Chapter Text
The universe was a great and terrible place, Em knew. Of course, it didn’t seem to mind this, and in fact seemed to take great pride in the fact it made no sense, was offensively big, and had a twisted sense of humour.
Sometime that meant the sun was a giant fruit, or dragons were real and defied the laws of physics, or Em dying and living again and again and again.
Today, apparently, the universe chose to assert its dominance by having a lost little boy run around as he manically itched his face and mumble to himself like a mad-man while everybody very politely pretended he didn’t exist.
Em just… she honestly just couldn’t.
Nobody was looking at him. No, they did look at him, but only for a moment, and then they looked away and kept on walking like it was just another Tuesday.
Em stopped, eyeing the boy and the endless stream of people washing around them. She looked up at the sky and the clouds and the endless blue beyond them. Such a pretty day.
And then a large shadow loomed over her, swallowing it all in one big gulp.
“The fuck are you lookin’ at, Em? A hero fly by or somethin’?”
Em tilted her head back farther to look at who it was, her long blonde hair falling over her back like a curtain.
A shark stared back at her. Yes, a literal shark, with gills, sharp teeth, smooth grey skin, and everything. Well, he was more of a shark-man really, considering he had arms and legs and could walk around on land and everything. Tsuruga Tatsumi stood about seven feet tall and had the shoulders of a linebacker, easily towering over Em’s comparably pitiably height of six foot.
Em blinked up at him, pointing at the weird kid everyone seemed very determined to ignore. “King, please tell me you see that kid over there.”
Tatsumi’s unnerving black button eyes looked over to where she pointed and frowned, grey skin stretching in a way no normal shark’s would.
“Uh, yeah?” Tatsumi said, turning back to her in confusion. “What’s your point?”
For a moment Em said nothing, just stared at the little boy as he continued to blindly wander around and scratch his face.
How many times had Em been in that position? Abandoned in dumpsters and alleyways and forests, left to fend for herself because she was weird, or a bastard, or just plain unwanted. Too many, was the answer.
Of course, while Em did relive childhood every life, she wasn't really a kid. She didn't care if she went off and died alone in a ditch. She was just going to end up reborn again anyway.
Unfortunately the same couldn’t be said for everyone else.
Em sighed, shoulders drooping. “We truly do live in a society.”
Tatsumi gave her an unimpressed look. “You’re fucking weird sometimes, Em. Y’know that?”
Em didn’t hear him and started walking towards the little boy. He was a small thing, couldn’t have been more than five years old, with white hair, pale, scratched up skin, and covered in dirt from head to toe. He had stopped the scratching now, instead he held his dirty hands in front of himself, clenching them tightly as if to keep them in check.
Em crouched down in front of him, not minding how her long skirt dragged on the ground.
“Hi,” she said.
The boy looked up and her, and— damn. Just damn. There were no words to describe the look on his face. His eyes were vacant, staring straight through Em as if she weren't even there. They were tired and red and lined with dark circles and scratches. Actually, he had scratches all over his face. His arms too, for that matter.
It didn’t take a genius to see he needed some serious help. Still, Em didn’t touch him. She didn’t know this boy and he didn’t know her. She didn’t want to scare him off.
“My name’s Em,” she said, looking him in the eye as she hugged her knees. “What’s your name?” He didn’t respond, but then she wasn’t really expecting him to. “Are you lost? Do you need some help?”
“Ugh, Em, let’s just drop him off at a police station and be done with it. We’re gonna be late,” Tatsumi huffed from behind her.
Em looked at him from over her shoulder and raised a pointed brow. “Since when do you care about being on time?”
Tatsumi scuffed his foot against the ground, not really looking at her. He was so large that people had to go out of their way to walk around him. “I don’t,” he said bluntly, “but… y’know… don’t you think the kid is kinda…”
Freaky, he didn’t say, but it lingered unspoken in the air regardless.
Tatsumi grimaced and continued, “Anyway, he’s not right, Em. He needs help. Like, police kind of help. Maybe even hospital.”
Em rolled her eyes. “If you want to leave, just leave. I don’t care.”
He gave her an annoyed look and scoffed. “And let you get 'lost on the path of life’ again, or whatever? Get real. If I leave you to walk alone you’re just gonna skip without me again.”
Em tilted her head but didn’t deny it. After the first few times, school had kind of become a bit of a bore. All of the good stuff was only taught much further into the future. Besides, she'd much rather do— well, literally anything else.
“Well then I guess you’re gonna be late,” was all Em said before turning back to the little boy.
Honestly, he was a little freaky in a dead-eyed, living doll kind of way, but considering he was probably horrifically traumatized by whatever he just lived through Em couldn't really blame him.
Em was not a smile person, it did not come naturally to her anymore, but her voice light as she told him, “We’re going to take you to the police station, okay? Can I hold your hand?”
Em held out her hand to him, and it was only then that he finally snapped out of whatever haze he was in.
“No!” he shrieked, pulling away from her as he curled in on himself. “Don’t touch me!”
Em very carefully kept her face neutral, ignoring the attention they were drawing from the pedestrians around them.
She had been like that too, once upon a time. Still was, actually.
“Okay,” she said, holding her hands up where he could see them. “I won’t touch you. Promise. I don’t really like strangers touching me either. But will you still follow me so we can get you some help? It must be uncomfortable wearing such dirty clothes.”
The boy didn’t say anything, instead hunching in on himself as he hid his hands, and Em didn’t push it.
“Or we could just sit here,” she shrugged. “I’m okay with either.”
She pointed at a bench near the street.
“Can we sit over there, though? My legs are getting tired.”
It took all of ten minutes for Tatsumi’s patience to run out.
“That’s it!” he yelled, throwing his hands into the air. It was so sudden that he startled a young girl walking by with her mother into tears at the scary expression on his face.
Tatsumi, long since used to people’s reactions to his unfortunate, yet undeniably cool (at least in Em’s opinion) appearance, ignored it in favour of glaring at her. “I’m calling it. We’re goin’ to the police station! I don’t care what anyone says!”
“When he’s ready,” was all Em said.
“If we wait until he’s ready, we’re gonna be here until winter,” Tatsumi huffed, crossing his arms at her.
Em shrugged. “If that’s what it takes.”
Tatsumi threw his arms in the air again with an aggrieved cry and stomped away. “Can’t believe this shit!”
Em looked down at the boy by her side. “Don’t mind him. Sometimes I think he just likes to be annoyed. I think he needs a hobby or something. Like reading. I have some really good books I could recommend to him...”
Though Em somehow managed to convince the boy to sit next to her on the bench, he had yet to say another word to her after his outburst. Em didn’t mind the silence, though, and tiredly stared at the shop in front of them as the world passed them by.
People were always in a rush these days, she thought, it didn’t matter what it was for. A plant to grow. A bone to heal. A boy to speak. Whether it took a week, a month, a year or even ten, they just couldn’t wait for it to finish so they could move on with their life.
Em, however, had all the time in the world.
She wasn’t sure how long they sat like that, but eventually she could feel the weight of the boy's heavy stare. She didn’t look at him as she asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”
“I— I—“ his voice quivered, pinching tightly as he tried to keep himself together. It all must have been too much, however, and it wasn't long before his breath caught in his throat and he burst into tears.
It was a heartbreaking, world-ending, grief filled, animalistic cry that tore at the throat until it was raw, letting out all the hurt a person buried deep within themselves. The boy fell to the ground, curling in on himself as he sobbed with his whole body and clawed at his face with manic desperation.
Em knelt down on the ground beside him with a grimace, knowing there was nothing she could do to help. All she could do was rub his back soothingly and try to gently pry his hands away from his face so he couldn’t further hurt himself.
She didn’t want to lie and say everything was going to be okay, because she didn’t know that.
Em's hand had only just brushed the boy's back when he jerked away from her, slapping at her hands. “Don’t touch me!” he cried. “You’re gonna— I don’t—”
His eyes were half-wild with fear as they stared at her, and Em gave him some space as she held up her hands.
“No touching, got it.” She nodded. “That was my bad.”
“If you touch me,” he voice tightened again as he fought back tears, “you’re gonna… you’re gonna…”
They were grabbing a lot of attention now, and a few people stopped to stare as they whispered to each other. “Maybe we should call someone…"
Em ignored them.
“I’m not going to do anything to you,” she told the boy, staring him straight in the eye so he could see the truth in them.
He hiccuped. Once. Twice. “No! You’re gonna get hurt! I… I…”
“How am I going to get hurt?” Em asked, confused. How the fuck was a kid going to hurt her? She was, like, three times his size. What, was was gonna bite her nose off or something?
He would need super strength or—
Suddenly a lightbulb went off in Em's head. “Oooohhhh,” she said, suddenly getting it. “Is this about your quirky or whatever it’s called?”
“For the billionth time, it’s called a quirk you dunderhead,” Tatsumi huffed from somewhere behind her.
Em ignored him, too.
The boy hunched his shoulders and nodded, and the dots quickly connected in Em's head.
“Are you worried you’re gonna hurt me with your quirky-thingy?” Em asked, just to be sure.
Again, he nodded, not looking her in the eye as he shrank in on himself like a wounded flower and rubbed the skin around his eyes.
Em might have laughed if the situation wasn’t so dire. Of all the things… well, he was very lucky, was all she could say.
Em leaned in with a mischievous smile. “I’m going to let you in on a little secret...” she whispered. “You’re quirky won’t work on me!” Here, she grinned brightly. So brightly, in fact, that people had to squint their eyes to see her.
The boy looked up at her through his hands. “It won’t?” He whispered, the slightest bit of hope in his voice.
“Nope!” Em said, popping the p as she smiled at him. “That’s my quirky. I render all other quirkys useless around me. They just don’t work. Wanna give it a try?” She asked.
Once more, the boy shield away from her, shaking his head.
“How about holding my hand? Do you want to try that? A finger even?”
He was quiet for a moment, thinking it over, and then, tentatively he held out his pointer finger. Em reached out with her own and touched it.
“See?” she said. “Nothing happened. I’m fine.”
The boy looked at their connected fingers in surprised before looking up at her with wide eyes in disbelief.
“Do you want to try hands now?” Em asked, holding hers out. She let the boy test the waters at his own pace. At first he just poked it the same way he did with her finger before quickly pulling away. When nothing happened, he slowly reached out and put his hand on hers one finger at a time until he was properly holding it.
There was a moment of silence as he stared at their intertwined fingers in disbelief.
Without warning he pounced on her, once more bursting into tears as he hugged her and hurried his face into her neck, fingers digging deeply into her back as if he were afraid she might disappear.
Em held him, patting his back and rocking him softly, doing her best to whisper soothing words into his ears. Everyone was staring at them, clearly relived someone had delt with the boy so they could continue on with their day with a clear conscience. Assholes.
Tatsumi just sighed resignedly as he rubbed a hand down his face. “I guess we’re skippin’ today.”