Quick update before I go back to writing. Short chapter.

Mei was weird. The good kind of weird so far, but he could definitely say she had her own way of doing things. After the death pile incident and what followed, he was still far from fine, but his host had a few ideas. By few, he meant too many for him to follow. She reminded him of a cat doing the zoomies, the difference being that she was trucking around scrap and tools that weighed enough to make Takuma's back ache from the sight alone.

She asked him his height and weight, noted them down, and then promptly forgot about it within the span of thirty seconds, as he physically had to take a step back from her and her mind, which was running a mile a minute. It was an interesting spectacle given he had no background to understand what the hell she was doing at any given point. Sure, he could recognize a tool here or a piece of gear being torn down for components, but the overall goal? Nope, not in a million years. So, he decided to do his best and look pretty somewhere where she wouldn't risk ramming into him by mistake, because he doubted she even remembered he was there.

So yes, weird.

Around the two-hour mark of watching her cutting apart metal with her plasma cutter, wiring the leg of an exoskeleton, and cutting some fabric with an oversized sword (for what reason, he didn't dare ask), he was fine where he was: firmly in the no-stabby zone.

Watching her work was entertaining in the sense that he was endlessly surprised at what she was pulling around the workshop, and the passion and joy were something he loved experiencing, even if it was second-hand and behind a mental wall that failed to do its job. He was at least getting some good Quirk training out of it since her emotional state was turned up to eleven, and he needed to find a way to keep his mind from being warped by a single bad actor.

This morning had been a wake-up call, and he was now more guarded around her. She wasn't actively trying to alter his thoughts, but even then, he was still working on understanding and reducing the output she was sending him. It wasn't as exhausting as catching a girl tumbling from a pile of scrap, but it was still a different kind of effort that left him with a bad case of brain fog and bone-deep exhaustion. He stumbled out of the hangar and the feeding frenzy going on there to try to get some distance, hoping to lessen the onslaught this way.

Back in the house proper wasn't much better, but simply being in a different room from her helped him compartmentalize her own feelings from his own. And he wanted to go back to something simple for a bit; rice was simple and easy to make. He fumbled with the cooker, mistook the microwave for the fridge, and tried to heat up ice somehow, but he still managed to make something edible in the end. It was a sloshy mess, but he had eaten worse before, so he barely felt the difference. Takuma was flagging hard by that point, and his attempt at resting his eyes for a second turned into a nap right there and then, with his arms crossed on the table and his head resting on them.

He woke up sometime later when the microwave door was closed, and Mei was done heating up her dinner. She was dirty, with some grease and oil on her face and clothes. He didn't need to look at her to know she was in a good mood.

"Night munchies," she told him as she bit into the plate of rice covered in shredded cheese.

"Night munchies?" he repeated, nodding thoughtfully.

"Night munchies," she said again with determination as she scarfed down the food on her plate.

Her emotions were now at a more manageable level, and he wasn't as overwhelmed as he was before. She was exhausted; he could feel a bit of pain around her forearm, a small burn the size of a hundred-yen coin at best. It stung a little, and he was surprised not to see her try and treat it. He stood up and went to the cupboard, where he retrieved her first-aid kit and started to lay it on the table. He found the painkillers easily and set them aside for later, but what he was looking for was a cream to treat her burn. He found a half-empty pot and grabbed a clean cloth before asking for her arm.

She looked at him with a bit of confusion, which didn't surprise him as much since he could recognize a pattern when he saw one. Mei was easily distracted, had close to no object permanence, and forgot where she put some things barely a second after putting them down. Watching her work had been an eye-opening experience, and he could see how she wouldn't realize she sported some minor bruise. Extending his hand toward her wrist, he gently grabbed it, and when she didn't move to pull her hand back, he turned it to reveal the nasty red mark on her forearm.

He watched her eyes focus on the burn before a groan of frustration burst out from her lips. Seeing as she wasn't against his treatment, he pulled her wrist closer to him, grabbed a clean cloth, and started to dab the burn with the cloth to remove the layer of oil and grease. He tried to be gentle, but a burn was a burn, and even with his second-hand experience, he couldn't make the cleaning of her reddened skin painless. He was quick and efficient, washing his hands and pouring some water from a glass on her skin to make sure the area was as clean as possible before applying the cream. Mei reacted with a hiss of relief that passed through her clenched teeth, and he made sure to apply the cool mixture evenly around the area before he started to bandage it. He made the bandage tight but not too tight before tying both ends into a bow.

Her eyes focused on it before a smile made its way to her lips. "Thanks."

He nodded slowly. "Night munchies."

She barked a laugh and kept at it for a few good seconds before regaining some sort of composure. Yeah, he was proud of that one.

"I'm going to take a shower. I've got school in like two hours, so... bye," she sang the last word and left for her bedroom, and soon after, he could hear the shower start running.

'Hopefully, she thought about keeping her bandage dry.'

In the meantime, he wasn't doing great, and some more sleep looked downright amazing right now, so he took his place on the couch and closed his eyes again.