Minor warning
Talk of Oswald's ability to remold his flesh to take out his heart and said character's chest being open
Nothing explicit but some sensation is mentioned
Oswald took a deep breath and then let it out, looking back to where his heart currently was sitting in his hands.
The pale pink flesh only barely a shade pinker than his skin was, and if his blood wasn't the same consistency of tree sap, he'd be worried about how slow his heart was beating.
It was weird to feel the rest of the world inside of him, the air on the parts of his body normally covered by the layers of peeled back skin.
He was almost thankful he couldn't get sick like most other people could.
Because constantly opening up his chest cavity and taking the skin off of his face to reveal the skull underneath would definitely have gotten his ass sick if he did.
The benefits of having nearly his whole body made from taffy.
Meant a lot of new biohazards like going to the beach without eating enough taffy to make sure his skin was firm enough.
But his chances of getting the flu or even scurvy was all but non-existent since his body didn't need anything but taffy and some calcium for his bones and teeth.
Though without taste buds he couldn't enjoy food the way everyone else did, not even with the help of capsaicin or any other strong spice for that matter, so there was no reason for him even to eat anything but taffy and calcium.
His body couldn't even do anything with most of the things he ate, he was hardly able to digest most of it, and it was a pain to pass stuff that wasn't fully eaten by the fewer bacteria strains in his stomach.
He'd still eat it though.
He wasn't delusional enough to think that he was not fucked up mentally.
Normal people didn't yank out their hearts and tear up their skin to hold said organ in their hands.
But eating things other than what made up his flesh and bones helped him feel that he was still human.
And it was why, as unhealthy as it was, he held his heart in his hands, because for some reason it helped him feel just a little more human again too.
In some fucked up way that just did.
A reminder that Oswald needed more than ever at the moment.
Because despite the fact it wasn't his ass in the line of fire, he couldn't be more terrified than before in his life.
Not that he let it show, Jiki and Nejire didn't need to deal with his crap on top of everything else that was going on right now.
To focus on the monstrous man out there and would be hunting them down, or on learning to not tear their bodies apart from the new quirks they had.
Or all of the goddamn grooming crap that Nightass did.
Not on the fact that he's just about to lose his mind over everything going on.
Cause it was bad enough dealing with just that, with Mirio shutting down so hard and their strict workouts/diets to keeping their bodies from falling apart.
They didn't need to baby him on top of it all.
And it was easy to ignore his fears at first, he could dive straight into the shared anger at Nightass and focus on that instead of the other things.
But now that they had taken some action against the bastard a lot of the heat came away and without the anger to focus on, his fears began to creep back in.
And it would have been bad enough if it was just Nejire, his friend, dealing with all of this Inheritance and Quirk stealing boogie man crap.
But Jiki was also dragged into this center stage.
The stupidly shy but entirely endearing guy that he'd fallen for after being in the same class with him for almost two years now.
Someone he wasn't involved with beyond being his friend and had no place to have any say in Jiki's life decisions beyond advice and moral support.
Jiki surely didn't need the stress of his worries on top of Jiki's own wild anxiety over the whole thing.
So, here Oswald was, sitting at some gym corner and holding his heart for the fifth time that week because frankly it was either that or he had a mental breakdown, and between the two he was leaning more on taking out his heart and not losing his shit.
He'd talked about it with the therapy dog, telling him about his fears about what could happen with Jiki, not his multiple heart sessions since the therapy dog would definitely overreact about it.
And it helped somewhat, would probably help more if he talked about it all but Inu needed to focus more on everyone else.
He could wait a few weeks or a month to talk about all of the shit in his head so the man could help Nejire, Mirio and Jiki's more pressing problems.
He wasn't ignoring the problem just for selfish reasons, just prioritizing his friends mental health.
There wasn't anything wrong with that and he was keeping a pretty good lid on his crazy thank you very much.
Sure, sitting in a dark corner of one of the many gyms on campus while holding his heart in his hands might not be the best idea he's had in his life, but it wasn't his dumbest one either.
Running away in the middle of the night was definitely stupider, he was much safer doing this than hanging out in some back alley.
Okay, maybe he could have picked one that wasn't based around a swamp, but he was less likely to be found here since he didn't really use this gym, and he'd rather not explain to any of his friends or teachers what the hell he was doing.
However, it seemed his luck there had finally run out.
There could be no reason for how Jiki, the guy he was tripping over for months now, of all people to be the one to find him holding his heart while sitting in a fake swamp with the shutters closed so it looked like it was nighttime.
How he didn't hear the doors open, Oswald would never know but he fucking didn't and nearly jumped out of his skin when Jiki suddenly called out from behind him.
The soft call of "Oswald?" more than enough to make him jump to his feet and holding his heart to his chest, not able to get to his feet but leaning away from where the voice came from.
Only to realize it was Jiki a second later and then very much wanting to curl up into a ball and jumping into the swamp water in front of him.
Still though out of all the people to find him, Jiki was probably the best person since he had seen him do this shit before.
So, Oswald relaxed and leaned back against the tree.
"Fucking hell Jiki, give me a heart attack why don't you?" Oswald told his unexpected visitor, trying to play off his reaction.
Jiki, instead of apologizing like he normally would, his eyes went to his heart and then back to him, biting his lip nervously.
"Are you not, okay?" Jiki asked him only for his face to turn beet-red just like the first time he sputtered that out to him.
Oswald couldn't help snorting despite Jiki's clear embarrassment.
"I- I didn't mean to," Jiki sputtered out, his hands coming up to cover his eyes.
Oswald shook his head chuckling, using part of his hair to wrap around Jiki and guide him to sit beside him.
"I'm doing pretty good now, Jiki." Oswald told the guy, Jiki now keeping his face buried in his knees.
"So, wha-" Oswald tried to ask but Jiki interrupted him.
"No, you're not." Jiki said back, shocking him.
"You don't hold your heart when you're feeling okay." Jiki told him, lifting his head from his knees to look at Oswald directly.
His concerned violet eyes making Oswald fumble somewhat mentally.
"Well, no shit Jiki, most people would not be okay if their holding their own fucking heart." Oswald managed to say looking away from Jiki.
"Oswald your hair is twitching, it only does that when you're upset." Jiki said, making Oswald flinch.
"Since when did mister 'wall kisser' learn about behavior shit?" Oswald questioned looking back at his only company, a touch more self-conscious of his hair twitching.
Jiki hesitated.
"I didn't, but when I have tentacles, they get twitchy like your hair when I'm upset." Jiki replied, then reached forward to hold onto his arm.
Making Oswald's heart jump slightly, and he could see his heart actually do it since it was still in his hands.
"Oswald, please." Jiki said in a way that made his heart twinge.
Oswald bit his lip and turned away, shaking his head and knowing his hair was twitching from being confronted by one of the two people he really didn't want to talk about his recent mental health crap.
Jiki's hand squeezed his arm.
"Oswald." Jiki said once again making it so much worse because Oswald knew that Jiki was giving him some kind of sad, maybe teary puppy dog eyes and it was making it so much harder to not tell him.
Don't turn around. Don't turn around and look at his face.*Oswald told himself.
Unfortunately, the mental image of the sad elf boy looking pleadingly at him eventually broke him down.
"Damnit. Damnit and damn your stupidly cute begging face!" Oswald said upset as his eyes fell to his heart in his hands.
"It's, it's just that it's happening again." Oswald told him.
"What's is?" Jiki asked, looking at him somewhat lost, completely naive to what he was talking about of course.
"What always happens when I start caring about someone Jiki!" Oswald exclaimed, speaking louder than he normally would, making the other jump somewhat startled.
Oswald scoffed.
"Everything is going to go to shit all because I got too attached to you guys." Oswald venomously spat glaring down the organ silently beating in his hands, like it hadn't been the cause for all of his problems before now.
"Oswald-" Jiki tried to say but Oswald cut him off by turning to him with a glare.
"Don't you start with that 'it's not your fault' crap Jiki." Oswald snapped.
"This isn't just a doom spiral, or whatever bullshit you think it is." Oswald growled, turning away quickly because he couldn't stand to look at Jiki's hurt face for too long.
"Maybe if it was just my mom and aunt Trinity, I'd fucking believe you about this just being some massive but shitty coincidence, but it's not Jiki." Oswald told him.
"Whatever curse I got from who knows what just started with them, left them burnt and homeless and in pain for fucking years." Oswald said shifting his heart to one hand so he could move his other hand to emphasize his point.
"And my best friend back then, you know from before everything went tits up with my family? Her house got destroyed by the same flaming fuck-face that hurt them, so she lost both her parents and got sent to live with some grandparent she never met before." Oswald recounted, his heart clenching as he remembered her.
Or more like what he couldn't remember about her since he had been too fucking young to remember the girl that clearly.
"Every goddamn time I start caring about someone it always the same, crap happens, and their life gets fucking worse and not long after their just gone." Oswald told Jiki, his exhaustion souring his tone even further.
"I didn't make friends for years and the crap show stopped, then just when I start getting attached to people again," Oswald said shaking his head as he let it hang, he scoffed.
"Miyake's brother nearly dies to a serial killer. Mirio is tormented by his class and groomed by Nightass. Then Hado and you not only have to deal with the quirk boogeyman on your asses but a bunch of quirks that might kill you if you don't use them right." Oswald listed off for Jiki.
"And I tried my best not let myself spiral about this shit, things haven't gone completely pear-shaped but fucking hell Jiki what the hell else am I supposed to think when for the twentieth damn time the people I get close to-" Oswald's rant was cut off by Jiki suddenly yanking him up by the arm.
Oswald scrambled to not drop his heart, and he was about to ask Jiki what the hell, but Jiki was not done yanking him around.
Jiki pulled him down into the water, which was pretty cold.
"Jiki what are you-" Oswald tried to ask but then watched as Jiki poured water over his hands then brought water to his mouth and spat it out on the shore.
"Jiki seriously what are you-" Oswald questioned but stopped when Jiki suddenly grabbed his heart from his hands.
Shocked silent by Jiki's boldness in literally stealing his heart.
He was only able to watch as Jiki poured the cold as-hell water directly onto his organ, sending all sorts of shocking sensations through him and making him shudder.
He was about to ask what Jiki thought he was doing but then Jiki began speaking in old Japanese, the words coming from his lips in a lyrical way that complied him to just listen to Jiki.
"Kiwamete kitanaki mo tamari nakere ba. Kitanaki to was araji uchi to no tamagaki. Kiyoku kiyoshi to maosu." Jiki started chanting.
"Uh, Jiki what are you doing?" Oswald finally asked him after Jiki repeated himself for the third time.
Jiki shaken from whatever trance he was in, his face flushed.
"Trying to get rid of all of the kegare attached to you by reciting the prayer for complete purification." Jiki bashfully told him.
Oswald stared at Jiki in disbelief, touched that Jiki hadn't tried to convince him that he was wrong and that it was all in his head, but part of him wanted to laugh at how seriously Jiki took this, that he felt the need to rid him of what was plaguing him.
"God, of course I'd fall for you when you're doing shit like this." Oswald said shaking his head with huff of bemusement before looking back to Jiki.
Jiki's face turned completely red, and Oswald cursed himself internally because he wasn't supposed to be flirting with Jiki right now.
"Sorry Jiki, I shouldn't have-" Oswald tried to apologize reaching to take back his heart.
Jiki though was not done shocking him though as Jiki suddenly clutched his heart to his chest protectively, unintentionally yanking him forward and Oswald tripped on a branch under the water.
"Fuck!" Oswald exclaimed, reaching out and steadied himself on Jiki's shoulders before he could have fallen over and taken the two of them both down into the water.
Oswald paused making sure that neither he nor Jiki would actually fall over and looked himself over.
Sure, they weren't he turned back to glare at the uprooted branch.
"Stupid fucking-" he hissed under his breath but couldn't because Jiki suddenly said "Want you." under his breath and Oswald's head snapped back to him.
"What?" Oswald questioned because there was no way that Jiki of all people would be so-
Jiki slamming his face into his in attempt to kiss him was more than enough to answer.
But he did not think Jiki accidentally breaking his nose in the attempt was part of Jiki's half-baked plan.
"I-I'm so sorry Oswald! I-I didn't-You're bleeding!" Jiki sputtered as he pulled away then looked scared and confused when pinkish-red came out of his nose.
"I'm okay, Jiki." Oswald tried to assure Jiki, his words muffled as he held his nose, pain flaring from doing so but he didn't want to lost any more blood.
"Just let me put my heart back in my chest and then we can go see Recovery girl to get my nose fixed." Oswald told Jiki, using his hair to grab his heart back from Jiki, Jiki thankfully not fighting him this time.
"R-right Recovery girl." Jiki agreed, nodding his head and then when his heart was safely in his chest Jiki rushed forward and scooped Oswald up.
And before Oswald could so much as squeak from Jiki picking him up like some princess they were up and flying in the air towards the main building.
State of characters as of now
Oz: being scolded by Recovery girl about being reckless since he lied about how he broke his nose
Jiki: Head buried in the wall out of shame and embarrassment over how poorly his confession went that a dent will be left in the wall
Nana: Attempting to console Jiki
rest of the holders: ran off to their spaces and still hiding.
Yagi: feeling second hand embarrassment and trying to do his paperwork in his office
Hado: Celebrating and already planning the wedding while telling their friends to good news