job for sure. You have no idea how Izuku thought he was going to do it himself.

Inko insists you go home with leftovers, then sends you home with more food than you can carry. You thank her and Mr. Yagi and Izuku with a little more emotion than you usually display – for the food, and for their help. “I’ll bring this back to the neighborhood,” you say. “It’ll clear things up. Now we have a better idea of what to watch out for.”

“If you need assistance at any point, let me know,” Mr. Yagi says. “I do have some experience in this regard.”

“I will,” you say. “I’ll see you at work, sir.”

You’re still feeling too many things as you drive home, the still-living butterfly bush taking up the entire backseat of your car and enough food for two nights of dinners in the passenger seat. It takes you a while to name the feeling as hurt – hurt for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with the absurd kindness Mr. Yagi and his family showed to you. It’s an old hurt, one you’ve lived with for a long time; the feeling of observing a happy family and realizing all over again how empty your childhood was. But now there’s a new kind of hurt added to the pile. Not the hurt of wanting something you didn’t have, but wanting something you won’t get.

Inko was you, once upon a time. Human, in love with a ghost, in the line of fire. But it worked out for her. She’s happy. She has a son and a husband who loves her and a garden whose biggest problem is an invasive plant her son accidentally planted in it. That’s never going to be you.

Even if you wanted that, and you’re not at all sure you do, knowing you can’t have it makes you sad. You drive the rest of the way home with a weird lump in your throat, trying to clear it before you get home. You can’t explain this to Tomura. He won’t understand.

The mood sticks with you all the way home, but when you pull into your neighborhood, you feel it inexplicably lift. It’s just past sundown. Hizashi and Shinsou are in their garden, laughing about a misshapen eggplant they’ve been growing. Himiko is on the front porch of her house, painting Jin’s nails, while their siblings scribble profanity they probably learned from Spinner onto the sidewalk in chalk. Spinner and Keigo are hanging out in front of Spinner’s house, talking something over with Magne. And your front lawn might be dead as a doornail, but all the lights are on inside your house.

You park in the driveway and start ferrying things up to the house. The door swings open before you can even think of unlocking it, and Phantom races to greet you, barking and whining until you set the leftovers on the porch swing and crouch down to greet her. She licks your face, slurping the way she does when you’ve been sweating or crying. This time it was the latter.

When you turn to retrieve the leftovers, they’re gone. Inside the house, you hear the refrigerator open and shut. “I can carry that stuff,” you say to Tomura. “Don’t burn through too much energy.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.” Tomura’s down to a pair of hands as he drifts onto the porch, hands that seize your wrists and refuse to let go. “What are these?”

“I’ll explain,” you say. “I still have stuff to bring in.”

You bring in your purchase from the other store, knowing Tomura won’t look inside it unless you give him a reason to be suspicious, then devote your attention to wrestling the butterfly bush out of the backseat. Tomura eyes it suspiciously. “Where are you going to put that?”

You stop just before you remove it. You know from experience that once something leaves the car in the driveway, it’s fair game. “My boss and his family gave it to me,” you say. Tomura’s suspicious expression cranks up a notch. “It’s for you.”

Tomura blinks. “I’m going to bring it in. Don’t touch it yet,” you say. “I need to talk to you first.”

Tomura waits as you drag the butterfly bush in its pot into the yard, then up onto the porch, then through the door. He keeps quiet until after you’ve shut the door. “Can I have it now?”

“No,” you say. You’ve got a not-insignificant suspicion that Tomura is going to jump you the instant he’s fully materialized, and you don’t want to try to have this conversation while he’s trying to make out with you. But now he’s waiting, clearly impatient, and all at once you forget what you were planning to say. “Um –”

“Did they give you that tree just because they had it?”

“No,” you say, startled. “I asked if I could have it. I wanted to see you. My boss’s son, he said you could probably get two weeks of full materialization out of it, but I think there’s a good chance he underestimated your power level, and –”

The butterfly bush crumbles to ash so quickly it’s hard to imagine it was there in the first place. Tomura’s feet hit the floor, and a moment later, he jumps you. Literally jumps you – he’s taller than you are, but he tangles himself around you until both his feet are off the ground. He’s solid, and heavy, and you’re not at all prepared to take the weight of a fully embodied ghost. You collapse backwards, barely managing to tuck your chin and avoid smacking the back of your skull against the floor. Tomura takes the change from vertical to horizontal completely in stride. Whatever he’s planning, it’s not impeded by the fact that Phantom is racing in excited circles around the two of you.

You’re worried he’s going to kiss you, or go after your clothes the way Dabi’s apparently made a habit of doing to Keigo. Instead Tomura stretches out on top of you, apparently unconcerned with where his elbows and knees are going, and buries his head in your shoulder. Or your neck. He can’t seem to decide which one he prefers.

You put up with a few seconds of ghost cuddling before you ask. “Tomura, what are you doing?”

“Saw it in a movie.” A puff of cold air hits the side of your neck. “Wanted to try.”

“In this movie you saw, were they on the floor?” you ask, exasperated. “If we’re going to keep this up, we’re moving it to the couch.”

“I don’t want to move.”

“Tough luck. I don’t want to cuddle with you on the floor.” You roll him off of you, get to your feet, and book it to the living room, flopping down on the couch a split second before Tomura flops down on you. “Here’s fine, though.”

Tomura gets comfortable again, complaining under his breath, but once he’s settled, he goes quiet and still. “You’re like a weighted blanket,” you say nonsensically. “I didn’t think this was going to be the first thing you did.”

“I want that later. I want this now.” Tomura goes quiet again for a few moments. “Those things your boss gave you are strong. I didn’t see you until you were here. Why do you have them?”

It occurs to you why Tomura might be concerned. “They’re for hiding me when I’m out there. From other ghosts. Or conjurers.”

“You went there to find out about conjurers,” Tomura says. You’re surprised he remembered that. Or surprised he asked about it. Or both. “Did you?”

“About one of them,” you say. “The last name on Aizawa’s list. My boss thinks, um – he thinks that one might be yours.”

“Mine,” Tomura repeats. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” you say. You don’t want to get into the rest of it – the conjurer’s MO, whatever made Tomura different, what Mr. Yagi’s afraid will happen if – when – you die. Not when it’s calm like this. Not when you feel like you’re breathing for the first time in weeks, in spite of the fact that you’re currently being flattened by a ghost. “But my boss and his wife met when he was still a ghost. Someone made the bracelets so other ghosts and conjurers couldn’t find her.”

“Why would they care about someone else’s human?” Tomura sounds like the concept’s never occurred to him. “Just get your own.”

You knew you were right about this. You tell yourself that being right is a relief. “My boss loves his wife. He loved her even when he was a ghost. The best way for somebody to hurt him was to hurt her, and somebody really wanted to hurt him. So she wore these. To be safe. And now his powers have faded, so she gave them to me.”

It’s quiet again. “I don’t like that I can’t see you,” Tomura says.

“I’ll take them off once I’m in the neighborhood,” you say. “So you’ll know I’m there.”

Tomura makes an indistinct sound you can probably read as agreement and makes himself comfortable again. When it becomes clear that he’s not moving any time soon, you wrap your arms loosely around him. Tomura makes another indistinct sound. “What are you doing?”

“Holding you,” you say. “People do that.”

“Weird.” Tomura doesn’t stir. After a few minutes of lying there, one of your hands resting between his shoulder blades and one on the small of his back, you cautiously sneak one hand up to fiddle with the ends of his hair.

It’s tangled. There’s only so much you can do one-handed, but you get to work anyway, strangely comforted by the texture of it between your fingers. Tomura lifts his head slightly when you tug at one of the tougher knots. “Why are you doing that? It’s just going to get tangled again the next time I dematerialize.”

“I can fix it next time, too.” Maybe with a brush. “Do you care?”

“No.” Tomura answers fast. “It’s – nice. A lot of it is nice.”

You wonder what ‘it’ is in this case. Being corporeal? Being in physical contact with you? The physical contact you’re initiating? It doesn’t really matter. It’s all physical sensation to him, some good and some bad, and you’re the person who provides it. Tomura doesn’t care about you beyond that. It makes sense that he wouldn’t worry about you the way Mr. Yagi worries about Inko. The way any other ghost in the neighborhood worries about their human.

You’re not upset about it. You’ll take what you can get. And if what you can get is a few minutes cuddling on the couch before your ghost decides he’d rather make out, that’s still more than you expected when you came home tonight.

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flamme-shigaraki-spithoe

1 year ago

archiveofourown.org

The Rehabilitation of Death - Chapter 16 - BamSara - Cult of the Lamb (Video Game) [Archive of Our Own]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

The Rehabilitation of Death

Chapter 16: My Friend, The Sopping Wet Beast

With Heket's health progressing and the Harvest ritual setting the flock off in full bloom, Lambert prepares for the biggest festival in the century: a combination of a feast, bonfire, a follower's wedding, all while processing the newly developed change in theirs and Narinder's 'friendship'. Or really, the fact that the cat is now hesitating to disprove it as such. That alone is something new.

Narinder makes good on his promise, utilizing a heretic to open Anchordeep's door in a process Lambert gets to witness leading to a rather interesting conversation. The first crusade into Anchordeep is an impulsive one, and it's far too wet for the cat's liking. Lambert amuses themselves by trying to make the God of Death blink using the power of social mirroring and pushes their luck a little bit too far in playing.

Narinder's exasperation follows him into his sleep. Dreams remind him of a cycle he's put himself into. They are not gentle in handling his memories.

Read Tags/Author's Note for Warnings. Chapter Wordcount: 15,292

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flamme-shigaraki-spithoe

1 year ago

Okay so I Need to ask. Repressed Shigaraki, after that initial night, how would he go about handling his libido. Like would he ask you out or just daydream a lot? What if it got out of hand (lol hand) and he couldn't take it

He… wouldn’t. Handle it, that is. He’s convinced himself that he’s “immune” to such temptation, so when it smacks him in the face like a damn ceiling fan, he has no clue how to go about it. He’s never dealt with overbearing lust before. This is all new to him. He’ll get a little hormonal rise every now and again but usually he can deal with it with the ol’ in-out four finger palm pump. Not this time.

Afficher davantage

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flamme-shigaraki-spithoe

1 year ago

Guys i'm in France i don't know xhat happend WTF HAPPEND 😭✋

The absolute audacity for Horikoshi to do this on Tomura's birthday.

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