NeonHorizon: If you follow my Twitter, you probably know that I've been having a pretty rough time lately. I needed this chapter. Shigaraki romance, in its weird, twisted, unique way.
Am I…in love? Kugutsu had a lot to process, of course. After all, Shigaraki had basically offered to make her dreams come true. However, she was hesitant to immediately agree. First, before she could even consider quitting her job and becoming a real villain, she needed to mull over what Kurogiri had said.
When he suggested she was in love, she felt her dark, twisted little heart skip a beat. The idea of being in love made her feel happy, of course, but she also felt a little guilty. In her mind, she had no chance of Shigaraki ever loving her. He was All for One's champion. He had so much potential and his quirk was so much better than hers.
He deserves someone awesome, she thought as she walked with Giran. Chewing on her lower lip, she was having difficulty hiding her emotions. The inner turmoil was too much to contain. Shigaraki deserves someone a lot prettier, for sure. Someone cool. Someone stronger than me. Someone…that can actually be of use to him.
"You've been pretty quiet since we left the bar, kid. Everything okay?"
She glanced over at Giran and saw him raising an eyebrow. "…I'm fine…"
"You look like something's bothering you." He paused, expecting some sort of answer. She was silent now. Her head was down, a hand lifted so she could chew at the skin around her thumbnail. He had seen her get this way before and knew better than to push her. "Okay, well, if you want to tell me, I'll be around."
Her eyes narrowed a bit. Despite his nonchalance, she could detect an actual note of concern in his voice. Not that this meant she would tell him. If she told him that she was trying to figure out if she was in love with Shigaraki or not, Giran would laugh at her. She would never live it down.
Her boss showed her around their new office and when they got to the living quarters, he nodded toward her room. "Might want to wash up. You've got something on your cheek." He pointed at his own right cheek, smirking.
Kugutsu wiped at it with the back of her hand, but she knew it was futile. The dried blood was probably ground into her skin since it had been there since her fight with the yakuza. This blood was special, though. Unlike the blood in her hair or on her clothes, this blood belonged to Chisaki Kai. A grin spread across the girl's face as she remembered the horrific injury she had inflicted on him.
Shift P.O.V
She won't say "no". She can't say "no". But why didn't she just give me an answer right away? If she's such a big fan, she should've said "yes". Shigaraki glared down at the playing cards from behind "Father", slouching at the bar counter. Across from him, Kurogiri was occupying himself with some mundane bar-related task.
He attempted to stack the cards, having no other way to kill time. His game console was still charging. All of the games on the computer were boring without an audience. He was making decent progress with the card structure, but then they fell. A few fluttered to the floor and he scowled. "When is she coming back?"
"Kugutsu needed to wash off the blood of her enemies," Kurogiri began. "She did have a few injuries that needed bandaged."
"She was fine. She didn't need to go anywhere. She should've just given me her answer." The villain scratched at his neck with one fingernail.
"Are you worried that she might refuse your offer?"
It was beyond complicated to try to convey. Shigaraki fully expected her to say "yes". She was his fan girl. His offer should be a dream come true for her. The thought of her actually refusing the offer had yet to cross his mind. Now that it had, he began to grit his teeth and glare down at the playing cards.
This was more than just simple anger at being turned down. There was a bizarre, foreign sensation setting in. A heaviness in the pit of his stomach. Like dread. Like the anticipation of pain before a blow was dealt. This feeling brought on inevitable feelings of weakness and he despised it. More than that, he despised that his fan girl was making him feel this way.
Kurogiri watched the inner turmoil displaying on Shigaraki's face through his expressions and finally resumed his task of ticking things off on a ledger. "She won't refuse your offer, of course. Shigaraki Tomura, that girl is in love with you."
"Shut up." His nails dug deeper into his neck as he scratched, the anger and anticipation quickly becoming too much to deal with. His heart was doing that super annoying thing again. That thing where it beat way too fast and way too hard so he felt like it might rattle its way out of his chest onto the floor. A humiliating way to die, for sure.
Just thinking about her made him furious and strangely excited at the same time. Lifting his eyes from the cards, he reached a hand up to remove "Father". The disembodied hand was set down on the countertop so he could properly glare at Kurogiri. "What do you know anyway? No one loves you."
The dark, misty villain across from him paused in his task and his glowing yellow eyes seemed to narrow for a moment. "It's those without love that can usually recognize it the quickest. For whatever reason, Kugutsu has fallen in love with you. If you feel the same way, I would advise that you tell her to her face."
There was a much better chance of All Might turning evil before Shigaraki would admit something like that. Not to Kugutsu and certainly not to Kurogiri. He slipped off of his seat, intending to go to his room and check on his game console. A warp gate opened a few feet away and he glanced to Kurogiri.
"If you want to see her, go on," he spoke without looking at Shigaraki again.
If the world was fair, plenty of things would be different. But one thing he was certain about was that the warp gate would have actually brought him to Kugutsu. Not to an office where Giran was now staring at him in a mix of alarm and confusion. "Where is she?"
Shift P.O.V
Washing away the blood gave her a sense of refreshment, but she dreaded returning to her decision making. Becoming a villain was all that she had wanted ever since that fateful day when she was twelve. That day when the symbol of peace dragged her kicking and screaming out of the car, just before her family was crushed beneath the weight of the already half-collapsed bridge.
Ruffling her hair with a towel, she closed her eyes and tried to take a deep breath to calm herself down. Just thinking about that smile. That stupid, permanent, fake smile. She wanted to take a knife to All Might's face and carve it off of him. To show Japan their precious hero with his face disfigured; teeth fully bared, gums shining with blood and drool as tears rolled down his cheeks.
She smirked, tossing the towel onto the floor without a care. Her dream was something that Shigaraki could grant, if she would just agree to join him. Between the two of them, they had enough ambition and enough strength that she was sure they could destroy the man.
Kugutsu's smirk was short-lived as that thought resurfaced. That question of how she really felt about Shigaraki. I know that normal fans don't feel this way, she told herself as she looked in the mirror. Fans don't want to kiss their idol. Fans don't want to be with them every second of the day. They don't purr if their idol pets their ears, like some kind of mangy thing that's never been touched before.
That last thought brought a rush of heat to her face, turning it a vibrant shade of pink. This was not her first crush. She had liked people before. She had even dated people before. Had those relationships been healthy? Possibly. Did they end horribly when she lost interest in them? Absolutely. No one had ever caught her attention so intensely before. No one had drawn so much affection from her before.
So, when she compared her feelings to how she had felt in the past, she could tell that this crush was stronger. And that it was, indeed, a crush. No sane person could continue to deny it after how flustered she became when they shared a straw. Even if she was a little crazy, she was not crazy enough to continue to deny it. She liked him. A lot. So much so that, the more she thought about it, the more she wondered if Kurogiri was right.
Maybe…I love Shigaraki-san? Still blushing, she opened the bathroom door to enter her room and froze in her steps. The pink hue on her face shifted to a bright red as her cat-yellow eyes met a pair of narrowed red ones. What…? What? He's…wait…Trembling, she lifted a hand to cover her mouth. Her head turned to the side to try to hide her blush and she knew her lips had curved into a large smile.
Honestly, Kugutsu should probably be wondering how Shigaraki got into her room. How he got into the bar. How long he had been sitting there on the edge of her bed, gripping her gaming console, glaring at the bathroom door. Instead of wondering any of these very important things, her twisted mind decided to fixate on something else.
Shigaraki-san is here! He's in my room! Someone like him…is in my room! I didn't even get to put up my posters yet! It's messy in here! Kugutsu glanced toward him and felt a fluttery sort of sensation in her chest and stomach. He's looking at me! What should I say?!
"Why're you just standing there?" he grumbled, lowering his eyes to the console again. He clicked a few buttons and then turned it off, tossing it aside. The villain stood, taking a moment to scratch his neck as he resumed staring at her.
"I just…I didn't expect to see you again so soon," she admitted. "B-but I'm happy to see you! I'm…always happy to see you. Sorry. I probably sound really lame." She laughed nervously, still holding a hand over her mouth. The semi-cute, happy smile from before had evolved into a wide yandere-style grin that would, or should, probably make any normal man cringe.
Luckily for her, Shigaraki was no normal man. So when he approached her and grabbed her wrist to pull her hand away, mindful to keep only four fingers in contact with her skin, he was pleased by the girl's expression. Though he maintained his dour grimace, his eyes showed satisfaction. "You didn't give me an answer," he growled. "Why didn't you just answer me? I offered you something great and you just stared at me. What kind of fan does that?"
Her stomach was doing flips, eyes flitting between where he was tightly gripping her wrist to briefly meet his stare. He's…practically holding my hand! Kugutsu struggled to say something. Anything. Even just one word would probably be fine. Instead, she just stared back at him.
His dry, scarred lips curled into a scowl as he stepped forward and moved quickly. Kugutsu's back met the wall beside the bathroom doorway and she winced. He leaned down, eyes narrowed on her when he saw her wince. "Say something. Why do you look so scared? I thought you were a fan. Isn't this what you want? You're my loyal fan girl. So why are you acting like you-?"
"I-I don't…deserve it," she blurted out. Turning her head to the side, she was trembling with excitement from how close he was, but her heart had dropped into her stomach. "I really don't deserve it. I don't deserve to get to work for you! I'm not good enough!"
The villain saw her close her eyes and he began to chew at his lower lip. His hold on her wrist tightened in a silent warning. "You shouldn't care if you're good enough or not. If you're really a fan, you should just want to do it."
"I'm sorry. I'm really…I'm not good enough to be a real villain. I want it. I've wanted to be a villain for a long time! But I don't want to let you down! I like you! I like you so much and I don't want you to hate me! I don't want to disappoint you!" Kugutsu forced herself to admit all of this.
As soon as these words, these extremely embarrassing truths, left her lips, she knew. I'm in love with him. Her heart seemed to lift at the realization and she wanted so desperately to smile, but there was still the matter of the humiliating confession. I'm in love with him! I'm…in love with Shigaraki-san! I've never felt this way before about anyone! It hurts, but it feels good and I just…wish I could…
When her head turned toward him, he saw her eyes open. Those sharp yellow eyes looked at him, shining wetly, filled with something that made his irritation start to gradually fade. Not that he was about to tell her anything about how he felt. The villain's thumb rubbed over Kugutsu's wrist as his hold loosened. The lips that she was now staring at drew into a grin that most people probably would consider sinister.
"If you like me so much, you should just quit your job and join me." Leaning down a little closer, he brought his face inches away from hers. The feeling of her soft, freshly washed skin under his thumb was oddly soothing. Eerily soothing.
Her face felt hot and she worried that he might feel the heat emanating from her skin. With his face so close to hers, it would not surprise her. He's…so close. If I leaned forward, I could probably touch…Forcing that thought down, trying to get her pulse to slow from its racing pace, Kugutsu gave a nod. "O-okay."
The pleased look he wore made her feel like she might melt. Happiness was bubbling in her veins like carbonation and she felt that urge again. All it would take was a little lean forward and she would be able to feel his lips. His chest was just an inch from hers and when she inhaled, she lightly touched him.
Before she could give in to the urge to kiss her object of affection, Shigaraki stepped back and released her wrist. "Good choice. You'll be my first new member. Aren't you happy?"