cw: implied child neglect
this drabble is mostly introspective while i try to figure out how i want to write teru
Mob is as charming as he is graceful.
Teru is smitten regardless.
/
Mob can be hard to read but Teru is a natural at body language. The problem is: even Mob's body is muted in expression. It should be frustrating, but it's not, because when Teru is able to correctly read the smallest hint he feels ecstatic. Another affirmation that he's connected to Mob.
Teru wishes he could say something like "Mob has his own kind of charm" but, really, he doesn't. Mob is spindly, awkward. He makes too little or too much eye contact and speaks too softly, too lacking in any outward emotion that isn't anxiety. Mob is too many things, none of them lending to a person's charisma.
Teru really didn't mean to like Mob so much.
Though the romantic in him wants to say it was more fate than accident.
Teru admired so much about Mob – his worldview, his strength, his kindness. It felt almost inevitable that his admiration would turn in to something different, something new. Not more or less, but definitely something new. He was experiencing so many things for the first time because of Mob. Teru never really thought of anyone as an equal before, much less as someone better than himself.
It was nice.
Mob was nice, too nice for someone like Teru.
But if Teru knew one thing about the world it's that it wasn't fair, so he'll gladly take any opportunity given to him, whether he deserves it or not.
/
Mob is kind, so he expects other people to be kind in turn. He's truthful and blunt to a fault, so he doesn't quite grasp that others would have reasons to lie to him. Deception just doesn't seem to occur to him (or, if it does, it certainly doesn't slow him down).
There's just something about Mob that draws people to him like moths to a flame. His openness and willingness to trust people even when they've done everything to contradict that trust. Teru mistakes it for naivety but he's quick to realize it's something else entirely: genuine kindness.
It makes him kind of uncomfortable, honestly.
Especially when it's directed at him. Sometimes his breath stutters and his chest feels fluttery and full when he talks to Mob and it only gets worse the more open they become with each other.
/
Teru cards his hand through his short hair and wonders if it's possible to die from the pure feeling of guilt alone.
He isn't used to having his hair so short. The distinct lack of weight on his head is distracting enough without having to think about the reason why.
He almost pushed Mob in to doing a very bad thing. Something he might have never recovered from – he forgot again that Mob wasn't like him, didn't relish his abilities and the power it gave him. Even if they were backed in to a corner – he regrets being so forceful.
Teru thinks maybe he really hasn't changed after all.
But he wants to.
He still comes home from school to an empty apartment and a quiet balcony but these things don't seem so fun anymore. Markers of his differences from other middle schoolers – so mature, all on his own, no parents to tell him what to do (because they're gone, because they're scared, because Teru must have been born bad) – aren't making him anything but sad.
It's not that he didn't think about these things before Mob, but he avoided putting any actual feeling in to them and buried it below his bravado instead.
Teru doesn't want to be lonely anymore.
Walking through town with Mob he feels like that, at least, is something he can change.