That could have gone better, but it could have gone a lot worse, Saiki thought.
He was relieved to have gotten that out of the way. He was especially impressed by Aiura. She (mostly) kept her cool and tried to defuse the tension as often as she could while completely caught off guard, no thanks to Akechi.
Now that he had shrugged off that weight, he intended to spend the rest of his evening at his training grounds trying to figure out a way to modulate the intensity of his psychic powers. He tried to clear his mind as he had many times before. He wanted to test whether or not his emotional baseline had changed enough to involuntarily weaken his powers. He used telekinesis to throw a nearby rock at a large boulder with enough force to punch through it. No dice. The rock emerged from the other side with plenty of kinetic energy to spare.
His next test involved deliberately lowering his psychic powers enough to what he hoped was a normal human level. He had succeeded at this in the past, but his consistency was not within acceptable tolerances. He decided to punch several boulders to ensure an accurate sample size for his consistency while also clearing his mind. Failure. He succeeded a few times in punching normally, but shattered far too many boulders or threw punches like Kaidou's to consider it even the most remote of successes. Moreover, the fact that he didn't look like he was trying at all was troublesome. It would definitely get on someone like Hairo's bad side.
It seemed that the only way to dampen his powers right now was to be under emotional duress. He needed more data on that frame of mind to be able to replicate it enough to be consistent and useful. He also needed to solve how to get there in the first place. His power fluctuations were quite inconsistent. The last words his mother said before his power surged was "you deserve to be happy." Does this mean that happiness amplified his powers? Unlikely. His powers lowered when he was in his mother's lap and sometimes when he was with Teruhashi.
No, his powers only surged when under extreme emotional stress. After his mother made that comment, foreign thoughts rushed into his mind, resulting in extreme pressure in his head which created a positive feedback loop that resulted in a power surge. It happened again a few minutes later, so this seemed to be at least somewhat plausible. The only other times he could positively identify as not a matter of exhaustion or loss of consciousness were during the yakiniku… outing and when Teruhashi was laying in bed after he almost gave her a heart attack.
What had he felt during that time? He wasn't entirely sure. At yakiniku it had been after he thought about how much she had changed. At her place it was after he thought she was brave. Was she the link? He hoped not because that would mean he was inextricably tied to her. That wouldn't do; there had to be another explanation. Taking the times he had fallen unconscious into account presented even more variables. Once again, he came to the conclusion that he needed more data. He breathed an aggravated, resigned sigh.
Guess I'll have to cut my testing early.
He teleported back to his house to find his mother preparing dinner. His father had not returned from work.
"Oh hello, Ku-chan! We're having tempura udon tonight! Your father is working late, so please go ahead and bring Kokomi-chan's shoes back to her," his mother greeted him cheerfully, motioning toward Teruhashi's shoes which had not been moved from their spot at the front door. He hadn't planned on seeing her tonight due to the testing and the emotional pummeling that he was made to suffer earlier, but he knew his mother's tone well enough to know that this was an order. "Please" was a formality. Through his clairvoyance he found Teruhashi sitting at her desk attempting to do homework. It was not going particularly well for her. Thankfully, the pest was not in today. He grabbed her shoes and teleported to her room.
Teruhashi sat at her desk while she doodled on her math homework absentmindedly despite her efforts to actually complete it. If realizing that she had to pay full price for a game console to compete with Saiki would have been more than enough to make this day a maddeningly offensive slight to her image, that extremely awkward introduction to the "PSIkickers" pushed her far beyond her ability to safely recover said image.
I guess you just never really know what's going to come next with him.
Aiura for her part had taken it much better than she could have given the circumstances. It was obvious she was flustered, but she still remained as friendly as she always had until she chastised Akechi. Teruhashi herself managed to remain mostly outwardly calm even though her thoughts were a bundle of anxiety.
I still can't believe how bad he is at being "most boring guy in the world". No wonder he's always so grumpy, she thought, restraining a chuckle with her palm.
She felt like she was holding onto a tiger's tail for dear life while it sprinted as fast as its legs would carry it. It was so much simpler when it was just her and Saiki, but now things were becoming more unmanageable than she was comfortable with. Perhaps it was a good thing, though. To be normal is to accept the unknown regardless of its difficulty and circumstances as they come, not how they are made. Before, she feared not being perfect because to accept anything less was to reject the core ideals she had forged into the armor that prevented others from seeing the anxiety and compulsive need for control that lurked underneath.
She wasn't stupid. She knew that the mask had cracked much more than she intended during her introduction to the "PSIkickers". It hadn't gone perfectly, but she believed that they still accepted her despite her less than perfect showing. In a way, it was liberating because she was forced into a situation she would have prevented at all costs before, and she came out of the other side with something close to a "normal" resolution: not perfect, but also not terrible.
Now more than ever she treasured her friendship with Chiyo because Chiyo allowed her to let her guard down enough to be able to handle a situation like this. Could take what she learned to be a better friend to Chiyo? Did she have the guts to let others in besides someone who could read all of her thoughts? Of course. She was Kokomi Teruhashi and Kokomi Teruhashi does not back down from a challenge, no matter how difficult.
Speaking of difficult, the next challenge she had to overcome was how to stomach being forced to endure paying full price for something as expensive as a game console. Luckily she had plenty of money saved from her allowance. She banked most of it because most normal expenses were foreign to her; the outside world might as well be her closet. She had contemplated going out without any means of payment, but decided against it because being prepared was more important.
Even when at home she didn't have to worry about most purchases. Makoto waited on her hand and foot, though the gifts he bought without her suggestion were invariably awful with a single exception. She still kept that dog mug around because he finally managed to show some kind of improvement in figuring out what she actually liked instead of picking gifts for her as if he were reading off of a dating profile. All the gifts he got her after that continued the trend of being absolutely dreadful. Maybe it was a cruel joke that only he was laughing at, or maybe some other power forced him to have decent taste for once. He did get notably upset after seeing it, but brightened up after she said she liked it…
I've spent way too long thinking about a stupid dog mug.
With that digression out of the way, she needed to iron out some of the details of how to get her hands on a humiliation box. Secrecy would be her greatest asset here, so the less that could go wrong the better. She decided on ordering it online so she only had to deal with one obstacle: Makoto. She would address the box to her father but ship it to the house and deal with any identity theft concerns later. She needed to make sure that Makoto wouldn't be there during the time that it might come in. Sneaking a peek at his schedule would be easy enough; asking would only create more problems. He wasn't shy about voicing his distaste for filming or even leaving the set if it cut into spending time with her, so it followed that he took an equally apathetic approach to organizing his paperwork. He preferred to let his staff handle the "boring stuff".
Her careful planning slammed into a wall when she heard a soft gust of wind behind her, causing her to jump a little. She still wasn't used to it, but she was adjusting quickly.
"Didn't expect to see you so soon," she quipped, now facing her tormentor.
"Me either. Here, I brought your shoes," Saiki replied impassively. He thrusted his shoe-bearing hand out toward her as if he were foisting them off.
"Thanks. To what do I owe the pleasure of you initiating contact with me?" Teruhashi said as she casually took the shoes from him and eyed him with a cool, demure look.
"... I just said it. I came to drop off your shoes," he said, raising an eyebrow skeptically.
"You'd never come over without something or someone forcing you to be here. I was sure that I'd have to come over to get them and then I'd have to work my magic to stay until after dinner," she prodded him, giggling at the implication.
He frowned. "Do you think that low of me?"
"I haven't seen any evidence to the contrary," she said with a shrug.
"I'm a psychic. I have no reason to be nervous about going to someone's house," he stated nonchalantly.
"You said it, not me," she said, turning the tables on him once again.
His frown deepened into a testy scowl, as he folded his arms across his chest. "Your penchant for overthinking turned overly assumptive a long time ago."
"Speaking of assumptions, you're over here because Mrs. Saiki told you to bring my shoes over to me, right?" She said, her tone laced with mischief. His reaction told her all that she needed to know. Her trap had worked almost as beautifully as her perfect face.
"You can't be overly assumptive if you're right," Teruhashi taunted, pointing her finger up in the air as if she were a certain blue-haired detective that would have followed up the gesture with "Ah, I see!"
"It seems like the obnoxious mannerisms run in the family," Saiki sneered at her.
"What are you talking about now? Trying to change the subject?" She regarded him warily.
"You do realize that's what your brother does on his detective show, right?"
"I didn't know you were such a big fan. Should I file you under 'schoolgirl' or 'Kaidou' at this point?" she said, donning her bored secretary impression.
"Leave the excessive profiling to me. All you've got is 'love slave' or 'not love slave'," he snorted, grinning and shaking his head. However, his expression quickly became perturbed, having come to a realization. He quickly changed the subject, but Teruhashi still questioned his sudden shift in demeanor. Saiki, predictably, did not answer her thoughts.
"Are you ok with how today went?" he said. His tone was surprisingly gentle. She suspected that his distressing realization informed his current tone, but put it aside to answer the question.
"It could have gone better, but I think I'm actually happy about that," she said soberly.
"How so?" he replied, intrigued.
"It felt nice to not have something go exactly how I planned it with someone other than you. I like the version of me that you bring out: the imperfect one. While it's unnerving going into a situation without a guaranteed outcome, all of the times that I now know involved your scheming and after I discovered your powers have been by far the most fun. Through you I learned that coping with fear of the unknown is much better than being perfect all the time. I think I'm going to try to let down the mask little by little and see where that takes me. Of course, you'll always get the most imperfect version, so you better feel special," she said, eyeing him with a coquettish but strikingly vulnerable expression.
"Hmph," he mouthed while rolling his eyes and shaking his head. When his head stopped, his eyes rested on her face in a way that she had seen 3 times before. She knew this look: the one that lingered far longer than the others, the one that was neither distracted nor analytical, the one that was comfortable, tender even. The one that she longed for more than anything… Now she was getting ahead of herself. She decided to meet him where he was to draw her attention away from her willfulness.
"I think you know what I'm about to say," she teased lightly, managing to perfectly conceal the sad temper of her thoughts.
"The myosin fibers in your face are quite well-defined today, Teruhashi-sama."
"That's what I thought, peon," she said, turning up her nose at her rebellious servant. She kept her eyes away from his longer than she had in the past, and when she met his gaze again she found him studying her face intently. She questioned his thoughts, but panicked when she noticed his grimace. His eyes widened nearly imperceptibly, but quickly softened. Silence fell between them.
"Today was a rough day, I should probably get going."
She nodded. "Hope to see you soon," she said with a subdued smile.
"You will."
He teleported out, leaving only a soft gust behind. Teruhashi sighed heavily. He definitely noticed.
She had concealed her unwanted feelings before, but her body language slipped enough for him to notice something was amiss. By her judgment he had made his own connection with the lingering expression. She surmised that they may be on the same page at some level but didn't have enough evidence to make an acceptable guess.
I need to talk to Chiyo.
She attempted to will away her troublesome thoughts to no avail and as a result barely slept that night.