A/N: Cross-posted from AO3. This whole thing begins with a request I got on Tumblr that prompted me to write down some headcanons for MP100 Ageswap AU, which can be found in the 'ageswap au' tag on my tumblr.

I have been debating with myself about writing this, but in the end I figured it'd be good writing practice, so why not, right? I really need to write more.

Reviews and headcanon contributions are very appreciated. Thank you for reading.


ESPER has a locked page on his blog.

Koucchi found out about it yesterday. He discussed it with Yuu this morning.

"It's been here since the beginning, my dude," Yuu laughed at him, "the mystery kinda died months ago I think. A year ago, even. Some other culters tried to open it somehow, but they didn't get anything interesting out of that."

"But did they see what's in there?" Koucchi asked.

Yuu shrugged. "I guess. Their screenshot showed only a weird story. Oddly plain, comparing to what ESPER usually writes. I mean, it'd be weird if it's a true story, not gonna downplay that, what's with haunting and exorcism and stuff… but, I don't know, it just doesn't have the usual delicacy ESPER puts into all of his works. It doesn't feel like him mostly."

What did they get out of that, in the end? Nothing, Koucchi supposed. It's a little easter egg ESPER's readers have for themselves. ESPER himself doesn't seem to care, as usual; he has stated in his description before that he wrote for himself, to think, thus he had no desire to publish his writings, or to listen to any comments, positive or negative. Koucchi figured the only reason why he hadn't turned off comments yet was because he wasn't bother to find out how.

After leaving that conversation with his friend, Koucchi scrounged through pages of discussion on different forums for the mentioned screenshots. They were relatively easy to find once he was on the right forum (a small mid-2000 one crappily made for the then-minuscule ESPER cult community), and as Yuu had told him, nothing spectacular or twisted at all. What they tell was weird and, well, almost heavy, if he was to give his honest opinion. Definitely not the usual ESPER, the one behind stories featured on his favourite writing blog's main page.

As a cryptid enthusiast, Koucchi couldn't let it sit like that. There was no hope in building any conspiracy theory on this small, forgotten, almost too plain thing, but he kept reading and rereading it, feeling like he was getting closer and closer to something at its core. If he could judge it based on what he knew about ESPER, Koucchi would say it was nothing big - it was never something grand in size - but rather something real. Because that was all ESPER was about to him. Something real through utterly personal lens.

Koucchi treasured that.


「On Spring 19XX, I met a spirit.

It was hovering at my family's gate into the garden when I came home from school. "Yo, partner," it greeted me when it saw me.

It was young - or at least it gave off that aura. It talked and smiled like a child, but in no way an adorable one. It felt young but also a lot more but that.

My brother was still at school at that moment, for some club activities. I told the spirit as much. It laughed, voice like clinking silver. "Why would I care about your brother? I'm here for you, not him." It pointed a hazy finger at me. "You're a lot better than him. You try when it comes to this. That's what I seek. Effort."

Its words were laughable, really: my brother tried a lot harder than me. This is absolutely true. If I only yearned for his power, he tried to achieve everything else but that. He was not made for those things, things I deemed trivial but was the whole world to him, but he wanted them anyway. We were equally bizarre when it came to that.

"You aren't gonna find what you look for here," I told the spirit. "Go away before my brother comes home."

"I already did though," it said, "find what I want, I mean. Let's come inside."

I followed it to my room, feeling like a guest in my own home. The spirit came directly to the point when I'd sat down on my chair. "My name's Dimple, I'm an evil spirit. Let's make a deal."

"Why would I want that?" I asked it.

"I can awaken your power."

"I don't have that."

"Trust me," the spirit smiled, showing its crooked milk teeth, "I'd know better than you."

I told it I'd sleep on that deal when I heard my brother climbing up the stairs. "I know you aren't gonna give up on that," it said, "you have potentials. The power your brother owns is a waste. You deserve it more than him."

In hindsight, its words said a lot more about it than about me, but what they meant was by no mean wrong. [...]」


「[...] In Autumn 19XX, a small quarrel happened. Some students at Salt Middle School were personally targeted by the student council. It became something of a stain on the record of all members of the council, myself included, but in the end it had no real, lasting consequences.

Something else happened outside of my school during this scandal. Some of the students the council targeted were thugs, and they tried to solve their problems the thug way. Since I and another member of the council were after this whole thing, we were ambushed on our way home. Council President Kamuro Shinji was severely traumatised by that, both physically and emotionally. I came out of it the so-called 'winner'.

In truth, I did not feel like a winner. I did not feel most emotion anymore. There was a certain glee in that, in feeling detached, light, and powerful; I forcefully compared that state of being to that of my brother normally. I could almost confidently say that I did not feel shame and compassion anymore, except for that day when my brother bowed down before the students I targeted, begging them to forgive me.

That shame cut deeper than any part of me this power could reach.

I confronted my brother on that same day. "You were embarassing me," I told him. "Get a clue."

He never said anything.

Dimple wasn't there for any of this, but it came back soon enough, surprised that things had gotten that much out of hand. It threw a hissy-fit.

"You were such a dumbass," it screeched at me, "make up with him! Don't ruin this for the both of us. You can still reach higher, if you straighten things out right now!"

I believed it. Dimple's words had always proven to be true, except for when it came to my brother. I definitely knew me better than I knew myself. But that did not mean much anymore.

"You aren't gonna find what you look for here," I told it, like the first day I saw it.

It stuck with me anyway. Maybe it was the perfect addition to the punition I tried to deal on myself [...]」


「[...] Maybe it was not as much about what it said as it was about how certain it looked when harassing me with words.

It was natural for me to believe Dimple - it has never been wrong about me. I was a coward. I was an asshole ready to use whatever method to achieve my desired endgame. I was a selfish, foolish kid. I was all of these people, and worse. Dimple knew this and reminded me about it frequently. I thought I deserved all of it.

Survival instinct had me alienating myself from all of that. I stopped using my power. I stopped writing to think. I stop thinking altogether, I think. It was not the light feeling I had when using power; in fact, it's the exact opposite: it felt like a constant deadline. I was being chased by myself, trying to take off and cut myself from that shameful me entirely.

Dimple mocked me about it. "Only if you'd be willing to talk to your brother," it sneered at me. "Your backbone just disappear more and more, it seems."

I just took it.

On a summer night, 19XX, it tried to possess me in my sleep. It brought me all the way to my brother's room before I woke up. I managed to push it out.

I stayed in my room the next day. Dimple was gone without a trace.

My brother came to my room the day after that.

[...]」


「[...] I guess in the end, I never realised that I could change. That I could not be the person Dimple described to me. That I could step away from both the shame I felt, and the figure I was obsessed with, and actually think about all of it.

Dimple returned after we started talking normally to each other again - almost a full six months after its disappearance. It was running away from something bigger.

"Please," it cried to us, "it was trying to eat me," and it felt so young.

My brother let it be, with the condition that it would not try to harm anyone. I was furious. I felt like I knew it better than him, but maybe I was just angry at what it did to me. I almost exorcised it myself.

But then I looked at it carefully, and saw that it was afraid.

It did not sit well with Dimple's appearance: the spirit had always been sleazy, gleeful in its tricks and lies, and always so sure of itself, the way children were. The fear in its eyes at that moment was sharp and entirely out of place.

Dimple, after the two years it spent haunting me, turned out to be a real being. It was not merely a part of the plot.

I swallowed that notion, and respected my brother's decision. Afterall, he always knew better than me when it came to these things.

Can this be considered a happy ending? I don't know. I personally don't think it can. It's, at worst, a normal ending, both with and without loss and gain, and at best, a part of the narratives [...]」


Koucchi met Yuu again after half a month. "You're still on that thing?" He asked, clearly amused. "It's dead lore. Even if you can dig up something, nobody'd care anymore."

"I don't know," Koucchi replied, "it just feels… well… real. It really does. It's almost like a normal post in a personal blog, except for the whole, you know, supernatural thing."

"And what are you supposed to take away from that?"

Koucchi shrugged. "You don't have to shush me like that, I just find this interesting, is all. Really feels like we have a real piece of ESPER here, his, y'know, real self. Even if not in the events that happened in it, then in the personality of it."

"What does that even suppose to mean?" Yuu laughed.

Koucchi shrugged again. He reread the screenshots that night. Maybe it was just because they showed something different from the usual ESPER. The core really felt like the same, but really, none of this could be real. It felt like a flip of what ESPER usually did, if Koucchi dared to say; it's fantasy in a factual tone, rather than reality in a fractured personal voice. And somehow it's still ESPER, in the end.

It's just a tiny bit fascinating, that's all.


Ritsu read through the passage one more time.

"He's young, Ritsu," Mob has said as much in their afternoon. Ritsu assumed he was talking about the both of them, the kid who arrived to the office this afternoon and the spirit.

"It's still too risky," he replied. "Dimple is dangerous."

Mob looked down to the contact list that he was perusing. "He won't do anything," he said, simple as that.

Ritsu looked at the hard look he was giving the notebook, and knew to trust him. But just as precaution, he stayed in his room that evening after dinner to make a charm for the kid. The principles he was putting into it were a bit complicated, but in the end it worked adequately.

Ritsu read through the passage one more time. The screen was starting to feel a bit too bright.

「"Please," it cried to us, "it was trying to eat me," and it felt so young.」

"Better safe than sorry," he mumbled to himself, and sealed the charm.