#she was made to be “psycho” and maybe kano

[cienie-isengardu]

Shang is that kid who would definitely take apart and put his toys back together. Taking part and putting it back together is cute for stuffed animals. It's less cute when he's trying to dissect the neighborhood cat to see if 'stuffing' will come out when he cuts the cat open.

It seems we need to agree to disagree on that one too, as I don’t think Shang Tsung in any timelines was that kind of child that hurt/killed animals out of curiosity and fun. My personal feeling is that Shang Tsung was corrupted by the magic he sought and the corruption was a slow process, one step after another until he was too set up in the dark ways to care anymore. Take the MK1!Shang Tsung - whatever the life he had was crafted by Liu Kang or was a result of his own choices, he didn’t seem to be mentally okay. He called his life “barely surviving” and yet, even then he did not deliberately poison people as his “elixir” was made of just tea. Sure, maybe this is solely him trying to avoid troubles (which didn’t work) but 

he was selling his stuff also to farmers, presumably living far away from bigger settlements

if he poisoned them, he could rob their house and get away before neighbors would notice

but all he was doing was cheating and taking advantage of the situation, yet did not deliberately physically try to harm anyone, be it out of spite, curiosity or amusement and we did not see him doing anything of this before Damashi came into picture and taught him magic. Once Damashi gave him power, Shang Tsung became a much more nasty bastard and mind you, we have no idea how long he was under his Titan’s influences. It could be a decade or a thousand years of slow corruption, false promises and fueling the man’s cruelty until Shang Tsung lost the last bits of empathy and sense of a line he shouldn't cross. He could be a weird kid, too curious for his own sake but I don’t think he was a little psychopath.

Similarly, I like to think that Earthrealmer Shang Tsung was slowly deprived of his humanity under Shao Kahn’s tutelage and not that there was something deeply wrong with him as a kid (and also, I feel like human Shang Tsung born 1 000+ years ago wouldn’t have stuffed toys to part and put it back together. I’m not even sure if he had that much time to be just a kid, but that of course would depend where and in how rich/poor family he was born to begin with).

Unless we are talking about an already dead cat and him being curious about what is inside of body, then maybe I could see it, depending on the circumstances of that scenario.

[apocryphalfiles]

Kano Family Slice of Life

Even though Kana thought she understood Takumi Kano's fixation on Rinko, maybe she didn't really "get" it. She had her own thoughts and feelings on how he handled that girl, and when she started to reflect on them, she decided that it wasn't her place and put said "thoughts and feelings" out of her head. Sure, Rinko wasn't the healthiest... obsession to have, and it made Takumi look bad in front of other people when he lost his head over his slave's insubordination, and even Kana could tell that his feelings were too complicated and at least a little bit like smashing a mirror when you were frustrated with something going on in your life, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been... as it was before. In Altera's underground bedroom, Takumi had withered under the derisive stares of his daughters and then raised his head and promised not to make the same mistake again. And, well, he hadn't. Since he already won and claimed his prize, he didn't have any reason to go chasing after that girl like a maniac. Since he'd painted both her body and soul in his colors, he didn't need to fret about her leaving him and make an ass of himself by rambling in front of any reasonable person and losing face ("Didn't know the emperor was such a psycho..." "He sounds like a stalker..." "Was he actually screaming something about wombs just now?" Kana could just imagine the kinds of gossip that would start spreading if Takumi relapsed!). So Kana decided that she'd gently step in if Takumi went too far.

...But what was "too far," anyway? It wasn't like she could seriously suggest he cut that girl loose, not now that she'd spent over a decade living together with her, er, not ever, since Takumi was the sort of lovable (cheating) scamp who never really let go of the people he got attached to, and, of course, there was the matter of Rinko being one of his top prizes. After all he suffered to bring them to this brand new world full of life and hope, he deserved to indulge in one or two unhealthy treats, right? Scolding him about that would be like a shrill of a wife nagging at her husband for enjoying a scoop of ice cream after a marathon run. So, again, it wasn't Kana's place to object or interfere. And in the end, worrying about both sides of that equation, she usually ended up just not getting involved...

Just as she left Takumi's relationships alone, Kana quietly excused herself from his bedroom affairs with Rinko, who doubled (tripled?) as his concubine in addition to a bodyguard and general-purpose servant. She stayed out of his sex life and gave up the space next to him in bed whenever he had one of his brides over for more than just resting. But this- this wasn't that. It wasn't like she was peeping through the corner of his bedroom door. After all...

Takumi was totally out in the open right now, wasn't he?!

Takumi Kano and San-sam (a member of the Shinsengumi who was never seen out of his handmade cosplay of Tobi from the hit anime Naruto) were sitting next to each other in the West dining hall, one of the more modest dining rooms in the main palace building with a rectangular table only big enough to hold six places at most and high windows that let in plenty of light. Although the room itself was on the smaller side and sparsely decorated save for a few potted plants, two glass doors opened out into a courtyard where a patio space provided additional seating with wooden chairs and round metal tables with umbrella poles through the center creating the impression of a restaurant's outdoor dining area. During the Spring and Summer, the family would host events in the courtyard with the glass doors propped open. But today, it was not only the dead of winter, but the sky had turned navy blue early because of the season and the light the courtyard lamps cast through the windows illuminated the snow flurrying outside. Hearing the commotion of two rowdy men from down the hall was what led Kana to her current position, peeking past the doorframe cautiously to check up on them.

With his staff of servants and harem of doting wives who took turns cooking dinner for the emperor, he never lacked a private chef to wait on him, so the spread laid out at the end of the table at this hour, only a little while before supper, could only be called an irresponsible cheat meal. French fries, big macs, chicken nuggets, packets of sugary sauce, and two Oreo Mcflurries made a feast that was more suited for a bachelor's apartment than a king, but Takumi shoveled a teriyaki-glazed burger into his mouth anyway, and San-sam dipped a fistful of fries into ketchup that had been squirted into the empty end of the paper hamburger carton before sliding his orange spiral mask to one side and shoveling them into his mouth. He was still chewing when he started speaking again, apparently continuing some story that Kana had come into the middle of.

"And so I told him, 'Taste the Mangekyō Sharingan I unlocked from killing my brother, you bastard!' and while he was stunned, I unleashed my dōjutsu and exploded his wicked heart! Bwahahaha!"

"Wahahahaha! Serves him right! I'm a pretty forgiving guy and all, but I can't just let those kinds of rumors go unchecked, you know? Freedom of speech is one thing, but I ain't about to just roll over and let those dipshits use one of my own for their conspiracy bullshit."

"I get you, man. Who knows what they'll think up next? If you don't stay vigilant, those dark-hearted guys will end up dragging your happy family down like the Uchiha clan. So then I said my usual prayer for safe passage of his soul-"

"Oh? You religious now?"

"Nah. I just opened up my phone and played 'Hokage Funeral' from Youtube while I moved the body."

"Wahahahahaha! How about trying 'Sadness and Sorrow' next time?!"

"Ohhhhh, I love that one! You always have the best ideas, bossman! By the way, have you tried dipping your fries in your milkshake-"

Kana had absolutely no idea what these two idiots were yapping about.

More importantly, her eyes were quickly drawn away from the junk food Takumi was stuffing himself with before dinner and to his left hand, which was holding the end of a red leash made out of high-quality leather. At the other end of that leash was a familiar blonde-haired woman on all fours inside of a doghouse that definitely wasn't used by any of the family's pet dogs and, Kana was almost positive, was not part of the West dining hall the last time she was here.

On her hands and knees with her cheek smushed against the floor, Rinko kept both of her fists curled up so that they resembled paws while making a completely pitiful expression. Kana knew that Rinko typically wore a different collar with a heart-shaped charm that she could still see dangling from underneath the thicker red collar strapped around her neck, so she could only imagine how uncomfortable it was from how tight it looked and how the edges of the bottom choker must have been digging painfully into her neck. Every so often, Takumi would yank on the leash, and Rinko would let out a yelp as she was jerked forward just a few inches, enough to jostle her and make her change positions without pulling her out of the doghouse. Aside from that, Takumi largely ignored her and focused on his conversation with his friend over pre-dinner instead.

Was this... a punishment for something Rinko did? Kana wondered to herself, her nails digging into the doorframe she was clinging onto as if it were a piece of driftwood in the ocean that was the hallway. Anxiously, she started going over her options. Should she say something? She was kind of eavesdropping already. If Takumi wanted a doghouse in the dining room, that was fine, well, it wasn't REALLY fine if you were worried about hygiene, but this was a family home, not a five-star restaurant, and anyway, the dogs sat at the foot of the table all the time either way, and they could let them out into the courtyard if they started getting antsy, so it wasn't a terrible place for it... no, that wasn't even the problem! In the first place, what would he do if someone walked in on this scene that was so wide-open it was like walking out onto the stateroom balcony wearing only boxers?!

After much back-and-forth with herself, Kana settled on standing guard in the hallway to personally make sure that nobody walked in on Takumi and his careless bro-reverie. And after twenty minutes of that, listening to his and San-sam's mind-numbing back-and-forth mixing Shonen anime with politics had driven her to her limit, and she went with the Plan B she'd come up with during the time she spent trying to tune the two of them out for the sake of her own sanity. Puffing out her cheeks, she called loudly into the hallway:

"Oh, Mira-chan! What are you doing here? Did you want a snack? You know it's almost dinnertime, right? Ah, well, if you're thirsty, I'll pour you something to drink and then we can wait for dinner in the dining room together~"

The din coming from the dining room quieted immediately, and, in less than a minute, the whole mess was cleaned up.

-----------------

Two months later, Kana joined Takumi for a Shinsengumi business meeting only to see him holding Rinko by a different leash, one that was slimmer and hooked onto the loop attached to her usual collar instead of overlapping it.

(So, he didn't end up learning any lessons about the leash, huh...)

Accepting defeat at the hands of the audience that was already there to witness Takumi's particular degene- eccentricity, Kana resigned herself with a sigh and let it go.

[geoviki]

I’m catching up on a couple of memes that @plumb19 and @i-got-these-words invited me to answer.  Thanks!  I blended them together.

1. What do you prefer to be called? Viki

2. Birthday I’m a Sagittarius

3. Where do you live? Denver, Colorado, USA

4. 3 things you are doing right now? 1) Trying to catch up answering my email/messages/Tumblr requests.  2) Fluffing my hair now and then because it’s wet and I’m trying to dry it. 3) Working on organizing 45,000 songs on my hard drive – I’m slowly but steadily trying to weed out songs I don’t actually like.  I’m currently culling my  j-rock songs, and tonight I’m listening to Psycho le Cemu.

5. Four fandoms that have piqued your interest recently? 1)  19 Days (of course).  2) The Doukyuusei/Sotsugyousei/Blanc manga series by Nakamura Asumiko 3) The Saiyuki manga series by Kazuya Minekura  4) The Rules manga series by Miyamoto Kano   I always have at least 2 or 3 current fandoms going, ever since I was little.

6. How has the pandemic been treating you? Personally, well.

7. A song I cannot stop listening to. ‘You Make Me Feel Brand New’ played by Yoshiko Kishino  (I also love the original by the Stylistics) https://youtu.be/ayZMYKS2cWA

8. Recommend a movie Billy Elliot.

9. How old are you? Old enough to know better

10. School/uni/work? None of the above.

11. Heat or cold? Aaugh, neither!  Our summers get pretty hot, and I have poor tolerance to cold.  

12. An unusual fact about yourself? I’ve had several jobs where I was flown around in beautiful wilderness areas in helicopters.  I also get motion sickness.  I’m terrific at reading maps.  I’ve published maps, too.

13. Are you shy? You might mistake me for shy but you’d be wrong.  Introverted, though.

14. Preferred pronouns? She/her

15. Biggest pet peeves? Hypocrites and liars.

16. Favourite 'dere? I can’t say I have one.

17. Rate your life from 1-10 8

18. Main blog? This one now, I suppose.  Used to be Livejournal (same name).  I paid for a lifetime membership there at one time.

19. Side blog? I created ‘fairygodmum’ on LJ, but mainly I use it now as a user name to comment at the Washington Post website.

20. Things people should know about you before becoming friends

I suck at keeping up in a timely manner.  But I do care a lot about my friends.

21. Are you staying home from work/school? Yes and no.  I’m staying home, but not from work or school.

22. If you are staying home who is there with you? My husband, who’s working from home, quite diligently.

23. What movie have you watched recently? Little Big Man, one that neither of us had seen.  But wow, there’s a horrific scene of General Custer massacring women and children that made me sorry we picked it, so I can’t recommend it.  We watched both Mr. Rogers films before that (the one with Tom Hanks and the documentary) and those are much more uplifting.

24. What shows are you watching? I don’t watch much TV, but we just finished a 36-part Great Courses video on the history of China.  I also just finished reading The Sandman graphic novel series by Neil Gaiman.

25. What music are you listening to? J-Rock.  K-Pop, too.  K-pop is great exercise music, and I make all the mixes for the Wellness Center where I (pre-corona) work out.

26. Are you a homebody? Big time!

27. An event you were looking forward to that got cancelled? Today I’m supposed to be in Leipzig.  We had a trip to Berlin, Leipzig, and Dresden all planned.  Now I’m home trying to get Icelandair to refund us for all those flights they cancelled.

28. What are you doing for self care? Reading, gardening, walking.  Organizing stuff, scanning old photos, helping my sister-in-law with her genealogy.  Deep cleaning the house.  Doing jigsaw puzzles on https://jigsawpuzzles.io/ , where I seem to be specializing in Hokusai.

Did you go to college/university (if so, what major)? Yes, geology and mineralogy.

Do you believe in aliens? Yes, but I suspect these aliens are most likely one-celled creatures.

Deserted island - 3 items you’ll bring (that’s not in a survival kit)? My Kindle, my mp3 player, chocolate.

When did you first start reading 19 days? Who is the character, that you’d want to be real the most? Summer of 2015, I estimate.  And Guan Shan’s mom.  We need more kind women in the world.

Where is your dream home? I think here in Denver.  Although my dream home would involve way less weeding.

Preferred way of getting around town? Driving with the music on.  We also have a light rail system that’s relatively new, and I like to take it downtown.  Makes me feel like I’m in Europe or something.

Favourite… - type of animal? dragonfly – they’re killing machines, and what they kill are mosquitos!  I have a collection of dragonfly earrings to celebrate them – way to spend a Friday/Saturday night?  Friday is happy hour at 5 pm, chatting with my husband and listening to jazz.  , Saturday, maybe a movie or to the jazz club. - item of clothing? it’s gotta be stretchy and comfortable. - alcoholic drink ? dry Reisling white wine (or any white except Chardonnay) - mythical creature? Centaurs - superhero? .Elastigirl

[avecorviidae]

Fic: Three - Chapter Two

Fandom: Mob Psycho 100 Rating: G Relationship(s): Kageyama Shigeo & Reigen Arataka Word Count: 1168

Ao3 Link

It had seemed as if Shigeo’s second year of middle school was going to go in much the same direction.

Kageyama Ritsu was a blessing and a reprieve to the 1st year teachers. Polite, intelligent, popular, empathetic, not displaying destructive psychic abilities, a first year and already involved in student council, Ritsu was a model student. It was noted with extreme interest that Ritsu's third emergency contact was his grandfather, living fairly nearby.

Shigeo still seemed to struggle with his schoolwork, and aside from what was considered to be an accidental joining of the telepathy/body improvement club (despite the telepathy club being officially abolished, it was still just referred to as a joint club by most of the staff, because otherwise, there were just a bunch of squatters hanging out in the equipment room,) he didn’t seem to have any friends, or any relationships at all with his peers. He was still picked up on some days by Reigen, but much more rarely, and never before school got out for the day.

Katsuko Kano, class 2-1’s teacher, was by and large more concerned with the boy’s consistently awful math grades. (“Really,” she complained to Toyoda, as they chatted under the guise of grading tests, “he’s psychic, and he can’t do basic order of operations. How does that even happen?”)

At least, until the incidents. Shigeo had come to school one day with bruises. His gakuran had been done up to the collar, but Kano had still been able to see the angry reds and purples on his neck, and when she’d called his name for attendance, she’d barely heard his croaked response. When she looked at him closely, despite the usual vacant stare, his cheeks had been red and blotchy, his eyes puffy, as if he’d been sobbing for quite a while.

Oh, shit, she’d thought, because there wasn’t really a protocol for this. Oh, sure, there were steps to take if there was reason to believe that a student was being bullied, or abused at home, but Shigeo had been assaulted. Neither of the Kageyamas had ever come to school looking anything other than completely healthy, and while Shigeo had been ostracized by his classmates, nobody had ever seen them get physical beyond small shoves, certainly never to this extent.

As soon as the classes had dispersed for lunch, she’d snagged Toyoda by the elbow and dragged him into the copy room. Kayegama Ritsu was, he’d said, completely fine, if a little preoccupied.

She’d taken it to the administration, but it was a slow going process. An injured student was certainly a concern, they’d suggested, but if the injuries were not acquired on school property, and an abuse situation seems unlikely, then it’s not a high priority for the school to investigate. After all, between Seasoning City’s crumbling infrastructure, the frequent supernatural phenomena, and the stray monster attacks that didn’t fall under the Hero Association’s jurisdiction, well, Kageyama Shigeo could’ve acquired his injuries any number of ways, not necessarily an assault, and he was likely being treated by his own family’s doctor. The ‘investigation’ dragged on for a week, then two, until the urgency of it was drowned out by the student council’s mass purge of the school’s troublemakers, and Shigeo’s bruises had faded to a dull, barely visible yellow, and the stiffness had left his shoulders.

Both Kageyama brothers missed school the following Monday–an unexcused absence.  A call to the Kageyama household revealed that both parents were out of town on business for the weekend, and it was assumed that they’d simply forgotten to call the school and inform them that their sons had come with them.

On Tuesday, Katsuko was standing by the front gate when she saw them approaching. She recognized Reigen first; the bright hair and ratty pink tie stuck out like a sore thumb in the light greys of the early morning. He was walking with one hand in his pocket, the other moving expressively as he said something to the three boys walking with him. Shigeo’s haircut identified him from a block away, and he was walking shoulder to shoulder with a boy she didn’t recognize, with a shock of blond hair and the purple uniform of Black Vinegar Mid. On Reigen’s other side, Ritsu was scowling at his shoes.

As they came closer to the school, Katsuko had to bite her cheek to stop herself from gasping. It was almost too much to take in, how haggard they looked. Reigen, for the most part, seemed uninjured, but the shadows under his eyes, the greasy, rumpled hair, spoke of a couple of rough nights. The blond boy looked in much the same shape, although the skin of his hands and his face seemed an odd, angry red–burns, maybe? Ritsu and Shigeo had enough injuries between them to kill any regular man, with bruises, scratches, scrapes littering their faces, their hands, their necks. Both of them were holding their shoulders in the stiff way that says it hurt to breathe, let alone walk. Shigeo had a single, bright green band-aid plastered across the bridge of his nose, for all of the good it’d do him. Katsuko made sure she was vaguely elsewhere when the four of them reached the gate, but still positioned in order to see Reigen pat both of the brothers gently on the shoulder, much to the apparent disgust of Ritsu, and she watched as the blond boy grabbed Shigeo’s wrist, grinning and saying something that made him smile, just slightly, in return.

Thirty minutes after the bell rang, Shigeo was asleep, head nodded forward so that his chin was resting on his chest. Katsuko took in the harsh shadows under his eyes, the scabbed over scratches on his cheek, (like it’d been rubbed against asphalt, God,) the little bandage on his nose, and for once, didn’t wake him up.

It became another routine, but with slightly less theorizing and more constant worry.

Shigeo and Ritsu very rarely came in with the sorts of injuries from the last two incidents, but Katsuko still noted every bruise, every scrape, every neon bandage wrapped around Shigeo’s fingers.

So, her day became this: Start school day, teach, pretend not to notice Shigeo drifting off, note new injuries, if any, go to break room for lunch, worry with the other teachers, file another incident report with the district, receive an email informing her that her ‘report was being processed’ at the district’s headquarters, (the first one she’d filed had been processing for six months, now,) theorize about what was happening (Fight Club was the only one sticking,) go back to teaching, grade papers, go home.

Allegedly, things were much the same in Toyoda’s class, although he did keep telling her stories about an odd ginger boy who kept appearing in the windows of his classroom. One day, he’d apparently seen Ritsu flipping him off out of the corner of his eye.

She reflected, one day, that her life had become rather… odd.

[avecorviidae]

Fic: Three - Chapter Four

Fandom: Mob Psycho 100 Rating: G Relationship(s): Kageyama Shigeo & Reigen Arataka Word Count: 2678

Ao3 Link

She’d thought that she’d see less of Shigeo, the next year. After all, his first year, she’d only seen him walking through the gates in the mornings, or on the rare occasions she’d popped into Toyoda’s classroom during the school day. The rest, she’d only heard about from break-room hearsay. Truthfully, she didn’t really see him on the first couple weeks of the year, beyond the usual mornings, where he always greeted her with a quiet, “Good morning, Miss Kano,” before breaking away from Ritsu to go and find either Tome Kurata or one of the members of the body improvement club. Kageyama Ritsu was in her class this year, and while, thus far, he wasn’t quite as eventful a student as Shigeo, it still served as a decent distraction. He was, inarguably, a perfect student, turning in assignments on time, raising his hand, giving concise, correct answers in class, and asking relevant questions during lectures. His papers were appropriately formatted and cited, and his theses and analyses were accurate, if on occasion two-dimensional. He did not chat, fidget, or sleep during lessons, and was never anything other than perfectly polite when she spoke to him.

There was something… odd, about him, though. Sharp, almost, like he was surrounded by barbed wire, especially considering the wide berth just about everyone but Shigeo seemed to give him. The formality of the way he spoke, not just to her but to the student council members, to his classmates, didn’t allow for personal conversation, didn’t allow for any kind of familiarity. He was always closed off, distant, and sometimes, if she probed his reasoning for an answer for too long, he’d start spitting back his answers, tone turning biting and defiant. It had taken her a while to notice, just like it had taken her some time to learn to read Shigeo and the subtler nuances of his expressions. The teachers have privately nicknamed the student council incident of last year ‘the Purge,’ as a sort of morbid joke, but it’s still fresh in her mind every time she looks at him, the way he’d stood behind Kamuro, stone faced and resolutely avoiding the questioning looks from his brother as a few of the resident fidgeters and slackers had been humiliated and pulled from the classroom.

She wonders about him, how he copes with what’s happened. Shigeo, she’s fairly certain, can rely on Reigen for support, and Ritsu, and to some extent, the body improvement/telepathy club as well.

Ritsu, though…

Some part of her feels sorry for the Kageyama parents, who have somehow manage to raise two children who are troubled in unique but equally extreme ways.

More of her feels sorry of the boys.

On Monday of the third week of school, while Katsuko is grading papers during lunch, she hears a soft knock on her classroom door. “Yes?” she asks, craning to see the figure peering in the doorway.

Shigeo, bag clutched in one hand and a piece of paper in the other, takes a few hesitant steps until he’s standing just inside the room, but still close enough to the doorway to make a retreat. He’s grown, just a little, over the summer, enough that he’s about level with Ritsu now, but he still carries himself with an unassuming smallness, like if he tried hard enough, maybe he could fold in on himself and disappear entirely. “Um, Miss Kano?” he says quietly, not quite meeting her eyes. She finds herself smiling at him, feeling oddly fond. “Yes, Shigeo?” she asks, as gently as she can manage, out of habit. She’d noticed at some point that raised voices, even if they weren’t directed at him, made the boy nervous.

He holds up the piece of paper as he explains, “I have, um, some math homework… Shishou helped me, so I think that I understand it, but, um, could I maybe work on it in here? It’s loud outside…” Katsuko stares blankly for a moment before the request sinks in. Technically, tutoring is offered after school exclusively, and students aren’t supposed to be in the building during lunch, but, well, this was Shigeo, and his nerves were easy to see if you knew how to read him even despite the vacant expression, there in the shuffling of his weight from foot to foot, the way he stared at some nonexistent point on the wall, and why has he come to her? 

“Oh. Ah, yes, of course, just let me know if you need any help!” Shigeo sits a few rows back and starts working, looking down at his scribble-covered paper with single-minded concentration. Katsuko almost suggests that he move to the front row of desks, so that he isn’t just plopped haphazardly in the middle of the room, but something familiar strikes her about where he’s sitting… oh, and she has to stifle a small laugh when she realizes that he’s sitting in his desk from last year. Creature of habit, indeed. 

He doesn’t ask her for help on his work, and they sit in oddly amicable silence for the rest of the lunch period, the only noises in the room being the constant scratching of a pen or a pencil, and the occasional turn of a page.

Two minutes before the end of the lunch period, he neatly puts his worksheet into a folder and tucks it into his bag. “Thank you, Miss Kano,” he says, as he weaves around the desks towards the door, voice failing to carry even in the almost-empty room. “Have a good day.”

It doesn’t become a routine, but it does become something, a couple of times a month at most, where Shigeo will knock softly on the open door of the classroom and take his old seat, and spends the lunch period frowning at his math worksheets, or mouthing stilted English to himself as he reads from a piece of paper. He’s never asked for help, which is probably just as well, because Katsuko isn’t sure she’s ever taught the boy a thing. So, she just provides the room and the peace and quiet, and grades essays as he takes up sheets of scratch paper with the algebra the Year 3s are suddenly expected to learn before they’re unceremoniously shoved into high school mathematics.

She looks over him every time he comes in, and finds the shadows under his eyes to be just a little lighter, sees that the recent bruises and colourful bandages he’d come in with last year are nowhere to be seen. Even his demeanor feels changed. Something about the way he speaks, the way he holds himself, comes across as more… reserved, rather than awkward or anxious.

After a certain point, the entire break room seems to breathe a sigh of relief when everyone realizes that they can begin swapping weird Kageyama anecdotes again, instead of trading injury descriptions.

A few weeks in, Ritsu misses a couple of days of school. She’d been nervous–there hadn’t been any Kageyama Incidents this year, but it was only a matter of time–until the office had informed her that he’d been called in sick by his parents, and that he should be back within the next two days or so.

It always takes a few minutes for the stragglers to pack up their things and clear out of the classrooms, so she almost doesn’t notice the unfamiliar boy leaning against her doorframe. He looks young, probably around Ritsu’s age, but he’s not wearing a school uniform, instead decked in an almost excessively green jacket and torn up skinny jeans. His shock of bright orange hair is gelled into wild spikes, and they bounce along with his head as he saunters into the classroom, shoulders set and chin up in the universal technique of teenagers who want to look much taller than they actually are.

“Hey, hey, Ritsu-kun’s teacher!” he says, and it’s only years of training in not making fun of children that stops her from bursting out laughing, because he’s trying to pitch his voice down to sound older, but his voice has only just started to drop, and he’s cracking on every other word.

She laces her fingers together on the desk. “Can I help you?”

The boy braces one hand on the edge of her desk, and his grin is lazy, catlike. “Yeah, I’m here for Ritsu-kun’s homework. He finally stopped trying to throw up his guts, so his parents are on him about being caught up before he gets back to school.”

She reaches for the folder balanced on her stack of ungraded essays, but hesitates before handing it over. On the few occasions that Shigeo had actually been sick last year, Ritsu had popped in at some point to collect his work. There’s something odd about this kid she’s never seen before, who doesn’t even attend this school, coming to get Ritsu’s homework.

Shigeo knocks on the door softly, speaking even as he walks into the classroom. “Miss Kano, is there any work Ritsu’s missed the past two days? He wanted to– Oh, hello, Suzuki-kun. What are you doing here?”

The boy–Suzuki, allegedly–freezes, and his grin and tone both take on a panicked edge. “Ha, hey, Kageyama-kun, fancy seeing you here!” “This is my school, Suzuki-kun. I go here.” It’s impossible to tell what Shigeo’s thinking. Based on Suzuki’s reaction, she’d think he was… angry? But his expression gives away nothing, and he doesn’t have any of his regular tells that would indicate he’s upset, instead just staring at Suzuki with wide eyes, head cocked to one side like a confused puppy. Suzuki barrels through the ensuing silence with a hurried, “Hey, Kageyama-kun, don’t worry about taking your brother his homework. I’m on my way there anyways, and you’ve probably got work, right?” Now seeming unsure, Shigeo starts to wring his hands, worrying his thumb as if he’s going to crack the knuckle, but never actually doing it. “Shishou said I could come in late today… Are you sure Ritsu would be okay with it?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course! We’ve been meaning to hang out for a while, and if I’m on my way there anyways, it’s waaaaaay easier if i just take his stuff to him, right?” Arm-wise, Suzuki is about as expressive as Reigen, waving his hands placatingly at Shigeo and moving wildly as he speaks. Shigeo is silent for a few moments longer, before he nods once. “Alright, that does make sense. Good afternoon, Miss Kano. Suzuki-kun, please don’t do anything too strenuous with my brother. He’s still kinda sick.” And then Shigeo is gone, leaving Suzuki spluttering and bright red.

“No way he actually meant…?” Suzuki mutters, probably to himself. “Jeez, some wingman he is.”

The inside of Katsuko’s cheek is sore from how hard she’s had to bite it to keep from laughing, but she still manages to keep a relatively straight face as she hands the homework folder to Suzuki, who grabs it and dashes from the room without another word.

She’s suspected for a while now. She bookmarks news stories, watches blurry phone-videos of entire buildings flinging themselves piece by piece into the sky, reads speculation about massive-impact craters left behind. She tries to match up dates in her head, lines up the bigger accidents with the days that Shigeo or Ritsu have missed school.

Halfway through the year, Shigeo and Ritsu are both gone, marked as unexcused absences. During lunch, the teachers huddle around the break room’s tiny television and watch as a hundred miles away, a city tears itself apart at the seams.

She recognizes the spiel by now, the “tragedy that’s shaking a city” speech, the psychic ‘experts’ talking about unexplained destructive phenomena, high concentrations of psychic energy, the footage of dust-covered people stumbling amongst the rubble trying to salvage some piece of their lives.

Butterfly stitches are holding the angry red gash on Ritsu’s forehead closed, and the scrapes on his cheek trail downwards, disappearing into the collar of his uniform. He spends the class staring at some point in the middle distance, with fingertips pressing into the already swollen bruise below his eye. His notebook lies on the desk in front of him, untouched. When she gets the students started on independent reading, she runs to the break room and digs around in the freezer, past Toyoda’s weird ice cube trays and Satoh’s frozen diet meals until she finds the cold compress she’d stashed in there last year. It’s an easy matter to subtly slip it onto Ritsu’s desk as she walks back to the front of the room.

She leaves Toyoda, now the master-teacher for the first year class, supervising her students when she has to run down to the office for some paperwork. When she steps out from secretary's’ office, pile of newly-copied papers in hand, she almost crashes head-first into Reigen.

“Ah, my apologies, Kano-san,” he says, and the cheeriness in his voice is strained. The energy she remembers vividly from the conference is dulled, the set of his shoulders just a little too sagged, the shadows under his eyes a little too pronounced. He doesn’t look injured, per-se… just tired.

One of the secretaries puts down her phone with a click, leans over the monitor of her computer, and says quietly to Reigen, “Shigeo should be down in a moment, sir.” He thanks her with a nod, and goes back to absently staring at the various flyers for school events displayed around the office. Katsuko makes as if she’s forgotten something, and weaves back behind the counter. None of the staff mention that she’s not actually doing anything as she attempts to make herself look busy; everyone’s played this game, at some point, and Katsuko is more invested than most.

The office is never particularly loud in the first place, but the silence grows oppressive when Shigeo walks into the room, the clattering of keyboards slowing and general chatter becoming muted.

She can’t quite register it as a whole, can’t put together the bruises, the swollen split slip still dribbling blood at the corner, the scabs, the scrapes, the burns, the little bright neon bandages littering fingers, his cheeks, as something that’s happened to this boy. When Shigeo sees Reigen, his eyes widen, grip on the strap of his bag going white-knuckled. “Shishou, is something wrong? Did we miss something, or-” Reigen has already stepped into Shigeo’s space, with a hand on his shoulder. “Oi, Mob, calm down, everything’s fine. I just came to check on you.” Katsuko is stuck with the distinct impression that they’re all listening in on a private moment, but after three years and virtually no glimpses into the Kageyama brothers’ lives, well. Reigen’s hand moves from Shigeo’s shoulder, ghosting over a particularly angry bruise at the corner of his mouth. “You don’t tell your parents about this stuff, huh?” Shigeo shakes his head, mumbles something that sounds like, “Ritsu helps make sure that they don’t notice,” and Reigen’s responding sigh is utterly resigned. “You should rest, Mob, you’ve been through a lot. Do you want me to sign you out?” Shigeo frowns, says, “If you need help at the office, then I could…” “I’m not opening up the office until you’re not limping anymore, Mob. But you’ve got to take care of yourself, alright? What kind of master would I be if I let my student sit around here trying to do math while he’s hurt, huh? You should rest up. We can go out to lunch and you can nap back at my place, yeah?” Shigeo hesitates a few more beats, and then he’s wrapped around Reigen’s waist, clinging with his hands fisted in the back of his suit. From this angle, Katsuko can’t see his face, but she assumes that he’s nodding, because Reigen quietly laughs, “Yeah, alright, thought so,” as he pats Shigeo’s head.

Shigeo stays attached to Reigen’s side while he signs him out, and Reigen keeps a hand on Shigeo’s shoulder as they’re walking out of the door.