Chapter Text
“Come on, Kusuo, lighten up! You don’t have to pretend like you don’t wanna be here, y’know.”
“I’m not pretending. I just don’t want to be here.”
Aiura, finally satisfied with her polishing, sets down her crystal ball back onto its holder, and it falls from her hands with a loud clunk. Then, she turns around to face Saiki, hands on her hips. With a snort, she scoffs, “Yeah, right.”
They’re in some sleazy shop in downtown Hidariwakibara-cho, right at the end of the shopping district that most residents don’t usually pass by. Well, to be frank, this shop is Aiura’s occult business now. After a falling out with her boss at her previous fortune-telling job, Aiura concluded that it was much more favorable to branch off on her own, especially since she’s accrued more loyal clientele than all her coworkers combined.
After some persuasion, a few premium coffee jellies, and an unlimited yearly pass to the neighboring town’s best sweets buffet, a high school girl owning her own shop became like normal everyday business.
Theoretically, the story should end there.
Leave it up to Toritsuka to take advantage of that fact.
Since its opening, Toritsuka has made it “mandatory Occult Club business” to come here every weekday after school, though it’s just a ploy to get out of his temple duties and make some extra cash.
The real reason Saiki’s here is that, after several years of antics, he’s found it’s much easier to go along with their nonsense than it is to say no – especially when everyone’s well aware of his powers.
‘Everyone’ being Aiura, Toritsuka, and Akechi since they’re the only club members who bother to come here at all. While Aiura and Akechi were late additions to the club, mostly at their insistence, they participate more than its original members. Yumehara, Kaidou, and Makino stop by sometimes out of pity, but they’ve mostly drifted from the club except for “official” events like summer camp. Saiki’s glad they made it out while they still could.
And honestly speaking, Saiki prefers this spot more than the stuffy club room at school. At least here, there’s a lower probability of nuisances stopping by. He can settle in his own corner in the pseudo-breakroom until his homework is done and he’s ready to go home.
At least until Aiura starts bothering him. Like she’s doing right now.
Instead of entertaining her, Saiki turns his attention back to the next math problem on his homework assignment. He’s already memorized the answers, but the scratch of his pencil against paper like he’s figuring it out as he goes makes him feel even the slightest bit normal.
Aiura pouts but seems to get the message because she turns back towards the front lobby to continue her closing routine. Maybe he would appreciate it more if her thoughts aren’t currently filled with all the different ways she could bribe him with coffee jelly to be a better friend.
“If you’re here, you might as well use your powers,” Toritsuka chooses to speak up from next to him, feet propped up on the long breakroom table as his gaze flickers over top of the dirty porn magazine he’s hiding inside his math textbook. This might fool some customers if not for the fact he’s holding it upside down. “You’d be raking in the hot chicks, Saiki-san… and you could pass them to me!”
Tasteful.
“Hey, I’m just speaking as the president. I’ve only done three guardian spirit readings today. And they were all creeps…” Toritsuka shudders, clutching at his arms like any of the old women who tried to come onto him earlier in the afternoon could come back to haunt him as ghosts any minute now.
Speak for yourself.
“Hell, even bowl cut dude—”
Akechi opens his mouth to speak, but Toritsuka cuts him off by slapping a hand over his mouth, like he was expecting that.
“—has had more luck than me today. It’s not fair that all the cute girls only try to get his help.”
It took a while for Toritsuka and Aiura to take Akechi in as “one of them”, but the fact of the matter is that Akechi doesn’t hold any supernatural powers, no matter how much they want this business to be a “PK Psykickers” thing. That being said, Akechi’s superb detective skills have drawn in a number of his own clients, ranging from people from mixers requesting more information on their potential partners or wives looking for a reason to divorce their husbands. Saiki tries not to think too hard about the ethics of people using Akechi as a personal FBI agent.
He could say, “I don’t want to use my powers. I don’t want people to know that I have them. I don’t even want you guys to know that I have them.”
But that’s rather long-winded and more effort than he feels like expending on these idiots, so Saiki settles for a simple, “No.”
“Saiki-saaaan,” Toritsuka whines, dramatically flopping his head onto the table. His phone buzzes then, and he pops open an eye to glance at the lit screen. He shoots up in his seat, messily packing his bag. “Oh crap, it’s almost dinner time. Dad’s gonna kill me.”
Akechi hums in agreement, filing his own belongings and putting away his paperwork from today’s “research” into their respective manila folders. “Ah, I do need to stop by the market to pick up some ingredients for tonight’s dinner. If I don’t leave soon – the latest by 5:56 PM, give or take a few milliseconds – I won’t make it in time for the 6 PM sale. Wouldn’t you know that being a few minutes late for the 6 PM sale is effectively the best time to get discount meat? The older women who have been waiting since earlier in the evening start to fight among themselves, and you can walk past them to have full access to all the sales. The grace period is only 3 minutes, though, so it’s all about the timing.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever, Bowl Cut,” Toritsuka says, grabbing onto Akechi’s shoulder and dragging him out of the room and into the lobby. “You’re gonna miss the sale if you keep talking. See you tomorrow, Saiki-san! Bye Tits!”
Aiura flips him off as the two rush out the front door.
Saiki checks the clock. In his filtering them out, he’s let the time pass him by. He’s been here for far too long. He uses his powers to finish the rest of the math problems for him, pulling the answers from his memory and onto the page. By the time he’s done, the only sound in the store is Aiura organizing her various fortune-telling tools, swaying along to a trendy pop song she’s singing in her head.
He closes his textbook, letting his psychokinesis take over as his materials slide easily into his bookbag. “Bye, Aiura-san.”
Aiura hums back a distracted goodbye as she starts to take inventory of their cash box.
Well, it’s time to head out.
And just as he closes his eyes, the jingle of the beaded walkway through the front doorway ruins his concentration.
Good, I must’ve lost them on the way. It’s really such a pain having to dodge everyone like this. I mean, I don’t blame them – who wouldn’t be curious about what I’m up to? It’s a shame that this place is in such a run-down part of town, I’d never be caught dead here. Hm… charity work, maybe?
There’s some shuffling as someone pads inside the store, quick and fervent steps. The door shuts close as soon as they slip inside.
Unfamiliar thoughts flood his head, and he stares through the breakroom wall into the open lobby to find its source.
“Terukoko!”
“Shh—I mean, Aiura-san, hello.”
Teruhashi Kokomi’s thoughts.
The most perfect, pretty, popular girl at PK Academy’s thoughts, to be exact.
To everyone else, she may seem like the angel she portrays, but he recognizes the same crude, manipulative thoughts he avoids at all costs. He might be the only one who knows this about her.
What a pain.
What is she doing in a place like this?
Despite unwillingly having access to her mind, Saiki doesn’t really know her. She’s in Tortisuka’s class, so their paths don’t cross as often as they would’ve had she been placed in 2-3. That’s his one saving grace this whole time he’s spent in his second year of high school. But in tune with her thoughts from earlier, this shady business is the least likely place you would find her.
And typically, Saiki can tell when Teruhashi is around. Even if he was distracted, he’d have to be six feet under to ignore the loud baseline chorus of “Oh! Teruhashi-san!” that should’ve flooded the perimeter of the store.
Except none of that happened when she walked in.
Saiki takes another look at her, focusing his powers so that his X-Ray vision takes a few seconds longer to kick in than usual, and quickly realizes why.
Teruhashi is wearing a comically large baseball cap that clouds the top half of her face, sunglasses overtop her face mask, and an oversized hoodie that covers her school uniform so only the hem of her PK Academy skirt peeks out. Without the effervescent glow through her silhouette, he might’ve mistaken her for a burglar. In retrospect, this costume should’ve rung some alarm bells for any normal passerby, but it seems to have worked in her favor given the lack of a crowd at her heels.
“Sorry, I’m a little early,” Teruhashi says with a sheepish smile, pulling off her sunglasses and mask to reveal her full radiance.
“Nah, you’re good. Same as usual?” Aiura asks, like it’s perfectly normal that Teruhashi Kokomi is here.
With a quiet nod, Teruhashi moves toward the room where Aiura usually sees her clients, but Aiura intercepts, motioning to the front of the check-in station instead. “We can just do it up here. There aren’t going to be any more clients today, anyway. I was just closing up.”
Teruhashi takes a seat at Aiura’s proposal like a practiced client, patiently awaiting her next request.
So, she’s here for a fortune reading?
Much to Saiki’s surprise, Aiura lays a silk covering on top of her crystal ball, reaching into a drawer in one of the storage units off to the side of the room. Instead, she pulls out…
A deck of cards. How anticlimactic.
They’re worn, well-used, and as far as Saiki can tell, nothing that Aiura normally uses for her readings. Not that he pays much attention to what services Aiura offers to her clients.
But she sits down across from Teruhashi with the deck anyway, littering a few pebble-sized crystals along the tabletop and quickly lighting some incense to cleanse the space. It’s a lot less involved than the usual theatrics that Aiura puts on her for her readings, and she shuffles the deck with ease. Honestly, with how she’s acting right now, Saiki wouldn’t put it past Aiura being a dealer at a casino in the near future.
At this point, Saiki remembers his plan to leave for the evening, and he draws back into the breakroom so that wandering eyes won’t spot him. And then his eyes catch on Teruhashi’s expression.
She’s waiting with baited anticipation, eyes mesmerized by the movement of the cards, unlike anything he’s seen on her before. Her thoughts have quieted down some, but he can feel the anxiety brimming around in her head, and he’s stunned in place. Even her glow dims a bit, muted uneasiness coursing through her body, threatening to burst.
It’s going to be a good reading, she thinks, like she’s trying to convince herself, it always is. And then, a little more desperate, it has to be.
A single card slips out from Aiura’s grasp, then another, and finally, she lines up three cards on the table. Without any more fanfare, she flips them over one by one, each reflecting in Teruhashi’s careful gaze.
The spread of cards has detailed drawings on them, which Saiki guesses is supposed to be their intended meaning, their corresponding names helpfully written along the bottom.
Wheel of Fortune. The Empress. The Star.
Aiura smiles.
“They’re all Major Arcana cards,” she explains, running her fingers along the surface of each one with a thoughtful expression. “That makes it easier to interpret. Hmmm, Terukoko, you’ve been having some trouble with that art project that Watanabe-sensei assigned over the weekend, right? There’s a heavy emphasis on creativity in this spread, so I think you’ll find your muse pretty soon. I’m also sensing a lot of feminine power and positive energy from the universe. See, ‘Wheel of Fortune’ means that your luck is turning in your direction. And ‘The Star’ indicates good blessings and success, sorta like you’re about to regain control of your life. ‘The Empress’ – well.” Aiura tilts her head in Teruhashi’s direction. “I’m sure you get the idea. In general, I’d say that your week is going to be fruitful with some good news headed your way.”
Teruhashi breathes a sigh of relief, her whole body relaxing, and it’s more human of a reaction than Saiki expects from her to have at someone telling her that things are going to be in her favor. Sure, she’s not a God, not really, anyway, but she might as well be to everyone else in the world.
He doubts that she even prays to the gods at the shrine on New Year’s. That’s the sort of luck Teruhashi Kokomi has.
So, it’s a bit of a pitiful remark when he thinks to himself, “Cards don’t mean anything. They’re picture book drawings at best.”
“Huh?” Teruhashi’s head jerks up from the tarot line-up, her eyes darting across the room. “Is there someone else here?”
Shit.
He must’ve sent that into her mind without realizing it. Saiki presses his back firmly into the corner of the room away from the doorway – a blind spot where even Teruhashi can’t reach him.
When she doesn’t spot him, she purses her lips, eyebrows furrowed into a tight knot. Teruhashi shrinks back into her seat, wringing her hands in her lap. “I could’ve sworn I…”
Good. She didn’t notice him.
Now, he can just turn invisible and—
“What?” Aiura turns around, and then easily narrows her eyes in Saiki’s direction. He grimaces. Damn her and her aura-reading abilities. “Hey, you still here?”
Good grief.
There’s no teleporting home and just pretending that was the voice of Sayaka-chan, is there? Actually… that might still be an option. He considers it for a moment before remembering the last time he used Sayaka-chan to get out of something and decides he would rather cut his losses than get caught up in another intensive weeklong exorcising process.
“I was just leaving,” Saiki says, taking fast steps through the lobby and heading straight towards the front door. With his head turned down, he barely makes it past the receptionist’s desk, the sight of the beaded doorway a mere few feet away from him, when he hears the creak of wooden chair legs scratching against the floorboards.
“Ah!” Teruhashi exclaims, already standing up from her chair, eyes bugging out at his sudden appearance.
He pushes on anyway.
Aiura-san said there were no other clients today! Wait a second… his uniform… he goes to our school! No, this can’t be happening! Did… did he hear everything?
“You’re in Aiura-san and Chiyo’s class, right?” She scrambles to continue, scouring through the tons of information sitting in her brain at a mile a minute – flipping through profiles of classmates, fanclub members, and even local politicians from neighboring towns. Then, she snaps her fingers. “Saiki Kunio—”
“Kusuo,” he corrects absentmindedly, and then curses himself in his head as his movement comes to a complete halt. Even using the Nanana would be too late at this point. He’s just going to have to deal with it.
“Kusuo,” she says hastily, clearing her throat. The hairs on her neck stand stick straight as she chews on her lip. “Right.” I knew it was the other pronunciation. Play it cool, Kokomi.
Saiki takes a deep breath and stares at her blankly. His grip tightens around his bookbag strap until his knuckles whiten, and he’s half-convinced he’ll create a tiny explosion at this rate. He taps his foot, making a show of glancing sideways at the clock on the wall.
Can she not take a hint?
When it starts to look like she may never get to the point, Saiki starts out the door again.
“Wait a minute, Saiki-kun!”
Then, she hesitates.
In front of him is a meek Teruhashi, someone who doesn’t look like they were always the center of attention, and for a moment, Saiki forgets what he’s supposed to be doing. And then, he shakes his head and turns back towards the door with his usual passive expression.
“About today…” Please, please, please, say yes. “Um, do you think you can—"
Saiki decides to stop listening.
She doesn’t know him, and he doesn’t need to know about her.
They can keep it this way.
Until he stupidly talked into her mind.
Before the rest of her sentence can leave her lips – “keep this a secret?" – Saiki is out the door, around the corner of the alleyway, and back in the comfort of his own bedroom. What a mess.