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[otterlyfoolish]

Your prompt(?) gave me brain worms, pls don't mind my ramblings below here,,,

Hakuri has always been at the bottom of the pack.

Well, not always. When he was a kid, he was treated the same as his siblings - he was sold the same grand story the rest of the family got, and was trained the same as his family. Though, when he wasn't able to keep up, his position in the family started to slip further and further down. It didn't help when Soya started to volunteer 'teaching' him in his free time - the amount of bruises on him just grew as more and more time passed.

So, he left. He escaped just like his pet mantis did.

Hakuri ran away from home with new born conviction - he wasn't exactly a fan of his family, there was little stopping him to begin with. He always reasoned in his head that his beloved pet had left him to do better things.

Once again in his life, he wasn't a floormat to be trampled on or ignored by his family members. Free, in the streets of Tokyo, not a single thing in his possessions apart from the clothes on his back. He was getting by with change he'd find on the street - he may not have been the runt of the litter anymore, but he wasn't a valued citizen either. If there was someone to look down upon, it was him - that still hasn't changed.

And so, when he met you, beaten, bloodied and cornered next to an abandoned building it wasn't his mind that had told him to move, but his body. He had never been the person on the other end - it didn't feel good to him to be the one looking downwards.

Thoughtlessly, (though his whole heart was in it,) he shielded you with his body. If there was one thing he could do, it was taking a beating. It didn't last long though as you took advantage of his help and flipped the situation on its head in those few moments involving Hakuri. He doubts he actually contributed to the fight, he can't seem to do anything in those types of factors.

After the attack, you wordlessly opened your wallet and handed him some money before walking away. He persistently followed you, trying to convince you to go to the hospital, but you just dragged your feet back to you apartment and collapsed onto the floor, door still open and just bleeding out onto your doorway as you were halfway taking off your shoes.

If Hakuri didn't grow up around violence and mentally unsound people, he would have left a long, long time ago, but since he did, he only carefully pulled you into your apartment and shut the door behind the two of you, awkwardly waiting around for you to wake up again after trying to clean up your wounds.

When you did, you didn't really kick him out. If anything, you gave him a space to sleep and reside in. The storage room being turned into something of a sleeping quarters for him as you came home one day with a spare set of bedding for him.

He discovers that you're very kind.

You didn't care if he used your stuff, and you didn't care about him following you about like a clingy puppy - which was very, very often. Whenever he wasn't running out to the store to run errands for you, he was in the same room as you, either helping you do chores or watching you practice your sorcery. He had thought of asking you to teach him, but he never mustered up quite enough courage to ask for anything more from you. Besides, he doesn't want you to think of him like his family did.

While you didn't seem to care about much, you did seem to care about the him trying to follow you to work at first, but it didn't take him long of him persisting and you let him tag along.

That's when he realises that you're rather... hostile towards other people, for lack of a better word. You don't speak more than the bare minimum, even risking being rude to your clients. They didn't mind though as you were praised for your ruthless efficiency, and tolerated your behaviour even as you demanded more money for it being such a difficult job. Your eyes narrowed at anyone that comes too close to the pair of you, and you click your tongue in annoyance (something he noticed you picked up from him) when you missed your target. Though that was a particularly poor day for you, your aim had been off ever since he mentioned to you that he couldn't tear his eyes away from you whenever you manifested your spirit energy. (You called it quits on that day, claiming a cold.)

But at home you help him dry his hair after showering, your fingers combing through his hair gently as he sits as still as he possibly could, not wanting to deter you at all. When he takes too long shopping, you go down yourself and try to find him, your eyes darting about in worry before they rest upon spotting him just taking too long trying to find the brand of tea you seem to love so much. Sometimes his hands lingers too long on you as he brushes some lint off your clothes, but you don't seem to mind as you only blink at him curiously in return.

Hakuri cherishes his day to day life with you, he would change nothing about it. But, in the back of his mind, there was this nagging feeling. He felt like there was more he should be doing - he didn't leave his family for nothing after all. When he tags along with you to work and watches you take down evildoers effortlessly, his heart twists.

He doesn't bring it up to you. He couldn't possibly ask for more.

One day after work, the two of you were in a family style restaurant. You had gone off to refill your both of your drinks and he sat at the table, trying to calm his heart after you had brushed the hair locks out of his face. Your fingers accidently rubbed against his cheek as you tried to tuck it behind his ears, and you paused for a moment, staring at him before you grabbed both of your glass cups and stood up abruptly, walking off with them.

He took a deep breath, staring down at the table as he willed the blood in his face to disappear as the waitress passed by his table.

Then, he was blinded by light.

Squinting, he looked out the window to try to make out that was going on as he hear yelling from outside, his blood running cold as he could make out two dark figures and a dragon made of mist plummet from the skies.

The hair on the back of his neck stood up as he could feel the crackle and static filling the air even with the wall between him and his murderer. Through the panic of people, he could just barely make out the words yelled out by the deranged man.

As he was forced to fully close his eyes from how bright the lighning was, he braced for impact, though there was something deep within him that was stirred up as he fell witness to what could be his final moments.

I still have a job to do.

He held his hands over his eyes, his body instinctively halfway holding the position for 'Isou', if he just extended his hands, he'd have completed the trained form. When the impact from the dragon never came, instead he was pulled back into a tight embrace in an attempt to shield him. Hakuri opened his eyes.

He didn't bother looking up at who was holding him, his eyes shot over to the window, looking at the scene in front of him.

There was a boy- no, man, in the middle of the road. He was dressed in all black, flowing trench coat and a sharp katana outreached in front of himself. Blood leaked out of his wounds, staining his skin as he seemed to have taken the hit- did he use himself as a lightning rod?!

He's dead. He has to be dead.

The man stood strong, his boots firmly against the ground as he gritted his teeth, his eyes never leaving his enemies. Then, he as Hakuri expected (but wanted to deny), the man stumbled forward. He thought he would see his corpse collide against the concrete, but then he sees him taking his other foot forward, preparing for another attack.

A red, white and black goldfish comes out of his blade - it matches the man's eyes as Hakuri sees his determined crimson irises from afar. As he heaves another breath, Hakuri feels like his own heart is burning as he refuses to die. His soul was set ablaze by the sight alone.

Just like his mantis, he knew he had to leave to do greater things.

-----

Hakuri was lightning in your darkest hour.

If you had to describe your first encounter with him, that would be accurate statement. Others might say you're being too generous or that you didn't know what was fully happening. It doesn't matter.

In a situation where you struggled to see that way out, he provided enough light in that moment to illuminate a path out. He stunned both you and your attackers just by throwing himself into the mess, trying to protect you - a complete stranger.

It was a messy situation - you had finished working. Your task was to make sure no one entered the building from sunrise to midnight. It was just you, so you sat on the rooftop like usual to pick off anyone that got through the barbed fence. There was apparently datenseki inside, but you didn't know if it was true or if it was just a decoy of some sort. Regardless, you were hired.

At the end of the day, as you spot your replacement coming in to take the night shift, you left the premises, only to be ambushed outside of the fenced area.

Close combat was never your strong suit - so you were quickly taken down. Your head was spinning, your mouth felt bile coming up and you weren't sure if they had used sorcery on your limbs to immobilise you. The pain numbed your body to the point you didn't realise that the blood coating you was your own.

Then, there he came. A tumbling flash of white and black as he basically fell on top of your body. (It would have hurt if it wasn't for the fact that every part of your body was already in pain.) For a moment, you thought it was some sort of angel taking you away to the afterlife.

But as he shouted for your attackers to leave you alone, your mind froze as you processed what was going on. In that split second of him grasping onto you, the pain stopped for just a moment. It was like someone threw ice cold water at you.

The rest is history as you promptly defeated them with the last of your energy.

Now, you don't remember the rest of it well. Hakuri says that you walked home yourself after handing him some cash, but you find it hard to believe that you could have made it back up your apartment without at least some help from him. You wake up with any visible wounds cleaned up, and any under your clothes left alone as he seemed too embarrassed to try to clean those ones.

As you wake up, you also realise that Hakuri was close by. He said something about hospital, you vaguely remember as he handed you a glass of water. But the only thing you clearly remember is his sky blue eyes staring back at yours as the sunrise reflected off his eyes. You had thought earlier that they were a ocean blue - it's probably a trick of the light as his eyes seemed to sparkle in the sunlight, while the moonlight seems to deepen their colour.

You fainted after that. And you could finally speak once you woke up from that slumber.

"Oh, my name? I'm Hakuri Sazanami."

You'd have to be a fool to not know his last name. And you'd have to be an even bigger fool to know it and still let him stick around.

But in that moment, it was so blameless. He smiled at you as he saw you awaken. You froze at the sight.

His snow white hair a little dishevelled as he peered over your expression checking on you. The small dimple in his cheek as he smiled - the other check didn't have one. Just like he only had his hair tied on one side. His hair parted not in the middle but a little to the side, his bangs were unevenly separated.

You found your own speech to be uneven as you introduced yourself. He didn't seem to mind.

If other people had felt what you had experienced in those few seconds, perhaps they would understand - but you don't care if they did.

Over the course of a few weeks, he lingered around your apartment. You thought he'd leave after a day or so, but he followed you around. You still aren't sure why, but he helped save your life. Letting him stay made you happier than it did before you met him anyways.

It wasn't until he left, you realised just how much you had changed your life to accommodate him.

The day you went to that restaurant. That place with the road partially ripped out in front of it, and the lamp posts that don't seem to work as well anymore. That place.

That day rushing back in your mind as you walked past the restaurant, while everyone else's eyes were on the enormous pothole in the concrete, you could only gaze at the window booth you were sitting in just a few days ago.

You had only stepped away for a second - you just wanted a second to recollect yourself as you realised what you just tried to do. Sure - you touch his hair while drying it after he's showered, but- this was different. You couldn't really see his expression when you dried his hair, then you tuck it behind his ear however, you can see every single feature and-

You're getting off track.

The point is that you had left him alone at the table - perhaps that was fate punishing you for not being brave enough to look at his expression properly when your fingers brushed his skin. In that time you left the table, a blindingly bright light came from the window, and you whipped your head around to face what it was.

Though, you didn't really. You just felt every bone in your body telling your brain to leave, run away, from the restaurant. So you made a choice - you didn't look at the danger to try to figure out what it was, and you didn't dash out the back door.

You ran to Hakuri and pulled him into your chest as you braced for the impact that was to never come.

Upon opening your eyes, you could see a man had redirected the hit onto himself. It was easy to gather from the evidence at hand - there was a bolt of thunder from the other man, the dragon made of cloud was a easy tell, and the man held his katana out in front of him, acting like a lightning rod.

Your heart thudded loudly - if Hakuri was paying any attention to you, he'd be able to hear it.

The man looked like something that would fall out of the night sky with his clothing choice. His body looked charred - he looked like he had been heavily scorched by the attack, there was blood flowing out of his head. You could see that he was heavily injured - he was close to either passing out or dying any moment now.

But he never fell, he pressed on. His eyes locked onto the man in front of him and a tri-coloured goldfish manifests out of his katana. You could see blood trickling out of his mouth from gritting his mouth in pain. You noticed that it was the same shade as his fish.

As he refused to crumble, you knew that the fight wasn't over, so you grabbed Hakuri's hand and started dragging him away, ignoring the panic in the restaurant as you tried to ensure both of your safeties.

You didn't realise until you were pulling Hakuri away from the fight, but every part of your body was trembling. The thought that was overtaking your mind with worry was: "I could have lost Hakuri."

Well, you lost him in the end, so it doesn't matter that much.

It's fine. You know it's fine. You lived without him for most of your life. It's fine. If Hakuri is like lightning, then you shouldn't have expected him to stick around long anyways.

He left a memorable impression on you, and you're sure to remember him as a friend fondly anyways. Besides, it's not like you'd ever actually tell him you like him. Because you don't - you don't like him.

You just never thought lightning would strike you twice as you see a man cloaked in all black attire.

-----

Chihiro doesn't have many friends.

It's not really a surprise to anyone. He never had the opportunity to make any as a kid - the closest thing to a playmate he had was Shiba. The second closest was then Azami, but he wasn't nearly as fun to play with. Of course he had his father, but you couldn't really call your family members friends, since, you know, they're family.

Because of this, he's always had rather stunted social skills. No one around him ever minded, and it's not like it ever held him back as he went about in life. The people in his life never made fun of him for it, and if there was something he didn't understand, they often explained it, or heavily referred to the answer so he could find out for himself. Besides, he was supposedly well mannered, so he could get away with not being able to read others very well since it was considered polite to not pry into other people's personal lives.

The first friend he makes is a friend of a friend. Hinao. She calls him cool. He doesn't know why. He's often unsuccessful in reading her expressions no matter how exaggerated she makes them. But she's laid back so there's no harm in messing up a little.

His next friend is a child. Char often tells him outright what she wants and needs. He isn't afraid of being unable to read her face, but he is afraid that she might get hurt, so he often 'spoils' her (according to Shiba).

His first male friend is an ally of sorts. Hakuri had reaffirmed his will and goal in retrieving the swords. Chihiro feels that he could trust Hakuri with his past because Hakuri trusts him.

One might say he's improved his skills a lot, but he would disagree.

Just by looking at your expressions, he wished that he knew how to read it.

He had been discussing plans with Shiba on how to break into the auction in the park nearby. Hakuri, Hinao and Char was playing with a ball as they just passed it around. Hinao kept trying to turn it into football, Char wanted to play 'hot potato' and Hakuri just tried to keep up with both of the games going on. Eventually, in the chaos, the ball ended up in a rather tall tree.

Hinao turned to Shiba with a expectant look, Char walked up to the tree and tried shaking it with little to no results. Hakuri apologised for kicking it too high up. Shiba let out a sigh and went to stand up, but Chihiro stopped him, saying something along the lines of he'll get it instead.

He walked up to the tree, Char still trying to shake the trunk with what little strength she had in her small body. Just as Chihiro was about to try to poke the ball out of the tree with his blade, the branch of the tree disintegrated. The ball fell down as the branch it was stuck in no longer existed.

Chihiro blinked, then turned his head about, looking around the park to see someone walking past. Said person caught the ball as it bounced. At the sight of Char running up to you, you crouched down and handed it over to her before trying to walk away.

Of course, as the well-mannered, polite boy he is, Chihiro walks up to you with the intention to express his gratitude. Something like a simple 'thank you'. Though he moment he started speaking to you, you turned around and your body froze up.

You locked eyes with his, refusing to break away as he walked up to you. As he thanked you for helping Char, you still didn't say a word. Though, you did break eye contact with him to glance down at the child for repeated Chihiro's words, also thanking you. You gave her a firm nod, but seemed to refuse to acknowledge his words. She nodded back at you and walked away, throwing it over to Hinao as she chased after the toy.

Chihiro doesn't need to think of a way to exit the conversation as Hakuri runs up to the him, shouting out a unfamiliar name.

"...Hakuri..." You say, your face immediately changing. He still isn't sure on how to read your features. Before, you kind of narrowed your eyes at him, nothing to even indicate on your face that you were happy in the slightest as he spoke. But now, he could see your eyes soften as his friend joins in the conversation.

Hakuri, starts going a mile a minute as he speaks, failing to condense his adventures within the realm of real words as he starts blubbering as he gets into Chihiro's backstory.

Chihiro isn't sure how his friend does it though as he sees that the corner of your eyes start to water at Hakuri's retelling of the past few days. Something about his words moved you, as you turned to him, with eyes as equally watery as Hakuri's.

"Do you need any assistance in taking down the Rakuzaichi?"

Ah. You really are as kind-hearted as Hakuri said you were.

"If you could."

His final friend is a friend of a friend. You seem hostile at first, but he trusts Hakuri. Besides, you seemed capable. Maybe you could teach him a thing or two.

a three-way relationship with chihiro and hakuri?

thinking of reader meeting the both of them separately in different areas, and the reader meets hakuri first after he was disowned by his family. reader would lend hakuri a room in their spacious apartment, and soon they became close friends after realizing they have similar interests (with hakuri slowly falling in love with them).

fast forward to the day when chihiro fought sojo in the streets full of civilians, and when chihiro became a lightning rod to direct all the lightning sojo released from the cloud gouger. hakuri was in the restaurant nearby with reader and was saved by chihiro (indirectly), resulting in hakuri admiring chihiro for his bravery and strength while reader who got distracted by chihiro but then focusing back on hakuri.

the relationship:

it's messy but you get the point.

might write it properly in the future 🤔

[otterlyfoolish]

No Smoking Indoors

(Shiba Togo x GN!Reader)

Warnings: Mentions of war, Possibly OOC, not edited

Tags: Small Age Gap, unrequited crush, its like really subtle though

Word Count: 3k

Summary:

Cafe Haru Haru has all sorts of people. Typically, you'd usually find people that's skilled in combat visiting the most for work. So it really shouldn't surprise Shiba to see a fellow war veteran there.

If you like Ao3 for reading fics more, here!

-----

Café Haru Haru is a café. Obvious, right?

You can buy coffee, you can get tea, you can get some sweet treats if the owner remembered to restock it for that day, otherwise you can settle for some sort of fruit juice she has in a little fridge under the counter. (Which is most of the time, since she tends to snack on her own products.)

From the decoration, you might think that its kind of like a bar, but there's no alcohol being served there - the wine glasses on the shelves are mostly for decoration. You can tell by the dust on the shelves - it might have been used to serve drinks once, but now it sits there solely to reflect the warm lighting and any sunlight it catches. It's probably for the best considering the main purpose of the business though.

It's not just a café, because if it was, it would be out of business extraordinarily fast. The main function is that it connects sorcerers to paying clients, and collects a fee. Typically it's yakuza looking for a little more firepower (sometimes literally,) or some blood thirsty fool that doesn't know any other way of life.

With a ring of the bell from the front of the store, it lets the owner know that someone's come in, whether it's a client looking for some protection, or a violent guard dog, she welcomes them in with a idle smile, hoping that its something more exciting this time.

"Excuse us!" The man yells out, already treating the place like a second home as he saunters in, the younger man next to him following closely as he gives him a blank stare.

"Ah, Shiba." She dejects with something of a scowl, leaning on the counter with a slump in her shoulders. "I'm busy right now, sit down and I'll get to you." She waves at him dismissively then shoots Chihiro a warmer greeting: "Hey, you look cool today as well, Chihiro!" To which she get a slow nod of confusion in response. Shiba glances between the two of them, the preferential treatment clear as day.

The two of them sit down at the stools, staying quiet as they glance over to Hinao explaining the details of a job to another customer - this was uncommon, they've never really been around seeing her handle her customers.

The customer has been served a cup of coffee (something Shiba and Chihiro had to always make themselves), and sat silently at the counter, reading over information Hinao had handed them. With a small thank you from them, Hinao nodded and then walked away, greeting Shiba now.

"So! What do you need?" She asks, leaving her customer to their own devices as she slides over to her regulars, hands flat on the table. "Need another job, Shiba? I got a couple, you might like." She says, "or just checking up on intel?"

"Just dropping by Tokyo." He answers simply, "but while I'm here, thought I'd also just ask you, how's it going on that front?"

"Bad." She sighs, looking out the window with a shoulders slumped. "I got nothing. Nada."

"Ah." He mouths back, while Chihiro lowers his gaze towards the counter, his face remaining as stoic as ever. Shiba had a feeling that the teen was pretty disappointed at the news though. "Well, let me see the job listings then. I'll check it out if it sounds promising."

"Sure, just wait 'till they're done." Hinao nods back at him, putting her hands into her coat pocket, using her head to motion towards the only other person in the room. "They've got the nice juicy ones right now. 'course, I've other ones if you're looking for something easier for a old man like you."

Shiba ignores that last jab. "Huh, really?" He utters back in response with a eyebrow raised - usually Hinao tried to pair up the difficulty to the person so her customers wouldn't be disappointed. If they've got the 'juicy' ones, that meant that they've got the high-risk, high-reward offers.

She nods back at Shiba, about to say something more before her other customer placed the papers down on the counter, waiting patiently for Hinao to speak to them again with their hands folded on the counter. Shiba glanced over again towards them as Hinao walked back over, discussing the details with the sorcerer.

"I'd like to take this one, please." They say holding one in particular. Their voice made Shiba's ears perk up.

"Okay, I'll give them a call, and we can arrange a meeting sometime." Hinao says, marking it down in a little notepad under the counter before grabbing the pile of job offers, sliding it over to Shiba. He didn't catch it, seemingly frozen as he looked across the room, leaving Chihiro to stop the pile of paper before it hit the floor.

"Thank you." They nodded back in response to Hinao who walked over to the rotary phone, humming absentmindedly as she rung the customer, one hand in her coat pocket.

"Mr Shiba," Chihiro starts out, trying to get his attention as Shiba still seemed to be frozen in his seat.

"Huh? Yeah, what's up, Chihiro?" He snapped out of it, glancing back at him as Chihiro fixed the pile of paper.

"The job listings you asked for." Chihiro answered simply, putting them in front of Shiba in a neat pile.

"Ah, thanks." He nodded, then turned his face back to the other side, looking at the only other customer again. Chihiro joined in, blinking at the two of them with a blank expression, but it was obvious he was wondering why Shiba seemed so interested in this other person. Slowly, he moved his hand to rest on the hilt of Enten, his eyes narrowing in anticipation, glancing over to Hinao, and made some mental calculations in his mind.

There didn't seem to be anything unusual about them - they seemed to be a pretty normal person overall, so Chihiro isn't sure what Shiba is picking up on. He's just trying to follow Shiba's lead. Then, there was finally movement.

The person from across the room pulled out a pack of cigarettes, pulling one out as they waited for Hinao to finish the deal for them. At the sight of them taking out the little box, she narrowed her them and shooed them out of her store, motioning towards the 'NO SMOKING' sign.

They nodded, then slowly made their way out. They seemed to have expected to be ushered out of the room. Choosing to wait outside as Hinao stayed on the phone, still discussing the details with her client.

Shiba's eyes followed them as they walked past him and Chihiro, still not even bothering to give either of them a single glance as they pulled the door open and walked out, standing outside for their smoke.

Chihiro blinked in confusion, then moved his hands back to his sides.

Shiba was quick to move after this. "Chihiro, you stay here and look through the pile, I'm going to have a smoke." He says, getting up from the stool, readjusting his shirt to look messier as he walked out.

"Mr Shiba, you ran out of cigarettes." Chihiro answers back, watching him walk out the door without another word from him. Chihiro blinked at the sight of him walking up to the stranger before turning to the pile of paper on the counter and reading through it carefully like he was told to.

-----

"There's a first for everything, huh?" A masculine voice calls out to you as you light your cigarette. You already knew who it was, so you didn't bother looking up as you took a deep breath as you let him continue speaking. "Never seen you in trouble before."

He looked at you as you slid the lighter back into your pockets, your eyes lazily turning to him as you began smoking, leaning against the cold walls of Cafe Haru Haru. You've aged, he could tell, but at the same time you looked younger - it's probably because of the fact the dark eye bags he's used to seeing on your skin wasn't so prominent anymore, unlike the past. You don't look so tired - maybe you've finally been getting some peace at night.

"Mr Shiba," you rolled his name off your tongue as you finally lifted your head up, blowing out a cloud of smoke as you spoke. You don't sound too different. "You still follow strangers into dark alleyways. Break that nasty habit, why don't you?"

He scoffed slightly at your answer, "we're not strangers, don't address me so formally."

"Apologies," you nodded back at him as you stood a little to the side, letting him stand next to you in the narrow space. He took you up on your unspoken offer, standing opposite you, back against the other wall of another building. "Oi. You brat," you verbally slap him as you let him settle near you.

"You're not old enough to start calling me a brat either!" He retorted back, but you could tell that he doesn't really care about the way you address him. He's playing around. "We're not in war times anymore either, so you're not my superior."

Shiba doesn't get angry easily, the both of you know that there's worse things to get riled up over compared to this. You somewhat miss the days where he would show you something that's a little more of a normal reaction.

"I wasn't done speaking," you say, pulling the cigarette out your mouth to speak again. He stayed quiet after that, listening to you. "You were worrying the young man by staring at me like that," you murmured out, gazing up at him with furrowed eyebrows. Your eyes seemed to catch something, as you briefly looked down. "Oh for goodness...! Fix your clothes." You grumbled, putting your cigarette back into your mouth to free up your hands. They smoothed out his collared shirt, and you pulled his suspenders back into place. "Why don't you notice these things, Shiba?"

Damn you and the eyes on the back of your head. But your observant nature was also what he was betting on. "Sorry."

He had noticed, but he knew that nothing would happen, so he didn't bother giving Chihiro any form of commutation regarding you. Though, he should have really at least gave him a wave or something. "I was just making sure that it really was you."

"Hm." You flicked your eyes up at him, not really buying his answer but chose not to linger long on it. "He looks like a young Rokuhira. But with less peach fuzz."

"...Yeah." Shiba nodded at your words, his shoulders slumping slightly at your words. His tone changed as he spoke, you noticed but couldn't place what he was feeling in response to your statement. "He's grown up a lot."

Your eyes flick over to the street and then back over to him. "Nice swords he's got." You state, taking another deep breath of your cigarette. Nonchalantly as ever, Shiba thinks, as you don't bother seeing if you're crossing boundaries you shouldn't be. "I take it that one of them is..." You say, not finishing on purpose, and Shiba is forced to mentally retrack his last statement.

"Yep." He nodded firmly at your unfinished question. If this was anyone else, he might have to reconsider sharing this bit of information, but he knew that you wouldn't do anything with it - it would just betray everything he knew about you.

You blinked at him slowly, already understanding any implications about that statement. "...I see."

A small moment of silence fell between the two of you - he rested his back against the cold walls of the building behind him as he gave you more space to stand with him. You stared at him, watching him watch you, the two of you aware of how close you were but didn't want to move further apart either.

"I saw the little poster about the Hishaku Ms Hinao put up." You stated, looking at him in the eyes, already knowing that he was the one that requested for the information. You've never asked Hinao about who put it up, but judging by what you know right now and the time frame that poster went up on the corkboard, you took a small leap of faith. He stared back into yours, occasionally glancing down to the cigarette in between your lips. "I'll let you know if I hear anything about them."

"...Thanks. That would help." He says, now looking off to the side before slowly guiding his eyes back to you, tracing your features as he tries to read your expression. He wouldn't be surprised if you were disappointed in him - he had a feeling that Kunishige would be.

You stare back at him, not caring about the way his eyes never really left your face. "Be careful," You say to him, locking back onto his pupils as you breath out another small puff of smoke. He stays silent, no random interjections. "I know you probably don't want to, but guiding or helping teenagers to commit violence doesn't settle nicely on your soul." As you spoke, your voice grew quieter. "Don't put more on your conscience if you can help it. The both of you."

...Huh. Shiba thought for sure you'd scold him for letting Chihiro do this. There was a part of him that followed you out of Cafe Haru Haru because he needed to consult to someone with a stronger moral compass. Kunishige wasn't there anymore, Azami could only assist him so much as part of the Kamunabi, you were the only one left.

"...Speaking from experience?" He asks you, though he really doesn't need to. He was there, from the start to the very end.

"I mean, that's all I have." You say back with a light voice that's meant to clear the tension, but he doesn't latch onto it. You take another inhale, shifting your eyes away, unable to bring yourself to look at what expression he had. "Sorry. I shouldn't lecture you."

"It's fine." Shiba says, but doesn't touch on it again as he shifts to another topic as you seem like you want to leave the conversation already. "How you've been doing recently?" He asks and the simple question already makes you want to let out a small groan.

"Eh." You start off, trying to think of a way to summarise your current everyday life in a way that won't concern him, but is enough to be honest at the same time. "Good enough. I'm currently teaching sorcery though."

"Huh?" He lets his mouth hang open at your words, blinking at you repeatedly. "Like, to a class? Or are you back in the Kamunabi?"

"Don't be ridiculous." You scoffed out at his guessing. "Just this kid that ran away from home." With a chuckle, you go on. "He's got potential, but he has a tendency to stick his nose into things he shouldn't be. He's like you when you were younger."

"I didn't cause that much trouble." He says, straight up denying your words.

"Only because you got away with it." You say, "The three of you would scuttle away to pull some shit off, and I would be forced to clean up any mess you made because I was in charge of your damn group." You let out a verbal exhale, thinking back on it. "If it wasn't for the fact it was war times, I wouldn't even be put in charge of you guys, y'know...? I'm not that much older than you."

He opens his mouth to say something in response to you, but when he receives a sharp glare in response, he closes it again, noticing something in the background. You turned around, looking at whatever he was looking at.

At the sound of a bell ringing behind you, you faced Hinao who had just exited from her store, holding a little bit of paper. The two of you instantly stop talking in anticipation of her speaking to either of you.

"Yo, you still- ah, there you are!" She said, walking up to you and extending the object in her hand to you, not caring that the two of you were just standing in the alleyway. "Here, they wanna meet up with you before working, but it seems like they're willing to hire you."

"Thank you, Ms Hinao." You said, taking it from her - you could tell from the lines that it was just torn out of her notepad. As you folded it neatly, you continued speaking, "I'll give you a cut of the pay if I get it, is that okay?"

"Eh?" She glanced over to Shiba who had forced a completely blank look on his face, not daring to show anything on his face to Hinao. He tried to look serious, but she thought that he just looked like a frog. "...Yeah, I mean, you always remember to pay up so I'm not too bothered." She agreed rather easily, before walking back into the café, realising that Shiba was talking to you, and there was just some sort of weird vibe coming from him. "See you."

The two of you watch Hinao go back into the café, a pensive thought on your face while Shiba continued to try to stay stoic. It doesn't really suit him, in your opinion.

"...Hm." You mumbled, sensing that she didn't want to hang around outside for too long for whatever reason, but once again, you don't care enough and just slip the paper into your pocket. "Well, I guess I should be going now."

His eyes darted over to you, "already?"

"Yeah?" You said, raising an eyebrow back at him. "I mean, I don't have a reason to stick around."

"You could talk to me." He said, "let's smoke together a little longer."

"Quit slacking," you shot down with a light laugh, rolling your eyes at him. "You haven't even been smoking while talking to me anyways."

He let out a small huff of annoyance, but you knew that he wasn't actually offended. "...Here, let's stay in contact." He says, pulling out his flip phone and handing it over to you.

"...Yeah, sure." You agree, putting your cigarette back in your mouth as you typed with both hands. When you handed his phone back over to you, he stuck his hand out, looking at you expectantly. You stared down at his palm, trying to think of what on Earth he wanted before taking the cigarette out of your mouth and putting it in between his fingers without another word.

He gave you a incredulous look, his pupils going back and forth from the object in his hands to your dumbfounded expression. "What?"

"...Huh?" You uttered back at him.

"I'm asking for your phone," he states, giving each word time to sink in, "so I can, you know, put my number in your contacts."

"...But I'm not going to contact you." You state, crossing your arms. He narrows his eyes at you, about to say more, but you chuckle at the expression on his face. "Goodbye, Shiba. Please give the young Rokuhira my sincerest condolences." you say back to him as you begin to walk away, joining the crowd. He watched your figure slowly disappear into the flock of people.

Shiba looked down at the object in his hands, it was still burning at the cherry. His eye flicked upwards again.

He pressed the cigarette to his lips, taking one last inhale of it as he looked at the crowd of people, trying to find you once more, before snuffing it out, walking back into Cafe Haru Haru.

[otterlyfoolish]

White Sealskin

(Hakuri Sazanami x GN!reader)

Warnings: Animal abuse, child abuse, Soya Sazanami, murder, blood and violence, mentions of cannibalism, death, many inaccuracies about a little bit of everything, ambiguous ending, not edited

Tags: AU - Shapeshifters, Animal transformation, Oneshot, one-sided pining, slow build

Word count: 8k

Summary: In the thick of a snowstorm, you come across a wounded harp seal. You just wish you had a warning of what was to come before deciding to help it.

If you like reading on Ao3 more, here!

A/N: Selkie!Hakuri? It's more likely than you think. I know that he's more of a dog, but like... this sounded more fun in my head to write.

-----

I'll have to wait for him tomorrow again.

You trudge through the thick blanket of snow on the ground, squinting your eyes through the harsh weather conditions as you try to navigate back to your wooden lodge for the night. Your hand felt numb as you continued to march with them exposed to the cold air, not tucked away like your other one was as you carried your naginata. Occasionally, you'd pierce it a little deeper into the snow to gain some better footing treating it like a trekking pole.

Off in the distance, you think you catch onto the faint outline of the abandoned house as it flickers through the blizzard.

You march on, aware of the fact that if you don't make it soon, you'll freeze to death. Unfortunately, your eyes catch onto something more alarming as you force yourself further forward. Blood.

While you're used to the sight of it, it's still a warning sight nevertheless. You stop in your tracks for just a moment, taking a deep breath as you followed the patch of red with your eyes. You don't dare move until you carefully analysed where it was coming from.

There was a small furry white lump in the snow, stained with what seemed to be blood to the left ahead of you. It was probably leftovers of a dead animal that some predator left behind. Which was strange to you - if you were a wild animal in such a punishing environment, you'd think that you wouldn't leave anything behind when eating prey.

Maybe my target had left it behind...?

You stared at it a while longer, before taking a few cautious steps towards, repositioning your weapon to your proper stance as you approached. As you got closer, you could tell that it was a seal, not an arctic fox of some kind. How strange - why is it so far from the water? Do this live this far in land? Was it dragged here from the ocean?

No matter - you're hungry, and it seems like there's still some meat left for you to eat. Surely you could cook it over a fire. Even if you couldn't you could skin it for its fur-

You froze up as you saw it roll onto its front, and slowly shuffle forward seeming desperate to move even as it was bleeding out. You couldn't tell at first, but it was surprisingly larger than you had thought baby harp seals were.

...Huh, it's still alive.

You took bigger steps towards it as you moved your polearm back to your marching position, feeling braver as you felt that it wasn't a trap of some sort.

I wonder if its trying to get back to its family even in that condition.

You turned your head back behind you as you frowned.

But it's going the wrong direction from the ocean.

As you got close enough to it, it let out a startled sound, almost sounding like a human cry before trying to paddle through the snow, leaving a small trail of blood after itself. It was louder than you expected. You would think that the snow or maybe its fur would help clog the wound, but it seems like that it wasn't really doing anything to help it.

"You know you're going to attract wolves soon, right?" You ask it, despite knowing fully well that it probably couldn't understand you. In this weather, even a human would probably struggle to hear you.

Even so, the seal jolts in place, as if understanding what you're saying and tilts its head to face you, its big wide eyes blinking at you in what you could only describe as horrified shock.

You only motion towards the patches of red on its otherwise snow white fur coat in response to the animal. It seemed to understand what you were saying as it proceeded to roll in the snow, perhaps to rub the scent away.

...I don't think that's going to work.

It repeated the action a couple more times, not even crying out in pain as it seemed to be able to hold it in before crawling through the thick piles of snow. You watched it for a while, no longer caring about the cold air sapping away the warmth from your body. It barely made it one meter before you let out a loud sigh.

"...Oh, what the hell..." You let out a loud grumble then proceeded to tuck your weapon under your arm before crouching down to scoop up the animal with your thick winter gloves. "Come on, then..."

It froze up in your hold, seemingly unsure of what to do as you carried it, returning back to your original route back to your lodgings. "You know that as a seal, your talents are in swimming right? Why are you even so far inland?"

Just like before, you didn't expect an answer from it, but it seemed to lower its head with some sort of expression you couldn't explain as its watery eyes seemed to dull at your words. There's a part of you that's sure that seals aren't capable of complex thought, but that was currently being questioned as you watched the animal in your arms.

...Whatever...

You marched on, reaching the little abandoned hut later than you had expected with the extra weight you were carrying. Thankfully, the seal didn't seem to make much fuss over being carried - whether that was because of the fact it was injured and too tired to, or was because it somewhat trusted you, didn't matter. It changes nothing to you know that it's feeling.

Upon opening the door, you placed the seal onto the cold wooden floors, and swiftly slammed the thick door shut behind you. The seal flopped onto the ground, looking around before moving out of the way as you pushed the small table in front of the door, making sure that the door wouldn't randomly open due to the wind. You propped your weapon down by the door then shuffled around the small room.

The place was cold - though it wasn't colder per say, it certainly wasn't warmer than the outside. So it didn't take you long for you to stumble over to the shabby fireplace and throw on whatever kindling was leftover on top of the cobbled interior.

"This might last me enough for tonight." You mumble out, catching the seals curious expression as you try to start a fire as you kneeled down onto the floorboards. It shuffled away from you when it realised that you were looking back at it, hiding under the table now. "...Though, it definitely won't be enough for tomorrow."

The embers were small, and struggled to stay alive, even so, you seemed satisfied with it and scooted away from the fireplace, opening your small travel bag to pull out a first aid kit, practically slamming it onto the table before doing the same with your flashlight. The sound was loud and sharp as it collided with the furniture, startling the animal hiding underneath.

Then, suddenly, you stuck your head under the table to lock eyes with the seal.

It wasn't given much time before it was lifted up into the air. It froze up in your hands, turning stiff as it anticipated being flung against the table just like your other equipment was.

You carefully laid it down on the table, on top of what feels like a towel.

Even so, it couldn't help but stay frozen stiff, not daring to make a sound - it was still expecting there to be a impact somehow, some way. There wasn't anything it had ever experienced for it to expect anything otherwise.

There was a long moment of silence from the both of you as you stared down at the animal, your eyes narrowing in on something about the seal.

"...Hm." You uttered as you then wrapped the towel around its head, blocking its vision and quickly got to work. You didn't really know what to do, but considering that it was probably going to die whether you help it or not, helped soothe you as you cleaned the gash on its torso. Surprisingly, throughout your rough patch work, it stayed completely still, not even bothering to make a sound as you wrapped what little medical equipment you had around the wound.

...Is it already dead? I mean, the wound isn't that big, but...

"...Okay." You say with a finish, tying it up neatly together before pulling the towel away from its head. "Good job."

It blinked at you blankly as you now proceeded to sit down in front of the growing fire and close your eyes, no longer caring about it as it laid on the table with the bloodied towel, relishing in the heat from the fire.

You could sense the seal slowly regaining the will to move again as you felt it looking at you with confusion even with your back turned. You don't care, so you fall asleep sitting upright in front of the fire.

---

It didn't take long for morning to come along, and you were already packing your things the second there was even a glimmer of light from peeking in the iced over windows.

Just before you left, you picked up the sleeping seal off of the table and gently placed it onto the floor, waking it up. You kicked the table back into its original place and then grabbed your naginata that was resting against the door. "I'm going. Bye." You say, the opened the door and walked out, leaving it open for the seal to leave anytime it wanted to.

Once more, you trudged through the (now thicker) snow, the storm now passed over and was bright enough for you to see once more.

You glanced over to the forest far off in the distance, and began walking towards it before your body felt somewhat weak.

I must be hungry. I should try to find food first.

You pushed yourself forward as you scanned the near entirely white landscape with a tired expression.

...How do I do that?

---

As you stood in front of yet another failed attempt of you trying to catch an arctic hare by using your naginata as a spear, you scratched your head in thought. Your eyes looking down at the hole in the ground. You had thought that it was hiding in here as it ran away from you, but it seems that was not the case as there was nothing in the small pit.

I didn't expect my work to last this long to begin with. I've never needed to hunt for food like this.

You turned away from the fake burrow, catching the sight of the hare running off from you in the distance as you stared at it with a blank expression. There was a part of you that wished you had studied how to use a long range weapon instead of a stick with a blade on the end.

*I should just head back at this point. The money isn't worth the effort to come all the way over here just to kill one man.

Then you remember that if you headed back, you'd probably be just as hungry as you are right now. After all, you came here for a reason. Besides, not many other people had your particular experience in this type of target.

You let out a sigh, blowing out a cloud of white air from the freezing temperatures before turning back to your position were you were yesterday. It didn't help your nerves that you had felt that you were being watched earlier when you entered the forest. It didn't feel malicious, but at this point, you felt like the cold was dulling down your senses.

The sooner I kill this werewolf, the sooner I get to eat.

As you left the forest clearing to head to the other part, you spot a humanoid figure out in the open, stumbling about on the vast sheets of snow with something in his hands.

Without even needing to think about it, you readied your naginata at your side, eyes fixed on the figure as you crept forward.

The man in front of you had soft white hair, and you noticed as he nervously glanced around the place there was a bit of his hair dangling around to the side of his face tied together by hair ties. (You wonder why he doesn't just cut it off but you've always been told you don't have an eye for style, so whatever.) He wore a white button up shirt underneath and light-coloured trousers with two straps dangling off them as well. On one of the straps, there was something white and furry hanging off the strap. Something about his physical appearance that brought a dreadful sense of familiarness.

He is not equipped for the weather. What is he wearing?

He carried a large cod in his hands as he fidgeted, seemingly wating for something.

I don't think this is my target.

You stared at him in utter befuddlement as he continued standing outside of the forest you were now hiding in. With your body crouched low to the ground, you took cover in the snow as you observed him from afar.

My target's details: Human-wolf shifter. Male. 37 years old. Black hair. 187cm tall. List of crimes: First degree murders, manslaughter, assault and battery, Kidnapping, Torture, vandalism.

There was an air of anxiousness about the man in front of you, but he seemed determined to stay were he was currently. There was still that cod in his hands. He held it like a prized possession.

...There is no way this is my target.

After waiting in the snow for a couple minutes, you couldn't stand it anymore and just stood up from where you were standing and exited the forest, trying to give this stranger as little attention as possible.

Unfortunately, he spots you instantly, his grey-blue eyes lighting up at the sight of you. Your grip tightened on your weapon as you tensed up at the fact he tried to run up to you, something about the way he walked made you think he was injured in someway.

"Ah...! Hello!" He calls out, making his way over to you as you locked eyes with him. Upon closer inspection, he looked a little beaten up.

You don't say a single word back in response, instead, you waited for him to continue speaking. When he got too close, you took a step back.

After a while of him taking one step forward, and you taking one step back, he decides to stop trying to close the distance, eyeing your blade with mild trepidation. "My name is Hakuri Sazanami...!" He bravely continues on despite your utter silence towards him.

Sazanami.

When he realised that you wouldn't say anything else, he tried prompting a response from you. "...What's your name?"

"...Do you need something from me?" You ask him back in response as he stays put now, no longer bothering to try to approach you. Did you go too far when following your target? Were you not supposed to be here? "I'm willing to leave."

"Huh? No, not at all, I was just..." He says, trailing off as he tries to think of what to say next. There was a lopsided smile on his face as if he was getting anxious over the fact that he wasn't able to answer your question back to him. But he also seemed too scared to back away now out of possibly offending you. Or maybe he was just gathering the nerves to try to have a proper conversation with you.

To you, Hakuri is rather confusing. You don't really know what he wants. Before you were just confused by his behaviour, but with his name revealed now, you hold onto your weapon even tighter, eyes focused on him. It seems like your cold stare isn't doing anything to ease his nerves either.

"...Mantis."

He blinks at you, still clutching the fish in his hands close to his chest. "Huh?"

"People at work call me mantis. It's an alias." You tell him, watching his body untense the slightest amount from your words. "I didn't pick it."

"...Oh, Okay!" He nods at you, looking a little more relaxed as you finally talk to him. You don't dare make any sort of movement to even try to soothe him right now. "Anyways..." He shuffles on his feet, kicking the snow a bit as he lowered his head downwards to the cod in his hands. "Here!" He says with as clear and loud of a voice he could manage, nearly bowing as he extended the fish out to you like a offering.

The cod basically stared back at you with its dead eyes, the black circle in the middle locked onto yours.

You stared at him with furrowed eyebrows, eyes darting aback and forth from his body and back to the item in his hands. There was a flashing thought in your mind to just attack him - you didn't have a single clue what the hell he was doing. What was a member of one of the biggest crime families doing? Giving you a cod?

"...What?" You ask him, still trying to process what's going on as your mind raced to every single possibility on what was going on.

"For you!" He says, unmoving from his position. The only thing you had noticed had changed was the fact his fingers hand reached further out to offer it to you. Perhaps he even straightened his back more.

"No." You say, shaking your head, standing firmly in the snow. You could hear your heart pounding in your ears as you tried to calm yourself, resisting the urge to fight - running was never an option for you.

He didn't move for a moment, and you didn't move either, the two of you standing in the cold air like statues until he lifted his head up with a surprised expression. "...Aren't you hungry?"

How does he know? Has he been watching me? Has the whole family been watching me? Are they waiting to kill me? Do they want to add me to the collection? No, I'm not that valuable as merchandise - then do they want to hire me? That makes no sense either.

Hakuri's eyes shifted over your expression and general body language nervously, his eyes lingering on your naginata before landing back on you.

What does he want?

He still seemed insistent on trying to give you the fish.

You still haven't moved a inch. Still staring at him with the same emotionless expression that you always seemed to have. "I am."

He nodded, his mood picking up slightly again, "then-"

"No." You cut him off, still refusing.

He deflated again, holding it closer to himself this time. "...Do you not like fish?"

"I do like fish." You clarify. You see the confusion on his face as your words seem to contradict your actions.

It doesn't seem like he knows how to respond to that has he blinks at you with his bright eyes. "...Why won't you take it then?" He asks, seeming completely sincere.

You're almost completely certain that he doesn't have bad or ulterior intentions, but even so, you don't accept his offer. "I can't take it without giving you something in return."

"Oh! No, you don't have to give me anything!" He shakes his head, the tied up strands of hair wagging back and forth with his movement. "I don't want anything in retur-"

"I will not take advantage of your kindness." You say, trying to speak more firmly. "I will not be in your debt."

"You don't need to, I'm the-" He then cuts himself off, stuck midsentence as he rethinks something in his mind. You just want to leave the situation at this point - whatever information Hakuri Sazanami was about to say doesn't seem bright for your future, no matter how shifty the jobs you take on are. He doesn't say anything for a moment, one hand on his chin as the other holds the cod by the gills, seemingly thinking hard about something. "...Then... will you accept it if you give me something in return...?"

"...What do you want?" You ask him, slowly relaxing your body.

He blinks at you, eyes moving across your body and the bag on your back, carefully examining what he could possibly ask for in return. "...Can I stay with you? Like as in, just hang around with you for a bit?"

"No." You say, shaking your head. He doesn't seem shocked that you rejected his offer, but looked a little downtrodden. "How about I give you my inner coat?" You offer, looking at his collared shirt.

"Huh? But you'll get cold." He says, seemingly not concerned over the fact that he was only wearing a shirt himself.

"I still have my outer one." You say, taking off your winter jacket to retrieve the black one inside. "Do we have a deal?"

His lip twitched as if he wanted to fight back, but nodded in the end. "We have a deal."

You handed your black coat over to him, not bothering to fold it as you expected him to immediately put it on himself. As soon as he took it you put your winter coat back on, desperate to reclaim the heat lost to the cold air already.

Hakuri didn't put your coat on straight away like you expected, instead waiting for you to zip up your winter coat before handing over the fish to you. It had a good heft to it. "Here," he says, looking happy over the transaction that the two of you just done.

You nod at him, holding the cod in your hands with your other hand as you still held your weapon by your side. "Okay." You say, acknowledging your trade then walked away from him without another word, taking a few steps backwards then turning your back on him and going back into the forest.

You could sense him staring at you leaving, you knew that he wanted to follow you, but was able to sense that you wouldn't be open to that idea.

Hakuri isn't a bad person - you can tell that much. It's safe to assume that he saw you struggling to catch anything, and went out of his way to give you food, waiting outside the forest for you (for who knows how long) in his rather cold attire just so he could give you something to eat. Even after you kept shooting him down out of fear of being, well, killed or worse, he persisted because he probably knew that you wouldn't be able to get any type of nourishment anywhere else.

But that's completely irrelevant.

It doesn't matter to you how earnest or sincere he seems. You knew just what type of business his family ran, and just what types of people sold the most at their yearly events. And while you doubt they would be interested in you, they would probably be interested in what you knew about their most popular 'merchandise'.

Maybe that's why even as you go deeper into this snowy forest, you couldn't shake the feeling of being watched.

You reach a spot where a log had fallen down and after checking out the general area for any signs of life nearby, you settle down, the rather slimy fish still in your hands. You wonder if it's safe to eat raw. If possible, you don't want to start a fire here - before it would have just been because you don't want to get your target on edge by letting them know there's someone nearby. But now you're worried if you'll alert the Sazanami family somehow. You doubt that Hakuri would snitch you out - he just doesn't seem like that type of person - but if he could find you, then couldn't any of them.

Besides, there's no guarantee that the werewolf is still on the roam. They could have already captured or killed him.

...Maybe it really would be better for me to run back now. Just cut my losses now.

Turning your head to face the sky, you squinted your eyes as you looked up, watching the sun's path. It seems like you've spent the whole morning trying to get something to eat.

"...I am not built for the cold." You mumble to yourself, realising how much of a mistake it was to come here to try to do your job when your usual movements and senses have been so dulled. The fact your realisation took so long also made you wonder if your thinking had slowed down too. After just a moment of considering, you decide to try to start a fire. Fuck it. You might get captured any second anyways, might as well try to eat the cod you had negotiated.

As the pitiful fire starts, and you use your polearm as a kitchen knife and skewer, there's a low mumble to the right of you. You're on your feet instantly, all of your senses honed in as you dart your eyes towards the sound.

You see a pair of bright eyes gazing at you nervously as you reflexively point your blade in the general direction of the sound. With its white fur and larger than expected body, you recognised it to be a harp seal. It didn't make another sound, only freezing up at the sight of you and your weapon.

"...Hello." You say, peering down at the animal that had decided to follow you. As you return your naginata to a safer position, it comes to you a bit closer, still cautiously moving. You realise that its the same one you found recently as you can see your mediocre wrappings around its wound. "We meet again." You sit back down, returning to trying to prepare your small meal for the day.

It made some sort of cry in response before seemingly settling down near you, about a foot away from where you sat.

"Go back to the ocean already." You say to it, throwing more wood into the tiny flame. "Seals aren't built for land travel."

It let out a low cry in response to you, the sound louder than you had expected as it seemed to protest against your words.

"You don't want to be on land." You try to convince it again, talking to the animal. "There's something dangerous up in these areas right now."

Maybe I really have gone nuts. What am I doing talking to this blubbery marine animal?

Surprisingly enough, it replied again to you, each sound coming out of its mouth sounding more and more human. Was it trying to ask for more information?

"What?" You ask, turning your eyes to meet its own, staring intently back until it scooted backwards away from you. That wasn't intentional - you've always had a rather intense stare. "...There's a werewolf in these parts." You say, relenting to the animal's curiosity as it still hasn't fully left you yet. Maybe this would finally be enough to make it go away back into the water since it seemed intelligent enough to somewhat understand your words.

Instead of backing away, it stretched its neck out towards you, no longer squishing its body up together to hear what you were saying better. It looked... interested in what you were saying.

You sigh at the sight of the animal. Though it was really towards yourself as you wonder why you were trying to rationalise what the seal was thinking - it obviously doesn't actually understand you, but you keep interpreting that it does.

"I'm going to kill it." You state plainly, gutting the fish messily as you try to prepare to cook it over the fire. "That's why I'm here."

Your words seem to illicit yet another response from the animal as it lifted its head up in what looked like shock to you then gave you a slow nod as it scooted even further backwards, sinking its neck back into its body.

You eye its movements, seeing it move further away from you due to your words. "...If it makes you feel better, he had it coming. He's killed and harmed many people." You add on, seeing if it really could understand you - if it came back, or seemed more comfortable by your words, then this was a extremely intelligent seal. (Or it could just be picking up on the tension in your body as you speak about more morbid topics - you don't know.)

The seal seemed to consider your words as it thought for a second and then slunk back over towards you, looking up at you with cautious yet admiring eyes.

...I get it. I'm going crazy in the cold.

As you cut deeper into the fish, carving out its guts in an attempt to regain your sanity, you pulled it out. "You wanna eat this?" You ask it, offering it over to the baby harp seal, dangling the cod's organs in the air.

It shook its head, so you just returned to trying to cook the fish peacefully, blissfully ignoring the fact that it was able to understand and answer you more adequately than some people you've met in your life.

Maybe this is the third man factor I've heard about. But instead of a random person I'm hallucinating, its a snow white seal.

Am I about to die then?

You blew out a puff of warm air, watching it instantly turn into a white cloud from the cold conditions.

I guess I'll just head home after eating this.

Using your naginata as a skewer, you rotated the fish as it cooked, trying to make sure that it wasn't burnt or undercooked. And with your lack of experience combined with the the lack of proper cooking equipment, the poor dead cod stood no chance as you (unintentionally) destroyed its body as you tried to cook it. Throughout the whole process, the seal had whined and cried at your actions, trying to guide you through it as you did worse and worse.

In the end, you stuffed the brunt, crumbled bits up into your mouth, settling for the fact that this was going to be your only source of subsistence until you got back home. You had tried offering a bit of the better cooked parts to the animal next to you, but it had once again rejected your offer (this time more adamantly).

"Alright." Upon finishing your meal(?), you then stood up, grabbing your weapon. Before walking away from the fire, you kicked a large amount of snow over the fire to put it out. "I'm going." You announced, turning to face the seal as you spoke to it, watching it carefully.

It looked... sad? At least it seemed like its eyes watered a little, but with winds as strong as today, maybe there was just something stuck there.

"How about I guide you back to the ocean?" You offer, starting to walk towards the direction of the forest's exit. "You seem lost."

It flopped forward as it tried to move, just giving up on using its flippers all together and just moving its body like a caterpillar to propel itself forward. It let out a cry, which you could only assume was a "no" by the way it yelled. (Much to your displeasure, you were getting quite good at interpreting what it was saying.)

"Is that so." You say, nodding back. As you stood still, waiting for it to catch up, you decided to just bend down and pick it up again, carrying it out of the woods. Once again, you tuck your blade away, freeing up your arms.

It let out a cry at your actions, but you ignore it, opting to save the both of you time instead. "Are you running from something?" You ask, feeling it jolt in your grasp as you spoke, securing it safely to your body, careful not to agitate its wounds. "Is there a killer whale in the water or something?"

It let out a low cry, in response, and you aren't so sure what this one meant this time.

"Hm." You nodded, taking slower steps as you tried not to jostle the precious cargo too much.

---

It takes you a little longer than you'd like, but you reach the end of the forest all while carrying the extra weight. If you had to say, this walk was actually somewhat enjoyable as you could feel the body warmth from the seal warming you up. Not to mention, you don't often get company while working - even if its an animal, this was probably the most you'd spend with another living thing for the rest of this year.

You hummed flatly as you trudged through the snow, trying to fill the air with anything but the selfish freezing breeze. The animal in your hands looked up at you as you cradled it with your arms, keeping its flippers on its torso as it rested.

As you walked back towards the direction of civilisation, you approached the little wooden lodge you had stayed in just a few hours ago. Though you had the intention of just walking past it, the animal in arms lifted its head up, then stiffened up, locking its muscles in place as it smelt the air.

At its movement, you slowed down, letting it inspect whatever it was picking up in the breeze of the wind.

"What is it?" You ask it after a minute of letting it try to pick up on whatever scent there was in the air. The more your walked forward, the more nervous it seemed to grow.

It let out a low cry in response, then tilted its head to its torso, where you had tried your best to clean its wounds.

Blood?

With each step, you felt the hair on the back of your neck start to bristle as you got closer. Moving the seal onto one hand, you held your weapon at the ready in your other.

You finally caught onto what your companion was trying to alert you to as your eyes focused on the view in front of you - there was a large furry grey lump on the ground, stained wet with crimson. You'd estimate it to be about 185cm approximately. It looked like a wolf.

...My target.

Near it was another grey lump, this time smoother and longer, about three meters long, probably a bit longer too. You watched for barely a moment as it tore out a chunk of the werewolf to spit it out onto the snow.

Now that's a powerful leopard seal.

"Is that what drove you out of the ocean?" You ask the seal in your hands, as it stopping moving altogether, you couldn't even feel it breath as you held it in your hands. At the sound of your voice, it turned over to your direction, and even though you thought you were a fair distance away beforehand, your instincts were now telling you that it wasn't enough. "...I'd leave too."

It raised its red-stained head high into the air and let out an echoing cry, almost sounding angry at the sight of you then started ploughing through the snow to get to you. it moved far faster than the animal in your hands, you'd think that it was swimming through water instead of land. The seal in your arms started to shake in fear.

As always, your first instinct is to fight, so you lower the harp seal in your hands onto the snow and started walking towards the leopard seal. "You should leave, harp seal." Blade at the ready. You heard it cry out behind you as you stepped forward.

Large blood dripping teeth, sharp focused eyes - it was clear to you why it would be considered the apex predator if the killer whale didn't exist.

"...Mind if I take a picture of that werewolf for confirmation?" You ask the larger animal, refusing to budge from your fighting stance. When it still charged forward, you took a deep breath - preparing to stab the seal.

it sprung forward, rising high up on its hind flippers, and you swung back, trying to keep your distance.

But as you slashed it across its face with your weapon, it didn't bleed or even flinch, but there was a visible gash in its grey coat. In that split moment, you realised that there was something very, very wrong.

Do seals have loose skin?

You let out a chocked gasp as it shed its large coat, throwing it onto your field of vision. In blind panic, you swung your naginata again, but before you could even finish your motion it slammed your entire body down onto the ground.

"Brother...!" You faintly heard in the background, before you hear your ribs cracking as another punch landed. "Stop!"

Selkie.

"Hakuri!" A masculine voice above you yelled out in patrial glee and anger. The onslaught on your body stopped as you got a moment to feel air in our lungs again as your skin burned from the pain.

Two selkies.

Without another thought, you tilted the weapon still in your hand and attempted to stab the man on top of you with your weapon, letting out a low hiss as you felt something in your body move that should not have.

I don't specialise in killing human shifters for no reason.

There was a low growl as you think you plunged the blade into his torso before you felt a heavy strike on your face.

---

Hakuri looked on in shock.

Just one minute ago, he was being carried in your arms. Something that was basically foreign to him. Even when he was injured back at home, no one bothered to try to help him walk when he couldn't - Soya had a possessive streak, and not many of his family members would dare provoke him.

And now he was looking at what could be your final moments, your arm basically moving on nerve reflex as you sunk the blade into his brother's body. It didn't hit a single vital organ, but you were able to draw blood as it tore open his upper arm, twisting it as you-

Soya grabbed onto your hand and there was a loud crunch in the air before it flopped back onto the ground. There was no more movement from you.

"Mantis..." He utters out, his voice trembling along with his body.

He's seen violence before, both towards himself and other people, he was forcefully desensitised to it as he grew up. he grit his teeth and moved past it. But something within him finally snapped, something that was already near death's door, and he couldn't put up with his family's sins anymore. So he left - he had been resolved that he could die leaving, and that was okay with him. He was okay with dying before he could even moult his sealskin. But he hadn't anticipated that other people would die because of him.

"Hakuri!" Soya repeats, his eyes lighting up. "I was looking everywhere for you, I've been walking and swimming for about a day. Imagine my surprise when I found out that you had been taken away by a stranger...!" He says, letting you drop onto the ground as he let go of your coat. His grey sealskin laid on top of your body like a sheet on a dead person's face. "I thought at first that werewolf had eaten you, but he eventually told me that he spotted you with another person!"

Day. It took Hakuri about a week to get this far. It took him a month to try to get his sealskin back from his brother.

Upon seeing the expression on his little brother's face, Soya started speaking again. "Listen to me, they're a bad person - they hunt shifters like us for money!" Soya says, gripping his little brother's shoulders even tighter as he held him away from your bleeding form in the snow. "I did this for you, okay? Don't worry about it anymore!"

There was so many things happening at once so fast - two bleeding forms laid out on the pure white snow, one just barely fresher than the other as the smell of blood hit Hakuri like nothing before. The werewolf's blood was already caked onto Soya's hands, but now yours joined on, coating his brother's knuckles and fingers in the red liquid. Hakuri could feel his new black coat being stained as Soya refused to let him go.

I should have never stuck around Mantis.

Soya looking directly into his eyes, while all Hakuri could do is stare at the two bodies on the cold ground, already partially buried in the snow - he could hear his older brother speaking louder and louder as he was unable to get his attention but all Hakuri could hear right now was the sound of his heartbeat thudding so loud in his eardrums from utter fear.

"Come on, let's go home. If you're outside any longer, you might freeze to death." Soya says, squeezing Hakuri's arms so tight he could feel new bruises forming already, Soya's hand was already on his sealskin, trying to pull it away from his younger brother.

"...No." The word came out before he could properly process it, but before he doesn't regret it - he's ready to die.

"...Huh?" Soya says, then crouches down so he's at Hakuri's level, staring even deeper into his eyes as he realises what he just did.

"I'm not... I'm not going back." He says, doubling down on his words, looking Soya back in his eyes, as his voice stopped shaking.

"Hakuri, you..." This time, his brother's voice starting shaking, and his eyes started tearing up at his little brother's refusal. "They're dead, you don't need to worry anymore! You don't have to follow them, okay? I killed them, look, I'll show you, they're dead...!" Soya says, grabbing Hakuri by the shoulder, practically picking him up as he moved him over to where you laid.

"Stop! I don't- I don't want to...!" Hakuri shouts, pulling back from him, shutting his eyelids closed, hitting him as hard as he could in protest. He earned a firm fist into his stomach in response, forcing him to spit up bile.

"No, it's okay!" Soya reassures, his eyes blinking away tears as he tries to snap Hakuri out of his defiance towards him. "Here, look!" He says, pulling away his leopard seal skin from where you laid.

There was a long moment of silence before Hakuri opened his eyes, unsure of why his brother had suddenly went so quiet.

When he looked down, he saw that your body had gone missing - and the twp of them stared at the large indent in the snow - clear evidence that you were there, but where were you now?

...Did Mantis run away?

There was a feeling of both relief and envy from Hakuri as he gazed at the stained snow. He wanted more than anything for you to be safe, but he'd be lying if he said that he didn't also want to be alongside you, away from his insane brother.

"...Hakuri, I-" Soya stared, looking back over to his little brother, water still flowing from his cheeks as he spoke. But Hakuri didn't pay any attention to him as he spotted something on Soya's shoulder - barely bigger than the size of his palm, a dull green colour and a broken foreleg.

If that didn't convince him enough, the insect stared back at him with blank eyes that didn't betray any sort of emotion.

"...Mantis?" He murmured, his eyes fixed on the small form on his brother's shoulder, his bright eyes blinking at the small creature.

"What-" Soya started before he was forced onto the ground as you shifted back into a human, sinking your hands around his throat as you strangled him. Nails deep into his throat, your index drawing some blood out from the force you held him with.

He let go of Hakuri to try to hit you back, but in that moment of weakness, Hakuri grabbed onto his arm, preventing him from hitting you back.

"H-Hak-Hakuri...!" He choked out, a small waterfall leaking out of his eyes as he realises that he was helping you take him down. "You....!"

"...Brother...!" Hakuri says back in response, refusing to budge as he helped restrain him. There wasn't a need to grab onto his other arm as you had already weakened it earlier.

There wasn't a single ounce of mercy from you as you clutched onto his trachea tightly, staring right into his eyes as you prevented him from getting any more air. He attempted to attack you with his other arm, but you held on strong until he collapsed, head hitting the snow.

Hakuri panted heavily as he stared down at his own hands, refusing to believe what he had just done while you picked up your naginata and flexed your wrists and hands, checking the damage.

You stood over the unconscious white haired man with your weapon back in your non-dominant hand, taking deep breaths. This was the moment that Hakuri had been expecting since you knocked him out.

"-they hunt shifters like us for money!"

Soya wasn't a liar. He knew that he was telling the truth - besides, Hakuri wasn't stupid. He could probably guess that you weren't in the middle of nowhere just for fun. Knowing his brother, he probably beat that werewolf until it spat up everything about you then killed it.

Now, he just wasn't sure what to do - stop you from killing Soya? Should he have even helped you from taking down Soya since there was a chance you might kill him now?

"...It hurts." You say in the most monotone voice he's ever heard, closing your eyes as if you were resting standing up.

"...Eh?"

"My body hurts." You say, taking a shuddering breath before shifting your eyes over to him. "You?"

"Oh, uhm, I'm fine!" He says, nodding at you firmly. "I'm completely fine! The bandaging you gave me from last time is still there, and I took no external damage from this fight!"

You nodded at him, seemingly not minding the way he spoke to you like he was a cadet reporting for duty. "Then let's get going." You said, walking over to the werewolf and taking a picture with your flip phone.

"Huh?" He uttered, blinking at you in surprise. "...Are you...? Wait, you're not going to...?" He asked, motioning to his brother.

"No." You shook your head, already understanding what he was trying to say to you. "His death doesn't give me any money. I haven't seen anything on the bounty market for a leopard seal shifter."

"...Huh." He nodded at you, putting a hand to his chin.

"It's because you guys are part of the Sazanami family. No one wants to mess with you." You state blankly before walking away from him, trudging through the snow as if you weren't on the verge of death just a moment ago.

"...Ah." He says, still at a loss of words. He doesn't follow after you, just standing there as he examined at the situation.

He's not sure what to make of it. His abusive brother knocked cold on the ground, bleeding, a dead werewolf that apparently had a bounty on his head, and you - a complete stranger bringing all of these components together. He would have never seen the sight in front of him if you had never picked him up yesterday. He would probably been beaten half dead then dragged home by his brother, while you would have killed the werewolf and just went home.

...Is this destiny?

"Hakuri," you called out, about a meter away due to your slow steps. "Are you staying?"

"Huh?" He uttered again, then rapidly shook his head, running up to you, taking his sealskin in his arms like a towel as he ran. "No, I'm not...!"

You nodded at him before trying to walk again, your legs shaky as you tried to step forward, your jaw tight as you tried to hold back the pain you were feeling from the fight. Hakuri, as slow as he is, caught up to you, a nervous yet happy smile on his face.

The two of you took a couple steps before he got a little closer to you, eyes shifting about your posture with worry. "...Do you need help walking?"

"Yeah." You say, nodding at him. "Carry me."

"Oh!" He blinked at you in surprise. "I'll do my best! I don't know if I'm strong enough though, I am incredibly weak!"

You give him a firm nod before motioning him to hold his hand out. He instantly does so, and you place your weapon in his hand. In a blink you're also in the palm of his hand, staring up at him blankly.

"...Here." He says, moving you to rest on his white sealskin, somewhat shielding you from the cold as he readjusts his new black coat. "I'll just keep walking straight ahead...?"

You give him a firm nod.

-----

A/N: Points/details I'm putting here because if you got this far, you might enjoy this:

Hakuri has a white seal skin instead of the normal coating for a harp seal because Soya took away his seal skin when he was young and he never got to wear it enough for him to molt it. He's the size of a adult harp seal, but has the coat of a baby (until he molts it off).

The reader is a mantis shifter, but doesn't shift often because they find it useless most of the time

Hakuri would probably follow the Reader back to Cafe Haru Haru (where they get their job listings), and just work odd jobs for Hinao. He would live in where the Reader lives since they're not home often.

Reader relocates apartment to have a place with a bathtub so Hakuri can chill in the water. (But he's spend so much of his life in his human form that he doesn't really care anymore.)

Reader often fights with Shiba because they want the highest paying jobs, and so does he.

[otterlyfoolish]

I beg of yall to look at these japanese bachibros being down BAD, genuinely semt me into a giggling fit 😭

[otterlyfoolish]

While I really like Hanahaki Disease, usually one of my issues with the trope is that they never just get the surgery (or they take far too long to do so), because to me, probably after like two days, I'd run off to get it. I don't think I could justify the thought process of someone that wouldn't get the surgery very well - so I never really bothered to write a fic for it myself. But then I realised I knew a prime character that fits my criteria.

Zombieman. I could write Hanahaki Disease for Zombieman. He literally can't die - it wouldn't mean a thing to him not getting the surgery. (Does this remove some of the stakes involved in the trope or whatever? Perhaps...)

It's okay if the flowers cause him to have holes in his lungs! It'll heal over anyways! He coughs up blood? Just another day for him. If it gets too annoying for him, he could always just - you know, dig into his chest cavity and give the flowers a trim or something because it'll heal over.

I don't know much about flowers (or plants), but I wonder if it would be more plentiful since, uhm. They're growing on a dead body? Isn't it supposed to be like better for them or something since there's more nutrients or something?

I don't think Zombieman can age, so for as long as he lives, he'll always have a reminder. So long as he never lets go of his feelings or he never gets surgery.

This would probably be the only illness he could get in his body since I'd imagine for anything else, his regeneration could just take care of it, no fevers, cold, etc... but unrequited love? That's terminal. (Or in his case, it would be chronic?)

Anyways. Just thoughts. Maybe more if I get the time and willpower.

[otterlyfoolish]

Just letting you know i’ve been catching up to kagurabachi and liking the story more as it keeps going, and wanted to see if there were any fanworks because of how scarce fanart/fic seems to be despite the memetic popularity! Your recent work was coincidentally posted on my birthday as i looked today—it’s sweet and delightful, thank you for your service!!

Firstly, Happy Birthday!! (Happy cakes & candles, congratulations on your solar expedition, etc, etc) I hope you had a fantastic day!

And about Kagurabachi, it's such a shame that there's not more fics of this manga...! I love how smoothly the art conveys the fights scenes are, it all seems so seamless to me! (& of course I like Chihiro, doesn't even need to be mentioned)

I think it just needs time to develop proper fanfic culture (like a yogurt or something), besides, there's under 20 chapters... When there's more content, people might join in (at least I'm hoping hard...!)

I'm just happy you read my fic, no need to thank me!

[otterlyfoolish]

Diverging Tracks

(Chihiro Rokuhira x GN!Reader)

Warning: Probably OOC

Tags: Childhood friends, Oneshot, Fluff

Word Count: 4k

Summary:

He didn't expect to find an old friend on the train. At first, he was afraid of being pulling into a barrage of questions regarding the scar on his face, but something makes him realises that probably won't be happening.

…When on Earth did they go blind?

If you prefer reading on Ao3, here's a link!

---

A/N: …I want this fandom to grow bigger, so I'm throwing this "x reader" out as a contribution (It is the only type of fanfiction I write currently) Uh, Tenoi.

---

The train station moved with the kind of hustle and bustle you'd get for a train going to a smaller sized city nearby Tokyo. Enough to make you more cautious than usual, but not enough to actually cause any problems. It was mostly just families on day trips travelling in the afternoon - no businessmen or students milling about the place.

Not that it would be too much of an issue for Chihiro anyways, he weaves through the crowd without much hesitation, smoothly making it past the little groups that's formed near the entrance of the train, the passengers languidly making it on and off the platforms. He swiftly found a seat in a empty carriage next to a window.

He leans his head back on the plush seat, turning his red eyes to face the window, staring past his reflection and onto the people milling about the station. With his right arm draped across his sword, pressing it firmly against his chest, he felt relaxed enough to not bother looking over to see the newcomer onto the train carriage.

"Sir? Ma'am?" The sound of shoes clacking against the wooden floorboards stopped right next to him. The person next to him took a small pause, as if trying to locate where he was before speaking again. "…Excuse me, Ma'am? Or sir?"

Chihiro looked up from his seat. Then he froze on the spot - his red eyes fixated on the person standing next to his seat with a polite smile.

Why were you here?

His mouth gaped for a moment, trying to think of what to say to you.

What were the chances of this happening naturally? Should he be suspicious? This wasn't a set up, was it?

…Though, looking up at you, his worries was somewhat laid to rest. Your face had the same polite smile he remembers so fondly. Lips ever so slightly curled at the edges, enough to make it seem like you were happy to see the other person, but not enough to seem overbearing in any way. You were a terrible liar - it always showed on your face - you were so bad, in fact when his father wanted to throw him a surprise birthday party, you practically gave it away with how weirdly you acted the whole day, trying to keep him from going back home. So if there was a issue, he'd probably be able to tell.

"If you don't mind, could you do me a favour?" You asked contuining your line of thought, now sensing that he was paying attention to you, your eyes still kept closed. Weird. Maybe you were up to something. Also you called out for "ma'am". There wasn't much about him that he would say earned him that title instead of "sir".

…Are they really up to something?

"…Sure." He responded. Well. You could also be trying to play a stupid joke on him again. The scar on his face was on the side opposite you - meaning that there was a chance that you haven't seen it. In fact, maybe you just haven't recognised him altogether. It has been a few years. Besides, he doubts he was your best friend at the time. At best he was… probably number three or something.

"Great! Thank you so much." You smiled at him, the curve of your lips becoming a little bit more noticeable. "Could you tell me if this is a 1000 yen note, or a 2000 one?" You ask, showing him the bill. "Usually, I can tell, but this bill is a little old and crumpled. It's a bit harder…"

He glances between you and the currency in your hands before asking the first question that came to mind when you asked for that favour. "…Can't you just look at it?"

There was another moment of silence as you seemed to let the question sink in the air. Something you did when you were trying not to offend the other by thinking of an appropriate response, but also wanted to subtly show disapproval for whatever reason. (It actually took him a while to figure this out until you just told him outright why you took your time answering sometimes.)

"…Sir, I'm blind." You reply back, your happy smile returning back to the polite one before.

His eyes widen, pupils almost frantic looking on any indication on your face that you were perhaps lying or maybe even something to tell him that you were blind. At the sound of his silence, you shifted your feet back and forth a little, waiting for any kind of response from him. Shit. You really weren't lying.

"Sorry." He clears his throat. His mind still running a mile a minute. When did they go blind? Is it sickness? Were they ill? "It's a 1000 yen note."

"…Ah. Okay." You nod back at him in response, almost a little disappointed at his answer, but it still doesn't faze your smile. "Well, thank you…!" You say, forcing your polite tone to come back, but when you turn away from him and go to sit probably a couple seats in front of him, you sigh to yourself, shoulders slumping as you clutched the bill in your hands.

…Chihiro knows that he should leave you alone. It's been too long since the two of you last met, making it awkward to strike up a conversation, not that he's ever really the type to do that to begin with, but still. He also doesn't want to answer any questions you might have regarding what happened. Dead dad. Essentially homeless. How do you say you've turned to a life of vengeance against one of the strongest group of sorcerers to your childhood friend while also on a quest retrieving the enchanted blades that ended the war? Oh yeah, you don't.

So the words that come out of him next isn't really words that came from his mind, and more so from instinct. "…What's wrong?" You weren't the type to talk about your problems unless prompted, so he was used to having to watch you carefully if you wanted to talk about anything in the past. Which was difficult, since he didn't get many chances to hang out with kids his age (basically none), so he wasn't exactly trained for those situations. Thankfully, it wasn't often, but he just made it a habit to ask you that every few weeks when it seemed like you were being too quiet.

"…Uhm… Well. I think…" You trailed off, turning your head back to face him. He wonders if you did this more for his comfort rather than yours - you didn't need to bother to turn around to see him anymore since you, y'know, can't see. "I think… the person that sold me my lunch didn't give me the correct change…? I gave them ¥5000, and the lunch was ¥3000, so I should get ¥2000 back, right? Not ¥1000?" You ask, as if there was actually any doubt in the amount of money you should have gotten.

…Of course, they got ripped off so easily. Actually, this might have worked on them even if they could still see.

A very short mental battle took place in his mind before he continues speaking. "…Was it the vendor right outside the train?" He asks, seeing you still depressed over the missing money.

"Yeah, you should avoid going there if you're getting lunch I guess…" You say, folding the bills and turning them back into your wallet with a sigh. "M'sure it's just a mistake, but…"

This was his second failure - when he couldn't just pull himself out of the conversation and leave. Just shut up. Or sit even further away from you. Or go to another carriage - fucking rebook his train if he had to and phone Mr. Shiba that he was getting a later train. But no.

"…Give me your receipt." He says, getting up and outreaching his arm to you. "I'll talk to them."

Strangely enough, you seemed to expect it from him. You didn't even question him, rummaging into your wallet to find it, until you pulled out the little slip of paper. "…Remember, it's just 1000 yen. It's probably a mistake."

"Hm." He hums back, taking the little slip of paper from you. When you offered it over to him, you raised your hand way too low down for him to naturally take - what, did you think he was that short? If he was still a teenager, maybe it would be acceptable, but since he's grown, he had a stretch his hand down to take it from you. "Okay. I'll be back."

You gave him a nod in response, not quite facing the correct height of where his face was, but he accepted it all the same.

---

When he comes back with the money, his feet barely need an instruction to go and find you, his boots purposely making more noise than usual as if to purposely alert you to his presence. It'd be somewhat scary for someone's voice to just suddenly appear right next to you, if you couldn't see, right? He's just being polite.

It seems like it worked, considering you tilted your head over to the direction he was coming from, only now you had sat in the spot opposite where he was sitting. Before you did, you weren't looking at the window like other passengers would while waiting, instead, you had just angled your head to face downwards at a slight decline, as if you were faking sleeping.

As he walks over, he realised that he could have just run off with the money and left you waiting on the train for nothing. His ticket could be used anytime, just as long as it was for this train.

…They haven't changed very much, huh?

"Here." He says, offering out the money to you, but realised that you couldn't pinpoint where exactly he was holding it out. "…Put your hand out."

"Oh!" You replied, lifting your head up in a excited manner and putting your palms upside out for him to place the bills on. "Did you get any money back?" You ask, the question basically redundant considering he said to put your hands out - clearly he had something to give you.

"Yeah." He says, tucking it into the crook of where your thumb met your palm. "2000 yen." He firmly presses his thumb into the flesh of your palm as he tucks it in, as if making a point somehow. Perhaps the point he wanted to non-verbally convey was "don't let this happen again."

But all you got out of it was a ticklish feeling apparently because you let out a small chuckle at the sensation before you gave him a hum of approval, your fingers finding their way over to the braille marks on the bill only to realise what it was. "…I only needed ¥1000 to make it the correct amount."

It wasn't exactly a mistake - he just asked the person running the counter about the receipt, and they handed over the money without much else prompting. It seemed that they realised what he was even going to ask before he finished his sentence. Even so, he can't exactly find it within him to be apologetic for his actions (or inaction?), they played ignorant first to a blind person first - and so he lets out all that he could be bothered to in response. "…Hm."

And like perfect timing, the train doors shut and the click and clack of the wheels could be heard moving the vehicle along the tracks. Even though Chihiro was standing upright, he was barely fazed by the sudden acceleration of the vehicle, still standing there waiting for your reaction.

"…Well, nothing can be done about it now." You say, laughing it off as you slip the bill into your wallet, the slip of paper making it just marginally thicker than before. "Thank you, I really appreciate it."

…Carefree as always.

Since the conversation seemed to reached it's natural end, he flicked his eyes from you to the train carriage's reflection, looking at the other available seats around you.

He debated sitting in another section, he doesn't want to get found out who he is by talking to you any longer. Sure, his voice has gotten deeper since last time he spoke to you, but who knows if you could pick on on the subtle lifts and falls unique to his voice. His father said he spoke completely monotone, but you said that he always betrayed what he was thinking with the tone of his voice. Maybe you were lying to him back then.

He can't be sure, he took everything at face value when it was from you. There was no reason to doubt you, ever.

…And just like that, he realised that was all the more reason he needed to separate himself from you.

Just as his boot takes a step away from you, you let out a quiet 'oh!'

The sound makes him stop in his tracks turning back to look at you once more, his red eyes scanning you to see what was the problem now. "I'm sorry, you were sitting here before, weren't you? I can find another seat," you say, getting to your feet and taking a step away from the little section of seats before you were stopped.

"…You can sit there." He says, his voice quieter than before. you could probably tell that he was still standing by following the direction of your voice.

"What about you? I don't want to intrude." You responded politely as ever with the same disarming smile. It was the same way you treated him the first few times the two of you met. While he could appreciate the nostalgia, he doesn't want it.

"You're not intruding," he says, and he walked over to the same spot by the window he was in earlier and placed himself down, this time though, he placed Enten leaning against his chest as if he needed something to weigh himself down in the moment and not just leave.

There was a moment of silence - he could only imagine what you were thinking. Did you figure out who he was? Were you about to leave yourself and ignore him? Maybe you didn't want to sit near him at all. "…Okay." You responded, and sat in the seat opposite him, hands in your lap.

For a second he was almost startled that you chose to stay. He didn't want you to be near him, yet he didn't like the idea that you could sense something undesirable about him to not sit near him. There's a part of him that wants that image of his younger to maintain it's current status in your eyes even if he wouldn't benefit.

He nodded back, and turned his face to look out the window, gazing out at the view in front of him, watching the trees turn into rows and rows of houses. It didn't take him long for him to be bored of the sight and turned to you, glancing over for just a split moment. And in that tiny segment of time, he realised that you were also leaning your head towards the window, seemingly peering out the same view he was. "…I thought you were blind."

You laughed at him before you spoke, a short but real laugh, making him think that what he said was utterly ridiculous for a second. "That doesn't mean I can't enjoy the feeling of the sun on me. It's a nice day, today." You say, your soft laugh under your breath sounded like a wind chime to him. "It's rare for it to be this warm in this season. Besides, I'm not completely blind. I can somewhat see some coloured shapes and blurs. Though, even that is a little difficult sometimes."

He stares at you - perhaps you could feel the intensity of his stare as he did so, because you turned back to face him as you waited for what he wanted to say. He isn't quite sure how to phrase it for a moment, only examining your face carefully. He changes the question in his head a little to avoid suspicion."…Were you born blind?"

"Born? No, no." You shake your head as if it was obvious. He couldn't help but notice that you were slipping off that distant, but kind stranger act with him. "I've been like this for maybe two years? I turned blind after some sort of run in with a group of sorcerers."

"What."

"Ah, yeah! I know, right?" You say, nodding along to the sound of him gritting his teeth now - he was doing it quietly, but due to the fact you relied on your hearing more, you could pick up on his anger. "They were asking me for my money, and I told them I didn't have any change, so they blinded me with magic and then mugged me! Can you believe that? How rude! Just take one thing from me!"

Brushing away the fact you only considered them 'rude' and nothing else, he asked you another question. It seemed pretty typical of you to say, to be honest. "Do you have names?"

"I don't know," you shrugged. "Apparently a little gang of amateurs, since they couldn't even blind me fully." And with a huff from that final sentence, you slumped back into your seat.

"…I see." He said, my eyebrows still crossed, and the frown still evident on his face, but there was no point trying to hide that from you. His fingers tightened around Enten, clicking it against his other sword as he thought about what he could have-

"…I'm not even that upset about losing my money or even being blinded. You know what's the worst part?" You say, snapping him out of his thoughts, and he turns his eyes back over to you instead of the sheath of his blade.

He honestly doesn't know what more could be worse for the average person than losing one of your senses even if it's not fully. "Go on."

"I lost this… Thing, I don't actually know what it is, but it's like… This metal thing." You sigh slightly, turning your face away from him as if in embarrassment. "Keycharm? I don't know, but I always kept it in my wallet, in the little bit where you keep your coins."

"…You kept a bit of scrap metal in your wallet." He states, trying to confirm what you were trying to tell him. Did you pick up your old habit of collecting shiny-looking objects again? How many times does he need to tell you that if they're outside, it's filthy.

"It's not scrap." You huffed out almost immediately, but took your time getting to the next part. "It's… a gift." You say, then finally take your hands out of your lap, and start trying to motion out some shape out with them. "It's supposed to be spherical I think. It's hollow and there was something inside of it, like a little metal ball, and there's a slit in it. It's really quite small, so it's actually quite impressive. It's important, you know? It was given to me by my best friend."

Oh.

"A bell." He states, the words coming out of his mouth. As if he has to defend the dignity of his younger self and his skill level at the time. Though, looking back, there was a lot of things wrong with the design of his creation. Not that it matters, since he wasn't at the skill level to produce the things that he wanted anyways.

"…A bell?" You echoed, your voice light as you repeated his words. Even if you couldn't see right now, he could feel your gaze on him. Even if you couldn't see him, he felt the urge to turn his eyes away from you, avoiding eye contact.

"A… faulty bell." He says, again, realising that he couldn't turn back now. Besides you described what he gave you, he could theoretically, be bright enough to have pieced together what you couldn't from your description. "No?" He adds, trying to pretend that he was still a stranger even though he almost (or maybe he already has) exposed his identity to you.

He had given it to you after you said you wanted to be alerted to his presence whenever he got close to you. You were always lost in your own thoughts, and he wasn't a particularly loud child, so he would often startle you when he got close and started speaking to you. Really, it was barely a problem. You weren't scared to death, and you always just jolted then returned to normal after milliseconds of realising who he was. Even so, he didn't like that you reacted so strongly even if it was for less than a second to him. The solution he came to as a child - you'd put a bell on him and so you'd be alerted to every step he makes. Looking back, he wonders why he even came to that conclusion. Oh right.

It's because you said that the neighbourhood cat had a bell on its collar, and now it couldn't catch any birds to eat.

Possibly funny looking back. Before he's even made a sword, he made a bell. A bell to alert his only friend of his age range. And they didn't even know what it was, even so, they kept it for so long.

"…I see." You say, and you put your hand on the side of your face, a fond smile coming onto your lips as you thought about his answer. He hopes that you don't remember it all that well, but it seems that his wish is a fruitless one judging by your expression and your words. "How sweet."

Good. It seems like they haven't realised that it's me.

…Have I really changed that much?

Not thinking much on his thoughts anymore, he replies back. "…Sure." He simply puts, wanting to press for more details, but at the same time not wanting to give himself away. He doesn't like sweets, but he'll tolerate being compared to it if it's from you.

You let out a low chuckle at his response, smile growing wider.

Then, the train slowed down to a halt, a recorded voice coming out of the speakers as it pulled into the station and opened it's doors for the passengers to get off, to which a couple of people stepped off and a couple more got on, filling up the seats on the train.

The smile on your face returned to your neutral response, as you listened again to the recording as it repeated once more.

"…This is me." You say, motioning to the train station. His eyes only flicker over to the building before landing back on you. "This has been good."

…We only together sat for one stop.

"…Mhm." He hums, but he hopes that you can hear the acknowledgment in his tone. Knowing you, you probably did pick up on it, and probably more he wasn't aware of. You said you did - he'll just have to trust that. He can relearn to.

"I hope we'll cross paths again sometime in the future," You say your voice having a happy lilt to it as you waved goodbye to him. (To which he gave you a nod. It's only later he remembers that you couldn't even see his non-verbal farewell.) "Chihiro."

After he nods, not thinking a thing of it since the words sounded so natural to him, only looking at your figure as you navigated the station you got at hazily before you seemed to find your way. He blinks once. Then again. Finally processing what you said as you were out of sight now, and the train started moving again.

…Wait.

[otterlyfoolish]

Keep reading

[otterlyfoolish]

Eat Crow

(Zombieman x GN!Reader)

Warnings: Mentioned Human Experimentation, Animal Death, Abandonment, Implied Child Abuse/Neglect, Swearing, Blood & gore (come on this is ZM), self-harm (ZM does some reckless things), there's probably other things in here that I can't think of right now so if you're particularly sensitive maybe you should just avoid this,

Tags: Pining, borderline romance, strangers to friends, maybe lovers (in the future), Reader is starved for any kind of companionship, Unstoppable force & Immovable object, oneshot, angst, comfort (very barely), open-ended ending, so much build-up for a fucking oneshot, not edited so sorry

Word count: 11k

Summary:

Zombieman had what he thought was a simple case: "Find the source of the toxins in the assigned area."

One of his specialities is investigating contaminated or toxic areas - places that only robots or cyborgs could reach, areas where organic matter struggled to make it out alive. Other heroes would be dispatched to a monster infestation, and he would be sent to the local ghost town. This was fine to him - he would describe himself as more of an investigator than a hero anyways. So, in one way, this task was like no other.

In another way, he's never seen a case as peculiar as this. A product of human experimentation, just like him. He's never really had a case like this before. Curiously, they didn't seem to want to admit it. He can't blame them for their decision either - especially not after he found out some reasons why. And it's not like he could have found out the normal way - after all, what's considered poisonous to a dead man?

So, he couldn't quite complete his investigation - at that point, he couldn't really confirm or deny his suspicions. That is until he saw their touch wilt a crow's life within seconds.

...Well, the crow is already dead. You just have to eat it now.

-----

Ao3 Link here, if you prefer reading there!

A/N: I'm mostly writing this to ward off my impulses for the other idea I have for ZM - I can't start another multi chapter fic on him when I've not even finished the other one I'm writing right now... (TBH if I just dedicated my time writing this into that, I might have been able to finish it... Uhhh I just won't think about that)

I've kept this on the drafts so long, but now I've finally vomited it out (I ran it through a spell checker, not even edited) - I hope that it's coherent because I struggle editing so much, and I don't know if I have it in me to make it more articulate than it is... Uhhh story isn't fluid sorry (>>_>>)

But if I used the wrong pronouns for the Reader (anything that's not they/them) please feel free to point it out since it is supposed to be Gender-Neutral!

---

"QUARANTINED AREA AHEAD"

"TOXIC WASTE NEARBY"

"LEAVE NOW"

The danger signs were littered everywhere.

From the very moment he even came near the location - even miles away, he was warned not to approach. As he got closer, the signs and fences only increased in frequency. Just a few caution signs at first, illustrated by the humble exclamation mark. Then the potentially comedic skull and bones - pirates would be overjoyed at the sight of so many of them. And finally the unnerving biohazard symbol appears. He's never liked the look of it - maybe because he doesn't understand what it was actually supposed to be, or maybe it reminded him too much of Dr. Genus' lab - the same symbols were also hung up everywhere, the scientist liked to be organised after all.

The final hurdle was in sight now - a chain-linked fence with barbed wires that had rust collecting on the bright red sign that hung brazenly on the door.

"DANGER: YOUR LIFE IS AT RISK FROM THIS POINT FORWARD"

He nodded at the final warning as if letting the inanimate object know that he acknowledges the danger, then swung his axe against the metal lock, easily snapping it in half. Time must have also wore the lock down, helping the process of decay because it behaved far too flimsy.

If most people showed me as much concern as these signs did, then I would be out of a job.

He pushes on the door, the hinges on the door creak loudly as if it was doing a drum roll for his demise. As he walks through, he's careful to shut the door behind him and lock it with another one - the one he brought in preparation for this. As he does so, he notices that the key for it must have fallen out on the way over. It was his fault for not repairing the hole in his pocket after tearing it from his last brawl.

No way out now I guess...

He takes the cigarette out of his mouth and rubs the cherry on the back of his hand before he drops it on the floor, crushing it with his black boots. Just as quickly as the cigarette left his mouth, another replaces it, the lighter coming up as if joined together with the cigarette. The nicotine was too addicting, he didn't mind the lethal poison that accompanied the chemical potentially affecting his body.

He's been critiqued on his bad habits by a fellow hero before, the smoke was just flat out unhealthy to have near people, so he should stop.

(He puts it nicer than what was actually said - Tatsumaki had gathered the all of the smoke in the room with her powers and stuffed it back into his lungs, hissing out hostile remarks as she did so. The product of a particularly bad day. Apparently she couldn't find any monsters to kill, and that caused her foul mood. It doesn't help that he was probably the closest thing to a monster she found that day.)

Even so, Zombieman couldn't disagree with the comments made, and though he never stopped smoking, the thought always flashed in his mind for the briefest of moments.

But this time he lit it without any guilt of others. This was a completely isolated area, where the air was already considered toxic to all organic matter. What's the harm of adding a little bit more poison in the air?

He dragged a large cloud of smoke out from his lips as he exhaled, almost like a sigh of relief from the long journey. Almost drearily, his eyes followed the grey mist drift through the air before it quickly dissipated into the atmosphere, the very last remnants of it lingered in one spot before fully turning transparent. His red pupils slowly fixated on that spot as he spotted the building he was headed towards. 

...Break over. Back to work.

His arm slung the axe over his shoulder, resting the weight of the metal head in the crook of his neck as he continued his descent to his destination. He walked with calm confidence, not fitting of a man that's entering a toxic waste zone, but that suited him.

The thrill of an investigation was too addicting, he didn't mind about the dangers that had been constantly waved in his direction.

Perhaps the danger even added to the thrill of it.

-----

"Toxic waste land...? Hm." He murmured to himself as the read over the file they sent him. The low clicking of the train wheels was just as faint as his voice as he spoke. Zombieman positioned himself to a quiet corner of the fairly empty train, the folder in front of him messily sprawled out, but in a fairly controlled manner.

He had requested it to be in paper format, call him old-fashioned, but he viewed the information to be more tangible that way. Besides, he often breaks the phone the Hero Association provides him anyways. Once Child Emperor had leaped at the opportunity to make him an 'unbreakable' phone after hearing the staff members talk about how this was the 'fourth one this week', it had a pretty good run, but he still lost it in the end. 

...It makes him feel bad to bother the kid for another one, so he'll just do this until Isamu notices and chucks him another. He'll treat it more carefully this time, he didn't realise just how much shitter the one's he gets from the Hero Association is. Isamu really was a genius, but he didn't want to pressure him too much.

He flips through the information provided, it was choppy. The testimonies didn't seem clear, and there wasn't a lot found by HA. Well, a lack of information never stopped him. His red eyes scanned the pages, picking up what he deemed the most vital snippets of data and committed it to memory. 

"...Laboratory...", "...Mithridate...", "...Antidote...", "...Pancea...", "Dozens died from poisoning", "...Scientists Evacuate...", "...Local Town Falls Sick From Mysterious Illness...", "...Abandoned Area...", "...No Organic matter found in the vicinity..."

He concluded after reading it, there used to be a remote laboratory out this far that was focusing on creating strong antidotes. But it seemed that they weren't able to control it effectively enough, and apparently some sort of sample hadn't been contained properly had caused many of the scientists to die from poisoning. It seems that even though they tried their best to clean the place and dispose of the source, there was still trace amounts lingering and many workers became sick. The entire building was forced to evacuate - and a few years later, apparently some of the people that had lived nearby had to be admitted to the larger general hospitals. It started happening too frequently without any obvious cause and people started moving away. Satellite scans showed that the grass around this place slowly started dying, and bird avoided migrating near the area all together. 

All in all, an typical case for him. He predicts the following days to be somewhat laid back. His only objective was to find what was the source. The implication in that was that he didn't even have to get rid of it, only report back. 

There was something bothering him though. Like when you feel your feet shift a little too much - you're nervous but you don't know why. Or when you felt a pair of eyes watching you, but you couldn't place who in the crowd of people would spend so much time on you. 

Current suspicion: There was something more to this case. 

They could simply send one of their many drones to check out the area, scope out if there's a leak that's causing the increase of toxins detected. But they sent him. 

His first thought: They suspected there was a monster there, and wanted him to kill it. 

He could do that, they often do when they're worried about a particularly dangerous monsters most heroes couldn't defeat without wearing it down massively. But they didn't say anything in the report - they kept it hidden from him. To feign ignorance of the missing piece of the puzzle before even asking him for assistance.

...But why?

He's never shown hesitation to brutalise monsters. It's written in his fucking Encyclopedia page - something Bang had showed him after his disciple had pointed it out to him, and the old man just had to pass on the message, chuckling at the descriptors. Something something about how gore and death followed him or something along those lines. 

...Is it related to Dr. Genus? 

He clenches the paper a little too tightly, crumpling the otherwise pristine pages. The Hero Assocication might have had an inkling to his past. He never talked about it much, but did they find out? He wouldn't put it pass them - staying private in this day and age was getting more and more difficult by the day even if it would do both parties good if they stayed in their own lane. If they did know about his days of being an experimental sample, why were they assigning him to this case?

...Was this their way of turning their cheek the other way? By letting him confront his own past alone?

"...Sir?" He hears the train conductor walk over to him, nervously eyeing him up as the scowl on his face grows deeper at the thought of meeting the Doctor again. "This is the last stop." He hears as he snaps out of his thoughts, tilting his head up to look at the lady. 

"...Thanks."

"...Are you sure about getting off here? There's nothing for a few dozen miles..."

"I'm sure. Thank you." He said, picking up the axe he had placed on the wooden floorboards, but didn't raise it above his head to rest on his shoulder like usual. Instead, he kept the metal head close to the ground, the blade pointed towards him and never her. He didn't want to alarm the lady.

"No, it's fine... I've not seen someone get off at this stop for perhaps a couple years now... It's nice to see people still come here in this little corner of the world - you know there's a forest a hour or so west from here? Beautiful place, you should check it out." She rambled on, the smile on her face causing the corners of her eyes to wrinkle. "Used to go there when I was young, took this same train out. I'm just a little too old for that now."

He nodded politely at her, taking note of the sun spots speckled on her skin. "...You're still younger than me, so there's no need to talk like that."

Besides, it's a privilege to be able to age. I'm sick of looking at the same damned thing everyday.

"Oh, aren't you a charmer..." She laughed, slowly escorting him down over to the train doors. He trotted after her, his boots made a small sound with each step he took. "Don't forget, the next time this train will be here is at eight tonight. Don't be late or you'll have to spend the night camping." She said, only getting a simple nod from him before the doors closed on her.

...A forest? I guess the toxins or whatever hasn't spread that far yet then...

As he walked away, he raised his axe back up and slammed it back on his shoulder, resting it there. Something of an reminder that he's on duty.

He's grown used to the weight of the axe.

-----

The building is fairly large - almost industrial. He could see it as a speck in the distance, but as he approached, he see that it's size wasn't anything much to be scoffed at. Definitely not at big at the ones he's seen at HA, but still, impressive. 

As he approached the laboratory, he could see a... Fully-clad yellow figure running full speed at him. 

Like second nature, he pulled out the guns from his sleeves and swung his axe back down to his midsection, his palms tightly gripping the weapons. It couldn't be a civilian - they would be fatally ill at this point from being this close to the site. 

His blood-coloured eyes scanned the person (or perhaps monster) sprinting up at him. At closer inspection, he could tell that it was a human wearing a hazmat suit.

...Zombieman slowly retracted his desert eagle back into his trench coat and the axe also returned to its last position. There didn't seem like there was an danger yet, more so someone he needs to interrogate. 

...Maybe there's still some people working here without anyone knowing?

They were... waving at him? He raised his thin eyebrow at them, shifting over to a more relaxed stance than before. He waited for them to approach - and as this mysterious figure got closer, he could hear muffled shouting from them as their hand waving in the air got more frantic. He noted that in their other hand, there was a blue gas mask. 

He debated snuffing out his cigarette, but kept it in his mouth. It's not like they would be affected judging by the protection they're already wearing. 

By the time they were close enough to him so that he could hear their words, it didn't matter since they were huffing out their lungs trying to breath in as much air as they could. Sprinting must have been hard - the hazard suit and heavy boots didn't help do them any favours either.

"...Are you alright?" He asked, staring down at him as they doubled over. The sound of their heavy breathing was clear even through the thick suit.

Regardless of their exhausted state, they sluggishly yanked him down to their level and slapped the spare gas mask onto his face. "...uckING STUPID!"

The impact of the plastic against his face caused him to glare at them with squinted eyes as he took the mask. He didn't bother dodging it - it's not like the action was malicious anyways. The force of which the firm plastic wasn't painful enough for him to make a noise, but he still grunted from the shock of their actions. "...What'd you say?" 

They didn't respond, seeming satisfied with the fact he taken the respirator from them already and just crumpled back over on their form. He gave them a moment to gather their breath. "...Don't you know that this is a toxic area...? What the hell are you doing without any equipment...?"

He crouches down to their level, seeing as they were still catching their breath and he couldn't quite hear between their suit and the small distance. "I don't need it. What are you doing here?"

They tilted their head over to him, seeing that he had taken the blue mask off and just hung it around his neck by the strap. "...I live here."

Live? Not work?

"...Then don't you know that this is a toxic area?" He parroted the question back to them, trying to look into their eyes, or face, only to see that the glass they see out of is a reflective surface. Only his red eyes locked on with his own. His

"The inside of my house is safe, when I go out I wear this." There's something about the way in which they said it which made him think that they had rolled their eyes at him as they spoke. 

"House?" He brushed off their attitude quickly, he didn't really care about it to begin with anyways, "what house?" 

"Why would I tell a stranger where I live?" They snapped back, getting back up on their feet. Zombieman quickly followed suit. "What are you doing here anyways?"

"I'm a Hero. I've been sent here to find the source of the poison in this area." As if on cue, their head tilted at him in disbelief. He goes on to answer further, hoping it would dispel any more of their suspicion. "...You can call me Zombieman."

He could tell even without any facial expressions to help him nothing he said was convincing. "...Alright, 'Hero Zombieman'... If you've been sent here to investigate, then why didn't they send you off with any equipment with you? We both know that this isn't the safest place to be."

A reasonable question, he supposes. He just hopes that the answer he gives them is just as logical in their eyes. "I can't die - hence my name."

"...Can't die?" They repeated slowly, taking a few steps back from him. He could see the distrust in their body language, and he wanted to fill the gap quickly - they probably had a lot of information on this area he didn't. "...Don't lie to me, everything dies."

He nodded at them, trying to indicate that he acknowledges their suspicion then pulled his gun back out. They're not given much time to react to it, as the muzzle was pointed at his temple, his finger on the trigger. "I'll prove it."

Just as he pulled the trigger ever so slightly, he notices in that split second they've close the distance between them instantly. Their hands shooting out to tear the weapon out of his hands-

Only for him to tilt it ever so slightly upwards from its original position in surprise - instead of the bullet going through his skull at a straight line, it was just angled slightly differently, shooting through the top of his skull. 

They froze up at the sight - the pink of the bone and the pink of his brains, the smell of blood was thick and metallic. They could smell it even through their suit, and nothing about their protection could block the sight of his hand. Limp. In your grasp.

Zombieman examined at them from the corner of his eyes, feeling that their hands was trembling slightly through the thick gloves they wore. It was from either the sight of his skull being blown open or the fact they thought he was now dead.

...I wanted to close the gap between us, but not physically...

"...Proof enough?" He asks, moving his head to face them. They practically leaped back, even in the chunky boots and protective gear they were wearing, they found themselves a couple feet even further than before.

...Was that too much?

No, I only shot myself. That's nothing. 

...Am I too numb to gore compared to the average person?

"...Yeah. Yeah. I believe you." They say, their voice shaking as they watched the hole slowly fill itself back up again. First the grey matter in the brain, then the pink plating of the skull, and finally his pale skin and dark hair. It was as if nothing had ever happened - the only proof that they had was the dark streaks of blood that ran down his temple and the small splatters of flesh that had ended up on them. They did their best to quickly compose themselves."...So... Uhm... Do- do you need anything...?"

He nodded, feeling a twinge of guilt at their reaction. Yeah, it was too much to witness. Next time, he'll just cut his hand off or something. "Could you get me into that laboratory? I want to inspect it to see if I can find anything inside."

"...I can do that, follow me." They agreed, probably still in shock and stiffly placed one foot in front of the other, their hands having the same nature of movement - almost mechanically. 

He was quiet for a minute, looking around the building. He wanted to ask more questions about them, but he had a feeling he needed to build back some sort of foundation of trust again if he wanted any good answers. Short, snippy ones aren't bad, but more detail is better this time.

"...What's your name?" He starts off simple.  

They slowly moved their head over in his direction, stopping in their tracks. He briefly thinks for a moment that asking for that was too soon, but when he hears your name slowly uttered from your lips the thought is gone. He could sense the uncertainty of his character coming off in waves, but you still chose to tell him. 

He nodded, "I'll keep that in mind."

"...And I don't think I'll be able to forget yours." He could hear you mumble faintly as you took long strides over to the entrance door. "Mr. 'Can't die'..."

...I don't mind if you were able to find a way to change that name of mine.

He didn't correct your words, and accepted his newfound alias. "How come you have access to the lab?"

It took you a while to respond, at first he just thought you didn't hear him or maybe you were busy fiddling with the keypad on the door, but it seems that you were considering telling him or not.

...Zombieman lowered his axe, resting it at his side. He may still be on duty, and it's not even the weapon he used to shoot himself, but it's not like he needed it this very moment. And if it helped soothe your worries even a little, then it will have been worth it.

When you get the door open, you turn back around to face him. He still can't see your eyes, but he could feel yours staring at him - cautiously inspecting him and his intentions before opening the door. "...This is where I live." You answered him.

...Huh, it worked.

He hummed appreciatively through his cigarette, reaching up and holding the door open for you. You paused your movements for a moment and nodded back, "...Thanks."

"No problem." He replied back, then followed after you, shutting the door after himself. When he walks in, he realises that the entrance is double sealed - one door after another to ensure that as little toxic gas leaves or enters. "So, you live in a lab...?" He says, practically repeating already known information in the hopes you'll slip out a little more data for him to piece together.

"Mhm. There's lab equipment everywhere." You say, though not intentional, your tone was pretty dismissive. It makes him wonder if he should play the long game or the short game.

He sticks to the former - besides, if he's really pressed up for time for whatever reasons, he can resort to more... forceful methods.

You open the other door, pressing even more buttons on the security system before beckoning him to follow through, holding the door open for him. "Quick - if you're there for too long, the doors will automatically shut and won't open without a special password."

"Oh." He nodded, the sounds of his boots increasing before the heavy door clicked securely shut. The two of you were now locked in together - he wonders if you're more anxious than him about the situation. One hand hand, he could be locked in with a mad scientist and be subjected to experimentation once again. On the other hand, he was a man that doesn't exactly have any indication of sane mental health paired with the fact he has a fair variety of weapons on his person ready to go any moment.

...They should be more scared than me.

"Do you work here?" He asks, trying to place down the foundations of trust.

"Yeah...?" You say, your thick gloves grabbing the other and pulling them off. "I'm... something of a researcher. Or something along those lines." The way you said it could be viewed as avoidant, or simply distracted - judging by the way your now exposed hands was fiddling with the hazard suit, taking it off and throwing them into a large plastic container off to the side of the door. Presumably to be disinfected and reused. "I've just been told to stay here until the toxins reach an acceptable level. Then I'm free to leave."

He narrowed his eyes at you, taking mental notes on your choice of words and actions. It was entirely unconscious behaviour, akin to second nature - Zombieman was already crafting a mental corkboard of everything he knew about this place and you. You took the final piece off, your large headpiece, finally revealing your face to him.

His eyes fixated on you, his red irises re-examined your figure, taking new mental notes to add to his corkboard. His eyes found their way following a sweat drop that traced the side of your face, a small trail of liquid trailed down your facial features before the head of it became too small to follow anymore. He briefly wondered it that sweat was a shade or two darker than it was supposed to be, but concluded that it was just the lighting of the room. "...Hot in that thing, huh?"

"...Huh? Oh, yeah. I guess I'm not really used to it..." You say, not noticing him observing you.

...Not used to the hazmat suit, I don't recognise them from the list of scientists provided, and they're uncertain about their role.

Current thoughts: You've turned out more suspicious than he thought.

-----

Nervously, your eyes kept glancing over to him, drinking in every detail of him that you could with each glance. At first, you thought it was the glass of your suit playing tricks on your vision when you spotted his red eyes, but even when you took your headpiece off and looked over him again, they were still red.

Blood red, to be more specific, especially now that you had a very, very recent reminder of the colour of blood.

His skin was almost porcelain white, but there was something of a grey undertone to it. His hair was a ink black and his getup didn't have a single drop of colour - the only thing you could even perhaps suggest that had a hue was the buckles of his (many) belts strung tightly against his chest. Everything combined, this monochrome sense of fashion contrasted with his striking red eyes and dark eye bags made it incredibly easy for you to focus on his face. Basically a sinkhole of attention.

Zombieman... From that name, you'd expect more decay, but...

...He's handsome. You concluded, as you kept finding your eyes shifting over to him as you showed him about the place. But he's also scary. Why would he shoot himself to prove a point...?

"Are you gonna show me around...?" He asked after what must have been you staring a little too long at him.

"Sorry." You say, turning your head away from him. Despite looking at him so carefully, you couldn't pick up on his mild discomfort. You try to remedy the situation, giving a honest reason to your actions should suffice, right? "...I was just thinking that you're very visually appealing."

The answer seems to shock him, or at the very least, throw him off his feet a little. His eyes widened at your response before he tilting his face slightly to his right clearing his throat into the sleeve of his trench coat. His left hand seemed to tighten his grip around his axe. "...Thank you."

You think that you shouldn't have said that - was he uncomfortable? You don't really have much of a chance to interact with people, and it's leaves you wondering your next move.

...Should I apologise? What did I do wrong? Is there such thing as too honest?

On quick glance back up at him, tells you that if he did feel uncomfortable by you, he's recovered. He's leaning against the plain white walls with his axe by his side. You note the fact he still hasn't raised it back onto his shoulder - whatever the reason for this, it somewhat made you feel more relaxed.

"...Uh, I'll take you around the first floor first...? It's mostly just like laboratory equipment, but it might help you?" You say, trying to gauge his reaction.

He simply nodded, and as you took your first step, so did he. You glanced back to see that he was a step or two closer behind you than before as you walked down the large white hallways.

...I hope that he leaves soon.

Just before you stepped through into another set of doors, there was a few equipment littered on the walls of the lab. Coats, gloves, masks. Though, you've used and ruined most of them at this point.

Please, please, leave.

You watched him place down the gas mask you had given him earlier alongside the other ones lined up on the wall for anyone to take. The others were faulty at this point, the one he put back down was one of the only ones that still functioned at this point.

It's not safe here, even for you.

-----

"...That thing..." You say, gesturing to him, your index finger waved over his face a couple times. "...smells terrible. Do you need it or something?"

He raised one eyebrow at you, wondering if his breath smelt for a moment before realising what you were saying. "...My cigarette?" He asked, taking it out of his mouth, bringing it a little closer to you to confirm your request. Your lips tightened and your eyebrows narrowed at the distance decreasing. So it is. "I suppose that I don't need it."

"Yeah, that... cigarette." You say, slowly rolling the word out on your tongue as you took a step back. "If you don't need it, can you get rid of it? There's vents all over the place, but I'm worried that smell will linger if you keep using it."

"...Sure, do you have an ash tray or something of that kind?" He asked, rubbing the lit part of the cigarette over the back of his hand. The burning sensation felt like it was shorter each time - the initial burn from the very first time he put out his smoke was almost exciting to feel. Now, it feels like pointless rebellion.

You looked at him, blinking. It took you a second to respond to him, trying to think of what would be suitable. Your eyes glanced around the room, landing on the shelf of conical flasks, before the blanket hung up on the wall that's placed there in case of a fire emergency.

...He thinks he likes the way your features scrunched up as you rapidly skimmed through all of the available items. You looked like you were in in deep thought over something rather minor - maybe he likes the way you took him so seriously, or was it the way you were so confident you could find a replacement within the confines of the room within seconds?

It didn't take you too long to find something. "...There's sand bins. Will that do?"

"Mhm." He nodded, and you walked over to the bucket filled with sand - presumably, it was to put out fires, but it could also be repurposed for a more crude use. Your hands wrapped around the bucket's handle, planning to bring it over to him, but he simply just followed after you and smothered the cherry into the sand. There was no chance of it catching fire now.

You nodded at him, then pointed at another table with glass equipment on top, giving a rather detail explanation to him as you picked up different parts - he was barely listening, his mind quickly filing away this odd morsel of information about you as he got back to his actual work.

...Have they never seen a cigarette before?

I mean, public smoking places are less and less common nowadays, but still...

He thought your behaviour was strange, but it'd be rude to point out. He let you continue guiding him around the lab. Besides, if you felt comfortable enough to tell him to stop smoking, then you must be somewhat amicable towards giving him more intel.

-----

The two of you finish the tour of the first floor, and you glanced over to the clock on the wall. "...I'm gonna head off to lunch. You can join if you want." You say, walking away from him and into another room. He peered in - seems like a break room for staff. He debated joining you, or wandering off on his own to investigate.

The former wins as he argues that he could just wander about later. It didn't seem like you were rushing about to get him to leave quickly anyways. If anything, he'd say you enjoyed the company judging by how he often caught you waiting for him to catch up when he spotted something of interest. Or when you stared at him intently when he spoke, taking his questions to heart.

...Or it could be for another reason. Tons of people flocked to Amai Mask for one big reason, Zombieman just... never suspected he'd be on the receiving end of the same kind of attention.

...'Visually appealing.' What is that supposed to mean?

As he enters the break room, he spots you waiting patiently by the microwave. There's a rather large pile of delivery boxes collected in the corner of the room. Perhaps one would feel shame at a 'guest' of sorts seeing the mess, but you didn't seem to care much. Upon noticing him, you opened the microwave door and added another packet of food.

I guess I'm eating too now.

He stands next to you, pretending to also wait for lunch, but in reality he just stared at you from the corner of his eyes. It doesn't take you long to return the action, your pupils also shifting over to his direction.

The two of you share eye contact until you turn away and go back to staring at the packets of food spinning around in the microwave. He lets out something of a cough, then goes to check his phone, (It's not like the could just whip out the files he had brought with him right in front of you anyways), maybe you were on the lists of scientists, and he just doesn't remember you that well.

Your eyes are casted away from your lunch, catching the glimpse of movement in the corner of your eyes. "...Whoa, you have a real nice phone..."

He tilts his head up at you, then turns the screen off before giving his device a quick spin for you to see if you wanted. You nodded at this, as if you were some sort of phone collector inspecting the goods before buying.

"No," he shakes his head, giving it a closer inspection as he spun it despite already giving it a verdict. "It can't even withstand falling off a skyscraper."

"...I don't think that's a good way to measure it." You say, a ghost of a smile on your lips. "Here." You fiddled with your pockets, before pulling out what he thinks is a brick at first as you carelessly held it out to him. "Here's one I found a couple years ago. Under my Dad's desk."

"...Maybe I do have a nice phone." He says, staring down at the device as you let out a small laugh out at him.

The phone was pretty old.

The equipment in the lab also looks quite old, but I don't know enough about it to know if it's actually old, or if it's just old compared to Isamu's hoard of equipment.

It seems like you had enough money to deliver food to yourself, but not enough to fund your research. You probably aren't being paid.

Probably because you aren't a real researcher.

But his conclusion just brings more questions than answers - why would you stay out here if you aren't getting paid well? You've been tasked with staying here until the toxins have subsided, but why would you do that? Money clearly wasn't the reason - maybe it was something more personal. His eyes meandered across the room until it landed.

Maybe it was your Dad.

"...Say, your dad worked here too?" He asks, slowly reaching out to take the phone from you, feigning fake interest in the device in your hands. His cold fingers brushed against your skin making your breath hitch - practically throwing the phone away from yourself.

He caught it before it collided against the surface of the table, but he wasn't even looking at the phone anymore as his eyes shifted over to you, examining your body language quickly to figure out what caused that reaction from you.

You held one hand in the other, your eyes fixated on him, one foot back and holding your breath as if you were waiting for one of you to drop on the floor. The two of you shared a look, the room sinking into a tense quietness. Just as he was about to speak, apologise, anything that felt right to say, you babbled something to dispel the tension.

"O-Oh! Yeah!" You exclaimed, slowly taking your footing back to it's original position. He didn't care so much about the answer anymore after your reaction but still, he listened. "My mother did too. Uh, both of them worked together. H-here."

"Huh..." He nodded, accepting the fact the two of you will skip past that moment. He felt his hand tingle from where your skin touched it - it was almost the same sensation as the one he used to get when pressing the lit part of the cigarette against his skin. Burning, hot. Maybe painful to a normal person but an fleetingly exciting moment to him. "And then you started working here too?"

"...Uh, yeah. Been here for a long time." You say, the words slow to come out. Your eyes drifted away from him and your hand slowly reached back over to the phone he had caught and placed on the table before retracting it back into your pockets. "Actually, I've been here... for a really long time."

He nodded, "how long?"

You didn't answer him at first, only tilted your face over to his direction. You looked... lost. Like you weren't sure what you were doing, or what's even going on. A sense of distant confusion with a vague or faraway goal. "I... don't know."

He frowned. You didn't seem like you were bad-intentioned, but you also seemed like a vital part of this mystery. "How come?"

You pursed your lips, turning away from him again before the microwave went off. The beeps echoed through the silence of the lunch room.

"...Lunch is ready." You say, opening the door of it. "You don't have any allergies do you?"

"No, but even if I did," he made some sort of general motion towards himself. You made a 'Ohh' sound. Some colour returned to your face that he didn't quite realise had left it.

...They don't know? How is that possible?

Also, their parents worked here, and now they do as well. They're most likely staying here not out of choice - are they trapped here? Threatened to stay? Guilt? You couldn't pay most people to stay in such a dangerous area.

"I've just been told to stay here until the toxins reach an acceptable level. Then I'm free to leave."

...What kind of messed up family business is this?

Zombieman could only see the rabbit hole grow deeper the longer he looked in - yet he'll jump head first anyways. He was never much for self preservation.

That same trait comes the thought: if he touches your hand again will it burn the same thrilling way?

-----

After you showed him around the whole lab, he concluded that there was nothing there was still working - and even if there was, it wasn't anything large-scale enough to cause such a large waste area. In fact, the only experiment he saw was you spitting into a test tube and then running it through a machine. Something to do with how it can detect what kinds of chemicals are inside it.

But that machine was clearly broken since he recognised many of the listed items inside to be toxic. You had explained that you had fixed it up after finding it in the storage room, but since that room wasn't well maintained, there was a chance that the toxic air was just stuck inside it now. At least, that's the conclusion you came to, and he didn't see a reason to deny it.

Apart from that, it was mostly you just explaining what each room was and the equipment inside. The tour was over quicker than he thought - but there truly wasn't anything noteworthy. The past researchers had taken all of the papers with them, so he couldn't snoop around to see if there was any information he was missing. It didn't seem like you were trying to hide anything either. You've always seemed like you were honest - perhaps a little apprehensive, but most of that was mostly because, well, he was a stranger in your home.

"That's all... I think I'll get going to bed soon, do you need anything or..."

"No, that's all." He said. "I think I'll get going."

"...At this time?" You ask, seeing him walk out to the door, trying to open it. His hands pressed randomly against the wall's buttons. Quickly, you walked over to him. "Are you going home?"

"I've missed the train, so I can't really go back, but I've been given a recommendation to visit a forest." He says, watching you as you brushed his hands aside to help him open the sealed doors. It burned like before, "I think I'll go check it out," he thinks he wants to feel it again."...Then I'll probably come back with a fresh mind."

"...Seriously?" You asked, pulling the door open for him. "You're gonna spend the nights in the woods?"

"Well, it takes a while to walk over. By the time I get there, it might be sunrise." He says, walking through the first set of doors. Your eyes nervously switched between him and the door, unsure if he was really going to walk back out into the toxic wasteland. "Thanks, I'll see you tomorrow. Or if I find the source of the poison, this will be the last you'll be seeing me."

"...Yeah. That's... fine." You nodded, now trotting over to him, hand hovering over the keypad to let him out. The inner set of doors shut tightly behind you, a slight hissing sound as the air was compressed in the room, ensuring that none of the toxins got in as the vents whirred faster in anticipation. "Here, I'll let you go."

He paused, looking over at you. "Don't you need your hazmat suit?"

Your index finger stopped over one of the buttons as you started pressing the password to get out. "...No, it'll be fine. My parents said that I have a higher immunity to this sort of stuff anyways."

"...Okay, if you say so." He nodded, accepting your words. Every rotting bone in his body was screaming that there was something off about the way you said it, but his heart didn't utter a single peep in protest. He wonders if you're hiding the truth from him judging from his physical reaction to your words.

You nodded back at him, your eyes flicking back up at his for one more time before the door opens, a small gust of wind blew his hair back a little as the heavy entrance opened itself - exposing the two of you to the chilly evening air. "...It's nice meeting you." You say, your words as distant as you could muster with your almost wistful expression.

"...You too." He nodded simply, taking a step out, his boots landing on the dirt footing outside. He paused then turned his head back, speaking again as if he couldn't leave without finishing his all of his thoughts. "Real pleasure to meet you."

You blinked at him repeatedly, taken aback. There was... a slight smile on his face? You weren't given a chance to respond back before the doors let out loud 'beeps' rapidly and the doors slammed down.

He turned back around, taking a couple steps forwards as he languidly pulled out a cigarette and his lighter. His eyes casted over the cherry of the cigarette, watching it catch a flame as he took in a deep, slow breath, inhaling as much of the smoke he could. Impatient, he'd usually call himself for trying so hard to get the taste of the poison as quick as he did just moments after lighting it. It's just getting him more hooked on the nictotine (if he could be anymore addicted), it'll kill him faster (if he could die). But this time he won't fault himself even with all the negatives.

Smoking won't help relieve this... feeling, but it won't make it worse either, he supposes.

His boots forcefully move his body forward as he let out a low grumble.

Move. He urges himself. This is ridiculous. I barely know them.

"Wait!" He heard from behind him, and he found his head turning around without his input. "...I have some sort of car in the lab. Do... you want me to drive you to the forest...?" You ask, holding something of a car key attached to the lanyard around your neck, jangling the sliver object.

...Zombieman knows that it's not the first time you smoke you become addicted. It's the second time.

"Yeah, that's be great." He responses, the cigarette practically falling out of his mouth as he spoke, but he barely cared, only catching it in his hands and crushing it in his palm. It burned - but he barely felt it.

He didn't know that infatuation worked in a similar way to chemical addiction.

-----

You drove him over to the forest, his voice quietly murmuring out the directions for you to drive him. He had made some sort of comment on the car being a off-road vehicle, but you didn't fully get what he was trying to say.

The interior of the car was cold, the heater was very slowly warming it's way up. He insisted that it didn't bother him, but even so, you tried cranking that bloody thing up all the way. There's not much fuel in the car to begin with, but you didn't mind using it on him. It's not like you were going to be driving again.

"Keep going straight, try to avoid that rock if you can." He says, his hand motioning towards the obstacle on the ground.

"O-okay..." You nodded, trying your best to keep the car steady. There was practically sweat dripping down your arms from your nervousness. "Like this...?"

"Mhm." He nodded, "do you not drive often?" He asked, noting your anxious features that was crawling it's way up your face.

"No, uh, can- can you tell...?" You say, pressing the accelerator a little harder, making the car go faster.

"Well, we've been either going 20 or quadruple that. You've not really decided on a constant speed to drive at." He said, pointing a finger at the speedometer. "Also, I've been the one controlling the stick shift since you keep putting it in the wrong one."

"...Ah."

"I think you don't even know how to drive, but I don't really mind." He says, leaning his arm out the window as he blew out another cloud of smoke out of the vehicle. "You got the air bags, so you'll be fine even if we crash."

"...Maybe I'm just a really bad driver." You mutter, feeling your face grow hot even in the cold breeze that came in through the window.

"It's not a maybe." He says, turning back to you, "but it doesn't matter. I appreciate your help. I'll teach you how to drive for real after we get to the forest."

You raised an eyebrow at him, "You can drive?"

"...Eh." He makes a non-committal sound until you shot him a questioning glance, making him answer you properly. "...I don't have a valid licence, but I can drive."

"...So you're just as qualified as me?" You laughed, "or perhaps just as unqualified as me?"

"No, I've passed before. It's just that I've not driven in so long I don't know if I pass the current standards." He answers, maybe a little quickly as you chuckle at his explanation, not exactly buying his answer. "I should still be valid to drive."

"What are you, a old man?" You laughed, the car slowing down as your foot released the pedal, your mind too distracted by what he just said to properly process both things at once. "How could your licence just expire?"

"I had a licence before I was used for human experimentation and I've not had the time to try to renew it." He answers causally, taking in another breath of the smoke before breathing it back out. "I think."

You almost completely stopped the car before turning your head back over to him. "...Huh?"

He turns back to you, staring back into your eyes as your face grew pale at his words, unsure of what to say in response to him. "It's not a secret. I just don't talk about it."

"...Oh." You nodded, then took your hands off the wheel and your foot off as well. "...Is that why you can't die?"

"...Yeah." He nodded, then blew out one last cloud of smoke before he rubbed the light out on his skin again. There wasn't a moment of hesitation between his actions and words - he's too used to the pain he inflicts on himself. The slightest pink tinge on his skin from the burn is gone within less than a second.

The car let out a splutter, filling in the silence that took place in the car. Then stopped dead in it's tracks. "...Uh oh." You glanced down at the screen in front of you, trying to see what went wrong. "...I think we're out of fuel."

"...Mhm. Yeah." He agreed, glancing over to you. "It's fine, we're mostly there anyways." He says, nodding his head forward as he indicated towards your destination.

Your eyes casted over to the view in front of you - you didn't even realise until he pointed it out, but the two of you reached the forest he was guiding you to earlier.

It was dark, the bark of the trees was jet black against the faint light that shone down on the trees. You could barely see past them to see their fellow family. You've never seen them before in person - it was much larger than you had expected. The air smelt... clean.

Even so, it doesn't keep your attention for long as you looked back over to the man next to you. His pale skin contrasted strongly against the darkness outside, his red eyes shifted over to you, and you could pick up on the slight tinge of metal from the dried blood from earlier.

He didn't look human. He didn't have the warm undertones of blood running underneath people's skins. His response to pain was too lukewarm. He had no reaction to being in such grave danger. 'Zombieman' fit him.

"...Shall we go?" He offers, clicking open the car door for him to leave. "You can stay if you want."

"...No, I'll join you."

But he was still far, far more human than you were.

-----

The two of you wandered out into the woods. You flicked your flashlight on while he bravely moved forward in the dark, unafraid of any possible dangers that would be lurking in the woods.

"...Are you looking for something in particular?" You asked, your eyes flicking back over to him as you carefully shined down towards the ground to see where you were placing your heavy-duty boots.

"No." He replied back, still moving like a man on a mission. "The train conductor said that I should drop by here if I had time. I have time."

"...Do you think you'll find your source of poison?" You asked, your voice wavering towards the end, almost backpedalling last second in the hopes he didn't hear you.

He tilted his head backwards, glancing back towards you when you asked. "...I think it's from your home. I just don't know how yet."

*...How honest.

Well, I suppose that he doesn't really have anything to be afraid of anything he can't die. There's not much reason for him to lie.

"...I see." You nodded, your palms feeling slightly clammy after his answer.

...I wonder if he opened up about his past in the hopes that I'd also be more honest with him.

He continued to stride ahead, not taking any particular detours, walking in a straight line forward as he dragged his axe across the ground. It was still low to the ground.

...I hope not. Because I think it's working.

Then, you heard a branch snap off in the distance. You froze up instantly, your feet stuck on the dirt as your head swung over in the direction of the noise as you tried to find the source.

Finally, Zombieman stopped walking, standing still as he tilted his head in the same direction as the sound, the two of you almost perfect mirrors of each other.

"...We have company." He says, as he takes a step over to the sound, swinging his axe upwards to lean rest on his shoulder as he began to stroll over. You think you heard the metallic 'click' of his gun as well. "Let's give them a proper hello."

You flicked your head back and forth, from him to off in the distance of where the car was. Even if your vehicle couldn't move and was useless, you'd still rather go and hide in there over wherever the hell he was waddling off to. "C-Can we not...? If I die, I die."

He didn't acknowledge you maybe he didn't hear, only pressing on and got further and further away from even as the flashlight didn't reach that far ahead. You flipped a coin in your head to decide your choice to join him or leave. You mentally cursed yourself. Repeatedly.

...I guess I'm going too...

Even your feet protested against your brain's decision, but you ignored it and willed them to go on.

It didn't take long for him to stop in front of a bush, looking down at the source of the sound. You think that he's already taken care of the problem before you step past the shrub blocking your vision to see what he was looking at.

"...That's a crow...?" You murmured, your eyes fixed on the bird struggling to get off the ground - there was a sense of pure curiosity even at the sight of the animal in pain. "It's... small."

Zombieman barely paid attention to your words - it wasn't that he didn't find them interesting, it's just that he want to focus his efforts on something else right now.

"Mhm, it might be young." He nodded as he stepped out from behind the shrub. The bird started letting out sounds - perhaps to try to warn the man to step back, but he continues forward. "I think the wing is broken." he explains, pointing to the broken branch next to the animal with his axe. "I guess it hit the tree pretty hard and this is the result."

"Oh," you watched him crouch down to the bird, gently picking it up. It squawked louder as he picked it up to inspect it. "...So, do we help it?"

"...I don't know if we can." He replies back, picking it up with both hands, leaning the head of the axe in between his head and his shoulder as if he was taking a phone call with it. "...Have you ever taken care of a bird before?"

"...I've barely even seen a bird before, I'll be honest." You say, the works almost slipping out without you thinking much of it. He flicked his eyes over to you questioningly but didn't verbalise his thoughts. He was still intent on playing the long game.

"I guess we can take it back to the car for now." He says, his fingers clutching onto the torso of the bird firmly as he tried to support it's wing. Do you have any equipment in the car?"

"Maybe...? There's stuff in the back, we could try helping it." You say, nodding along with him as he began to walk back out the woods, you walking in front to guide him out with the only source of light between the two of you. "...Being a hero must be hard work." You mutter under your breath, your eyes flicking back to him practically cradling the animal in his arms as he steadily supported it to prevent it from hurting itself anymore. It's stopped crying at this point. "You even have to tend to the needs of even animals."

"Nothing worth doing is easy." He responses, picking up on your quiet words, his boots unshakeable even as he stepped on multiple uneven tree roots. "...Besides, this isn't my usual work. I investigate dangerous areas or suspects. My information isn't useful without someone to put it to good use. Helping others is inherently heroic. What I do isn't." He says, almost putting himself down as he spoke even if he didn't intent to. His tone was blunt and factual - he wasn't looking for reassurance.

"...Someone has to be the tester. Any important situation needs one." You say, your words sounding almost rehearsed as you spoke. Like you've heard it many times before. "...You fill a role no one else can."

He shifted his attention away from the crow, his head lifted up to look at you as you spoke. You didn't turn your head around though, only faced forward. He couldn't see what kind of expression was on your face.

-----

You opened the car door for him, letting him gently lower the bird onto the passenger seat of the car. The warm air that was somewhat there from the car heater was no longer in the vehicle, now it also reached the temperature of the cold air around you. Neither of you minded, but you still couldn't help the goosebumps crawling up your arms as a strong gust came every so often.

"Go watch it, I'll go check the back of the car." Zombieman said, resting the animal down before he swiftly walked away to open the boot of the car.

"O-Okay..." You nodded, briefly watching him move away from you two before you looked back down to the bird.

It had black ruffled feathers, and bright dark eyes. Eyes that seemed to stare deep into your inner being. It let out another echoing caw as it tried to fly again, getting up on it's feet. You quickly stepped forward, trying to discourage it's escape with your body. You hoped that you didn't actually have to touch it.

It stared up at you, then cried loudly. Clearly something of a battle cry as it then tried to fly - but was only able to hop forward.

You let out a fumbling cry of shock, your eyes seeing it fall off the car in slow motion. You had to catch it- You aren't wearing gloves- You can't touch it-

You have to catch it-

Your body moved on auto-pilot as your hands shot forward to catch it from falling to the dirt floor. Your brain knew, it fucking knew what would happen if you touched it, yet it still commanded it to move forward due to whatever fucking human nature you had left.

It's feathers grazed against the skin of your hands. Your body froze. It was warm. It was warm to touch even in the cold weather cooling the both of you down.

"Good catch," you heard distantly. You felt like you were submerged in a pool of ice water - you struggled to hear whatever was around you. Your eyes were frozen in place. Your body didn't listen to you. "Here, I found a first aid kit in the back."

You didn't process his words. You only watched the lively bird stumble on it's footing as you caught it. It blinked at you with something you'd call indignant anger. It would be right to be angry at you in a moment.

"You can put it down now," Zombieman said, clicking open the clasps on the box and pulled out some bandages. "We need to support it's wing with something strong." He carried on, unravelling the white gauze.

When he saw that you didn't listen to him, he reclarified for you. Maybe you didn't know what to get. "A straight strong stick should do. Go find one."

You still didn't move, and he finally looked up. He stared at you questioningly, not quite understanding the guilt ridden expression on your face until he looked down at your hands.

The black feathered bird was flopped over on your hands, it's eyes closed. It slumped over on it's wings and feet in a strange way. It's beak was open wide, trying to get something out that was never really there.

"...I think..." You say, your head turned over to face him, but he didn't really think you were looking at him. "I think your investigation is over."

...The crow was getting colder.

-----

"...I'm kinda like you." You started, sitting down in the car with dirt in stuck in your fingernails. You insisted on burying the crow before you explained everything. It was a request he easily granted - you had dug into the soft soil with your bare hands and covered the corpse with the same hands that killed it. "I'm... also like this because of human experimentation."

"...Go on." He said, nodding along.

"The lab, I'm sure you already know this, but they wanted to create antidotes. Something that would cure any poison. They obviously experimented on animals, but in the final stages, they wanted to test on a human subject. It was almost to fruition I think. And... My parents brought me in. I grew up in the lab." You sighed. "I wonder if they're even my real parents... What if..." You trailed off, the suspicions had clearly been weighing in your head for a long time. "...Never mind. That doesn't matter anymore. Anyways, one of the vials they gave me apparently wasn't the correct one. I started absorbing the poison in my body, almost like a storage box. No one realised at first."

"...Something happened, huh?" He said, picking up on your choice of words.

"...Yeah, they gave me some particularly strong poison or something to test out how my body would respond to the antidote they prepared. They didn't anticipate that I'd be able to absorb it alongside with the antidote." You let out something of a dry laugh. "That... was the last time I ever touched my mother. They cleared me to leave and I went up to her to say hi. She... collapsed on the ground, convulsing seconds later. After that, no one approached me without hazmat suits again. They quickly stopped working, after something else happened and they fled. My father was the last to go."

"...And that's when he gave you the instruction to stay until the level of toxins were acceptable?" He asked for confirmation. To which you nodded at him.

...Seeing everything fall into place has never felt so unsatisfying to him before.

He gave you a measured nod, his eyes never leaving the sight of your hunched over figure. "...So he sends you money to keep you somewhat alive?"

"...I don't know if he knows if I'm still alive." You shook your head. "Hell, I don't know if he's still alive himself. It's been... years. I only have the bank transactions from him as m only form as contact. I... still don't know if I killed my mother or if she's recovering somewhere."

He let out a quiet curse under his breath, leaning his arm against the window as you continued speaking.

They lived like this for years. Years.

"...I know what that place is, Zombieman." You say, your nails pressing tight against your skin, digging in. "I didn't want to admit it."

"...A prison?" He tried guessing when you didn't speak for a while, only to be met with a humourless laugh.

"Coffin. It's a coffin for me. I was born into a live burial -  I'll live and die there." You say, your voice completely monotone. It was like a reporter going about the facts of the day. "The furthest place I've been from here. This... forest. And just by going once, I ruined the place. I can't just... leave. This was already a mistake."

He listened to you, watching the way you clutched yourself for some sort of support. He stayed quiet, examining your features carefully. Nothing on his corkboard prepared him for this - but perhaps his own personal experience of being on the other side could help.

He slowly forms the thoughts in his head - there wasn't much he could remember when he first left the lab he had escaped from, but he tried his best to gather what he could. What would have comforted him best? Well, probably the death of Dr Genus.

It was just a tad too slow - you had began speaking again.

"...When are you going to end me?"

He turned his head over to you, too quickly. "What?"

"You found the source of the poison." You say, leaning over to him from your seat. His breath hitched as you got closer. "You've known for a while, haven't you? So when are you going to do it? In my sleep? With a gun? Or an axe?"

It probably doesn't help, but at the mention of his weapons his eyes find their way over to their positions. "...I'm not going to murder you." He says, but didn't get up. He let you look down at him from where you were - it was probably the little bit of power you still had over him in your eyes. "You haven't done anything wrong."

"I made that crow die." You state, your retort coming back far too fast. "You saw me. One touch from me killed it. It was barely even a few seconds."

"...That doesn't warrant the death penalty." He sighs. "Nothing you've done deserves punishment of any kind, it's not your fault. None of it."

You stared at him with an unreadable expression on your face, he struggled to place what you were feeling at the moment despite it being the most vital time for him to be able to. "...I have a question," you say, almost reluctant to interrupt him. "If there was something that could only cause harm, why keep it?"

He doesn't given himself much time to think of his answer, knowing that the longer he took the more insincere he would sound to you. "I know many people who's only speciality is violence." He starts out, leaning a little closer to you as you took a step back from him, giving him more space. "...We call them heroes. Or monsters, depending on their intentions."

"...Are you one of these people?" You ask, your words feeling heavier than he expected for such a short question.

"I'd say so." He responded, his voice flat as he continued speaking. "...But a lot of people suspect me as a monster too. "

"...You're more than that." You said, tilting your head at him with scornful befuddlement. You looked upset, but not at him.

"Aren't you the same?" He mirrored the simple question to you.

There's silence from you, until he hears a small sniffle and you bring up one hand to wipe at your eyes. He's frozen solid for a second until he reaches over to a box of tissues nearby and offered it to you. 

"No..." You shook your head. "No thanks, my tears will just melt it... Tried it, trust me..."

"...Yeah, that's what tissues tend to do in liquid long enough." He cracked the dry joke, trying to lighten your mood and still offering the box to you, just slightly further away.

"...No, they're..." You pinch the bridge of your nose and let out a shaky sigh as you forced yourself to bite back the tears. "My tears are corrosive. Highly corrosive."

"...Huh." He said, putting the box aside and stood up. "Would you like my coat instead?"

"...Why on Earth would I want that?" You say, the last of the tears running down your face as you stopped wiping it with your hands. 

"...It's work clothes, I can get these replaced for basically free. It's cheaper than those tissues." He shrugged, trying to make another attempt to cheer you up seeing that you had stopped at this point. They were more stressed tears than anything, so your crying wouldn't have lasted long anyways. 

You blinked at him before letting out a laugh, "no, no... It's okay... I don't want to accidentally hurt you. I'm fine now anyways."

"Mhm." He nodded, watching you sit back down on your seat. "...You know, I have a really, really smart colleague. He might be able to help you leave if you want."

"...Really?"

"He's the smartest person I know. And I've been kicking around for a while." He states a chuckle on his lips as he spoke. The only other person he could think of being close to Child Emperor was Dr Genus. There wasn't a chance in hell he'd let him anywhere near you. 

"...Do you think he'd be willing to help?" You ask, the lilt of your voice going up a little higher, a sense of hopefulness leaking into your tone. "Or wait, would he be safe? I don't want to hurt him by accident..."

He nodded at your concerns as you spoke. "I've seen him analyse venomous monsters during the heat of battle and create antibodies on the fly. I think there's a strong chance."

"...Wow, he sounds really smart. Is he a hero like you?"

"Yes," he nodded, something you'd describe as pride adorned his features. "He's more of a hero than me, though. I could learn a lot from him."

"...I think you're far more of one than you think you are."

He's silent, staring back into your eyes. It takes the both of you a moment before either speaks. His voice breaks the silence gently, his words slow and purposeful as he spoke.

"...I think we should get going soon. We need to catch that train."

[otterlyfoolish]

Bonus (not part of the main gang, but I think they're swag enough to get some shitty HCs too):

Word count: 1k

(Teppei, Takimaru)

Teppei

You think you're getting a quiet roommate at first. He doesn't say anything to you at all for the first couple of days.

Then after a week, he just begins talking non-stop.

...Then he doesn't say anything again. It's just a switch with him. Either on or off. You can't have both.

Plants. Oh my God. There are so many fucking plants. 

It starts with a small pot on the window sill. The tiniest cactus. You make some sort of sound of approval towards it. He makes some sort of vague question on whether or not you'd be okay with some more. You give something like a non-committal nod.

Next day. He invites the rest of its family.

You can't see out the window anymore - the fucking plants need it more than you. Your walls are now flourishing more than the local forest. You don't even know what any of these species are, more than 80% of them are extinct. The other 20% is a freakish hybrid between at least three different plants. 

If you tell him it's too much, and they all disappear the next day. He then acts like the mini jungle never even existed. 

But... Once you gleamed a glance into his room when he left a crack in the door.

The Jungle Has Simply Relocated.

The vegetables he eats are seasonal. You suspect that he grows them somewhere. You can ask him to have a little, and he'll have one of two reactions:

If you had told him to remove the plants from earlier, he pretends that he doesn't hear your question even after he hasn't shut up for the last 30 minutes. Each time you ask, he clams up and chews his food silently before returning to talking your ear off in a few minutes.

If you didn't, he simply motions towards the to which ones are edible. If he likes you, he'll label which ones are edible and the names of it so you can search up how to prepare it yourself. 

He's not home a lot of the time, he's really only there at night and early morning. Sometimes he doesn't come back. You don't really notice, since when he come back, it's usually a weird time and you're in your room already.

Sometimes when he comes home, there's a bit of blood on his shoes. He just says that his master was being a bit rough as some sort of reassurance.

...It doesn't help. You're just now more paranoid about him.

If you share a bathroom, the cabinet will have your things, and a large tub of hair gel. It smells... weird. Not like bad, but like really floral? Earthy? It's a mix between the two.

He seems to run through the tub really quickly and there's always a small collection of them waiting inside the recycling bin.

Takimaru

I dunno if his doctrine would even allow him, to live in a apartment/house/something similar but whatever

He'd be used to living with other people, so I can imagine him being a pretty accommodating roommate.

Like he'd probably wouldn't shy away from doing any of the household chores.

He'd help you if you're too busy with work or something.

Keep the place fairly clean, doesn't clog up the sink, sorts the recyclables, etc...

He would probably remind you to sort your trash out properly, if you repeatedly ignore him, he'd be a bit frustrated, but not enough to get angry at you

If you feel sick, he'd probably stay home with you, checks up on you properly and takes care of you (makes you food and gets any medicine if needed)

Even if it's pretty minor, and you can take care of yourself without any help, you can find him lingering around

If he can't be there, and the two of you are fairly close, you might find one of the gourmet knights lingering around the place to make sure you have company.

This will pretty much be the only time he'll bring 'guests'

But the guests are more like caretakers since they'll bring like painkillers or whatever then dip when Takimaru comes back

It's mostly so you don't feel lonely during this time.

It's probably the only time he'll give you this much attention then it's back to 'somewhat acquainted roommates'

He doesn't eat often at your place. Or ever.

Since he has to eat simple/natural food, he can't really take much from your fridge - he has to venture into the wilderness and find something else to eat.

He'll bring home like one mushroom and something else, and call it a meal.

Then fasts for a few days before repeating it.

Sometimes you take a glance in his room, and you notice that it's almost completely empty.

Not to mention the lightbulb has been taken out.

And he doesn't even have blinds to his window.

If he does have anything, he'd have a some sort of horse equipment, but barely anything for himself.

He probably won't use anything you offer him since most things you use aren't entirely natural.

He won't refuse to watch the TV with you or anything, but also doesn't actively look for it.

Like if you wanna spend time with him indoors, you could try a board game or something, but he'd most likely enjoy going outdoors more. Take a hike with him.

Speaking of which the fridge is completely yours since he won't be using it at all.

Sometimes... You'll find a angry looking horse trotting around your home. It's his, you think. Don't worry, they're friendly.

If you have a pet that moves freely around in the home, make sure that it doesn't try to start beef with his horse because the horse Can and Will fight back.

Listen, this horse survived being on the boat to Ice Hell and somehow made its way back to Takimaru after all that shit went down - the average household pet does not stand a chance.

Toriko Roommate HCs

A bunch of Headcanons of on being roommates with the Toriko characters. Semi-shitpost purely because I'm doing this to get a laugh out of it. Pretty platonic stuff. Not edited, I hate editing!

Word count: 2.5k

Toriko

I could see him living with someone else if he wasn't able to live in his candy house anymore. It'll probably because they refused to keep making them.

Eats the fridge out. He also eats the ice in the freezer. Nothing is left.

Gone as soon as you step away from the vicinity of the kitchen area.

Don't worry about it too much, he'll leave enough for one serving. Just one. It's for you so you have something to eat for the next meal.

Your shopping trip for one now has to turn into shopping trip for two. If you have a list of stuff to buy hung up on the fridge somewhere, he'll start writing on it. The list of items in his handwriting is more than double of whatever you buy to eat.

He makes up for it though. Causally slams down a massive stack of cash to cover for the cost of it and then walks out to go get lunch with Komatsu or something. 

Invites you out to eat sometimes. Expensive restaurants are just as likely as chance as the local noodle joint. 

You have a pet? No. You had a pet.

Your pet would naturally gravitate towards towards him

He would probably take it on a walk even if it was a pet fish or bug. 

The worse part is that he doesn't even feed it, they just like him more than you. An natural animal's person. 

You'll find them napping together. 

He's a shedder. Blue hair everywhere, he has so much hair it blocks up the vacuum cleaner. 

His clothes are also spread about the place, but when he notices them, he'll chuck them in the washing machine. 

He probably isn't home too much. But you know when he is because you can find a pair of muddy footprints leading up to your front door. 

When he is home, he might bring some people over - he's a social guy when he isn't out hunting or eating

Sometimes might bring over Komatsu. You'll find the two of them sitting on the couch watching some cooking show. These are the best days because he usually stays until dinner and makes all three of you food to eat. 

His brothers might come over. Coco is a delight to have. Sunny is snippy, but you can tell he cares somewhat. Zebra… You're afraid that he won't stop at emptying your fridge, and will start chomping down on the metal container. 

You could probably grow used to being his roommate, there's nothing too bad, just a collection of a lot of little things.

Coco

I don't even know how you convinced him to be roommates with you - I cannot imagine a scenario where he would do this. 

But it barely even matters since you won't see him. Like at all. You'll have to live with him for a couple years before he even thinks about starting to warm up to you.

Almost always in his room. He's deathly silent too - you won't hear a single thing from him ever. The absolute most you'll hear is him talking to some sort of bird outside his window(?) You still aren't really sure who he's talking to, but you occasionally hear some bird sounds.

On the rare occasion you see him outside, he's reading a thick book about something you'll need a master's degree to fully understand. He'll simply greet you and return to reading. Don't stare too long or he'll retreat back to his room. 

You have no idea how often he's at home, purely because you have no idea if he's even home or not from how much noise he makes. The only way you could really tell is seeing if his shoes are gone or not. It's unsettling, borderline frightening. 

Extremely respectful of the shared space - no dishes in sink, the place is well-maintained, there's barely any indication that you live with another person. The only thing that's his is the massive bookcase that takes up a fair chunk of the room. 

If he likes you, he'll let you read some of the books on the shelf. Just under no circumstances do you dog-ear the pages. Your privilege will be revoked instantly. The bookshelf will be replaced with one that requires a lock, or even worse, moves to his room and you will truly never see him again. 

If you're friendly enough with him, you could possibly invite him to watch something together on the television. 

If you ask him what he wants to watch, you'll end up watching a three-hour long documentary on something - pray it's a topic you like or you might not make it out awake. 

If you fall asleep during it, he'll just turn it off, and probably won't accept any other offers to watch stuff with you. It's not that he's offended, it's more so he sees it as redundant if you're not even going to be awake.

Don't worry about it too much, if you like playing puzzle games on a console, he might come out and watch you play. He won't say anything though, even if you get stuck. If you want help, you have to ask him.

Never brings guest over. Though, guests will sometimes make their way over. 

Toriko and Komatsu are the more common ones. They usually come bringing food. It's a good day when they come to visit because they will share food with you. 

Sunny is rarer, if you see him, it's usually urgent and Coco will leave alongside him immediately. You probably won't see him for a week at least.

Once, and only once you met a man covered in blood, half naked with a ripped jaw. You fainted at the sight.

Coco later told you that that man was his 'baby brother'. You still don't know if it was fragment of your imagination.

A stickler that he seems to keep doing is showering in scalding hot water. If you forget and just jump in, your skin will burn. 

Apart from that, he's a fairly good roommate? He'll leave you alone, and won't cause any fuss unless you're doing something he really, really doesn't like.

Sunny

Passive aggressive as hell

If you shed a lot of hair, and aren't diligent on vacuuming it up in time, he'll gather all of it up and place it in front of your bedroom door.

If you leave the dishes undone for too long in the sink, he'll do the same thing  - leave it at your door to trip up on. 

You'll probably have a lot of petty arguments with him. Nothing serious. 

He's a good roommate in other ways though.

He's probably not against sharing his skin care products with you if he doesn't hate you too much. He'd probably even give you tips on how to help or maintain it.

But do not ask him to borrow any or his hair products. None. 

You will never see a bug in your living quarters ever again - he will eliminate the cause effective immediately. 

The same applies to rats, or any pests of any kind. He will not tolerate having any of these things in his home, so you'll also be safe from it.

If you watch TV, he might come in uninvited and give you running commentary on the people's appearances or the show itself.

"Really? That shirt with those pants?"

…Even though he's kind of a fashion disaster himself. The only reason he can pull it off is because he has unrivalled confidence in himself.

"…Gross. He's obviously having an affair with the girl at his workplace. The story isn't even good."

He'll still watch shitty dramas as long as you keep it on the screen.

You think that he secretly enjoys it.

"…Are you seriously watching Toriko eat absurd amounts of food for entertainment?"

Insert scoff here.

He might actually just turn the TV off for this one.

Just remember to turn down the volume if you're watching late at night - he will be very upset if you interrupt his beauty sleep.

Rin has a pair of spare keys to your place. You'll see her in and about even if Sunny isn't home at the moment. The two of you sometimes trash talk him, but she mostly just waves at you and continue doing… whatever she's doing at your place.

Sometimes when she comes over, the place smells 10x better. You're not sure what magic she works, but you swear it could be drugs.

Overall, not a bad roommate, but could certainly be better. 

Zebra

…You really wanna do this? Alright.

I'd recommend buying sound-proof headphones and sound-proofing your room.

It doesn't actually help that much, but it's really just for your own peace of mind.

Also team "Empties the fridge", but doesn't stop there. 

You're concerned he might actually just eat the fridge. Whole. Unhinge his jaw like a snake and crunch it like nothing.

Jokes about eating your pet if you have one.

He makes half threats about eating you if you don't buy food everyday.

Doesn't even matter if you do buy food every day since he probably won't be there the next day

If Toriko had muddy footprints, he has bloody ones. Do Not Ask. He'll answer you, but you won't like the answer he gives you. Just save yourself the horror. 

Police will absolutely come by a couple times a month purely because of your neighbours calling them on him.

Maybe it's the bloody footprints. Maybe it's the fact he broke the 'tiny' doorway on the way in.

When they explain that they thought that he was going to kill you, you laugh but wonder if the police would even stand a chance if he was going to kill you. 

It doesn't help that he leaves for weeks at a time and comes stumbling in covered in gore he hasn't really bothered to clean off yet. 

You don't even really know what to do in this situation apart from explain that he's a roommate.

No, he's not trying to kill you.

No, he is not holding you hostage.

Yes, you would like for them to stop coming at this point. 

The few redeeming qualities are:

Your home is completely safe. You will never worry about a break in - he can hear anything happening for miles and miles. In fact, if anyone were break in, it would be him. 

Yes, he's done it before after losing his keys.

Yes you just woke up, walked out to see him covered in blood, waved at him then went back to sleep.

Yes, you are far too desensitised to blood now. 

Rats and other creatures are too afraid of living in your home - pests will actively avoid living there. Just be careful about your pet running away from home if they're able to. (They'll get used to him eventually)

He will sometimes bring back an absolutely massive chunk of meat - . You may eat it if he likes you enough.

But if you eat it, you have to help him cook it. No matter how good you are at it, he'll just shake his head.

…He's probably thinking that Komatsu could do better.

Komatsu

In my opinion, the best roommate on this list. Purely because he is the most normal on this list. 

Will cook for you. You will cry tears of joy. Weep. You will be grateful simply because of how tasty it is.

He'll be organised with the kitchen, it'll pretty much always be full.

Just… If you move anything, remember where it came from, because he'll get pretty upset if you keep doing this. He likes a system to his madness.

The fridge will be fairly stocked, but he'll keep a list of what he needs on a paper stuck to a magnet. It'd be appreciated if you could buy these items when he can't.

You don't get to spend a lot of time with him. Between being Toriko's partner and running his kitchen at Hotel Gourmet, he doesn't have a lot of free time.

When he comes home, it's late at night. The two of you should be asleep.

In fact, he tells you that you should be asleep at this time. Fucking hypocrite.

When you do get to spend time with him, he's probably in the kitchen tinkering around with something new he bought at the World Kitchen or something Toriko had swung by to give him.

If you really wanna spend time with him, you should just pull up a chair to the counter.

If you're close enough to him, he'll invite you to help make dinner.

Don't worry, he'd give you something really, really simple to do.

There is no room for disappointment.

If he isn't experimenting, he'll probably be watching some sort of cooking show. (A massive part of his personality is just flipping cooking and I love it so fucking much) You're welcome to join him watching the show.

Just be careful since he will be asking you what you think about contestants three's pie crust. He will not be satisfied with a half-assed answer.

He'll have a notepad on his lap, and he'll be taking notes whenever something interests him.

His notes are very neat, so you can read them, but you aren't sure if they make much sense.

Toriko is a common sight in your home. He'll just sit on the couch with a bag of food he took out of the fridge. He'll give you a nice big grin while waving at you with your lunch plans in his mouth.

Komatsu will probably scold him a bit, but you know that nothing will change. You'll probably see him in two weeks doing the same thing again.

Since he isn't home often, and he's a pretty likable, you'll probably start doing his portion of his chores after long enough. He insists you don't have to, but you'll probably end up doing it.

He also gets you to get rid of the spiders. Don't kill them though, after meeting Toriko, he'd avoid doing these things. Just put them outside.

Don't try to scare him even as a joke - he will scream his lungs out and your neighbours will think that a murder had happened.

Also… be careful you don't join his fucking harem.

[otterlyfoolish]

Toriko Roommate HCs

A bunch of Headcanons of on being roommates with the Toriko characters. Semi-shitpost purely because I'm doing this to get a laugh out of it. Pretty platonic stuff. Not edited, I hate editing!

Word count: 2.5k

(Heavenly Kings & Komatsu)

Toriko

I could see him living with someone else if he wasn't able to live in his candy house anymore. It'll probably because they refused to keep making them.

Eats the fridge out. He also eats the ice in the freezer. Nothing is left.

Gone as soon as you step away from the vicinity of the kitchen area.

Don't worry about it too much, he'll leave enough for one serving. Just one. It's for you so you have something to eat for the next meal.

Your shopping trip for one now has to turn into shopping trip for two. If you have a list of stuff to buy hung up on the fridge somewhere, he'll start writing on it. The list of items in his handwriting is more than double of whatever you buy to eat.

He makes up for it though. Causally slams down a massive stack of cash to cover for the cost of it and then walks out to go get lunch with Komatsu or something. 

Invites you out to eat sometimes. Expensive restaurants are just as likely as chance as the local noodle joint. 

You have a pet? No. You had a pet.

Your pet would naturally gravitate towards towards him

He would probably take it on a walk even if it was a pet fish or bug. 

The worse part is that he doesn't even feed it, they just like him more than you. An natural animal's person. 

You'll find them napping together. 

He's a shedder. Blue hair everywhere, he has so much hair it blocks up the vacuum cleaner. 

His clothes are also spread about the place, but when he notices them, he'll chuck them in the washing machine. 

He probably isn't home too much. But you know when he is because you can find a pair of muddy footprints leading up to your front door. 

When he is home, he might bring some people over - he's a social guy when he isn't out hunting or eating

Sometimes might bring over Komatsu. You'll find the two of them sitting on the couch watching some cooking show. These are the best days because he usually stays until dinner and makes all three of you food to eat. 

His brothers might come over. Coco is a delight to have. Sunny is snippy, but you can tell he cares somewhat. Zebra… You're afraid that he won't stop at emptying your fridge, and will start chomping down on the metal container. 

You could probably grow used to being his roommate, there's nothing too bad, just a collection of a lot of little things.

Coco

I don't even know how you convinced him to be roommates with you - I cannot imagine a scenario where he would do this. 

But it barely even matters since you won't see him. Like at all. You'll have to live with him for a couple years before he even thinks about starting to warm up to you.

Almost always in his room. He's deathly silent too - you won't hear a single thing from him ever. The absolute most you'll hear is him talking to some sort of bird outside his window(?) You still aren't really sure who he's talking to, but you occasionally hear some bird sounds.

On the rare occasion you see him outside, he's reading a thick book about something you'll need a master's degree to fully understand. He'll simply greet you and return to reading. Don't stare too long or he'll retreat back to his room. 

You have no idea how often he's at home, purely because you have no idea if he's even home or not from how much noise he makes. The only way you could really tell is seeing if his shoes are gone or not. It's unsettling, borderline frightening. 

Extremely respectful of the shared space - no dishes in sink, the place is well-maintained, there's barely any indication that you live with another person. The only thing that's his is the massive bookcase that takes up a fair chunk of the room. 

If he likes you, he'll let you read some of the books on the shelf. Just under no circumstances do you dog-ear the pages. Your privilege will be revoked instantly. The bookshelf will be replaced with one that requires a lock, or even worse, moves to his room and you will truly never see him again. 

If you're friendly enough with him, you could possibly invite him to watch something together on the television. 

If you ask him what he wants to watch, you'll end up watching a three-hour long documentary on something - pray it's a topic you like or you might not make it out awake. 

If you fall asleep during it, he'll just turn it off, and probably won't accept any other offers to watch stuff with you. It's not that he's offended, it's more so he sees it as redundant if you're not even going to be awake.

Don't worry about it too much, if you like playing puzzle games on a console, he might come out and watch you play. He won't say anything though, even if you get stuck. If you want help, you have to ask him.

Never brings guest over. Though, guests will sometimes make their way over. 

Toriko and Komatsu are the more common ones. They usually come bringing food. It's a good day when they come to visit because they will share food with you. 

Sunny is rarer, if you see him, it's usually urgent and Coco will leave alongside him immediately. You probably won't see him for a week at least.

Once, and only once you met a man covered in blood, half naked with a ripped jaw. You fainted at the sight.

Coco later told you that that man was his 'baby brother'. You still don't know if it was fragment of your imagination.

A stickler that he seems to keep doing is showering in scalding hot water. If you forget and just jump in, your skin will burn. 

Apart from that, he's a fairly good roommate? He'll leave you alone, and won't cause any fuss unless you're doing something he really, really doesn't like.

Sunny

Passive aggressive as hell

If you shed a lot of hair, and aren't diligent on vacuuming it up in time, he'll gather all of it up and place it in front of your bedroom door.

If you leave the dishes undone for too long in the sink, he'll do the same thing  - leave it at your door to trip up on. 

You'll probably have a lot of petty arguments with him. Nothing serious. 

He's a good roommate in other ways though.

He's probably not against sharing his skin care products with you if he doesn't hate you too much. He'd probably even give you tips on how to help or maintain it.

But do not ask him to borrow any or his hair products. None. 

You will never see a bug in your living quarters ever again - he will eliminate the cause effective immediately. 

The same applies to rats, or any pests of any kind. He will not tolerate having any of these things in his home, so you'll also be safe from it.

If you watch TV, he might come in uninvited and give you running commentary on the people's appearances or the show itself.

"Really? That shirt with those pants?"

…Even though he's kind of a fashion disaster himself. The only reason he can pull it off is because he has unrivalled confidence in himself.

"…Gross. He's obviously having an affair with the girl at his workplace. The story isn't even good."

He'll still watch shitty dramas as long as you keep it on the screen.

You think that he secretly enjoys it.

"…Are you seriously watching Toriko eat absurd amounts of food for entertainment?"

Insert scoff here.

He might actually just turn the TV off for this one.

Just remember to turn down the volume if you're watching late at night - he will be very upset if you interrupt his beauty sleep.

Rin has a pair of spare keys to your place. You'll see her in and about even if Sunny isn't home at the moment. The two of you sometimes trash talk him, but she mostly just waves at you and continue doing… whatever she's doing at your place.

Sometimes when she comes over, the place smells 10x better. You're not sure what magic she works, but you swear it could be drugs.

Overall, not a bad roommate, but could certainly be better. 

Zebra

…You really wanna do this? Alright.

I'd recommend buying sound-proof headphones and sound-proofing your room.

It doesn't actually help that much, but it's really just for your own peace of mind.

Also team "Empties the fridge", but doesn't stop there. 

You're concerned he might actually just eat the fridge. Whole. Unhinge his jaw like a snake and crunch it like nothing.

Jokes about eating your pet if you have one.

He makes half threats about eating you if you don't buy food everyday.

Doesn't even matter if you do buy food every day since he probably won't be there the next day

If Toriko had muddy footprints, he has bloody ones. Do Not Ask. He'll answer you, but you won't like the answer he gives you. Just save yourself the horror. 

Police will absolutely come by a couple times a month purely because of your neighbours calling them on him.

Maybe it's the bloody footprints. Maybe it's the fact he broke the 'tiny' doorway on the way in.

When they explain that they thought that he was going to kill you, you laugh but wonder if the police would even stand a chance if he was going to kill you. 

It doesn't help that he leaves for weeks at a time and comes stumbling in covered in gore he hasn't really bothered to clean off yet. 

You don't even really know what to do in this situation apart from explain that he's a roommate.

No, he's not trying to kill you.

No, he is not holding you hostage.

Yes, you would like for them to stop coming at this point. 

The few redeeming qualities are:

Your home is completely safe. You will never worry about a break in - he can hear anything happening for miles and miles. In fact, if anyone were break in, it would be him. 

Yes, he's done it before after losing his keys.

Yes you just woke up, walked out to see him covered in blood, waved at him then went back to sleep.

Yes, you are far too desensitised to blood now. 

Rats and other creatures are too afraid of living in your home - pests will actively avoid living there. Just be careful about your pet running away from home if they're able to. (They'll get used to him eventually)

He will sometimes bring back an absolutely massive chunk of meat - . You may eat it if he likes you enough.

But if you eat it, you have to help him cook it. No matter how good you are at it, he'll just shake his head.

…He's probably thinking that Komatsu could do better.

Komatsu

In my opinion, the best roommate on this list. Purely because he is the most normal on this list. 

Will cook for you. You will cry tears of joy. Weep. You will be grateful simply because of how tasty it is.

He'll be organised with the kitchen, it'll pretty much always be full.

Just… If you move anything, remember where it came from, because he'll get pretty upset if you keep doing this. He likes a system to his madness.

The fridge will be fairly stocked, but he'll keep a list of what he needs on a paper stuck to a magnet. It'd be appreciated if you could buy these items when he can't.

You don't get to spend a lot of time with him. Between being Toriko's partner and running his kitchen at Hotel Gourmet, he doesn't have a lot of free time.

When he comes home, it's late at night. The two of you should be asleep.

In fact, he tells you that you should be asleep at this time. Fucking hypocrite.

When you do get to spend time with him, he's probably in the kitchen tinkering around with something new he bought at the World Kitchen or something Toriko had swung by to give him.

If you really wanna spend time with him, you should just pull up a chair to the counter.

If you're close enough to him, he'll invite you to help make dinner.

Don't worry, he'd give you something really, really simple to do.

There is no room for disappointment.

If he isn't experimenting, he'll probably be watching some sort of cooking show. (A massive part of his personality is just flipping cooking and I love it so fucking much) You're welcome to join him watching the show.

Just be careful since he will be asking you what you think about contestants three's pie crust. He will not be satisfied with a half-assed answer.

He'll have a notepad on his lap, and he'll be taking notes whenever something interests him.

His notes are very neat, so you can read them, but you aren't sure if they make much sense.

Toriko is a common sight in your home. He'll just sit on the couch with a bag of food he took out of the fridge. He'll give you a nice big grin while waving at you with your lunch plans in his mouth.

Komatsu will probably scold him a bit, but you know that nothing will change. You'll probably see him in two weeks doing the same thing again.

Since he isn't home often, and he's a pretty likable, you'll probably start doing his portion of his chores after long enough. He insists you don't have to, but you'll probably end up doing it.

He also gets you to get rid of the spiders. Don't kill them though, after meeting Toriko, he'd avoid doing these things. Just put them outside.

Don't try to scare him even as a joke - he will scream his lungs out and your neighbours will think that a murder had happened.

Also… be careful you don't join his fucking harem.