Saiki and Teruhashi phased into reality at the front door of the Saiki household, immediately catching the attention of his mother who was at the kitchen counter. Her eyes lit up and a warm smile spread across her face.
"Kokomi-chan, it's so good to see you again!"
Her eyes shifted as she questioned how to approach this conversation given the circumstances of their last meeting. She saw Teruhashi leave without looking completely crushed, but she suspected they had other interactions outside of the ones she knew about. Her son's response about the time they talked at school was not what she would consider encouraging.
It's ok, Mom. Teruhashi and I don't hate each other.
He stumbled over his words. It was going to be very hard to convince his mother that this arrangement was not permanent, especially because Teruhashi herself was right next to him. He did his best to prepare for this conversation at school, but he couldn't find an answer that satisfied all of his objectives. He did not like the fact that his problem solving skills had left a lot to be desired recently. Mercifully, his mother did not press them despite her great curiosity.
"If you need anything from me, please don't hesitate to ask! I hope Ku-chan shows you a good time, Kokomi-chan!"
"Thank you, Mrs. Saiki! Thank you again for allowing me into your home!" Teruhashi bowed gratefully.
Saiki's mother nodded cheerfully. They removed their shoes and headed upstairs to Saiki's room.
"Thanks for covering for me," she thought as she mentally exhaled a sigh of relief.
He nodded.
As they entered, Teruhashi again thought about his spartan room decor and was reminded of his struggle to feel normal.
I gave you a pass last time because I thought you hated me. Please don't pity my lifestyle choices, I like it this way, he said flatly, a disappointed look set on his face.
"S-sorry. I didn't expect the feelings to come back so strongly," she stammered. "Anyway, what would you like to do now?" She barely recovered.
It was apparent neither of them had actually thought about what they were going to do. The nerves from the prospect of spending time together alone at one of their houses had stymied any thought toward activities.
I don't really know to be honest.
As expected of Kokomi Teruhashi, she quickly sprung into action. She noticed Saiki's video game console and jumped on it.
"I've never really played video games before, but I remember you said something about playing bad video games and watching bad movies. Why don't we go ahead and try that?"
There was one problem with this arrangement, though.
All of my games are single player, so we'll have to take turns.
"That's fine with me. I'm just glad to be here," she said as she smiled warmly.
Saiki nodded in understanding and began to set up Monster Hunter. He hadn't gotten a chance to play it since the first time, so now was as good a chance as any. They both sat on the floor as the game loaded to the title screen. The title screen depicted a lush forest teeming with life set to fitting background music. Even someone who hadn't played video games before could recognize the attention to detail.
"This game doesn't look so bad," she mused, distracted by what was happening on screen.
I decided to pick this one up because older games tend to be close to as cheap as newer bad ones and most of them have been spoiled for normal people as well. I wanted to make an investment in a game I could keep for a while so I decided to try something new, Saiki explained calmly, also distracted by the screen and remembering his place in the game
"How new is new?" Teruhashi asked as she turned toward him with an inquisitive look.
Well… He looked down awkwardly to the side.
"I can't believe just how cute he looks!" She stuck her tongue out at him as he scowled at her.
"So... spit it out! How new is new? You may be able to read minds but I'm more than a match for you at getting what I want out of yours," she said as she tacked on a wink. He glared at her.
It was the same day you discovered my powers. In fact, this game is the reason you discovered my powers in the first place. I teleported to the store to buy it and you were here when I came back. I didn't expect you to be out, much less scheming to get into my house; so I didn't check before I teleported.
Her eyes widened in surprise and he heard her heart skip a beat. He didn't think he liked where this was going.
"So you heard Mrs. Saiki accidentally tell me about them?" She asked, speaking softly, carefully treading forward.
Yes, I did, Saiki said as he snapped back to his robotic tendencies.
"That's why you were following me so soon after I found out?" Teruhashi asked, her eyes shifting as she gingerly reopened the door to that fateful day.
Correct. Deadpan, eyes staring ahead.
"So why were you following me in the first place then? Did you intend to erase my memory?" She asked as her heart started to beat faster. Her thoughts were as clear as day during the time immediately following the discovery of his powers. He was on high alert, unable to prevent himself from seeing right through her. She knew what she was doing could end in disaster, but she had to uncover the truth.
Yes, he said through a grimace, a very slight shudder overtaking him. He cursed his inability to control his reactions.
She couldn't help but think about how sad she would have been if things hadn't happened the way they did. She was nearly scared out of her wits when he was tailing her, but she understood the fear that he would have felt was just as bad if not worse than hers. For his part, he still couldn't understand why she didn't fear the fact that he could erase her memories on a whim.
"What stopped you from erasing my memory?" Her heart thudded against her rib cage. She started to falter a bit, but quickly banished the thought.
It only works for a limited timespan and often on very specific thoughts. Thanks to your ability to sense when you're being followed, I had to wait until I found a good opportunity to use it. Doing that much memory erasure would have been difficult enough, but the erasure failing mechanically would have had catastrophic consequences. I understand that creates more questions than answers, but please don't ask about how it's done, he explained mechanically, contrasted by his grimace and bowed head.
She shuddered, but understood. She sought clarity for the part she didn't get back to when they got yakiniku, thinking back to her experience where Saiki's mother had accidentally divulged his "trust issues". She had assumed it arose from a jilted lover, but it turned out she was only half right.
"Assuming that incident was a successful memory erasure, why did I think of 'trust issues'?" She asked, slightly relieved that he offered her a lifeline to change the subject. He pondered for a long while yet again, deciding whether or not to be candid with her. She quietly begged no one in particular for him to follow his previous trend of thinking for an umcomfortably long time and saying something sweet, but silenced herself as she remembered that he could hear her thoughts. Hopefully his mind was elsewhere.
The "trust issues" were something that your mind used to fill in the gap created by the erasure of your knowledge of my powers. It becomes exponentially more difficult to erase thoughts the longer the period I try to erase and the complexity of the thoughts to be erased. If you had gotten too afraid of me chasing you, I likely would have been able to once again just erase the reveal of my powers. Your flagrant disregard for your own safety is ironically what saved you. The situation quickly approached an unacceptable amount of uncertainty, so I decided not to risk it and come clean. Once again, your quick thinking and stubbornness allowed you to serve me my ultimate defeat.
Saiki flashed a mischievous grin at her. She was absolutely elated and relieved. She immediately seized the opportunity to tease him, intending to keep the momentum going. She responded with her famous evil smile that could only mean "I'm going to get my way or die trying." He immediately regretted giving her an inch.
"Well, it all worked out in the end, didn't it?" she challenged, maintaining her annoying expression.
Not for me, he groused, his face twisting to a tight scowl like a cornered animal attempting to stave off an assailant.
"Oh come on, don't be such a sourpuss," she cooed playfully, leaning slightly closer to him as he increased his distance from her face by the same measure. She didn't intend to make him uncomfortable, though, so she backed off as soon as she made her point. She then lowered her head in thought and after some consideration, she raised her head again. Saiki heard her stream of consciousness, but allowed her to collect her thoughts as he sensed what she was going to say next was very important to her.
"Even if this doesn't happen again, this is the happiest I've been in a very long time. Like I said before, it has been an absolute joy getting to know you. My wants certainly don't matter more than yours, but I hope the fact that you have made my life much better by being a part of it sticks with you. The fact that you can essentially replace memories is certainly a lot to think about, but given how much you could have done and chose not to do is testament enough to your strength and kindness. Even though you're a teenager the same as me, I trust that you've done the best you can to protect us and watch over us." She showed him a smile that was somehow warm, bright, and sad at the same time.
Trust. So that's why she wasn't afraid of me. I don't know what I did to deserve it.
The word reverberated in his head, growing louder and louder with each passing moment. The word and his emotions became so loud his eyes started to tunnel vision, as if his body was trying to provide blood to his emotions instead of his brain. He lost his breath, croaked, and crumpled.
"Saiki-kun!"
He heard her distantly as he fell. He felt her grab him and wrap him up in her arms. When he came to, she was staring into his eyes with tears in hers.
"Did I say something wrong? I'm so sorry, Saiki-kun, I just hope you're ok..."
It was probably because he had just fainted, but he noticed his x-ray vision focusing on her true face for a lot longer than ever before. The look felt just as long as when he saw her for the first time without his powers. Vexed by his green vision, he cursed his glasses. He felt her gently stroking his head. He saw relief fill her face as his vision returned from its tunnel vision; but she flushed bright red when she became aware of what was going on with their bodies.
"What do I do, do I try to help him up, do I let him lay here, do I… I don't know what to do I don't want to disturb him but at the same time he's probably not comfortable with touching me…"
He carefully sat up from her lap to avoid stressing her any further. They both looked down sheepishly and scratched the backs of their heads in perfect sync.
"Ooohkay that is not what I expected to happen and it was really awkward so I guess we probably shouldn't talk about it again!"
She was panicking, so she had likely forgotten that he could still hear her.
It's ok, Teruhashi, it happened how it did. I fainted and you reacted how you did to take care of me. Let's not think about it too much, he spoke as gently as Kusuo Saiki could muster.
She chuckled nervously, but didn't say or think anything else. They sat in silence for what seemed like an eternity until Teruhashi finally had a bright idea.
"Sooo we might as well move on to the next activity!"
She stabbed her finger out to the sky in a determined pose accompanied by an appropriate face, but her attempt to hide her nerves was laughable.
"How about we go ahead and play video games and pretend that never happened!"
You're starting to embarrass me as well, Saiki jabbed her, cracking a devilish grin.
"Whatever, you're not helping at all. Bold of you to act like you're the one in control when you're the one who just fainted," she pouted.
Saiki placed his hand on his chin and regarded her with slightly exaggerated amusement, much to her chagrin. She puffed up her cheeks, made a petulant face, and snapped her head to the side. Something about what she was doing affected him in a way he hadn't felt before. He didn't know if he liked it, so he relented his provocations.
Now that they were both reasonably calm, they started the game. Teruhashi did not have the slightest idea what was going on, so she watched with narrowed eyes and a furrowed brow. Saiki noticed her confusion and took her on a tour around Astera just like he had done days ago. She still looked befuddled, but it seemed to lessen as time went on. In the intro they had mentioned something about a training mode, but of course Saiki was not going to use it. Why would an all-powerful psychic use something as trivial as that? The first two missions went easily enough, as he just had to hunt a few small monsters. He was starting to feel confident in his ability.
These games are hard for normal people, but for a psychic the challenge is insignificant, he gloated.
He finally arrived at his first large monster hunt. He squared off against his first true opponent, the Great Jagras. It was a fat lizard-like creature able to swallow dinosaur sized monsters whole, so it looked to be quite a formidable challenge. However, it fell quite easily due to its sluggish and predictable attack patterns. He had been playing for about an hour up to this point with his charge sitting silently next to him, carefully observing everything he did. Most of the time he didn't pay attention to her thoughts, but every once in a while he would hear her trying to figure out how the game worked. She figured out the controls for the analog sticks quite quickly and was now trying to work out the buttons.
"I want to play now," she ordered no one, not noticing that he was paying attention to her.
She shoved out her hand expecting a controller to be placed into it expeditiously. Her face had barely changed since he started playing.
So aggressive, he teased. His face bore an amused, condescending smile as he noticed her willfulness and uncharacteristic lack of regard for her surroundings. It seemed her determination had overridden her more superficial personality traits.
"You said we were going to take turns and you've been playing for an hour. I think I've been more than patient," she fired back, not even looking at him as she was engrossed in problem solving.
Fine, he said as he placed the controller into her hand. She didn't spare even an iota of attention to his amused look.
She wasted no time testing the controls. Despite her lack of familiarity with analog sticks, she applied a rigorous and organized approach to setting and moving her thumbs properly and was able to confidently move very quickly. Saiki threw her a bone.
If you want I can take you to the training area so you can figure out the buttons.
"Please do," she responded curtly.
She proceeded to spend most of the hour learning how to push buttons. She saw some of how the game flowed through Saiki and did her best to replicate that. Once she felt confident enough, she asked to go to the first quest that Saiki did before and was disappointed by the fact that she couldn't redo it.
"No fair, why do you get to have all the fun?" she huffed, indignant that something hadn't gone her way.
Relax, there are some optional quests you can do, he replied, his face retaining all of its amused condescenion. Messing with her was much more fun than he anticipated.
He dropped her into a quest where she had to slay some Kestodons, a small monster that resembled a pachycephalosaurus. Once she engaged them in combat, she found moving, dodging, and attacking all at the same time a bit too much and the Kestodons sent her straight back to camp on a cart driven by Palicoes.
"Not a word," she snipped, feeling Saiki's smug grin bore into the side of her head. "You could be at least a little bit nicer to someone who's never picked up a controller in her entire life."
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. What's this, Teruhashi-san being bad at something? he added his hand to his chin to his previous expression as he tilted his head up. This amount of supercilliousness, however feigned, started to tread his line between humor and mean-spirited.
"Stop pretending that you don't know who I am," she scowled without removing her eyes from the screen. Saiki heard her character groan and fall to the ground, expending one of her three lives. He decided to ease the taunting just a bit. She had suffered enough.
I'm not, just trying to take the edge off, Saiki said much more gently but still retained a biting edge.
She whipped her neck over toward him, wide-eyed. Her eyes then quickly narrowed as if she were closing on prey. She pounced.
"Is this the great and powerful Saiki-kun actually trying to be nice to little old me without being contractually obligated to? If I didn't know better we were actually friends. I mean everyone else is constantly whispering about how close we are and how good we would be as friends…"
Nobody says that; stop being overdramatic. Most people don't even know we've actually talked to each other. Why must you make me regret this at every turn? He bemoaned his predicament. So this is what trying to be nice got him.
"I'm just trying to take the edge off. I hope you understand," she said, mocking his tone while maintaining her killer instinct.
He shot her a dirty look. "Just get back to being bad at Monster Hunter."
The smug grin plastered on her face contrasted the quest failure screen that popped up about 10 minutes after the last comment. She won something much more important than that quest. As if god had dictated that she should wait for this exact moment, Saiki's mother called them from downstairs.
"Ku-chan! Kokomi-chan! Dinner is ready!"
Teruhashi's face was relaxed while she was listening to the call, but it immediately switched back to an evil, expectant grin as she eyed Saiki, challenging him to make a move.
The pathetic image of Saiki she had conjured up when trying to rationalize his standoffish behavior materialized in her head and said, "Offu, Teruhashi-san, I would be so honored if you stayed for dinner! I'll make sure to treat you like the royalty you are!"
Through a testy scowl, Saiki rebuffed, Your attempts to provoke me are meaningless. If my mom figured out that I kicked you out before dinner, I would be in huge trouble. Naturally, you're going to have to stay so I don't have to deal with that trouble.
"I should have figured a master of denial and avoidance would come up with something so delightfully milquetoast. I'm honestly impressed," she huffed and rolled her eyes.
I'm not denying anything. Your brother is probably going to wonder where you are so we should figure out a plan to keep him occupied.
Mercifully she immediately went into problem-solving mode, her expression switching from taunting to concentration.
"Where is he?"
They found him still on set.
He's still filming though he's notably impatient about not seeing you after most of today. He's trying to make excuses to leave.
"Can you telepathically hint to the director that he needs to stay longer to uh… make sure they finish shooting a scene? As Makoto stays longer he's probably going to mess up his lines more and with the director's newfound vigor, he won't let them leave?" She said as she stared off into the clouds, focusing only on the problem and not the implication of her words.
That's my job. I thought you weren't going to tell me how to use my powers, he huffed.
"I'm just providing a helping hand; you are free to refuse. I just figured it would be nice to not feel alone in figuring it out. He is my brother, so it's my responsibility to make sure he's taken care of," she responded with aggressive sarcasm.
Don't be so misleading. Good plan though.
He couldn't deny he felt relieved but still felt a twinge. She probably would not have made the joke if she knew everything she implied. Saiki spoke to the director in his own voice, imbuing the idea that the movie wouldn't be done on time if he didn't do everything as quickly as possible. He felt bad for the other cast members, but hopefully they would get their due if the movie was done early or if it did well at the box office. They wouldn't be leaving any time soon.
Disaster averted. Let's go, he stated affirmatively.
She smiled and nodded. They headed downstairs.