Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s been a few days since he got his suit wrecked and had to repair it. Patrols with Clairvoyant have been fun, they’ve been getting along lately. Well, they’ve been getting along as well as they can with Clairvoyant not liking him all too much. He thinks that he’s being warmed up to though, for as much as Clairvoyant pretends to hold a grudge he’s awfully terrible at it. He forgives Natsuki whenever he messes up (despite making a big deal of it when it happens).

Today he’s not going on patrol with him. Today he’s going by himself. According to Nagumo Clairvoyant wasn’t going with him today because his mentor didn’t want him to. Apparently Clairvoyant’s mentor is meant to be some sorta big shot who taught him a bunch of stuff but then retired. No one knows his name, he was part of The Order after all and people there don’t have superhero names, hell they don’t even use their real names.

The only reason Nagumo gave Natsuki his name was because they were working together and the guy doesn’t care too much about that rule.

He looks out into the distance, there’s not much going on right now. It’s the middle of the goddamn day, of course there’s not much going on right now. Why does his first patrol by himself have to be in the middle of the day? Without Clairvoyant too, he’s actually a little depressed about that.

He doesn’t walk on the street, stays on top of buildings and keeps a lookout, he usually tries to keep invisibility on in front of crowds, or if he suspects if someone sees him. He’s not that well known to the public but some have heard of him and he doesn’t imagine that he’d get a good reception if they just saw him.

BANG BANG BANG

Natsuki snaps over towards the sound seeing broken class in some sort of coffee shop, fuck. Why the hell do people commit crimes in broad daylight? Are they fucking stupid? Hell, he was smart enough to commit his crimes in the dark, the security is tighter at night but that’s why he created the invisibility suit.

He jumps off the building and runs toward the noise seeing the smoke, was that a grenade? It sounded like a gun. He hears a few more gunshots and runs over to the building, turning off his invisibility, he doesn’t want to wear it out yet.

“Everyone on the ground!” a man shouts, he points a gun in the air and fires off a few more shots, what a waste of bullets.

Natsuki gets out of the way of the man’s vision, tucking behind a wall and staying away from where the glass used to be. This is probably a hostage situation, so close to campus too… he’ll have to check on Mafuyu after this and make sure he’s alright. He peeks at the man, seeing that he was turned away. He smiles behind his mask and switches on the invisibility, stepping inside the building. There’s quite a bit of people in here, mostly college students. He makes sure not to step on any sort of broken glass.

“You are now all hostages! Do as we say and we’ll spare you!” Another man shouts, he’s not wearing a mask like the other. How many people are doing this?

He looks around a bit more until his gaze falls on a familiar face.

Shin.

He doesn’t look scared, just more pissed off if anything. He’s not in the sight of the shooters it seems, instead he’s behind a counter muttering something about how sucky it is that this would happen here out of all places and also who even takes hostages in a coffee shop?!

In his shock Natsuki stumbles just a little something that catches Shin’s attention as he stares directly at him so directly in fact that it takes Natsuki a while to remember that he was invisible and that Shin couldn’t be looking directly at him. Just through him, just through him.

“That was fucking weird,” Shin mutters, he looks up behind the counter to get a better look at the shooters before cussing again and going back down. “Where the hell are the heroes and shit? This is why I fucking hate them sometimes,”

Didn’t know Shin felt so strongly about heroes. Natsuki walks over and Shin looks at him again, he must’ve made a sound. This time Shin’s not looking away, instead squinting at him.

“What was that?!” the unmasked man shouts, pointing a gun in Shin’s direction. Shin stays firmly behind the counter, he doesn’t say anything now instead he stares at Natsuki, glaring at the space before mouthing something.

‘I know someone’s there’

Natsuki cusses as he moves behind the counter with Shin, turning un-invisible. He watches as Shin’s eyes widen as if not believing that he’s there. He hopes Shin doesn’t recognize his work or anything, that’d be awkward.

“What the hell– what are you doing here?!” Shin whisper shouts, Natsuki feels his anxiety peak with each word that comes out of Shin’s mouth, slightly louder than the rest.

Also, what’s he doing here? Why’s that Shin’s business? Does he know about Natsuki’s ‘Phantom’ character before he stopped working with Slur? He’s not that well known, is he?

“Just on patrol,” Natsuki mutters, trying to get his response out. “How many of them?” he asks. If Shin was here before then he must know.

Shin bites his lip, glaring at him. “I think there’s 5,”

“Five?” Natsuki hisses in disbelief. “For a fucking coffee shop?!”

“Hey! Who’s there!” a man shouts. Ah, was he too loud? Probably. He groans and turns invisible getting up and running over to one of them, grabbing their gun and thrusting it downwards, breaking the grip before turning the gun on the guy and shooting both of his kneecaps. A few others react instantly, two of them. They instantly fire at air closer to a few civilians than himself. He should get rid of the gun, it’s not invisible.

He throws it at someone who aims their gun at a civilian, hitting them in the head and grabbing their own gun and shooting them in both of their feet. He doesn’t know if he can kill as a hero (probably can’t) so he goes with just disarming them instead.

He then points his gun to another guy as he holds a hostage, pointing a gun to their head. Natsuki drops the gun he’s holding almost instantly.

“Show yourself!” The man shouts, shoving the gun closer to a hostage’s temple. “Show yourself or I’ll shoot!”

Fuck, well that’s just great. Sadly he doesn’t think that he’s fast enough to get to the guy before he pulls the trigger. He turns un-invisible once again, with his hands up. What a fucking pain in the ass. He looks at Shin in the corner of his eye, what’s he doing? He’s out of his hiding spot and looking at the guy with the hostage. He looks at Phantom and shakes his head.

What the hell does that mean? Go ahead, go at him? Why’s Shin even inserting himself into this– stay down idiot. If Natsuki gets grey hairs this early he’s blaming it on Shin. He keeps looking at Shin, who seems put up with him at this point. Instead, grabbing a gun that was discarded on the ground, he points it at the guy which gets Natsuki to act. He rushes towards the guy and instead of shooting the hostage he points the gun at Natsuki. Lucky.

Shin shoots both of the backs of his knees, watching as the guy falls to the ground. A few people scream and Natsuki cusses underneath his breath. Natsuki catches the hostage and sets them next to Shin with a glare.

“What the fuck is wrong with you,” Natsuki hisses, grabbing both of his shoulders. Shin pushes his hands off, rolling his eyes. “You could’ve died!” Natsuki emphasizes. “Or killed that other person!” It’s an after thought but he supposes that he should show some concern for the other civilians that Shin just endangered.

“I knew they wouldn’t idiot,” Shin explains, but it’s a shitty explanation. He stands up and looks towards everyone, eyes narrowed. “Alright everyone, out,” he shouts pointing towards the door.

Natsuki’s eyes widen, what the fuck? What’s going on right now? “What do you mean you knew that they wouldn’t?”

Shin pauses for a moment, as if realizing he said something that he shouldn’t have. He gives it up almost instantly sighing and glaring at him. “I could tell by his hand, and they weren't ever shooting at any hostages so they didn’t mean to kill or harm anyone, I’m guessing it was done in the heat of the moment. They did all the planning but they didn’t do it for that long,”

“And how do you know that?” Natsuki pressures, Shin moves past him, gun still in hand.

“It’s– a long story, come on, there are still two more in the back with a bunch of the workers, we should go get them–”

Natsuki grabs Shin by the shoulders, taking the gun from him and sitting him down in a seat. “You’re either staying here or leaving, I’m not about to let you do this,”

He knows Shin has this weird thing where he wants to help everyone, but this is a lot. He’s not about to let Shin get hurt, no matter how much the guy seemingly wants to play hero. Natsuki’s somewhat thankful for the help, but that’s it. Shin glares at him, he wants to say something but then he keeps his mouth shut and Natsuki assumes that he’s won.

He goes in the back, turning invisible and taking care of the other two with ease and when he gets out Nagumo’s there with Shin, the two of them talking. Why’s Nagumo here? Why’s he talking with Shin? Do they know each other?

Nagumo seems to have heard Natsuki and waves him over. With a sigh Natsuki turns off his invisible suit and walks over to the two of them, glaring at Shin. Wait, doesn’t he have authority over Shin in this situation? Oh shit, he can scold him. That’ll be fun.

“Phantom! Buddy! I can see that you’ve met Shin,” Nagumo laughs, wrapping an arm around Shin’s shoulders. Shin pushes him off with a hiss, Natsuki feels bad now. Nagumo’s way too touchy.

“Yeah, this idiot was trying to play hero, and mess around,” Natsuki explains, glaring at him. Nagumo laughs, nodding his head.

“Yeah he gets fired up from time to time, don’t worry about him though, he knows what he’s doing. His adoptive father situation was part of The Order so he can handle himself,” Nagumo explains with a wave of his hand.

Order? Shin’s related to The Order somehow, the same thing Nagumo’s a part of? That’s… a lore drop to say the least, they could at least warn a guy first. But it still shocks him, that doesn’t seem right. It can’t be true, but it would explain how Shin knew how to handle himself and knew how that guy wouldn’t shoot civilians. It would explain how Shin knew how to handle a gun. It’s just weird though, he never could’ve imagined Shin doing anything like this or being related to this world in any way. He’s basically just the average go-lucky civilian.

“Not my adoptive father,” Shin snaps, glaring at Nagumo.

“That’s why I added situation at the end, you should really work on your listening skills, Shinnie,” Nagumo wraps his arm around Shin again but this time doesn’t let Shin push him away. “Anyways, that's how I know this one over here! In case you were wondering,” Nagumo adds, looking at him. “You just looked confused, but if you don’t have anything to do after this, would you mind walking Shin over here back to his college? Can’t have him getting into any more trouble or else someone I know might get mad at me!”

“I don’t need a babysitter–”

“Have fun you two!” Nagumo was already halfway across the street and gone, how does he do that?

Shin stood up glaring at the spot Nagumo once occupied. He looks over to Natsuki with a frown. “You don’t have to walk me back or anything,” he says insistently. “Don’t listen to him,”

“I’ll go with you anyways,” it’s better than being on patrol.

Shin’s face screws up a little, but he doesn’t protest. “Alright, whatever you want man,”

As the two of them begin walking, silence sets in. He can’t tell if this situation is more awkward for Shin or for himself. Shin doesn’t know it’s him, he probably doesn’t even know who Phantom is, just another hero on patrol, now walking him to his college… this feels like a date, unironically feels like a date, with his friend. He doesn’t want to not walk Shin, cause he doesn’t want Nagumo nagging him, and if what he said was true about Shin’s father being a former member of The Order, then he doesn’t want any bad blood with him either. He looks over to Shin, it’s weird. Usually by now Shin would’ve said a million things, but instead he says nothing.

“You’re making this awkward,” Shin says, it takes a while for Natsuki to register it, that Shin was making the sound and not the wind in his ears. “It kinda feels like you’re tense man,”

Natsuki grimaces. “Oh, yeah, I’m a little tense, sorry about that,”

“Why are you apologizing?”

Why is he apologizing? It feels weird. Everything right now feels weird, this is Shin next to him and they’re meant to be strangers, people who don’t know each other. However, Natsuki would do just about anything to hear Shin talk to Natsuki like he knows him. Like they’re friends, has being strangers with Shin always felt this weird? Shin has to be acting colder than usual, right? Or maybe he’s imagining it. It’s always so much more terrifying when people who talk a lot are silent.

“This feels weird,”

“You’re telling me man,” Shin deadpans (he could do that?). He shoves his hands in his pocket  a little roughly and sighs. “It feels like I just got in trouble for something,”

“You probably should be,” Natsuki reasons. “Dude, you shot a man, that has to come with some consequences,” he emphasizes.

Shin’s face twists, almost in contemplation but Natsuki can pick out the fact that he’s just doing it for show. He does a lot of things for show now that Natsuki thinks about it. “Nah, it was in self defense,”

“His gun wasn’t pointed at you,”

“Someone else’s self defense then,” Shin corrects, he glares at him and Natsuki feels a bit of their bickering return. He’s unsure if that’s good or not, but people bicker all the time, right?

“That’s not self defense, and even then you put their life in danger,” Natsuki says again. “Body language or not, it’s still risky,”

Shin opens his mouth to say something, but most likely without thinking as he mouth makes one sound and then another. “Well it was more than whatever you were doing,”

“I had a plan,”

“Sure you did,” Shin groans, he looks at Natsuki, his eyes growing a little as he stares at his side. Before Natsuki can ask about the problem Shin mutters a little, shucks off his bag and then proceeds to take a roll of bandages out from it. “Your side’s bleeding man, how the hell have you not noticed?”

Natsuki looks down. Ah, so it is. Why does Shin have bandages on him though?

“Why do you–?”

“One of the girls I work with burns herself a lot, she also isn’t that great with knives,” Shin adds. “Come on, you should wrap that up now,” he drags him off the street and not into direct line of sight, away from cameras too.

“Since when did you learn first aid?” Natsuki teases.

Shin pauses, turns around, and slowly blinks at him. “Wha–? That’s… an odd question, how are you supposed to know what I do and don’t know?” Shin keeps the tone light-hearted but it’s pretty clear that he’s at least a little thrown off by Natsuki’s question. Fuck, he shouldn’t have said that, he let the lies blur together for a moment. Rookie mistake.

“I just don’t know that many people who know first aid and stuff, or carry bandages around with them,” Natsuki quickly covers up the lie.

“Oh, yeah, well if someone has bandages on them you should assume that they know at least some first aid, right? I mean that seems like basic knowledge, besides everyone should know first aid anyways,” Shin opines.

“Whatever you say,” Natsuki mutters, he touches the wound and winces. Shit he is losing quite a bit of blood, he wraps the bandages around his side a few times before cutting it off.

“You can keep the roll by the way, I don’t know if you have any at home or whatever but you need to change it every once in a while,” Shin orders.

Natsuki snorts a little, nodding. “Alright then, still can’t believe you carry those everywhere though,”

“Well this guy that I know also gets hurt quite a bit,” Shin laughs. “Cut’s himself while working on these long ass projects and machines, it’s kinda annoying actually. Anyways if you’re done we should get going,” Shin walks ahead of him he gets a few steps in before stopping completely and looking at Natsuki.

Natsuki who’s frozen solid, who’s feet can’t move another goddamn inch. Shin’s not looking at Natsuki though, he’s looking at Phantom. He’s talking about Natsuki with Phantom, Natsuki. It feels wrong in every single way possible. It’s worse cause Natsuki wants to hear about himself from Shin, it’s worse cause he’s terrified all of the sudden. It’d be funny, it’d be really funny, but he knows Shin. He knows Shin wouldn’t say anything bad behind his back (well nothing truly reputation damaging) but it feels wrong, like a line he shouldn’t cross. A line he accidentally crosses anyway.

“You keep that around just for him? That’s a bit excessive don’t you think?” Natsuki pushes, he decides to tell himself that it’ll be funny. A joke that he can laugh about to himself in private and private only. 

Natsuki begins walking, Shin follows next to him.

“Well it’s not only him, like I said other people get hurt too,” Shin expresses. Natsuki nods, now that he thinks about it whenever he gets hurt Shin always does have the stuff to help him out. It makes a little more sense now he supposes, it’s nice. There’s nothing wrong with it, nothing really.

“Mhm, anything else you keep around just for others?”

“Not that I can think of– I sometimes give the guy food but that’s about it,” Shin responds, looking away from Natsuki. There’s a smile tugging on the corners of his lips that Natsuki realizes for possibly the first time. He doesn’t even know why he realizes it now of all times. He doesn’t know. 

“You just carry it around in your pocket?” Natsuki teases, he knows it’s not true. He’s just messing with him. Shin glares at him and walks faster, Natsuki decides to keep up. It’s fun messing with Shin like this, without Shin knowing that it’s him. He likes hearing Shin talk about him when Shin doesn’t know it’s him. It feels wrong, but he likes it anyway. It’s sorta like having a devil on your shoulder.

“Of course not! You’re fucking stupid, you know that right?”

“How should you know? This is your first time meeting me,” Natsuki laughs. It's funny watching Shin sputter. He gets caught off guard so easily.

“I just know!”

“If I’m stupid you’re thoughtless,” Natsuki quips. Shin rolls his eyes and pulls ahead of him. Shin can be such an asshole at times, he should be thankful that Natsuki’s walking him back.

“I have thoughts!”

“What do you think about then?”

“Others! Cause I’m a decent person, unlike you,” Shin scoffs, they’re bantering again. It feels natural, and Shin hasn’t even talked with ‘Phantom’ before. He thought Shin would be a lot more awkward about this, but if his dad was in The Order before he supposes it makes sense why he wouldn’t care too much.

“What kinda people? Kinda vague man,”

“Friends, which you probably don’t have,”

He notices the smile on Shin’s face, he’s thinking about something. He wonders if he could figure it out soon enough. Shin’s rather easy to poke and prod at after a while, as long as the right questions are asked Natsuki finds that he can read him like a book when he wants. Plus, it’s a lot easier when it’s not him.

“I have friends, what friends are you even thinking about?”

“None of your business,” Shin groans. “You sure talk a lot y’know,”

“Not more than you I’m sure,”

Shin rolls his eyes, hands out of his pockets and takes out his phone, scrolling through his texts. Natsuki looks over his shoulder, not really caring for etiquette and looks at the message he sent Shin a while ago that he still hasn’t responded to. Shin seems to notice too as his ears turn red as he clicks on it, Shin really did leave him on read, huh.

“Fuck–” Shin hisses, Natsuki watches as Shin types out a response, thankfully his phone is currently on silent so Shin won’t know that it’s him, that’d be awkward. “Can’t believe I fucking forgot to respond,”

“Respond to what?” Natsuki asks, Shin jumps, turning around to scowl at him before continuing on ahead.

“Fuck off!” – he exclaims then in a quieter voice adds – “Can’t believe I forgot to respond, this is so embarrassing. He’s gonna be so annoyed, god I keep fucking this up,” incoherent mumbling that Natsuki finds coherent in that moment.

“Fuck what up?”

Shin looks at him, glaring as he shuts his phone. “Just this guy, forgot to respond to his text. He’s gonna be pissed now– he doesn’t even respond quickly so I don’t even know why he gets on me for it,”

Natsuki sets his hand on Shin’s shoulder, patting him mockingly. “Well how late was your response?”

He already knows the answer, 4 hours.

“I don’t know– two hours,”

What a fucking liar. Natsuki muses.

“You sure?” Natsuki asks, Shin nods his head. Clearly embarrassed, he takes out his phone again and this time moves it away from Natsuki, not that he cares. He already sees his contact name on Shin’s phone and knows what he’s looking at. Kinda. He notices the smile on Shin’s face along with the scrolling, he’s rereading their messages. He doesn’t think that they texted anything important, but Shin doesn’t seem to care about that. He’s far too absorbed in this, soon enough he sees Shin send him a text.

“Can’t believe you’re so stressed over this,” Natsuki hums.

“I’m not stressed! I just thought that I responded earlier– or maybe I clicked on it and forgot,” Shin adds on. Wow, this guys’ head must be a mess. “But it’s not just that though,” Shin admits. “I can’t believe I took 4 hours to respond,”

Natsuki smiles. “Ah, I thought it was two hours,”

“Shut up! I’m having a crisis here,” Shin hisses, crossing his arms.

“But I thought that you weren’t stressed,” Natsuki corrects. Shin rolls his eyes and soon enough the two of them see the college coming up.

“Whatever, go finish… what the hell it is you do, I need to rewrite something,” Shin mutters, shooing him off.

Natsuki turns around with a smile, seemingly uncaring about Shin, he’d see him in a moment anyways. “Sure, whatever, bye,”

“Bye,”

“Y’know when you told me to stop this guy I thought you would’ve sent me a closer villain,” Shin sighs, he can hear Sakamoto on the other side of the call slurping ramen. While he respects the guy he’d prefer if he didn’t do it into the mic. He’s not a huge fan of ASMR’s.

“You were the closest person,” Sakamoto states, slurping more ramen. Shin sags his shoulders in defeat, he really hates coming in early or having surprise work. He was almost finished with that script that he had been working on as well, what a waste he was in a flow state and everything.

“Can’t believe someone would attack a college campus, what, did they not graduate or something?” Shin asks, wanting to make conversation while working, however Sakamoto shuts him down.

“Focus,”

“Right, right, I’ll see you later tonight,” Shin mutters, turning off his comms. If he’s not gonna talk with Shin then Shin doesn’t want the static in his ears while he’s reading minds. That’s just a pain in the ass.

He steps out of his hiding place and rushes over towards the commotion. There’s shouting, lots of it. Apparently there’s some guy with poison who’s terrorizing some students, at least that’s what he’s gathering from the minds of everyone around him. It’s too loud to hear anything useful so he tunes it out to a low drum in the back of his mind as he slides over to the location finding a guy with spiky silver hair similar to Heisuke’s in style. Getting a closer look at the guy Shin could see some stitches on his skin… freaky.

“Hey! What are you doing here?” Shin calls out, the man turns to him he already knew Shin was there he could hear it from his thoughts, what freaks him out most though is the fact that the guy seemingly wanted a hero to show up.

“Oh, one of you finally came, y’know I thought attacking a college would be the best choice for faster show, but far away enough so that I wouldn’t be bombarded, turns out I was wrong on the faster show bit,” the man deadpans.

“Get off it! I came here as fast as I could,” Shin (sorta) lies, he could’ve gotten here faster but he kinda argued with Lu for 10 minutes on why she apparently couldn’t come. She said that she was injured but it was just a hangover (courtesy from her drinking on the job).

“Oh well, whatever, I just have to kill you and I get my paycheck,”

Cocky much?

“Shin!!!” A loud voice booms on the other end of his comms, startling him. He barely manages to evade the man’s attack as he goes to Shin’s side and takes a swipe at him. Of course Nagumo comes in at the worst possible time. “How are you doing?”

Shin backs away from the man, readying himself for another swing. “I’m doing fine– I thought I turned these off!”

“Well I got someone to flip them back on again! Quick thing! That’s Tatsu, he’s working with Slur, be sure to capture him alive alright? And don’t get hit with his knives!! Alright, thank you, good luck, don’t die!”

Shin curses as he hears the comms get switched off again, don’t kill him? Like he was gonna do that, he can’t kill, there’s literally a no kill rule for a reason.

“Who are you talking to?” Tatsu asks, flipping his knife in the air before catching it and throwing it at Shin. Shin moves out of the way. So those knives have poison huh? That’ll be horrible if he gets hit. Even if the guy has an antidote, if Shin takes it he’ll be sick for a while, courtesy of wandering around a dark lab at night and drinking a strange vile thinking that it was water… he would not do it again.

“None of your business– that’s rude, you can’t just ask people that,” not that Shin of all people should be talking.

“Whatever, as long as reinforcements aren’t coming it’s all good,”

“I’m not that weak!” Shin hisses, moving out of the way from another knife toss. He then sprints forward, he’s mostly close combat anyways and he doesn’t like using the gun in his holster all too much, especially not in public and with so many people around. Tatsu goes to move out of his way but Shin manages to grab his arm at the last second and slam him into the ground.

He puts Tatsu’s arm behind his back and steps his foot on his back.

“See? Put you down rather easily,” Shin boasts, but just then he senses something from Tatsu’s mind, he’s got another knife in the hand that Shin didn’t pin. Shit. Before he can move out of the way properly the knife manages to graze his skin, cutting the cloth of his pants.

“People tend to be more vulnerable when they’re cocky, I see the same applies for you too,” Tatsu remarks, uncaring. He moves forward and Shin doesn’t get out of the way in time, but he does manage to knock the knife out of his hand as it clatters to the ground. It’s fine, he just has to get through this before the poison spreads too far–

Everything’s blurry, why’s everything blurry? Shit, shit shit. Strings of curses repeat again and again throughout his head and Tatsu notices, for the first time he sees a lame smile form on the guy's almost unmoving face.

“Just noticed? My poisons are special, they impact the ability to fight and if you can’t see and get all dizzy you can’t fight as well, sorry to say but you don’t have much longer left. Maybe five minutes until you’re dead,” Tatsu boasts, and if Shin had to say Tatsu’s not any better than him right now, acting cocky and all that. Ugh, has his head always hurt this much?

It’s probably worse due to his ESP. He hears the overlapping of voices, crowding over each other, a girl studying for a test, a few math nerds doing homework, the onslaught of panic near the scene, the news running through everyone’s heads. It makes him feel sick. He only senses the faintest of Tatsu’s bloodlust and manages to avoid it, this time without a wound.

“Looks like you’re still pretty energetic, interesting, guess you were right, you are stronger than I originally thought, not like it matters though,”

Just as Shin rises to his feet he feels Tatsu elbow him in the side and only by some miracle does Shin not fall over, instead attempting to counterattack, by punching… air. He’s gone by then moving to Shin’s back in order to deal the final blow.

Future sight, he needs to use future sight. He doesn’t know why he hadn’t thought of it before, but something tells him that it was from the screaming of voices all around, the thoughts don’t help.

Activating it is a pain, it's like a thousand needles stabbing into his head all at once, the whole world tips and spins along with him. The poison isn’t helping and what feels like seconds finally happens, he sees the movement. A sharp jab into the back of his neck, he doesn’t need his eyes to stop it. He turns around and catches Tatsu’s hand, finding the knife and managing to graze Tatsu with his own poison.

“Ah, damn,” Tatsu holds his hand and in the moment that it takes for him to recover and assess his injury Shin kicks him in the head, sending him to the ground and this time making sure to pin both of his hands behind his back this time.

“The antidote, where is it?” Shin demands and surprisingly Tatsu gives it up with as little as a sigh.

“My inner coat pocket,”

Shin groans reaching for a pair of cuffs to bind his hands with as he sits the man up and grabs the vile with caution, eye drops. Why does it have to be eyedrops? He hates eye drops. He looks at Tatsu, his eyes are turning red already, he should probably give them to him. He rolls his eyes and looks at him.

“Alright, keep your eyes open while I do this,” Shin mutters, his vision still sucks but the last thing he wants to happen is something bad affecting Tatsu while he’s applying eyedrops. He grabs head and places one eyedrop in each eye, surprisingly he doesn’t protest. When it comes to his turn though he hesitates.

He really hates eyedrops, he knows that some people like them… some freaks might he add, but he feels as if he’d rather his eyes not be touched. At last he puts them in and blinks a little, he still feels sick and his eyes hurt even more but at least he won’t die… probably. He would’ve gone to Asakura’s first and tested it, made sure that it wouldn’t have made his symptoms worse but it’s not like he has that luxury right now.

Well, there’s not much to do but pray that he won’t die.

He watches as Nagumo comes on site to pick up Tatsu with a smile. “Hi Clairvoyant! You seemed to have quite a bit of trouble here! Got poisoned and everything,” Nagumo teases, hands moving as if trying to touch Shin’s eyes, no thank you.

Shin swats him away. “Leave it, why the hell did you have to come anyways? Why couldn’t a different one come?” he complains.

“Aw, you don’t like me?”

“No,”

“How cruel, well I’ll take this one off of your hands and you make sure that everyone’s okay, alright? I know how you love the crowdwork,” Nagumo says, scooping Tatsu up and over his shoulder, walking off before Shin could even think of arguing with him. It’s probably for the best, the last thing that he’d want is to argue with him in front of everyone.

He sighs and looks around checking up on a few groups of people. Turns out everyone was okay and no one was poisoned, at least the guy was particular about who he cut. He could also tell by reading everyone’s minds that no one got hurt or cut, or even felt weird. Clairvoyance could come in handy at times. Then he heard a familiar voice.

“Holy shit, it’s him. Didn’t think I’d see that today– fuck,”

He tried not to spin around too quickly but he might have failed seeing as how Natsuki jumped a little when they looked at each other.

Natsuki.

Natsuki is here.

Natsuki is looking at him when he’s in his hero outfit, this is so embarrassing, and kinda cool. Shin stumbles a little in surprise, but most people seem to write it off as after effects from the poison, which he is still suffering from, but seeing Natsuki made him feel like someone just dumped a bunch of cool water on his head. Never in a million years did Shin think that he would actually be in this situation– wait he has to check on him, right? It takes him a few seconds to regain himself but he manages to move forward towards him.

“Are you alright?” Shin asks, this feels soooo weird. Ugh, he hates this, but he kinda loves it, but mostly hates this. Lu is so gonna make fun of him for this later and he hates that fact that he can’t even care about that right now because it’s Natsuki.

“Yeah, I kinda showed up near the end,” Natsuki replies, looking around. Shin can’t help but peer into his thoughts. He’s a hero so it’s okay right now, right? Besides, he’s just making sure that Natsuki’s okay and if he needs anything. “It’s too bad that this area is gonna be closed off for a bit, I needed to get something from the repair shop. I suppose I need to stick around for a moment or two now,”

Shin looks over to the repair shop Natsuki was talking about, a few cops had already begun to close the area off, it should be back up in about an hour or so, not much time to go back and chill out. Plus, knowing Natsuki he had probably been putting this off till the last minute, so he can’t really waste time right now.

“Ah, well that’s good– if you don’t mind me asking, what did you need from that shop exactly?” Shin inquires, Natsuki looks at him, only slightly surprised.

“Sometimes I forget he can do things like that– oh, I needed parts for my project,”

Natsuki focuses on him. “I needed parts for my project, but I can probably just get it later. I mean, it’s not the first time that I’ve turned in an assignment late, besides my professor likes me enough,”

Shin nods, unconvinced, he doesn’t even need to read Natsuki’s mind to know that he’s somewhat panicked about it. His professor does like him, but even he can only take some many late assignments from his prodigy.

“Oh! I could probably go in there and ask for it, what’s your name?” Shin asks.

“It’s under Seba,”

“Cool! I’ll go see if I can grab it, you wait right here!”

He walks to the store, ears blushing a little. That was Natsuki, that was Natsuki. That fact spins around in his head over and over, as he goes to the store, checks in on the order and then grabs the bag with Natuski’s last name on it. It’s so overly childish but he’s never really had a crush like this before. He likes living in it. He walks back to Natsuki, trying to control his blushing (even though Natsuki can’t see it that well… he hopes) and hands him the bag.

“Is this it? Everything in there?” Shin asks, he sees Natsuki laugh a little at his words, a smile spreading across his face. Cute. “I’d hate for you to mess up whatever you’re working on cause you don’t have all of the parts,”

“Thanks, yeah everything’s in here,”

“Great!” Shin turns around, looking as everything clears up, he needs to stay for a minute while this happens.

“So you’re just staying here then?” Natsuki asks, Shin nods in affirmation.

“Yeah, it’s not the most exciting thing ever but it’s fine, I mean it’s part of the job description,” Shin replies, trying to hide his boredom with it. He hates this part of the job. If he's being honest, he waits around for forever and then has to do paperwork for forever, they should just hire someone to do it for him. All he’s saying is the more time he spends doing paperwork then the less time he has to save people, it makes sense to him.

“Sounds sucky,”

“It is sucky,”

Natsuki laughs a little, holding the bag close to himself. He’s smiling a lot more right now, maybe it’s the courtesy of meeting a hero? It could be, Natsuki’s a little disrespectful but he’s not totally dumb. He still stares at Shin though, for a few beats and then turns away from him. “Alright, well bye, have a fun time standing around doing nothing,”

Shin rolls his eyes. “I’ll try!”

He can’t believe that just happened, he needs to tell someone.

Hopefully not Lu though.

“BAHAHAHAHA I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT YOU’RE SICK!!!” Lu laughs (borderline screams) over the phone, Shin groans and tilts it away from himself trying to preserve his eardrums.

“It’s not my fault!” Shin sniffles, rubbing his nose. Well, it’s not his fault that he got sick from the antidote and is most likely still suffering some effects from the poison, what was he supposed to do? Die? The situation still sucks though, if he gets up just a little too fast his head fucking hurts and the world spins.

“Yeah sure it’s not, you’re the one who got stabbed, so it is kinda your fault,” Lu teases on the other line.

“That’s victim blaming, that’s not nice,” Shin mutters, head hurting far too much for him to care about anything else right about now.

“You had him pinned too!” Lu shouts again.

Shin groans and turns his attention to the blinking cursor on his computer screen, he just has to finish the script, that’s it. It’s due tomorrow as well but he’s been putting it off, it’s just shitty luck that he got sick today. He’d ask for an extension but… his pride won’t allow it. 

“Shuddup, Lu,” Shin slurs after a minute. The other line goes silent, and then she sighs.

“You’re kinda pathetic when you're sick, you know that right?”

Shin makes a small noise and begins typing, trying not to look at his screen too much as the light burns his eyes. He hates being sick, 0/10 would never recommend it.

“Where’s Heisuke?” Lu asks.

“I don’t know, doin’ stuff,”

“Shouldn’t you be doin’ stuff?”

“Can’t ‘m sick,”

Lu sighs. “Ugh, whatever. I’ll go get him to check up on you and I’ll probably show up later… see you, Shin,”

“Bye, Lu,”

Shin turns his attention to the script after hanging up. He was in charge of getting the script ready for one of his partners to check over later, and he needs to send it to them in like an hour, however every word of dialogue reads off to him. Why the hell did he take film anyways, he kinda hates this right about now. He groans, screwing his eyes tightly as he continues to work, praying that he gets it done in time.

It’s sloppy work though, Shin’s least favorite thing possibly ever. He can hardly stand when Lu sucks at her job so when he sucks at something like this and that’s for a grade it sucks. Realistically he has good enough grades though, it’s not like this one assignment will tank his grade from his current standing to a failing one, but he’s not too sure about his partners and he hates putting in less work. He can’t really stand to coast by in life scott free without ever giving anything in return.

He kinda hates receiving when he thinks about it. He wants to be strong, not that those he helps are weak, those are just moments of weakness in the long run they don’t really mean anything.

He’s weak though.

He’s poisoned because he’s weak.

He can’t finish this assignment because he’s weak and he can’t do a good job because he’s weak as well.

After 45 minutes of editing and revising his own sloppy work he sends it over to someone else for them to work on. He then moves to an editing software and looks at a different project that he was assigned, because all of the teachers decided to fuck him over with work today.

He edited probably around the first five minutes when he heard a knock on his door.

It’s probably Heisuke, Lu said that she was gonna get him to check on him right? As to why he’s knocking, he probably forgot his keys again and was too afraid to ask the floor manager to get another one. Honestly one of these days their dorm is gonna be broken into by one of Heisuke’s many, many, missing keys. Shin’s dreading the day.

He moves up from his chair and opens the door a little too aggressively, but he doesn’t see Heisuke staring at him with sad dopey eyes as some sort of apology for Shin’s current sick state. Instead he sees Natsuki, almost dead eyed, staring at him with slight judgement. Shin probably doesn’t look too great now that he thinks about it. He’s been rotting in bed for who knows how long.

“You look like shit,” is the first thing Natsuki says to him.

Shin doesn’t even fully register the words before Natsuki waltzes into his dorm with no care in the world, looking around the place in disdain.

“God, Mafuyu would have a heart attack if he saw this,” Natsuki laments, he himself doesn’t seem to care though as he sits on Shin’s bed and looks at Shin’s computer, squinting at the images on the screen and the parts Shin had already edited. “Are you seriously working right now? Aren’t you like dying or something?”

“You literally just barged into my room,”

“It’s Heisuke’s room too idiot,” Natsuki replies, taking out his phone and scrolling through it. He pauses on something and turns it over to show Shin. Looks like he was texting Shin and Shin didn’t respond, whoops. Either way that doesn’t give him a reason to just invite himself over.

“Well Heisuke’s not here right now so it’s my room,” Shin reasons, not a good reason, but good enough.

“Not how it works,”

“Yes how it works, now get out, let an injured man rest,” Shin mutters, pointing towards the door.

Natsuki makes no movement to get up, instead looking back down at his phone. “Well said injured man is doing work and I don’t think that that’s resting so I’m staying, gotta make sure you don’t choke on your puke or something,”

Shin glares at him. “I puked once, alright, it’s gone now. The moments passed and you were late, you can leave now,”

“You’re kinda a dick when you’re sick,” Natsuki groans.

Shin flushes a little. “Like you’re one to talk,”

“I’m like this all the time, it’s different,”

Shin walks over to his bed and sits down next to Natsuki, careful not to touch him because he could not handle that right now. He practically got poisoned in front of the guy earlier and now said guy is in his dorm, scrolling on his phone without a care in the world. It’s horrible, it’s really fucking horrible. “You know that that’s arguably worse, right?”

“At least I acknowledge it,”

“That makes it worse,”

“I think that makes it better,”

“That’s cause you’re–” Shin cuts himself off, breaking down into a coughing fit as he hunches over and turns away from Natsuki, embarrassment crawling through his skin. 

He tries to speak again but nothing comes out, nothing intelligible at least, he just coughs again, and again, this time struggling to gain air. He feels his stomach twist and turn in response to his coughs. Then immediately he gets up and rushes over to the bathroom and emptying what little he had in his stomach but he ends up mostly barfing stomach acid instead. He shuts his eyes and stays there for a few moments only just realizing that Natsuki was rubbing his back and holding his hair away from his face.

“Only once, huh,” Natsuki says after a beat of silence, Shin turns over to him not even having enough energy to glare, he just stares. No matter how pathetic he looks, he just stares.

This is horrible, the worst thing to ever happen to him really. Why does it have to be Natsuki of all people? He can hear the worry in Natsuki’s head without even attempting to read his mind.

“What the hell happened to him? How did he even get sick like this? … it’s not contagious is it? If I get it Mafuyu is gonna be pissed,”

Shin tries to hold in his laugh, hearing Mafuyu but Natsuki sees the corner of his mouth twitch.

“What?” he asks.

Shin looks back down grabbing a paper towel and wipes his mouth before flushing it down the toilet. “You suck, you know that, right?”

“So I’ve been told,” Natsuki helps him stand up properly and despite Shin’s complaints Natsuki walks him back over to the bed laying him down with a sigh. “You’re too stubborn sometimes y’know?”

“So I’ve been told,” Shin parrots back.

He hears Natsuki sigh, he also hears a few stray thoughts from the guy wondering why he even hangs around Shin anymore, sometimes Shin wonders the same. 

Natsuki still sticks around though, he basically babysits the hell out of Shin until Heisuke comes back from whatever he’s doing for the day and despite Shin’s best efforts to get work done Natsuki was dead set on him doing absolutely nothing for the day. Whenever he tries to climb out of bed he just gets sat down like a fucking toddler, and he’s meant to be a hero. 

“I can literally email your professor about you being sick y’know?” Natsuki offers, sitting at his desk and looking through Shin’s computer, does this guy not have any manners?

“Don’t, I don’t wanna,”

Natsuki mutters something and Shin can see him moving over to his email, there’s no hero stuff on it, he doesn’t use his college stuff with his hero stuff that’s the first lesson that he got from Sakamoto. “Ah, I found it, which professor is it again? Kanaguri?”

“Don’t email him,” Shin attempts to order, sitting up only to fall back down onto the bed in defeat.

“Why not? He likes you, right? Even then college professors are chill man, don’t worry about it,”

“You don’t have him,”

“If he gets mad at you for being sick then you need to take a new class man, or just tell the college. Rat on him,” Natsuki continues, already writing Kanaguri a message. Shin gets up, slower this time and walks over to him, standing over Natsuki’s shoulder. He probably doesn’t look too intimidating as he’s putting the majority of his body weight on the chair Natsuki sits on.

“Hey, don’t send it to him,” Shin says, this time with more force. Natsuki doesn’t seem to care, but he does stop typing. He looks up at him, a bored expression on his face.

“Why not? You need more time man, there’s no way you get over this by the end of the week or whatever, give yourself a few days,” Natsuki reasons. “I doubt he cares, say that it’s in the pursuit of good film or something, getting better,”

“No, fuck you,”

“Great comeback, now get back in bed,” Natsuki orders, spinning around and kicking Shin back. “I’m sending it,”

Shin groans, it’s tempting, it’s really really tempting but he probably shouldn’t. If he takes a break now he’ll just fall behind with everything later and that’s literally the last thing he wants right now, especially when working with Phantom. “Come on– don’t, I literally can’t fall behind man, you know how much time I spend working at Sakamoto’s,”

“Then ask for time off,” Natsuki sighs, he hasn’t sent it yet. Thank god. “Seriously, your boss likes you, he literally lets you live with him. I don’t see why you’re so upset about all of this. Just ask for time off, you work long ass hours there anyways so I’m kinda struggling to see what the big deal is, if he gets mad at you then he’s a shitty boss,” Natsuki states, looking at the message on Shin’s computer. Shin’s staring at it as well, he doesn’t want to take time off though, he wants to work, to do something. Doing things is fun, it makes him feel useful, not doing things makes him feel otherwise.

“I am asking for time off, to do the project,”

“That’s not time off then,”

“Yeah it is,”

“No it’s not, and you are taking this time off, we have less time to hang if you’re being run ragged,” Natsuki reasons.

Shin rolls his eyes and flops on his bed. They’ll probably have less time to hang out regardless of whether or not Natsuki sends the message, but he doesn’t mention that. At his lack of speech Natsuki sends the email and Shin cringes, he’s not really used to stuff like this.

“Y’know, I’m a little shocked that I won that,” Natsuki admits, looking at him.

Shin rolls his eyes.

“Yeah yeah, whatever,”

It’s not like Natsuki knows about Shin’s crush, but it is interesting how he uses it against him every time. Every single time.

Shin’s not fully better, but he’s not dying on his bed anymore, and he’s not throwing up. He’s got a slight cough and a sniffle but he’s better and can go back to work now, he hasn’t really stopped hero work since then, just gone in less but he stopped working at Sakamoto’s more, Aoi’s orders.

He’s actually currently at work right now, Sakamoto’s cause he just stopped working less there.

Didn’t stop fully.

He’s restocking the shelves and the back, and he also intends on cleaning up the place later with Sakamoto himself. He wants to get back on track and make up for all the work that he’s missed, he thinks that Sakamoto can sense it as well as he keeps getting the impression that Sakamoto wants him to read his mind, like he wants to say something to him. However Shin doesn’t want to talk about it, so if Sakamoto does then he’ll have to say something.

Two can play at that game.

He’s cleaning the back and rearranging all of the produce based on their expiration date. He likes the work, it keeps his mind busy and away from all of the voice and static surrounding himself. He snaps out of his routine pretty fast as soon enough Aoi calls him over for something.

“Shin! Could you help me unload this shipment?”

He instantly moves over towards her. “Of course!”

There’s quite a few boxes and he’s not sure if Aoi should be carrying all of this at all so he offers to do all of it and Aoi thanks him, going away to clean. He’s just starting to put all of the boxes away when he sees Sakamoto. Ah, this is gonna be something.

“Shin,”

Shin turns around to acknowledge him. “Hey, I’m just putting this stuff away,” he explains, motioning over to the boxes.

“I’ll help,”

“Mkay,”

They’re about halfway through with no one having said a single word. It’s awkward, he doesn’t really want to read Sakamoto’s mind though, that seems like a bad idea to him for some reason. ¾’s of the way through and Sakamoto finally says something, surprising Shin. He never thought that he was one to just speak to him. He usually keeps his words limited to thoughts anyways.

“You don’t have to work today if you don’t want to,”

Shin looks at him, half in surprise, the other half… he doesn’t know. “Oh, okay, but I wanna work today so it’s fine, right?”

“Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Mhm,” Shin picks up a box, walking it over to the back, setting it on a shelf and pushing it further away from the older stuff.

“You don’t have to work if you’re not feeling well,”

“I’m feeling fine though,” Shin says blandly, he doesn’t want to have this conversation. He knows that Sakamoto actually talking to him means that he should most likely be more concerned than he currently is but he can’t find it in himself to be. He’s fine. He likes working, it keeps him occupied.

“Shin…” Sakamoto trails off, when Shin spins around he’s greeted with Sakamoto’s pudgy face. “I think that you should take the day off,” it’s not so much an ‘I think’ as that would imply that it’s an option. It’s not an option. It’s more of an order than a friendly suggestion, but while Sakamoto is his boss, if he's not ordering ordering him then Shin doesn’t have to take it off.

“Why? I’m fine, let’s finish this first,” Shin compromises, but the moment they’re done with this he’s planning on helping Aoi clean.

Sakamoto nods and they finish the boxes, Shin takes the last one and Sakamoto moves to talk with him, intercepting him before he can go and sneak off to Aoi. Damn, he probably should’ve known better, but at least he finished that job.

“You’re lying,” Sakamoto states.

“Lying? About what?”

“You’re still sick… you should take the day off,”

“I’m not that sick, I’ve been going into work regularly enough and Lu and Heisuke have been fine with it,” now that’s a lie, but they haven’t been up his alley about it. Sure every now and then they try and get him to sit it out but he never does, he likes the work.

“You have?”

“Yeah,”

“You shouldn’t,”

That gets Shin to pause. He shouldn’t? What’s that supposed to mean?

“I’m fine,” Shin argues.

“Maybe, but you should rest anyways,”

No, he shouldn’t. He doesn’t like fighting Sakamoto on things, even simple topics but he doesn’t really want to quit working right now. He likes the work. He doesn’t see why the others can’t realize that, sure it’s draining but everything’s draining, it’s always draining. Sleeping’s draining sometimes but everyone does that anyways. Work is different though, sure it’s draining but he’s productive and by the end of the day, he can look at his progress and say that he did something, contributed something.

He can’t do that if he’s stuck in his dorm or room all day, lounging around and doing nothing. What has he done then? He likes work. He likes the progress, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be able to see that. He thinks that it’s pretty obvious actually, Lu and Heisuke can see that at least, at least he thinks that they can. Plus, if he’s distracted then he’s not thinking about everything else, and everything else is stressful like how Natsuki fucking took care of him when he was sick and afterwards how Shin couldn’t stop fucking thinking about it all.

Work makes it so that he doesn’t have to think about all of that, focus on the thing at hand and everything will be fine. People don’t tend to worry about those who are working, they basically have it all together, well he supposes that it looks like they do.

He’s thinking about it now, he’s been thinking for so long that he hasn’t noticed that he hasn’t said anything for possibly the last minute, not just that but voices from everywhere are draining into his ears. They all crash in on him like a tsunami, and he just stands there, lips sealed tight, staring at the man who helped him when he was just a scrappy teen.

“Shin, rest,” Sakamoto says, softer this time. He places his hand on Shin’s shoulder. “Or take a walk,”

A walk sounds nice.

“Okay… okay,”

Shin takes off his apron and hands it to Sakamoto who already had his hand out for him. It feels a little awkward. “I’m… just gonna walk around a bit,”

“Only come back if you want,”

Shin smiles a little knowing full well that means that Sakamoto doesn’t want him back today.

So he goes on a walk. He doesn’t really walk anywhere, just around. Now that he thinks about it though it would probably be in his best interest to go back to the college and do some of his later assignments, get on top of things – or at the very least try to because hero work has been kicking his ass lately. He considers calling someone to talk but he can’t think of anyone who would want to, Heisuke’s attempting to do his homework for the fifth time this week (it’s tuesday), Lu probably has a hangover, and Natsuki is… he doesn’t really want to talk to Natsuki right now.

His thoughts hurt far too much to deal with anything regarding Natsuki.

He’s probably about a mile away from the shop when he feels someone tap him on the shoulder, he spins around instantly expecting Lu or Heisuke, but it’s neither.

It’s Phantom.

Shin sometimes forgets that the guy goes on regular hero patrols every now and then, orders from Nagumo of course. Shin’s starting to think that the real reason why they’re working with him is because they’re understaffed in some areas… way understaffed. It would make sense as to why Shin’s seeing Phantom on so many patrols now.

“Hey,” Phantom greets.

They don’t usually talk to civilians just on a whim during patrols, but then Shin remembers their last meeting like this and inwardly cringes. He doesn’t usually do stuff like that while out of his hero persona, but Phantom looked like he was struggling and what was Shin supposed to do? The situation had to be resolved one way or another.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Shin asks, he knows the answer but he guesses that it’s better to ask. He can’t have the guy knowing that he’s Clairvoyant.

“Patrol, what the hell do you think?”

“Are you just allowed to talk to people like that?” Shin critiques, because he knows they’re not (Sakamoto has killed him in his head way too many times for him not to).

“I don’t know, you gonna ask for my manager or something?”

“No, I just thought it’d be in the rules to not curse or something on work,” Shin responds, technically it’s in the rules but he doesn’t know a single person who abides by it fully.

“I dunno, I didn’t read them,”

Shin stares at Phantom, he can’t believe this guy sometimes. “So then… how are you–?”

“I dunno, why would I follow the rules anyways, that seems kinda boring man,”

“People have rules for a reason, like how you’re not supposed to cuss while on the job,” Shin states, he’s walking and watches as Phantom walks side by side with him.

“So? I just said ‘hell’ it’s not that bad, I could’ve said worse… like fuck,”

“You’ve gotta be–”

“Also rules are for a reason but it can also be a bad reason, like what if the gods required you to sacrifice your first firstborn or something, would you follow that?” Phantom quips back.

“There’s a difference between being professional and sacrificing your first born,”

“What if you professionally sacrifice your first born?”

Shin stops to look at him, Phantom stops too and they just stare at each other, and stare, and stare, and stare. They probably sit there for around a minute before Shin starts walking again and Phantom follows, bumping shoulders and pulling ahead.

“You kinda suck,” Shin mutters.

“I’m great… you feeling better?” he asks after a beat.

Shin stumbles, tripping on air but regaining his balance last second with a confused ‘huh?’. There’s no way that he noticed, Shin’s been fine, and he knows for a fact that he’s not that outwardly messed up right now.

“What are you talking about?” Shin asks, the words sorta come tumbling out as he moves to catch up with Phantom, who’s distinctly not looking at him.

“... you just looked kinda down earlier, kinda pissed off actually. What happened?” Phantom seems to be messing with something on his arm now, Shin looks and sees a screen. He’s probably looking at the areas that he has to patrol, so he ignores it.

“I’m not pissed, just stressed I guess,” Shin admits. He’s not really sure that he wants to pour his heart out to this guy right now though, they’ve been somewhat friends for a while now, but he supposes that it’d be awkward for a random civilian to start trauma dumping on you.

“About what? College?... What's your degree? I don’t think I asked that before,” Phantom muses, it sounds like he’s making fun of Shin.

“Film,”

“Sounds time consuming–”

“-it is–”

“-and easy,”

Shin glares at him, smacking the back of his head as payback. He hears Phantom mutter something about hitting a hero and arresting him for it, but then proceeds to do nothing about it. He’s incredibly lazy, something that Shin’s learned from working with him. He won’t do jack shit if he doesn’t have to.

“It’s not easy, but it’s time consuming. I don’t mind it though, it’s nice, kinda distracting if I’m being honest,” Shin says, he fiddles with the sleeves of his sweater, squinting at the fabric. “I mean whenever I’m filming a shot or writing a script I’m only thinking about the show or movie– it’s actually kinda nice, to lose yourself in that one thing and not have to worry about much else. Work is kinda like that, but I just like working in general, the only reason I’m not right now is because my boss decided that I was too sick to work,

“Mhm, that sucks, I get it though. The work thing– it’s fun to focus on something, to have it take up your time. Makes you feel like you’re doing something,” Phantom mutters. “But if it gets bad to the point where your boss is telling you to take time off then something’s probably wrong,”

“It’s not that– it’s that I was sick,”

“Why did you go to work when you’re sick, idiot,”

“You suck at talking to people– why do you keep insulting me?!” Shin hisses, hitting his shoulder and moving to walk side by side with him.

“I’m not insulting you, I’m telling the truth. I didn’t realize that you were so sensitive to it,”

Shin thinks about punching his shoulder, it might hurt but then he remembers the fact that technically Phantom is a hero and Shin’s not right now so maybe it wouldn’t be in his best interest to keep hitting a hero as a civilian, even if he does deserve it. Instead Shin rolls his eyes and glances away from him. “Whatever man, I wasn’t that sick anyways,”

“You’re not supposed to go to work when you’re sick, I thought that was basic logic,” Phantom mutters.

Shin tightens his jaw, thinking about something to say but the fire inside him dies and instead he sighs. “Yeah, whatever, I just like working though. I like my job,”

He does like his job, he likes working at Sakamoto’s and he likes working as a hero. It’s a distraction, a good one. He likes film because it’s time consuming as well. He sees Phantom in the corner of his eye and if Shin didn’t know any better he’d say that the guy was concerned, which he knows to most likely be bullshit because Phantom’s wearing a mask, and Shin hasn’t known the guy nearly long enough to be able to read him without seeing his fucking face.

Only what, a month or so? Civilian Shin has known him for less.

“Do you do anything when you’re not working?” Phantom asks. “Like… hobbies, besides film?”

When Shin’s not doing film he’s working, when he’s not working he’s doing hero work (so working). It could probably count as volunteering though (even though he does get paid). He likes manga though. “I read manga, but I haven’t been following some of the serieses that I like recently,” Shin decides on telling him that.

He probably should try to catch up now that he thinks about it. He used to read manga every day until he became so swamped with work, but he’s too tired for that. He’s way too tired for and it’s weird how he’s just come to realize it. He keeps his energy reserved for work and college, sleeps, and then does it all again. Natsuki keeps his energy up though, he always does, oddly enough.

“Anything else?”

“Uh… I watch tv sometimes, shows… What about you?” Shin feels awkward as the only one being questioned.

“I like inventing things, I made this so… yeah– I also like baking,” he tacks on. Well that’s new.

Shin can hardly hide his surprise and Phantom notices it, groaning in response. It’s funny because Shin could’ve never imagined in a million years this guy doing baking. Mr. friends-are-meant-to-be-fun-and-if-they’re-not-leave-them baking.

“You’re laughing,” Phantom starts.

Shin hides his grin behind his fist,, coughing into it. “Uh– no, sorry it’s just that… it’s hard to imagine,”

“Well it’s easy to imagine you cooped up in your room all day reading manga,” Phantom plays back.

“Haha, very funny, bet you’re proud of yourself for that one,” Shin rolls his eyes, Phantom’s laugh is enough to answer his question.

“Very, what kinda manga have you been reading lately? Or well, what ones do you need to catch up on?” Phantom asks.

Before Shin can answer Phantom seems to get a call and Shin lets him answer it. A minute later Phantom is needed on site for some sort of emergency, Shin tries not to feel too disappointed.

“Tell me later, alright?” Phantom replies, running away. “And uh… don’t go to work if you’re sick!”

Shin rolls his eyes. “Sure! Stay safe!”

Phantom doesn’t say anything in return, instead disappears off into the distance leaving Shin alone on the street. Now that he thinks about it, he probably won’t be seeing the guy too much after they’re done with the whole Slur situation. The thought makes him sadder than he thought it would. Maybe he can still see the guy when he’s a civilian, but that’s only if he decides to keep doing the hero work and Shin doesn’t think that Phantom likes it all too much.

He goes to his dorm soon after and goes to a few manga sites, he should probably catch up if he’s not doing anything too important.

He’ll go to work tomorrow, regardless of whatever Sakamoto says.

Lu taps her hand on the counter, it’s soooo dark out right now. She’s surprised she and Shin even worked this late, Heisuke’s here too in his defense. Shin should go back to the dorms soon though, he’s got a pretty early class in the morning, at 10 am. Criminal in her mind, that’s not nearly enough time to sleep, or get over a hangover. But Shin doesn't really drink… makes sense, he is a lightweight after all.

“You gonna go to the dorms soon?” Lu asks after a beat, Shin looks up from what he’s doing and nods. Good, well that’s good. It’s good to know that he hasn’t totally abandoned all common sense.

“Yeah, I’m gonna leave in like… five minutes–” Shin stops himself as he gets a notification from his phone, did he seriously forget to silence it? Lu opens her mouth to dog on him about it, about how he always gets at her for not silencing hers but then does the same, or about professionalism, or about anything, but then she realizes his smile. The one that always reaches his eyes no matter what’s on his mind. It’s cheesy as hell and it’s pathetic, and Lu would be happy for him if it wasn’t for the fact that she knew what it meant.

It’s unrequited, she knows it is.

He knows it is.

She hardly has the heart to call him out on it, and neither does Heisuke, Heisuke’s who’s looking at Lu with the saddest eyes she’s seen from him in a while.

“Is it Natsuki?” Lu asks, trying to keep the tone light by teasing him. Shin looks up and glares at her, moving his phone away. “I didn’t even see the contact this time,”

“Uh huh, whatever,”

“Seriouslyyy, you got this like… huge smile on your face whenever you talk to him,” Lu points out, trying to replicate it herself, but maybe she just looks like a serial killer cause Shin looks disgusted. Good, now he knows how she feels (partially).

“No I don’t,” Shin huffs, looking down at his phone, most likely responding to Natsuki, and then shutting it off. “Shut up,”

“Shin,” Sakamoto interrupts their conversation and Lu turns towards the Boss Man, she almost expects him to say something to Shin about it but there’s nothing, just an eye roll from Shin and a nod that says that Shin still wants to work – seriously, he's such a workaholic. Then Shin groans dramatically and throws up his hands in a half goodbye.

“Alright, fine, I’ll leave,” Shin sighs. “Bye guys,”

Lu opens her mouth to say something to him, something helpful. But nothing comes out, not even a tease. Shin’s already out the door.

It takes a few minutes, a few minutes of silence before Lu or Heisuke talks, Sakamoto has left the room now and Lu’s wondering if Sakamoto even knows about Shin’s love for Natsuki, because he loves him. It’s not a crush, a crush is childish, something that can be resolved in a few days or said crush finds a partner. A crush doesn’t ruin someone’s life, sleep schedule, and routine. A crush makes you do silly things.

Love is different.

It can make you do grand things or horrible things, sometimes silly but nowhere near the silly things a crush will make someone do. Love is violent, crushes are a lot more passive than that.

“Do you think…” Lu starts, but doesn’t finish her sentence, looking over to Heisuke with a saddened gaze. He understands it, it’s that obvious.

Heisuke opens his mouth, shuts it, opens it again and…

Nothing.

They both stand there, in the empty store, he and Lu are closing tonight. Lu grabs the mops and begins to get the floor. She doesn’t like seeing Shin like this, she doesn’t like it at all. It’s not the fact that he’s in love, if she’s being honest, him being in love is like the best thing to have ever happened to him. She’s never seen him happier. She’s also never seen him sadder.

For every time Shin gives Natsuki a love-sick look, not even half of that expression is given in return, for every stupid and reckless gesture Shin does for Natsuki, Natsuki can’t even return it. The worst part is that Lu can’t blame Natsuki for it, it’s not his fault Shin likes him, it’s not his fault that he doesn’t know about Shin’s crush, it’s not his fault. It doesn’t make her blood boil any less though whenever she sees Shin’s broken look at midnight, trying to hold whatever the fuck he does have together.

She wants to tell him that it’ll be okay, that he can move on, and he says that he’s moving on. That he’s going to move on, sooner or later, but Lu finds that to be bullshit.

Once she’s done with the floors she looks at Heisuke who only stares back at her. “He’s… gonna be fine, right?” she asks.

Heisuke nods, Piisuke chirps next to him. “Of course, yo! Shin’s… Shin’s strong, he’ll get through it, sooner or later,”

That’s not what Lu wants to hear. “How much farther down the line is later though?”

“... later,” Heisuke mutters. “I think… I think that…”

Lu stares at him, prompting him to go on but there’s silence in the absence. They stare at each other, words find each other in their glances but don’t dare to leave their mouths.

This is destroying Shin, it’s not Natsuki’s fault, and it’s not Shin’s.

He needs to get over it, but he refuses to.

“I’m worried,” Lu admits quietly.

Heisuke nods in agreement, she can see tears filling his eyes and she can only assume that she's no better.

“Am I wrong for wanting him to get over it?” Lu asks, she feels her voice tightening. She doesn’t want Shin to get hurt, she’s lost basically all of her family and found a new one here with the Sakamoto’s and with Shin. Shin’s the big brother Lu never had, one of the only siblings she’ll ever have. “Am I wrong for… for hoping that one day he’ll wake up and just forget all about it? I don’t want him…” She sniffles rubbing her nose.

“I don’t want him to get hurt, Heisuke,” The confession hangs in the dark.

It’s painful, it’s the first time either of them have really talked about this, behind Shin’s back as well. It feels like betrayal.

“I don’t want him to get hurt either, yo, but I don’t think that there’s much we can really do about this. They’re his feelings and I don’t,” – he takes in a deep breath – “I don’t think that there’s anything we can do to change that,”

Lu’s bottom lip trembles, she’s gonna cry. She doesn’t want Shin to hate himself, she doesn't want him to live in this limbo forever. She bites down hard on her lip, wiping at her eyes with her sleeve.

“Shin’s so stupid,” She hisses, trying to hide the quiver in her voice.

Heisuke laughs bitterly. “I know, yo… I know,”

When they close the shop that night they end up taking the long way around to the dorms, stewing in the silence and hoping to talk to Shin about it. Tomorrow, they can talk to him about it tomorrow, before it’s too late.

Lu hopes.

If Natsuki had a nickel for every crime he had to stop today, he’d have a lot more than two. He’d probably have 100 dollars by now. He hates the night shift, but his shift has ended now, so he can go back to the dorms… finally.

It wasn’t until he caught a familiar glimpse of gold hair that he stops in his tracks. He smiles, staring at Shin and within moments he’s walking over. He tells himself that it’s because of the increased crime rates and he just wants to see Shin safe, but it’s really because he wants to mess with the guy a little (protecting him is pretty much the cherry on top).

“Hey,” Natsuki grins, turning un-invisible next to Shin. Shin jumps, glaring at him.

“Why do you do that?” Shin hisses, he raises his fist and Natsuki wonders if he’s gonna punch him, then he lowers it with a groan.

“It’s funny, anyways how are you?” Natsuki asks, bumping into him, he watches as Shin stumbles against the sudden touch.

“Fine, until you showed up at least,” Shin mutters, dramatically brushing off the spot that Natsuki touched. He laughs and thinks about pushing him again, just to see his reaction, but the look Shin gives him advises against it.

“You should learn to be nicer, anyways what manga are you reading? We talked about that last time, right?” Natsuki asks, Shin looks better now in his opinion, before he looked like he was one wrong interaction away from killing someone, or crying.

“You remembered that?”

“Uh… yeah,”

“Oh… well, okay then,”

For the next five minutes Shin rambles on about the different mangas that he’s reading. One’s about heroes, detectives, different types of shounen, hell there’s even one or two romance ones in there that makes Natsuki laugh and Shin glare at him.

“Don’t act like you’ve never tried reading or watching anything with romance in it,” Shin deflects. Natsuki won’t deny that he has, but he’s not about to let Shin know that, of all people. He still needs to be able to make fun of him.

“Of course not! That sorta stuff isn’t really my jam, what do you usually watch then? Love triangles, yuri, yaoi–”

“There’s no way in hell you just said that,” Shin groans, rolling his eyes.

Natsuki’s grin only grows wider as Shin bumps into him, their shoulders side by side. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, now come on, spill,”

“No, you’re gonna make fun of me,” Shin laughs.

“No, I’m already making fun of you, there’s no harm being done,” Natsuki throws back.

“Shut up man,”

“Whoa, you can’t tell a hero to shut up, I should arrest you for that or something,”

“That’s corrupt!” Shin exclaims, he doesn’t bother glaring at him, he doesn’t even look that mad actually. He looks like he’s having fun, good.

“Well I won’t arrest you if you just tell me what kinda romance and stuff that you watch. You have to answer, or else you’re refusing to answer an authority and that’s suspicious,” Natsuki reasons stupidly, he knows it’s stupid, Shin knows it’s stupid. Shin’s still smiling at him though, and laughing.

“Uh huh, sure you will,”

“What? You gonna get your like… father or whatever to beat me up if I do? The retired one?”

Shin rolls his eyes, not bothering him with a response, only throwing his chin up in the air with disdain. What a bitch, he’s lucky Natsuki likes him. He’s kinda stuck up now that Natsuki thinks about it, it’s not really something that one would get from Shin as a first impression, but after hanging out with him for a bit… he can say that Shin’s pretty stuck up, maybe that’s why they get along so well.

“Come on, answer me. Romance… why do you even read romance in the first place?” Natsuki asks, he’s surprised that Shin would, he’s never seen Shin as the type to really ever fall for someone or be interested in the topic. He always seemed kinda distant whenever it was brought up in the first place.

“... I’m not answering that,”

“Damn, you’re boring, truly no fun. Come on, you’ve gotta give me something, for the characters? Do you like the characters in it or something?” Natsuki questions. Shin keeps his mouth clamped shut and Natsuki resists the urge to tackle him to the ground for it. That probably wouldn’t go over well with Clairvoyant now that he thinks about it, cause Nagumo would rat, cause he knows everything. Why does Nagumo know everything? Hell if he knows, but he’s kinda a bitch about it.

“I don’t like you, so I’m not discussing this with you,” Shin opines.

“Boringgggg, gimme something,”

“Gimme?” Shin parrots back.

Natsuki grins lazily behind his mask. “Yeah, gimme something,” he demands again.

Shin scoffs, his eyes flicker to a corner of the street and he juts out his elbow, hitting Natsuki’s arm. “I’m not giving you anything, I don’t have to. Don’t you have other people you could bother?”

“I’m not bothering you, I’m walking you back to your dorm. Making sure you get home safely, kinda romantic if you think about it,”

Shin sticks his tongue out at him, a flicker of disgust crossing his eyes. “Ugh, hell no, not with you. Never with you,”

“Ouch,” Natsuki winces playfully. “How rude, you’ve hurt my feelings dude, you should compensate me for that then,” he thinks about Shin’s statement. Not with him, okay then, then with who? That does imply that he could like somebody, right? Should he pry? Probably not, does he want to? Hell yeah.

“I don’t have to compensate shit,”

“Yeah you do, what’s your type then? You said not with me, and now I want answers,” Natsuki leads.

Shin rolls his eyes. “Uh huh, like I’m ever talking about that with you, what’s your type? Give me something first,” Shin demands.

So bossy.

“Uh…” a sinister grin spreads over his face. “Lets see… blonde hair, grey eyes, baggy clothes,” he tilts his head to get a better view of Shin. Shin notices what he’s doing in seconds. “How tall are you?” Natsuki asks innocently.

Shin elbows him this time, in the stomach. Ouch, when did Shin get so strong? “Haha, you’re very funny, quite the comedian. Maybe that can be your second job if whatever the hell this is fails,” Shin rolls his eyes, he doesn’t seem flustered in the slightest, more so amused. It’s pretty typical for him, it’s easy to get him flustered, but not like this he guesses.

“Thanks, working on my improv, now come on, answer,”

“Hell no,”

“Meanie,”

“You’re such a child,”

“You’re so boring,”

Shin’s eyes crinkle as he stares at the ground. “I’m never talking about it, I mean, you can try but you won’t get anything,”

Seems about right, now that Natsuki thinks about it they’re about a few minutes out from the colleges, might as well make the most of his time with Shin while he can. “Alright, whatever, anything interesting happen lately?”

“Not really, a friend and I hung out a bit today but that’s about it he just talked about whatever the hell he was working on for hours and since I’m nice, I listened,” Shin mumbles.

Natsuki knows that, he was said friend. He took Shin out to cheer him up a bit, and thankfully it seemed to have worked. They went to a park, got coffee, and talked for hours on end. It’s good to see that he enjoyed that at least. Shin’s kinda bitchy when he’s sad, and it’s weird, so Natsuki likes cheering him up.

Natsuki’s a good friend to Shin, he should get paid for it honestly. Shin’s also a good friend, good enough to put up with his bullshit at least, one of the only ones to ever do it. He’s not too concerned about how Shin does it, he just does, kinda in the same way Natsuki listens to Shin ramble for hours about some movie he has never heard of.

“Sounds like fun, anything else fun happen lately?”

“Umm, my coworkers and I went out to lunch with our boss. That was fun,” Shin replies casually.

Natsuki knew about that, he talked to Natsuki directly afterwards, he was so excited so Natsuki just stayed on call with him, humming every few seconds to give the illusion that he was listening along. “I think you’re the only person in the world who considers having lunch with his boss fun,”

“It was fun! He’s so cool too!” Shin insists.

Natsuki’s not convinced and Shin’s somehow able to pick up on it as he clamps his mouth, whoops, Natsuki still wants to talk to him. What the fuck.

“Okay, okay, sorry, but I just don’t see how fun a convenience store owner could be,” Natsuki concedes. Shin stiffens a little and looks at him.

“How do you know where I work?”

Fuck. Whoops, Shin rants a lot and Natsuki’s a good liar, so he lies. “Relax, I’m not stalking you or anything, you mentioned it before,”

“When?”

“Sometime when we first met– no, it was the second time. You came out of a store and started saying how your boss doesn’t let you work enough. I asked you what you did and you said it was a convenience store… do you not remember?”

That seems to convince Shin, maybe Natsuki should warn him about stuff like that later. Shin’s a little too trusting. “Oh… whoops, I didn’t mean to say all that,”

“Nah it’s fine, I like listening to you, it’s kinda like white noise, relaxing,”

“I don’t know whether to be offended or not,”

“I’ve been told I have that affect on people,”

Shin snorts. “Well they’re not wrong, you kinda remind me of someone now that I think about it, or well– talking to you reminds me of someone… or maybe being with you is just so boring that I wish literally anyone else was here instead,”

Natsuki tries not to stiffen, he’s not that obvious… right? Well his humor hasn’t really changed, nor have his witty remarks, but he doesn’t think that that needs to change. He likes his witty remarks and he’s pretty sure that Shin doesn’t mind them either, besides it’s not like he’s the only one who makes them. “Really? Who?”

“One of my friends, Nats– Seba,” Shin corrects, seemingly a little anxious to be saying Natsuki’s name to him.

“First name basis?” Natsuki teases.

“Yeah, it’s been a while since I’ve called him Seba. Now that I think about it, you kinda remind me of him. Not exactly of course, you’re a lot more dickish than he is, and that’s really saying something,” Shin explains thoroughly. Natsuki didn’t know that Shin had it in him to call him dickish, good for him honestly. Natsuki knows he’s an asshole, so he’s not really too offended, just amused.

“How so?” Natsuki asks, might as well let Shin shit talk him ‘behind’ his back, he trusts Shin not to say anything too bad.

“He just makes fun of me all the time, never responds to my texts unless absolutely needed,” – that's a lie, Natsuki does respond. It just takes him a week or two and the shit Shin sends him isn’t really worth his immediate attention 100% of the time – “he doesn’t like going out with me but then drags me out of my dorm, he insists that I’m doing too much and then whenever I rest says I’m being lazy and then demands I go over and help him… because I’m a good friend,”

There’s a certain way Shin says that word, it’s weird, it’s different. Natsuki’s never heard him say it like that before, he can’t fully explain it. He almost feels bad, but he doesn’t know everything so… he should just leave it. He should just leave it.

“If he’s so terrible why don’t you stop being friends with him?” Natsuki can’t leave it. Part of him wants to know if he’s done something, he doesn’t leave it.

“I like being around him, he’s not all terrible, he cares for me and stuff so… I tolerate him,”

Well that’s not a great answer, it’s good to know that he didn’t do anything wrong though. “Huh, kinda a lame reason,”

“I’m not telling you everything about him,” Shin insists.

Fair enough, technically he’s just a stranger to Shin right now. “Yeah I kinda got that vibe pretty early on,”

“Don’t sound so disappointed,”

“But I am,”

Shin doesn’t seem to believe him. They walk a few more steps before Shin starts talking again, expected as Shin doesn’t quite know how to just stay silent for a few moments. Natsuki adores the fact right now because silence with Shin sucks, not that it isn’t comfortable it’s more like… he could shut up?

“Don’t you have anyone like that?”

Natsuki raises an eyebrow, questioning what Shin asked but doesn’t say anything, at first. He lets the question drift into the wind before speaking. “Have someone like what?”

“That annoys you a lot but you spend time with them anyways, like… someone who you’d do a lot for?” Shin asks, his hands are in his pockets and Natsuki can see his fists flex nervously in them, like he’s already regretting his decision to speak up.

Natsuki does have someone like that, he has a few people like that. The main people that come to mind are Clairvoyant and Mafuyu. There are others he’s sure but he’s not too focussed on them at the moment. Mafuyu’s a brat by every sense of the word, he knows that and he’s pretty sure that anyone who’s known Mafuyu knows that, however Mafuyu is his family the only one who’s supported him throughout the entirety of their life. He and Mafuyu have had their ups and downs together but they still care for each other.

It’s the same with Clairvoyant, he doesn’t like fighting against him – well that’s not entirely true. He likes Clairvoyant, a lot. He’s the most stereotypical hero ever, the type of person Natsuki never thought he’d fall even half as hard for, yet here he is thinking about him. He’s more than caring, he listens to Natsuki, offers advice, and stays with him despite their… obvious ups and downs. Natsuki knows that there’s been plenty of times he’d been having a rough day and Clairvoyant cheered him up, their chirps back and forth, the fighting is fun too. At some point he stopped really fighting the guy instead began flirting (granted he is terrible at it).

When it comes to Clairvoyant it’s different from Mafuyu, he doesn’t know who that is underneath the mask, if they’d even get along without them but he thinks that they would. They bicker a lot and despite Clairvoyant’s attempts to brush off their partnership Natsuki knows that the guy doesn’t mind hanging around him. He knows that his feelings aren’t returned, and if they were it’d realistically never work out, why would it work out? He doesn’t know much about Clairvoyant besides his personality, and a few vague hobbies he lets him know.

What Clairvoyant does let Natsuki know about him Natsuki drinks up like a man dying of thirst.

He wants to get to know him better, better than anything and it sucks because sometimes the guy really pisses him off, whenever he gets in his way during missions, but then he’s there again and they’re just talking. It’s nothing much, it’s hardly anything and Natsuki loves it either way. It’s everything to him. He’d do a lot for Clairvoyant, he doesn’t need to know who’s behind the mask, he just needs to know that he’s doing alright.

“Yeah, you?”

Shin nods his head, looking down at the ground. He’s antsy and Natsuki has no damn clue what this is about. 

“This is probably gonna sound weird, but you’re like the only person I don't know well enough to talk about this to,” Shin laughs, Natsuki watches as Shin’s hands move constantly while in his pockets. Is he okay?

“Wow, I’m flattered,” Natsuki starts, Shin clamps up so Natsuki adds onto his previous quip. “But go ahead,”

He doesn’t think that Shin heard him for a second, but then he speaks. “I know this is kinda weird, and it’s coming out of nowhere– but so many people are worried for me right now and they think that I don’t notice which is stupid cause I’m very observant,” Shin insists and Natsuki tries not to not laugh at him, because that wouldn’t go over well. “But they’re so worried because of… something, something that I don’t think is a big deal,”

They’re almost at the college Natsuki dully notes. He’s still walking side by side with Shin, and bumps into his shoulder lightly as if to snap him out of whatever his mind was doing to his thoughts. “Take it slow,” Natsuki helps.

“Mhm… it’s just… I don’t want them to be worried but I don’t really know how to fix it, I don’t even know how to describe it without it sounding so, so–” Shin cuts himself off. He seems to be gathering his thoughts, his mouth will open, shut, and then open again, stay open, then shut.

It feels violating, seeing Shin like this. He doesn’t know that it’s Natsuki, he should stop him before Shin says something he doesn’t want anyone close to him to know, especially if it’s taking him this long to say this to someone who he considers a stranger. However Natsuki’s not that good of a person, he’s curious and it’ll probably be the death of him.

Shin finally speaks up. “Do you ever want that person to go away?”

Natsuki blinks. “Who?”

“The… question I asked earlier,”

“No,” he doesn’t need to even think about it. He doesn’t want either of them to go away regardless of how much he would do for them, regardless of how annoying they are.

“Have you ever cared for someone who doesn’t care for you like you do for them?”

“Yeah,”

“Do you ever wish that feeling would go away?”

“No,”

Shin’s not looking at him, Natsuki can’t take his eyes off Shin though.

“I don’t want that feeling to go away either, but there are so many people around me who do, so sometimes I get confused on what to do with it. I say I’m going to drop it, but it never happens and it just goes on and on and on, and it worries so many people around me,” Shin takes his hands out of his pockets, and instead wrings them together. “It’s just, it’s not his fault that I feel like this or that it’s fucking me up this much. I still feel like shit though, and I don’t really… know what to do,”

Oh, Natsuki doesn’t think that he’s qualified for this. He tries anyway, cause it’s Shin. “Have you tried ignoring the guy?”

“Yeah, it doesn’t work, he just keeps coming back,” Shin mutters, fixating on the ground. “I feel so fucking bad, I don’t wanna…”

“If it’s hurting you that much you should just focus on yourself at that point, there’s no point in trying to please someone who doesn’t even know what’s going on,” Natsuki tries to reason, at least, as much as he can with this.

Shin laughs. “I would, but I’m not too great at that,”

Natsuki knows, he definitely knows. “I’m sure you’ll figure something out, what do you like most about… him,” he replies, Shin said ‘he’, right? He never thought Shin liked guys but oh well, not like he’s got a say in it.

“Uh– god, so much for not telling you about my type,” Shin mutters.

“You brought it up,”

“Kinda wishing I hadn’t now,” Shin replies under his breath and he says it in such a depressing manner that Natsuki kinda wants to shake him by his shoulders until he at least gets angry. He doesn’t like seeing Shin sad, it’s weird.

“You can go slow, just trynna help over here,”

“Mk, thanks… he’s uh–...” Shin starts and stops, hands unconsciously going to cover up his face, not that it really works. “He’s there, I know that sounds pathetic, but he cares, a lot. He’s pretty smart too I guess. He has all of these creations and shit and I don’t even know how he makes half of them. He cares a lot for his little brother as well. I've heard that some people find others like that weird or whatever but I just find it endearing. He’s not bad looking either, honestly I never really noticed or cared for other people’s looks until I saw him, now it’s like anyone else that I meet isn’t even half as pretty,”

His voice trails off but Natsuki can hardly hear it anyways.

The guy Shin likes, makes inventions, is smart, and cares for his brother a lot. Maybe Natsuki’s being a bit egotistical in saying that there’s only one person that that could be, but he knows that Shin doesn’t know anyone else like that.

Maybe he should’ve stopped talking to Shin altogether, and recommended that Shin talk about this with someone else who he didn’t consider to be a stranger. 

He shouldn’t have kept talking to Shin about this. Shin’s still walking and Natsuki stops. Shin manages to get a few steps ahead, and then turns around to look at Natsuki – to look at Phantom because he doesn’t know who’s who. 

“Are you uh, okay?” Shin asks, giving him a confused stare and Natsuki’s more than grateful that they arrived at the college when they did so he can play it off as just dropping him off.

“Yeah, uh… sorry looks like this is your stop,” he replies dryly, his tongue feels awfully heavy in his mouth.

Shin turns around and sees the dorms, mouth forming a small ‘o’ as he nods. “Oh, okay, well… see you around,”

Natsuki doesn’t say anything back, just nods dumbly and turns invisible the second Shin looks away, so that when he looks back he doesn’t expect another response from Phantom. Natsuki doesn’t think he could speak another word if he tried.

He practically runs on autopilot.

He doesn’t even realize that he’s back in his own dorm, until he takes off his mask, invisibility suit, and earrings. Maybe he should’ve noticed it earlier, noticed it in the way Shin would light up when talking about him specifically. He should’ve dropped it there, it was invasive. He didn’t drop it. He kept teasing and teasing until Shin opened up to someone who he would’ve never fucking told that to.

Natsuki’s an idiot, looking back he should’ve realized it sooner.

Shin’s in love with him, and Natsuki doesn’t love Shin back.