Unknown number
18:37
Sorry about missing your call, I was otherwise occupied.
18:49
That's alright! It's understandable after everything that happened. Did you make it home safely?
18:50
Or wherever you're staying right now? Do you have a home in Japan?
18:52
Sorry, sorry, you don't need to answer if I'm being annoying.
18:56
Relax, I was showering. Yes, I have a home in Japan, and yes I got back safely. I won't get annoyed if you want to be curious, you don't have my number because I hate talking to you.
19:10
Thank you.
Unknown number
17:59
Oi, purple
18:00
Purple
Answer me you asshole
18:01
I forgot if you gave me your name but if you're pissed off I'm not using it get the fuck over it
18:02
Are you seriously ignoring me?
18:04
I did not make sure not to drip your splooge in front of a group of cops just so you could fucking ignore me
18:07
Fuck you. I'm gonna hack your phone.
18:36
I was driving, you impatient bitch
The fuck do you want
18:37
Well then text while driving next time
18:38
I want you to learn how to fight so we don't miss out on the foreplay next time
I want some carrot cake
18:39
I want your address so we can break your bed
18:40
I have roommates, so no. I'll bake a cake before next time though, happy?
18:43
Marry me
18:47
Awww he's embarrassed
18:54
I was showering. Because someone made me roll around in the dirt
18:55
Don't pretend you didn't like it
18:57
It was one of the best experiences of my life.
18:59
Though hopefully next time I won't have to go down to your level
19:00
Fuck you.
I'm gonna hack your phone.
19:02
You can try.
Out of all the crazy shit that had happened to me since coming to this world, getting fifteen hours of uninterrupted sleep probably was the most bizarre.
Superpowers, body stealing, and figuring out I was maybe a little too okay with murder? That sort of thing happened all the time, I assumed. Opening my eyes to the rising sun instead of a pitch black room with the time on my phone mocking me for daring to hope? Unnatural.
The light from an unfortunate gap in my blinds splashed across my face. Trying to turn over tangled me even further into the blankets I'd somehow managed to tie around myself in the night. Eyes bleary from sleep and barely able to stay open under their own power cracked into the narrowest of slits, shooting the sun a glare that matched and perhaps even surpassed its own intensity.
The blinking light of my phone drew my attention. I was already dragging myself away from the precipitous edge of sleep before I reached for it, but tapping the screen and angling it down to check the time successfully chased away the last vestiges of fogginess from my mind.
A quarter past noon. Along with three text notifications and a missed call from what I now knew was Mirko's number. The battery was full, a result of plugging it in right before my head had hit the pillow last night. The forecast predicted a cool, sunny day, a quintessential day that would usher in the dawn of spring for the country.
Clearly, something was destined to go horribly wrong today. That was the law of the universe. You couldn't have a monumental event one day, wake up to beautiful sunshine the next, and not have to be fighting off the apocalypse sometime before lunch.
Switching out my dress pants for a pair of comfortable shorts with a liberal application of Overhaul mixed with a stunning display of pure laziness, I wandered from my room, pausing just long enough to decide that I couldn't be bothered with a shirt. I'd put one on later, once Twice and I got down to running through the gamut of tests I'd hatched up for our new acquisition. We could run them outside, it was a good enough day to enjoy before shit inevitably went awry.
The only one who might complain was Manami, which was fine. This was some small revenge for throwing me into a love triangle without my consent.
Though speak of the devil…
I'd just reached the bottom of the staircase, with the kitchen was my ultimate destination, when I bumped into Gentle. Literally, though neither of us had been moving very fast, we'd both taken the corner sharply and the momentum would have sent him flat on his ass if I hadn't managed to catch him right before he was out of reach. With him balanced, La Brava wouldn't have to worry about him landing on her, given that she had been travelling in his shadow.
As was the norm, really. My eyes flicked from his face, now smoothed over from the earlier alarm, to her, before darting back.
"Going somewhere?" I released Gentle's arm with a short pulse of Overhaul, easing down the bruises that my abrupt and tight grip was probably in the process of raising below his sleeve. Both of them were decked out in their full villain regalia, a far cry from the blouses or business casual that I usually saw around the house.
Gentle cleared his throat, brushing a hand over one of his exaggerated coattails. His near fall had ruffled it, and I watched with detached interest as he eased it back down into a perfect line. "Indeed. It has been quite some time since we filmed a video."
La Brava trudged past us, holding a camera that at any other time I would have assumed to be far too heavy for her. She was struggling a bit, I could tell, but for someone shorter than the tripod she had under her other arm, it was one hell of an effort.
"Right." There was an extra button on his coat that wasn't there whenever he had the costume on for one of our outings. I narrowed my eyes at it, just as he shifted and the light caught- ahh, it was a microphone. "Need any help?"
"Thank you, but we are capable."
I shrugged, moving off to the side to give him space. He paused right before passing me, an expression I couldn't quite place on his face. It didn't get any better when he focused on my exposed chest, before shaking his head and continuing on his way.
Perplexed, I glanced down, only to be met with nothing out of the ordinary. Well, nothing out of the ordinary, aside from the rare lack of a shirt. More often than not I had a change of clothes stashed away within my own body, along with many other things that would have caused someone else a myriad of problems if they shoved it in between their ribs.
Ah well, if there was something that he didn't want to or couldn't say to me, then that was hardly my problem. Spinning on my heel as the front door gently clicked shut, I continued on my way, my thoughts drifting between what I would have for breakfast and where everyone else in the house could be.
The murmur of voices up ahead eliminated the chances that it would be just myself and Twice. That would push my metallurgy back a fair bit, but that was fine. The school year would be starting in two months, and until then there was nothing left on the once extensive list of things that I had yet to accomplish.
If we had guests, then I definitely should have put a shirt on. But I'd cleared out a lot of the things I'd been lugging around to make room for emergency options during the Yaoyorozu mansion visit, and my room was so far away…
Meh. Technically this was my house, I could dress however the hell I wanted. If Twice had friends over, then they were probably used to far worse things. Mainly because even though Twice was a good friend, he was also, well, Twice.
A childish giggle met my ears as I stepped around the corner and into the kitchen. I knew that voice, it was Twice. Then a second, even more childish giggle rang out, and it was only as I was stepping into view of the dining table that I remembered that Eri was here too.
…Wait, if Gentle and La Brava were both leaving, who was looking after Eri?
Nothing in this house was ever really messy, but the table was at a state that approached it. It looked like I'd missed an extensive breakfast while oversleeping, because there were empty dishes and plates decorating the surface of it. Eri's plate, still stacked high with pancakes and a bit of what looked like scrambled eggs, was the only one that was still in use. I could already see Twice's teetering precariously on the edge of the table, ready to shatter on the tiles before at the slightest provocation.
At least our two guests were tidier. Whatever Giran had been saying died on his tongue as he regarded me with narrowing eyes, the lackadaisical expression on his face melting away to something far more scrutinising.
It lasted for perhaps a second before he relaxed and offered me a nod, taking a sip of the steaming cup that had been in front of him. The pressure he was under must have been immense for him to take me up on my offer this quickly.
Our second guest had been at the sink, offering me a chance to look them over before they turned around. Thick, green, shoulder length hair fell down in waves. I didn't know enough about fashion to really judge if her choice of clothing was trendy, but the dark green sweater, slightly darker green skirt, and black leggings combo looked pretty good from where I was standing.
Setsuna turned away from the sink, giving me just enough time to drag my eyes back up to her face. Her hands, the left one detached at the wrist, were both dripping with soapy water. Her mouth was open, though the words didn't manage to come forth around the surprise of seeing me standing in the doorway. At least, I thought it was a surprise. The resultant grin a fraction of a second later made it hard to tell, along with the way her eyebrow rose with the perfect air of lofty imperiousness.
I kinda wanted to learn how to do that.
"I thought babysitters had to watch the kid before getting paid."
I blinked, confused, and offered her my own raised eyebrow, though lowly in stature compared to her majesty. She didn't see it; even from this distance, I could very clearly see her eyes were fixed no higher than the bottom of my neck.
Yeah, I probably should have put on a shirt.
…Oh well.
"Minmin!"
Eri's voice, followed immediately by strangled laughter, drew my attention back to the table. Eri was grinning at me, her open mouth proudly showing off all the partially chewed breakfast within. Huh, she had apple slices in her pancakes, I should try that sometime.
"Minmin…?" I shook my head, dismissing it. With how Twice was choking on his own laughter, I could only assume that he had something to do with it.
Speaking of Twice, as I stepped up to the table proper to peck around at whatever food was left, I took notice of his clothing. Strange would have been an understatement, had I not seen him in the black and white bodysuit whenever our endeavours took on more of a… villainous approach. His mask lay across his lap, giving no hint of the emotions that I knew he could show through it like it was a part of his body.
"Going somewhere?" I didn't bother trying to sound too casual. Twice and Giran were friends, and if he wasn't suiting up for something that I had done, then there was a good chance it would be for whatever had brought Giran here.
At least the question had knocked Giran out of whatever had been going through his head, as he glanced between my uncovered abdomen and his daughter. Whatever ideas he had running around in his head would spell nothing but doom for me, especially with the situation I now found myself in.
As if on cue, my phone jingled from my pocket, informing me of a new message. I very studiously ignored it, along with the shameless grin Twice shot me once he clocked onto where the sound was coming from. How the hell did he know?
"I have a meeting with some difficult clients." The last of the tea in Giran's cup disappeared down his throat. A disembodied hand grabbed it from the table as he stood up, grabbing the jacket that had been slung over the back of his chair and folding it underneath his arm. His free hand ruffled Eri's hair gently, and the strangest part of the contact was that she allowed it. "Jin offered to accompany me when I arrived."
In full Twice costume? Setsuna's back was turned once again, her focus on the sink, and I shot her a contemplative glance.
"Need any extra help?" I didn't like the idea of Twice walking into a trap waiting to be sprung. It would be much easier to get out of one, when I could just tear apart the walls and anyone attempting to pull something, with a strand of hair and a thought.
The grin Giran offered me was downright sardonic. "I'm not sure that's a good idea. They've been paranoid about purple things lately."
Well, that wasn't promising.
I could very easily change parts of my appearance with Chameleon. There was very little chance Giran didn't know about that and all the other Quirks I'd come into possession of, if he was even half as competent as I was willing to believe.
There was only one person moving in the room, so naturally my attention tracked to them as I considered the possibilities. That was my story for how I ended up staring at Setsuna's ass while she danced around to a tune only she could hear, and I was sticking to it.
A bit of water splashed up from the sink, and with a muffled curse she skipped to the side. It was only for a moment while the rest of the water settled, but the light streaming in through the window shone down on her, and that's when I noticed it.
The leggings that I thought were black were instead a very dark purple.
Maybe it was innocuous and coincidental, but it was much harder to convince myself otherwise when I'd literally been looking for the connection in the first place. Was it out of the realm of possibility that Giran would willingly gamble his daughter's safety on me? Well, he'd done it before, hadn't he?
I wanted to hope that Eri being dragged into the crossfire as well was just awful timing, but even on a good day I didn't usually feel that generous. On a bad day, the sort of day I'd been expecting since I woke up, it would have stuck in my mind that she'd already been taken advantage of and abused by a group of lunatics who had weird views on Quirks once in her short life.
Her Quirk hadn't been on the Meta Liberation Army's list, but that was just proof enough that they didn't know about her. I couldn't remember if Setsuna's was, but that was mainly because I couldn't remember the name of her Quirk anyway.
Surreptitiously, I tapped the tape measure that was lying on the table, meeting Twice's eye and gesturing towards myself. Quick on the uptake as always, even if he never really showed it, Twice's grin sobered, and he nodded. He had my latest measurements, fresh from the day before visiting the Yaoyorozu mansion. Even if I couldn't be there as myself, I would have his back if shit went south.
Absently I realised, given that nobody else was in reach, it fell to me to grab a napkin from the centre of the table and wipe away the bit of scrambled egg that had found its way to Eri's cheek. She giggled as I folded away the dirty part and then swept it up across her nose, stopping for a moment to honk it with added sound effects.
"Well then." I straightened up, scrunching the napkin into a little ball and dropping it onto the table. Twice clambered to his feet as well, thumping me on the shoulder in solidarity and swooping down to lay a small kiss on Eri's forehead, right next to her horn.
There was no chance in hell that she was actually quick enough to snag his collar, or strong enough to drag him down to her level, but she still managed to hug him around the neck, and then delightedly shriek into his ear when he picked her up. How he didn't even manage to flinch at that volume, I didn't know.
"I'll drop her off in the living room." He told me, resigning me to the fact that yes, I was in fact going to be playing babysitter today. With a jerk of his head in Giran's direction, met with a roll of the other man's eyes, they set off towards the front of the house.
For a moment, other than the distant television and the water in the sink, all was silent. Peaceful, even.
"Soooo…" Setsuna's voice drawled in my ear. I could still hear the clanging of dishes in the sink, so I wasn't too surprised when I turned around and was met with a floating head.
She hovered there for a moment, probably waiting for a reaction. With none forthcoming, I watched as her lips settled into a pout, though that soon enough dissolved into a wicked grin filled with sharp teeth as her eyes drifted down.
"You gonna be shirtless all day?"
With a sigh mourning the passing of a simple, uncomplicated day, I turned towards the door. The last thing I heard before Setsuna descended into peals of cackling laughter was a long, exaggerated wolf whistle.
My phone chimed again on the way up the stairs. A single glance at the screen revealed it to be Mirko, demanding I answer her.
By the time I got back to my room I was almost tempted to go back to bed.
A/N: Sorry about the delay, but life finds ways of being difficult.