Shoji watched— because he has many eyes, after all, and many more to spare.

Watching is second nature to him as much as putting his mask above his mouth. His teeth. Watching made him feel sure and safe, because something could always be a harm to those he cared.

(This does not mean he enjoys it.)

It always left him shivering, that thing that latches onto him.

But Shoji was traditional. He was raised around shrines and incense and dying leaves because— Spirits, his grandmother would say, with no arms but the longest fingernails he'd ever seen, they don't die in a way that matters. Not in a way that leaves a body and a soul.

Spirits, she'd say, upon the candlelight and the burn of herbs in his nostrils, and crossroads—

But she's been long dead. Even before he arrived in the gates of U.A, even before she saw him grow teeth that rips the skin of his mouth that left it permanently snarling.

But now he hopes that he hadn't been raised around priests and smoke and Buddhas, when he grows eyes and they see and see and see—

And Shoji wanted to scream.

(Shoji Mezo is a watchman, an Observer. It is what he is because his voice is not loud (prominent) to hear. He is an observer just because, and it's only a matter of time when he wished for No More.)

Shoji could feel it. Practically knows it's there but, but, he doesn't know what would happen to him if he Calls and turn and pick a choice he didn't even want to encounter.

So he picks through the crowd and they're all faceless to him at the moment, like living ghosts, and spots inky clusters of feathers and daggers and bone. But it's just the senior's head, he knew that, but he always seemed to be something more.

(Shoji Mezo is a watchman. An Observer. A Blinded Seer, with too many eyes and limbs but is always in three pairs in their own respectful places.)

(He was raised around the bronze statues of Buddha, he knows what Asura is, and so he was Traditional, in all the ways that affected his way of seeing, and telling of things.)

That's why he turns around and pretends, because his grandmother told of Spirits that dragged mortals down and Yokais that inflicted such chaos, of Onis that—

Well,

But He—

(Upperclassmanseniormonsterdemonspirit—)

Wasn't One, right?

Shoji picks through the crowd, trembling and shaking (something wet drips down his cheeks and all he feels is burning burning burning—)

Tokoyami— from somewhere up above Shoji's class, and he knows that much so he knows not to think about his name (and he is older than Shoji, and that's normal because he's his senior in both age and class (and power) and yet)— he turns to him. All dagger feathers that weren't feathers and a beak he wasn't sure was a beak but a protrusion of bleach white bone, his always-close lidded eyes (but Shoji knows better), and those Charms hanging off the sides of his head and wrapped around horns— but he doesn't have any?— with the number (613) always engraved on whatever kind of wood those curtain earrings were made of.

And Shoji's breath is trapped in his throat, pushed from his lings and it isn't Like That.

(Shoji is traditional. He learned of old thing from his grandmother and how to recognize them from his grandfather. Though he's long gone, too. And he knows what He was but not—)

(He's always picked Tokoyami (Pandora, he's called, it is his Hero Name as much as it was Him, but he doesn't know that) from the crowds, of bustling, living things. But he was always so blurry blurry blurry and yet all he sees are writhing Things and glimmering teeth and eyes that were a million too much to count—)

(SpiritspiritOniYokaiDemon—)

(Monster)

Shoji Mezo turns his head away, the eyes he's summoned fading away into his skin. Away from whatever horror is etched onto fake perception but Shoji knows better because it will be ingrained within his mind until forever.

But in his peripherals, Tokoyami squints and Looks at him and he feels pierced. Like a lance of Something was shot through him, slicing him open and felt bare as a frog on an examination table.

And Shoji Mezo sees him—

(Spirits, his grandmother would say in cold days where the incense smells the strongest, latching with the things that rise from the earth, they don't truly Die. Many of them do, but only very few truly Doesn't, a clack of wooden pieces— sliding on wood and humming, And spirits are anything, they Should be anything; but not Everything. They are too small for that, lesser than life. Most do not ascend to higher places, only fall downwards,)

(He'd ask her, young as he was and only knows so little still, even by her guidance, To what?)

(His grandmother did not answer but smiled a withered grin that left him wary, Remember this, Mezo, because while Many (All) does not rise, a resounding snap as incense sticks broke up in halves before his grandmother threw them away into the rising waters of the rain, That doesn't mean some could always Come back—)

And Smile.