Mind Games - Chapter 10

Her friends were still around, just not immediately present.

“Th-thank you,” Himiko mumbled, her head dipped low, her fingers twitching. “For that.”

I hummed as we walked into the music shop, steering her towards the vinyls. “You're welcome. Everyone needs help sometimes, though, so don't worry about it.”

The words were at least partly performative, and I think she knew that was why I said them. Of course, I also meant them, but she wouldn't believe that at that moment. An hour and change into our 'date,' I was becoming fluent in the Toga Himiko dialect of body language and subtly glancing at the various pieces of her broken psyche in various near-supernatural ways. At this point, it was no mystery to me how she'd snapped and gone insane given how close she was already.

“I don't...” Himiko's face shifted through a mix of expression awkwardly, a fractal mess of projected emotions. She visibly gave it up for a bad job and shook her head. When she spoke next, her tone carried a frustrated tension that didn't pair with words she chose or the level of her voice. “I don't know what to say.”

I sighed, stepping up to the vinyl bins and beginning to flip through them. “Yeah, your friends were kind of a buzz-kill, huh? Just stand beside me and lean on my shoulder. We can keep talking and everyone around us will think we're talking about music or being a cute couple or something.”

Himiko gave an interested hum and, after a moment's hesitation looking me over, did as I'd suggested and snuggled up next to me as she looped her left arm into the crook of my right.

She'd almost certainly seen two people take this exact stance before to slip into it so fluidly.

“Buzz-kill,” Himiko stated as I founded the 'several centuries old' section of reprint record labels and pulled a pair out. “I don't understand. Explain?”

I hummed in the back of my throat. “It was fun, giving each other puzzles? I enjoyed interacting with you like that, trying to pick out what you meant behind what you said. It's hard getting back into the groove now that they interrupted it.”

Himiko was silent for a moment as I paused to flip a worn cardboard cover over and read the list of songs before setting it aside. “You... see me, don't you?”

I flicked a look her way, my lavender gaze meeting her golden cat's eyes and the blank emotionless stare behind it. I smothered a smile, something inside me resonating with her unmasked and bare self. The way I looked her dead in the eye and didn't flinch, though, was obviously answer enough as she huffed irritably and looked back down at the records I was flipping through.

Her coat-clad form twisted against me uncomfortably as she took a moment to consider her reply. “No one else does. I don't know if I like it.”

“I feel similarly,” I admitted, mixing truth and lies. My disclosure to Himiko was more voluntary, at least in deciding how to react to her and what signals to give off, but it was still a bit vertigo-inducing to let people see behind the facade. I'd been an intensely private person my entire lives, though the last two months had given me a substantially larger reason to be so. Plus, Hitoshi's entire experience...

There was a moment of silence as Himiko reached out and plucked a death metal album from my hands, the cover splattered with an artistic rendition of gore as she looked it over performatively before placing it back in the stack I was flipping through. A trace of something more authentic, similar to longing, crossed her face before it blanked out again.

“Do you want a boyfriend?” I asked bluntly, apropos of nothing.

Himiko opened her mouth to reply and I glimpsed the first slivers of her mask slipping back into place.

“Honesty, please,” I requested.

Someone else's pout flickered over her lips before she leveled a look of mild irritation at me. “No, I don't. They want things. They like to talk about me and ask questions and get scared when I say the wrong things and then tell their friends like they don't think about what comes out of their mouth.”

Ugly resentment bubbled up to the surface, truly authentic emotion for once. For some reason, though...

An honest scowl on her face is more adorable than a hundred fake smiles.

It wasn't romantic, the affection I felt, not quite yet... but it would be, if I kept associating with her. I was self-aware to that extent, at least. I knew where that would lead, too, almost certainly. There wasn't much of an alternative, though. Even if I could write up a professional-looking report and hand it off to authorities that would actually take it seriously, any sufficiently-insightful analysis of Himiko's psychological state would almost certainly result in her being institutionalized to some degree.

Especially if anyone realizes exactly how dangerous she really is.

In a better world, I'd be able to choose a good solution to her problems. As things stood, I was stuck choosing the least bad option from an already-poor set.

“I don't particularly want a girlfriend, either.” Another pseudo-lie with elements of truth. “Girls want to talk about feelings, get mad when you don't pay them enough attention, want me to take them to see silly idol shows, and waste time on their interests which I could spend training instead.”

All of which were true, but none of which applied to Himiko herself.

The girl at my side made a noise of wordless agreement and I guessed she'd likely resolved to remain quiet. It was a good coping strategy, one she and I had in common when we didn't know where the conversation was going. It was better than making a humiliating, or worse, misstep.

“The problem is,” I drawled slowly as I picked out another album. “I don't have any friends for the same reasons. A girlfriend, specifically, is out of the question due to my quirk.”

Her gaze sharpened and her grip tightened, reading something more than the words in my statement. “The steak. You know. How?”

“Hot Ice asked Dr. Garaki about any irregularities in the bloodwork of the people who'd been rescued,” I replied. “He mentioned one of them had a quirk related to blood consumption. He didn't refer to you by name, but between the implications and the flash of your canines earlier, I made an educated guess.”

Himiko stared at me intensely. “If you tell anyone, I'll hurt you.”

I stared back and nodded. “Okay.”

She stared at me for another long moment, then nodded in agreement. “I mean it, just so you know. I've done it before, when a boy wouldn't leave me alone.”

Honesty as beautiful as a naked blade.

Yep, I was in trouble.

“I believe you,” I stated firmly, and I very much did. “It's easy for a girl to ruin a guy's life without ever resorting to violence. My quirk is 'Brainwashing.' You saw me use it. Your friends came along to make sure I didn't use it on you, you know?”

Himiko jerked her head. “They think they could actually do anything to help me if you wanted to hurt me.”

I chuckled, unable to help myself this time. Himiko shot me a look, her lip twitching to reveal a too-sharp tooth. “My point being... a cute girl without a boyfriend attracts men to attempt to fill the position. A guy without friends, a girlfriend, or any close acquaintances... has no witnesses to speak in his defense; no one to tell other people he's trustworthy if someone starts being suspicious.”

Himiko hummed thoughtfully, picking up another album to glance over. Again, it was a particularly bloody cover. “So if I'm dating someone, my friends won't try to get me to go on more dates?”

“You and I would be responsible for determining when we would see each other,” I replied, just a touch dryly. “At least, that's how I've been told it works.”

“Right, that's how they talk about each other's dates,” Himiko muttered, mostly to herself. “Which means they'd ask me questions, ugh.”

“Questions you'd have answers to,” I pointed out idly, and the blond girl blinked in surprise, realizing I was right. “Do you think you'd be interested in that arrangement? Covering for each other?”

Himiko was silent for another moment, her gold eyes and blank face studying me before she smiled someone else's smile. “You called me cute, didn't you?”

I smiled, throttling the expression to make it appear plastic enough for her keen eyes to pick it out. My success was marked by a hint of pearly teeth gleaming through. “Well, you do have a guy here trying to ask you out on more dates, so you'd have to be pretty cute, wouldn't you think?”

Himiko giggled and leaned onto my arm. “Hmm... so, what movie did you want to go see?”

“How about we make it a surprise?” I asked, equally playfully.

Himiko opened her mouth to reply-

“Hey, can I help you find anything?”

We both startled slightly as we noticed a girl our age approaching. I could have said it was a surprise as to her identity, but I'd be lying more than I usually did. No, I'd noticed her when I'd come the week previous to scope out the shopping arcade for today. Instead, I merely kept my smile on my face as I turned to regard Jiro Kyoka, an employee's smock tossed sloppily over casual clothing as her earphone jacks twitched to the pop number turned down low in the background.

“Actually, I was wondering if you had any Blue Oyster Cult vinyls?” I asked, sending Himiko a wink.

Kyoka blinked in surprise, taking a moment to respond. “The, uh... original or the copycat group started up by Dharma's great-granddaughter?”

“Original,” I replied smoothly. “Don't get me wrong, the second band had their hits, but accept no replacements.”

Kyoka hissed out a breath, her eyes flicking towards Himiko who watched on with a vapid smile, then down to where our arms were joined. “Damn, you're dating aren't you? Ugh, the guys who have decent taste in music are always taken. Over here, then.”

Leading us to a large wall of boxes, Kyoka pulled out her phone and began tapping through what was probably an inventory list. “Not many people our age are into vinyl.”

I decided to take the invitation for what it was. “My dad has a collection he inherited from his grandfather during the Dark Age, back when the internet shut down. The walls in our house aren't that thick, so I hear a lot of it. Which, sadly, made me realize that I can actually tell the difference between a digital copy and a real record.”

Kyoka blinked, turning to look at me. “Sadly? That just means you've got good ears. People who can't hear the difference are annoying. They don't get it.”

I sighed and nodded. “Yeah, but I used to be one of those people. Switching camps is annoying.”

Kyoka snorted, grinning.

“Is there a difference?” Himiko interjected, frowning slightly as she twirled a lock of hair around a finger. “My friends always called people who said that 'hipsters.'”

Kyoka bristled, but I simply chuckled and tilted my head towards the in-store listening stations where you could slip on a pair of headphones and test a CD, record, or cassette before buying. “Maybe we'll come back here some other day and see about testing your hearing.”

Vague interest flitted across her face. “Hmm... I guess. We do have that movie we're going to see. That you won't tell me what its name is.”

I was about to say, 'surprises are fun,' but caught myself at the last second. They really, really weren't, especially for someone like her. Like me, too. Surprises meant having to adhoc a reaction to a stimulus you weren't prepared for, worst of all in a social setting. I relented, “The Ninja Werewolves VS The Vampire Pirates.”

Kyoka snorted again, ducking her head as she bent over into the giant bin of records she'd opened. “Oh God, that looked so horrible! That ad where the one guy gets cut in half with a chainsaw! It's just such an American grindhouse B-movie.”

Unseen by the other girl, Himiko narrowed her eyes at me slightly, but nodded as her eyes gleamed. “Well... I guess if you're paying for the tickets... and the snacks... and one of those cute litle pillows the theater offers, too!”

“I guess if that's the price I have to pay to cuddle with my cute girlfriend, I'll have to pay it,” I replied, my tone the picture of faux-regret.

“Please spare me the cuteness, some of us don't have dates,” Kyoka replied in a good-natured gripe. “Ah, here they are! Which ones?”

I glanced at the tags, did a mental calculation of my finances, then reached out and tapped five of them. There was no reason to get egregious about throwing around money and I'd have to carry them home anyway. That, and my new record storage IKEA cabinet was still in the mail. Of course, having another excuse to come back here and touch base with Kyoka again wasn't an awful idea. The more people I knew at UA, the more friendships I cultivated, the easier of a time I would have it.

That done, I paid Jiro off for the records and we left, heading towards the movie theater.

“You know... just because I drink blood doesn't mean I automatically enjoy seeing it,” Himiko commented, her tone contrarian.

“It's customary for the boy to take the girl to a movie which is either frightening or gross in order to find an excuse to cuddle up with her while she's afraid,” I explained.

Himiko frowned slightly. “But I'm not going to get afraid. It's not as if pictures on a screen can scare me, and you know that. If it's not cute, it's not worth being excited over.”

I nodded, even if I thought she would enjoy the blood and guts. “I know that, but it will give you something to complain about to your friends when they ask about how your date went. I'm given to understand that women paradoxically prefer at least one glaring imperfection in any romantic companion due to the fact that it gives them the ability to compare themselves in a positive light against their own insecurities and inadequacies. This, in turn, makes them feel better about themselves and provides something to gossip about to their friends.”

The blond at my side blinked rapidly, cocking her head in silence as we walked towards the movie theater. Eventually, she nodded. “Huh, that makes sense. And it's really stupid.”

“Yep,” I nodded. I decided the revelation of, 'I can fix the bad boy,' could wait until another day. The sad thing was, that given the 'past lives' I now remembered, I probably understood women, normal ones at least, better than Himiko herself.

A thoughtful look played over Himiko's face. “You're really going to be a hero?”

I raised an eyebrow at the left turn in the conversation, but realized why it had happened after a moment's thought. “Understanding why people do things, like committing crimes, is actually quite important to being a hero.”

“I guess, you never see that on TV though. It's all about fun fights against villains. Are you really interning with Endeavor's Agency?” Himiko pressed.

I nodded, having seen no reason to hide it from her friends, even hoping it would make them a bit more relaxed around me. Which, save for Ami, it had seemed to do as they squealed in excitement so loudly that the wait staff had given our group the evil eye. “I've actually got a lot of internship offers. One of them even came in before we got abducted, but it was from an agency I didn't recognize and couldn't find much on.”

The mystery document that my principal had handed me, that I'd only had time to read a week later, had actually turned out to be an internship offer after all. It was just from some no-name 'Strong Hero' group on the outskirts of Tokyo that positively reeked of an AFO trap. Well, either that, or some rando hero had caught my chat with Kirishima when it went viral and just invited me over on a lark.

But I had other options now, even if I was a bit leery of them.

In particular, the one hero I didn't want to touch with a ten-foot pole was Todoroki Enji. His behavior, as I'd seen it, had repulsed me in a way few characters had. Even unrepentant monsters like Garaki and All For One himself didn't summon up the sheer revulsion I held for Endeavor. There were a lot of reasons for that, but the biggest was the unrepentant hypocrisy of white-washing the real, actual crimes the man had committed against his own family in comparison with the lofty station in society he held.

The man was a child-abusing possible marital-rapist who'd purchased his wife from her family by paying off their debts to engage in a eugenics experiment so that he could win the popularity contest that was law-enforcement in this world by proxy.

 I mean, I work for literal interdimensional slavers and even I'm a better person than that monster.

But... the prospect of a version of Endeavor who was, by Fuyumi's possibly-biased retelling, actually a decent person?

I was morbidly curious.

If I was going to be going to school with the man's daughter, I needed to know whether he was the living embodiment of everything I hated and despised.

“I'm really going to intern there,” I nodded, speaking as much to myself as I was to Himiko. “I don't know if I'll be working with Endeavor himself, but I should at least see the man once or twice during the two weeks I'm there. You should hear all about it on my stream before we manage to go on another date, though.”

Himiko smiled, then turned to look over the movie poster.

“I'm not going to like it just because it has a lot of blood,” she reminded me.

“It's a B-movie,” I replied with a shrug. “You're not supposed to like it.”

I was right, she didn't like it.

She loved it.

...

Dad was sitting in the living room reading a magazine when I got home, the stereo set playing what I'd consider classics and what he considered something more like 'antique rock.' The atmosphere in the house was even more oppressive than usual and I leaned against my Defenses to hold out against it. I smiled at my dad, who historically hated any kind of print media that wasn't a hard-bound book.

“You didn't have to wait up for me,” I stated mildly, dropping my bag full of records onto the sofa and stretching tiredly with a massive yawn. “I'm about to go to bed myself.”

“I-I figured you would,” Niko stated awkwardly, throwing the magazine down on the nightstand and turning his attention fully onto me. “You... had fun? Everything went okay?”

“Everything went fine. She showed up with her friends, we all had a meal together at a public restaurant, and I never went anywhere private with any of them. I bragged about my internship coming up and I think that made them realize I was serious about the hero thing,” I explained, falling onto the sofa myself.

“Good,” Niko stated, sighing in relief as he leaned back. The heavy air in the house lightened with his mood. “That's... good. I'm really happy for you, Hitoshi. H-how about... Himiko, was it? How was she?”

“We talked. I think we'll have another date, probably after I get done with Endeavor,” I replied. “Neither of us are looking for anything serious right now. Evidently, her friends have been on her back about getting a boyfriend even though she doesn't really want to date, so we'll be keeping it casual for however long this lasts. Probably depends on where we each go to high school, really.”

“Excellent,” Dad smiled, practically melting into his lounger. “Th-that sounds like you're both level-headed, then. So... when are you bringing her over?”

I raised an eyebrow at the man silently, staring at him. He at least had the good grace to chuckle self-consciously. “Let me have three dates, meet her parents, and I'll bring her by for dinner.”

“Sounds great!” Niko grinned, standing before he stopped abruptly. “Oh! I almost forgot, a package came with your name on it. I left it by the door to your room. More computer parts?”

“Finally,” I rubbed at my face. “Yeah, that should be the last of it. My new desktop kept overheating so I brought a better set of heatsinks and some higher-end thermal paste than I could find in local shops.”

“Well, if you need any help, you've got your old man to call on. I've built a few computers in my day. Including your old desktop,” he reminded me.

“If I get stuck I'll know who to come to,” I promised. “But I want to try and iron out all the kinks myself first, before I ask someone else.”

My dad and I chatted for a few more minutes before I opened another jaw-cracking yawn and bid him goodnight. He, on the other hand, retreated to his office to pull another all-nighter, almost certainly. It wasn't as though I hadn't noticed the discarded cans of energy drinks in the trashcan next to his lounger.

Meanwhile, I gave the box at my door a shove with my foot across the threshold and shut it behind me. Then I stared at my nearly-functional monster of a computer before letting my eyes drift back to the box.

I sighed, shaking my head, and pulled off my shirt instead. “Tomorrow. Sleep now.”

My phone chose that moment to ding, of course, and I groaned as I pulled it out.

[UPDATED MISSION LIST AVAILABLE]

I stared at it, then just dropped the indestructible device to the floor in disgust.

“Tomorrow,” I reiterated firmly, dropping my pants and crawling into bed.

~~~

Alright, a few house-keeping things to clear up, first.

I've been going through the nearly 600 posts on my patreon and adjusting permissions with the new tier that's going to open up in a day or two. This has had the added effect of fixing all of the really, really old stuff that the Bonus Tier should have had access to, but didn't because... well, technical stuff. I wish there was a way to do this en masse, but there apparently isn't. So I've gotten 400 of them done and will have the remaining 200 adjusted probably tomorrow.

After that, I'll launch the $10 Tier, pop up the first post for that one soon after.

I plan to have one last story post for the year out... sometime Tuesday, probably. I'd like to promise Monday, but I'm doing a lot of house-keeping now that my visiting family has finally left, so we'll see. Whenever I get it done, it'll be Winning Peace.

In the meantime, though, enjoy the rest of Hitoshi & Himiko's date as they each try to pretend to human in their own awkward ways. Also, a special guest appearance!