The night had started well enough. After looking through his answers and taking note of the subject he needed to work on until the next mock-up test, because he knew Mei would trick him again at the first opportunity and she wouldn't even be sorry. There were worse things to be tricked on so he didn't mind too much. They ate dinner, and since it was Friday, they dived under the blanket to keep watching the show they had started about a month ago. Everything had gone about as normal, with him being completely lost as to what was happening on the screen and Mei fighting to dumb things down enough for him to get the jokes. It was a nice evening he enjoyed sharing with her, and he truly didn't need his Quirk to know she did too; the spark in her eyes and sometimes maniacal laughter when she succeeded in translating the science was a good indicator in itself that she was having as much fun as he was. Then her mood made a one-eighty without an explanation.
"Mei?" he asked gently as he tapped on her tablet screen to stop the video. "Is something wrong?"
No answer. Not really surprising since she had a habit of getting stuck in her head when inspiration struck, but she was usually better at keeping track of her surroundings. Her emotions were confusing; she had gone from content and excited to see the next scene to a confused set of emotions. He could feel her parsing through them slowly as anxiety rose slowly in her chest. His instincts were screaming at him that something was definitely wrong when her breath picked up, and she started to raise her knee up to her chest. From his point of view, she was a few breaths away from a panic attack, and he knew how much those sucked, and the last thing he wanted was for her to go through one.
Slipping from under the blanket, he slowly moved it over her shoulder, hiding her entirely under the warmth it provided while allowing him to see and grab her hand that was holding her knee to her chest. He started making circles with his thumb on the back of her hand. "You know, I really liked how the boots you made turned out. When you incorporated a way for heel kick to project fire like I recommended, that made me really happy."
His words had the effect he hoped for, slowly pulling his friend from the spiraling whirlwind of thoughts that was running through her mind. He didn't have her attention, not yet. Touching her hand as a way to keep her grounded helped; he started squeezing it at random intervals as a way for her not to be able to predict them and tune them out. "I know I always complain about not needing a costume, lately I've been doing it more because I don't want to admit that I'm really excited with what you're going to come up with."
Her breath slowed down slightly; she was calming down. At the cost of some embarrassing revelation. It was a price he was more than ready to pay. "Remember last Thursday when I was too busy cooking to feel you come in? When I screamed, I didn't actually burn my hand on the stove; you just scared me, and I was too embarrassed to tell you the truth."
He heard a small giggle coming from her as she buried her face in the blanket; her shoulders shook with mirth. "You didn't."
"I did," he said with a self-deprecating laugh. "Not my brightest idea, but going balls to the wall with a believable story served me well in the past when I'm caught by surprise."
She raised her head, revealing a small smile on her lips. He could feel her exhaustion from the backlash of emotions she had gone through in the last minute. "I knew something was wrong; your hand didn't even look burnt."
He blushed at being called out on his improvisation. "It was in the moment; I'm usually better at improvising on the fly."
She giggled again, with her expression turning into a small sad frown right after.
"Do you want space?" he asked. Now that she was back, he could start asking about what happened, and he couldn't do it if she wasn't comfortable with his presence.
"No!" she said more vehemently than he expected. "No, I mean yes, no, just..." She lost herself in her words and simply sighed and moved the blanket so that she could lay against him and cover him at the same time, sharing the warmth the piece of fabric offered.
Her arm curled against his chest with her head resting against the crook of his neck wasn't something she expected herself to do. He still laid a hand on her back to bring her closer, while the other went next to her jaw against her cheek. She found it thrilling; the tingle in her spine grew exponentially as she more or less burrowed into his side, and he wondered if it was linked to what just happened to her.
"I'm going to take that as a no," he chuckled with a smile in his voice.
He wasn't the origin of her fit, and that knowledge took a weight off his shoulders. Again, as she was close to him, there were some things that he couldn't stop himself from feeling. Her fear, not of him thankfully, but in a more general manner; the fear of not being good enough for something. Contentment; Mei was happy, and she was close to him, and that filled her with a mix of positive emotions he didn't pry into.
He started to gently rub her cheek with his thumb, most likely due to the echo of what he did with her hand replaying in her mind, pushing him to mimic his action again. A thrill ran through her as she shivered and tilted her head to the side just enough for him to be able to caress her skin more easily.
Then he felt something that made him do a double take.
Desire.
Desire wasn't lust, he told himself, clamping down on his rising anxiety. It was different from the sickening feeling he despised being the target of. It was lighter, less pervasive to his senses. It reflected something deeper than typical physical attraction usually brought with it. It was a feeling that went farther than what the eyes met and took into account who the person was. And then everything made sense. Now he knew why he couldn't recognize what Mei felt toward him for so long. Because this was the closest feeling to love that he had ever been the target of.
What he had started to refer to as the tingling in her spine was the physical representation of her attraction to him through the lens of his Quirk. Takuma wasn't stupid; he knew Mei liked how he looked. He was always wary of teasing his physique, and after the first time Mei had caught him without a shirt, he'd made sure not to make that same mistake again. And of course, it was without taking into account what his Quirk told him; when a stray thought came to her mind, she sometimes took a longer look at his body than usual. He knew she was a safe person to be around, but it didn't mean he enjoyed that kind of attention, not when he didn't have a choice but to be keenly aware of it.
And then there was the fact that Mei was now aware of her feelings. Takuma didn't remember what they were watching before her sudden bout of panic. His lack of ability to interact with people he couldn't read made even watching a video a difficult task. Something must have happened during a scene that clued her in on her own feelings. This meant the fear came from something very personal to her, something he had noticed. It was the reason why, when he had laid in front of her, demonstrating how powerless he was against her, all those weeks ago, she had used that opportunity to ask him to be her friend.
Mei knew she didn't fit in with most people, which was why she usually turned her "Mei-ness" up to eleven with pretty much everyone. She was so afraid of being rejected that she used a literal 'Get out of jail' card to make a friend.
With his Quirk, it was as plain as if she had told him herself. Even when he tried his best to keep her out of his thoughts, he couldn't do it entirely. Even now, as she more or less laid on his chest and was slowly parsing through her own feelings following the epiphany she had gone through, he couldn't do anything to stop himself from experiencing them. He could feel and see her coming to her own conclusions. And while she was doing that, he could already see the shape of what she wanted, hoped for. A kiss on the crown of the head—an important part of her hoped Takuma would show a sign that what she was feeling wasn't in vain, and could be reciprocated in some way. He hated his Quirk, allowing him to peer into the minds of others was one thing, but not giving him a chance to let a girl he had learned to love and respect experience her own thoughts and emotions in the privacy of her own mind was another.
Because one thing was certain: he loved her. He just didn't know if he loved her in quite the way she was hoping for, or even if it was right to burden her with him.
Mei was the first person in his life to break down his walls so thoroughly that he was left speechless as to what to do. He hadn't made friends, ever. The closest people to him, Nova and Danny, could barely be called friends by most standards. But to him, they were. Someone who had your back, someone you could trust, was worth everything. And then the little gremlin inventor whose life he had saved decided that he needed more, and the worst thing was that he didn't even see it coming. He wasn't supposed to experience a relationship; he had long ago accepted that he would die before he ever had something like that in his life. This past month living with Mei had been like a fever dream; he could barely remember what he was doing before he met her. His life had changed so completely after meeting her that it was like a before and after of the saddest, most pathetic life in existence. He wasn't supposed to want the things she made him want. The physical affection was one thing he craved; she was the one who made him realize that, the way she listened to him and actually cared about what he had to say. It meant the world to him.
Did he want something more? He didn't even know how he could go about answering this question. Mei had feelings for a while, even if they both couldn't recognize them. How much did she impact his thoughts? Could he trust himself to decide if this was something he wanted when he had been bathed in her desire for close to a month? With his Quirk, nothing was certain; even if he was sure nothing had slipped into his mind, it was still something that could happen. He didn't know if he could trust himself. So how could he even begin to work out what he wanted?
And then, of course, there was the question of whether it was even fair for Mei to entertain the idea. He had shared some of his past, but not the part that made him closer to a Villain than a Hero. It wasn't fair for her to have feelings for someone like him when the only thing he deserved was a bullet in the head and an unmarked grave.
"It kind of got out of hand," Mei said, her eyes gazing into his own as she tried to work out some of her nerves with small talk. He didn't miss the flush in her cheek and the way her trembling voice denoted a mix of excitement and fear from the epiphany that had flooded her thoughts.
"It did; you can't control where and when you're going to have a bad time," he replied with a smile he hoped was comforting, all the while freaking out internally.
He didn't know what to do with himself. He could feel what she wanted, and he could easily give it to her. A small kiss on her hair, another on the cheek, and he knew that would be all the reassurance Mei needed to go for a kiss herself. It was what made being close to anyone impossible. He could feel close to everything, a step removed from hearing her thoughts in his head. With so much information, there was little he could do that wouldn't be seen as manipulating her. He didn't want to hurt her, and in doing so, there was little he could do.
"Thanks for getting me out of my head," she whispered while curling up slightly more against him.
His arm was out of place now; moving it could be seen as a gesture Mei could misunderstand. Was it right? He didn't know, so he didn't do anything. He couldn't. He stopped caressing her cheek with his thumb. He could feel her regret the feeling, and he saw the hope that he would restart the movement bloom in her thoughts. But he couldn't; it was wrong. He was wrong for knowing what he did. He hated it.
"It's nothing; you would have done the same for me," he said neutrally, afraid to say the wrong thing.
He could already feel her readying herself for something; it wasn't close to lust, so he didn't feel threatened, but she was gathering her courage for something, of that he was sure. And he knew Mei wasn't stupid; he had rambled enough times about his Quirk for her to understand how it worked. She knew he had witnessed her internal struggle, and for some reason, he didn't feel the hate, fear, and disgust that usually followed these kinds of realizations. It was new territory; Mei trusted him, and because of that, she didn't feel the need to hide her feelings. She trusted him enough to push through her fear of rejection.
She shifted her weight back into a seated position, pulling him to keep him close. "I..." she started to say before cutting herself off. Then she turned her head toward him, her mind set.
Was she about to kiss him? Takuma didn't know what to do, what to feel. Was this something he wanted?
Mei's lips landed against his cheek. A hot breath and warm lips later, he was still, like a deer caught in the headlights.
His surprise must have shown, because Mei blushed like the sun itself was trying to give her a tan; her eyes were darting everywhere, snapping from one side of the room to the other, going in and out of focus in a flurry of fear, excitement, and nerves. "Think about it," she then said in a small voice.
For some reason, thinking was the last thing he could do. His mind had gone blank, and all he could focus on was where she had kissed him. The act replayed in his mind again and again. And he wasn't against it; far from it. It filled him with something he couldn't explain; his heart beat like never before, and he felt more alive than ever. Maybe this was how he truly felt. He hoped it was, even if he knew he shouldn't.
"Mei," he whispered, yet his voice broke all the same, as if he had screamed for the last hour.
He certainly felt like it.
This time, it was her who grabbed his hand. "You don't have to say anything," she reassured him. "We can talk about it tomorrow."
He couldn't speak, so Takuma nodded. She smiled, a sad smile but a smile all the same. Mei yearned for an answer, but she was willing to give him the time to find it. "Good night."
She stood, making sure the blanket was still firmly over him before she walked away.
"Good night!" he called before she could disappear into her room.
Again, she smiled at him, then waved before disappearing out of his sight. It was the most breathtaking sight he had ever seen in his entire life.
He let himself fall on his side, his head landing against the pillow he had long ago gotten accustomed to. "What the hell am I supposed to do?"
There were so many reasons he shouldn't entertain the thought of a relationship with Mei. All of them were because of him; he couldn't think of anything in her that he disliked. None that mattered, anyway.
He could still feel her mind. She wasn't ever safe from his sickening ability, even when he tried his best to keep it contained. Her bravery extinguished, she was now racked with anxiety, looking forward to tomorrow with as much dread as excitement. If he knew his friend—and he knew her well—she wouldn't sleep a wink tonight. And if he was honest, neither would he. Because for some reason, his hands were shaking, and that never preluded anything good.
Too early? Too rushed? Does this chapter leave you with a sick feeling in your stomach? Well, if it does, that means I did something right, because that was what I was going for. Mei was the only one who could even begin to make this a thing, and given the whole monkey see, monkey do dynamic that she had going on, along with the knowledge of Takuma being an Empath and the close bond forged in the last month, it made sense for her to go straight for it, bypassing the whole will they, won't they scenario a normal story would typically go through. Of course, we haven't even touched on whether our boy is ready for it. Some sprinkles of backstory here and there might have already answered that question for some of you. Next chapter Sunday