Kageyama Mayuko nods approvingly. This is a fine table, nothing fancy, but of solid construction and quality wood. It will last. She lowers herself into a chair and shuffles it in as far as she can at the moment. It isn’t very far. Her swollen belly is in the way, her arms extend out in a rather awkward manner to reach where her plate would be in front of her.
“I don’t think we’re going to be at the table much, honey. At least not for a while.” Her husband, Saburo, drops himself into the chair beside her. “Why did we have to get a big one now? The old table was fine for the time being.”
Mayuko shakes her head, eyes fixed on the empty spaces across from her. They won’t be empty much longer.
“Family dinners are important. I want our children to grow up with good habits and full bellies. Dinner time is family time. We’re having a baby. We need a family sized table.”
Her husband chuckles at how serious she is about a piece of furniture, but he understands the sentiment. This will be a family that talks at mealtimes. Communicates.
“How’s the kiddo?” he asks, running a large hand over her baby bump.
Saburo bites the inside of his cheek when his wife frowns.
“The doctor said it’s a little unusual for the baby to be so still this late in the pregnancy. But that everything else seemed fine and we shouldn’t stress about it. He said it was important I don’t get too worked up.”
“What about the tingling?”
Mayuko makes a face.
“He thinks its from inactivity. Low blood flow. I told him a hundred times I've been up and about like normal and taking walks and everything. I don’t know if he believes me. I don’t know what else to tell him. Every time I get really emotional the whole-“ She gestures vaguely at her stomach. “starts getting itchy. Like it’s tickling on the inside. It’s not pins and needles. I know the difference.”
Her husband sighs, moving to wrap an arm over her shoulder in a show of solidarity.
“Well, whatever happens, we’ll be ready with a good table.”
Saburo is right about one thing.
They almost never touch the table.
The small family hovers around it frequently, but rarely takes a seat for more than a minute.
Shigeo doesn’t tolerate being put down. He cries and cries, always wanting to be held, rocked, swaddled. If nothing else, all the crying tuckers him out thoroughly and the infant sleeps like the dead. Which would be wonderful if it wasn’t so alarming, his tiny body is too still for them to be comfortable. Both parents find themselves dusting their fingers over his back or mouth often, desperate for proof he's still breathing.
An odd baby indeed. He fell silent at random times, wide, dark eyes fixed on seemingly nothing. He doesn’t have too much of an appetite.
Mayuko is happy when the strange tingle-tickle in her stomach stops after Shigeo is born. It had become nauseating by the end of the pregnancy, frequent and overwhelming. However sometimes when Shigeo is wailing his little baby lungs out, she swears her arms tingle where she holds him.
She doesn’t bother telling the doctor.
By the time Shige is a year old, the table is finally being used a few days a week.
The baby ceases his previously ceaseless hysteria and is content to smush the food on his father’s plate around. He spends any and all eating time on Saburo’s lap, as her own is completely taken up by her once again large belly. They hadn’t quite expected to have their children so close together, but here they are.
Maybe the second baby would be easier. The pregnancy certainly is. No tingling. Less worries. And this child squirms and punches and kicks as if trying to make up for his older brother’s stillness. Something tells Mayuko that this one is going to be cruising around before they know it. Shige isn’t walking yet. Shige is a little behind.
But at least his appetite picked up somewhere around eight months, and now he chugs his milk like it's going out of style. He's putting on some normal baby weight and should be up and walking before long. He isn’t behind enough for it to be worrying.
Mayuko smiles, patting her stomach and watches her boys make a mess of their dinner.
And then Shigeo screams at nothing and all the water in their glasses magically sloshes out over the table.
At two, Shigeo spends most meals staring at his little brother like his life depends on it.
“Shige, honey, please eat your dinner. It’s getting cold,” she reminds him for the third time that night.
A few grains of rice fall off her son’s round cheeks. He doesn’t move.
“Shigeo.”
The toddler jumps, then grabs a handful of soggy vegetables off his plate and waves them around.
“I feed Ritsu!”
“No, Ritsu is too little for big boy food, remember? He needs milk and the green beans are for you,” Saburo chides lightly.
Mayuko has to snatch Ritsu away when he shrieks with joy and lunges for the veggies.
The next year sees an increase in iron-rich foods on the table. Shigeo has passed out four times and counting running around after Ritsu and the pediatrician explained that he was prone to anemia. Trying to explain to a three-year-old that yes, the broccoli needs to be eaten, is a struggle for everyone involved. Thank goodness he isn’t protesting the extra apples and plums.
On the other hand, Shige has graduated to a booster seat, and with Ritsu in a highchair both parents can finally use both hands for eating their own dinner. For the first time in three years. It’s quite the freedom.
The first time Shigeo bends a spoon she thinks she is hallucinating. The kindergartener stares at his crooked utensil like it has started talking to him. Saburo looks over at her slowly, something passing between them.
Looked like Tome-san was right.
“What? What happened? Mama! I didn’t see! I wanna see, what happened? Onii-chan, what happened?”
The second time it happens, Ritsu sees it himself and gasps so dramatically Mayuko worries he is going to choke.
And then he bursts into tears.
“I wanna do that too! Can I have a spoon, Mama? I want one! Please?”
Saburo chuckles helplessly beside her as Mayuko buries her face in her hands.
“Shige! What did I tell you about doing that at the dinner table?” Mayuko is exhausted. She wonders if there is a parent on earth that actually has any control over their children.
“But Ritsu thinks it’s funny…” Shige mumbles. He looks up at her from under heavy bangs and pouts.
“Dinner isn’t the place to be levitating things. You could break something. Eat your dinner for goodness sakes, please.”
Her oldest obeys for all of five more minutes and then somehow her two children are cracking up while Shigeo makes half the items on the table float.
Before Mayuko can open her mouth, Ritsu is in the air too.
“Shigeo! Put your brother down!” She stands from her seat, reaching out in case Ritsu fell. “Saburo, help me out here!”
Her husband startles from where he had been frozen, staring in bewilderment at the scene unfolding in front of him.
Ritsu is beside himself, his voice lost in huge belly laughs. It really would be amazing if Shigeo hadn’t been levitating things all year, and Mayuko needs dinnertime to be normal once in a while, good lord.
“Kiddo, come on, listen to your mother.” Saburo sounds close to laughter himself, and oh, that is not helping.
Shigeo lifts off his chair himself, giggling like mad. His hair flutters around his head and Mayuko swears she sees a shimmer of pink-purple flicker around him. Two feet into the air he suddenly wobbles, goes pale as a sheet and drops back into his chair with a muffled plop. Saburo manages to lurch and catch Ritsu before he can get hurt, but everything that has been floating along with them comes down with an ear-splitting clatter.
And then Shigeo throws up all over the table.
When Shigeo is seven and Ritsu is six, Mayuko and Saburo have to instate the first normal sounding rule in the history of their strange little family.
No bugs at the dinner table. Not in hands. Not in pockets. Not in that wonderful terrarium Obaa-chan had gotten them for Christmas. No bugs.
Yes, spiders counted. Yes, yes, she knows they are not technically insects.
No bugs allowed at dinner.
Right around Shige’s eighth birthday, the boys come home late for the first time after playing with the neighborhood kids.
Saburo winks at their sons, teasingly asking if they were playing with Tsubomi-chan.
Shigeo goes pink, his spoon bypassing bending and straight up imitating one of the noodles in his bowl.
Ritsu, on the other hand, stirs his ramen with a funny pucker to his lips.
“Unfortunately.”
Her heart pounding out of control in her chest, Mayuko clutches her husband’s hand tight enough to bruise. Her foot taps unsteady patterns on the tile floor. Her throat is dry, but she keeps swallowing compulsively. She can’t stop.
Shigeo sits in her lap, still and silent as a doll. She can feel his heart beating every bit as fast as hers, but his face is devoid of emotion. She clutches him firmly to herself with her free arm.
Shock, the EMT’s had said. Uninjured minus a small bump on the back of his head. Superficial.
Somewhere down the hall is her other baby. Ritsu hasn’t woken up yet. Concussion. Blood loss.
The fear of losing a child will drown her. She clings to two of her three boys and prays.
Dinnertime comes and goes. No one is hungry.
It would be months before she realized she had prayed for the wrong son.
Ritsu bounces back.
Shigeo fades away.
“How was school, Shige? Do anything fun?”
“It was okay.”
“Did you enjoy yourself at the park? Looked like everyone was playing tag, did you join them?”
“It was fun, I guess. I didn’t play.”
“Are you okay, baby?”
“I'm fine.”
It is months before Mayuko sees a spark in her eldest’s eyes again.
She has to meet this Reigen.
The Greatest Psychic of the 21st Century joins them for dinner on a cool night in August. Shige hangs onto the man’s every word, stars in his eyes, as Reigen explains his business to his parents. On the man’s other side, Ritsu scowls openly in what Mayuko can only guess is jealousy. Shigeo has never really had many friends. His little brother isn’t used to sharing.
Despite Reigen giving Mayuko and Saburo vague impressions of used car salesmen and game show hosts, they all agree Shigeo would go to the office once a week.
If this man is what Shigeo needs, he is what Shigeo will get.
Ritsu hands over his packet from school with disinterest. Saburo flips through it quickly, smiling proudly at his youngest. Ritsu has been bringing home good grades his whole life. They were always proud, but they no longer made the big deal out of it they used to. Their focus was elsewhere.
Shigeo hands his packet over, face impassive, his head bowed. He’s sweating.
Shigeo is two points away from failing math.
He has one more year to bring his grades up before middle school. He never asks them for help anymore. He never asks for anything. Mayuko doesn’t know what to do to get through to him anymore. She feels like they have tried almost everything.
They play good cop, bad cop. Mayuko presses him to pay more attention during class. Saburo points out that his Japanese grades are decent and not everyone can be good at everything.
Shigeo doesn’t look at either of them.
His final year of elementary school, Shigeo misses dinner twice a week. Reigen assures them that their son is being fed. Shigeo confirms his master takes him out to takoyaki and ramen often.
His grades improve slightly. It's enough for Mayuko to wonder if exorcisms aren’t all Reigen does in his office.
The night before Shigeo starts at Salt Mid, Mayuko makes his favorite. Shigeo eats all of it, face twisting just a little. It’s a mix of gratitude and terror. The most emotion she has seen on his face in nearly two years. She just wishes it were something happier.
By his fourteenth birthday, Shigeo gets called to the Spirits and Such office so often Mayuko wants to put her foot down. She calls Shige into the kitchen while she stirs a pan of sautéing bean sprouts.
In the firmest voice she can muster, she presses the importance of family dinners on her child. He says he has told his master to stop calling him on short notice.
But Reigen doesn’t stop.
And Shigeo never says no.
Shigeo misses dinner.
When he does come home, hours late and soaked to the bone, he goes straight to bed. Ritsu tells her that he said he wasn’t hungry.
He wasn’t with Reigen. She’d called. Mayuko washes the dishes by hand that night, fighting with herself on whether or not to wake her son up and demand he tell her where he was. It’s only right that she know. He worried all of them terribly.
Yet when she kneels beside him and takes in the sight of red rimmed eyes and damp lashes, of irritated skin on his neck… something fearful snarls deep in her gut. She lets him sleep.
Ritsu is up late watching the news. There’s a weird look on his face that makes her even more uneasy.
Mayuko does not know what is going on with her children. Neither of them enlighten her.
She lies awake in bed until the sun rises.
She’s never had to worry about Ritsu before. Not like this.
He skips dinner one night after having been rather quiet that week. There is something wrong, but he is smiling like all his dreams have come true. Mayuko doesn’t like it.
His behavior is erratic for a while. He eats nothing. He eats seconds. He helps with dinner. He runs to his room without clearing his plate. Saburo asks him how school is going, and their son goes so, so still. He says everything is fine in a voice so false that even Shigeo side-eyes him.
His face looks so flushed one night she makes him lie on his bed and take his temperature. But when she comes to check on him, the thermometer reads normal and the red is gone from his cheeks.
In a strange change of pace, it's Shigeo chatting at dinner. The Body Improvement Club. Running. Tome-chan who has the same name as their grandmother, and the rest of the Telepathy Club. Mayuko and Saburo would be overjoyed if it weren’t for the fact that they seem to have been awarded Shigeo’s voice at the loss of Ritsu’s.
The next night both boys are late for dinner.
Scratch that, dinner has long since passed.
The boys are missing, neither of them are answering their phones, and Reigen confirms that Shigeo never showed up for work. He assures both panicking parents that he has a tracking app on Shige’s work phone and will trace it for them. If they can’t track the boys down by morning, she can go ahead and call the police.
Mayuko paces around the dinner table, all four plates still full and cold in their designated spots. Saburo sits in his seat all night.
They appear at the front door at three in the morning. There is a huge slash in Reigen’s suit, but he seems completely fine. Ritsu is covered in bruises and has clearly been crying, but he is acting more like himself than he has in weeks and Mayuko doesn’t know what she is supposed to do with this development.
Shigeo is wobbling on his feet, similarly scuffed up and wearing clothes she does not recognize. He is staring up at Reigen like the man hung the moon especially for him. It’s a look she hasn’t quite seen on his face as of late, and she is a little relieved to see it back. If nothing else, it means good things about Reigen going after them.
She doesn’t call the police, but the boys go straight to bed without explaining anything.
Mayuko and Saburo agree to let the boys stay home from school the next day. Maybe a day home will loosen their tongues.
It doesn’t.
Shigeo has been smiling all week.
Smiling.
Mayuko is internally screaming. She doesn’t want to embarrass her fourteen-year-old by pointing out this change. He's at a tender age where kids don’t want their parents involved in their lives… and Shigeo hasn’t been open with them in years. She doesn’t want to risk pushing him away or forcing him back into his shell.
On Friday he comes home teary-eyed, but still smiling. He asks for seconds and doesn’t bend his spoon.
Mayuko is too thrilled to sleep. For once Saburo joins her.
One night Shigeo comes home from work drenched in sweat, scrapes all over his face, and tears in his eyes.
Horrified, Mayuko throws her fears of him pulling away from them out the window and demands to know what happened.
He wheezes that he needs to work on running more with the Body Improvement Club. He was out-run by an elderly woman and fell flat on his face.
Saburo laughs until she slaps him in the arm and makes him go microwave Shigeo’s dinner.
Shigeo has been so positive lately that it’s jarring when he comes home late one night and is withdrawn once more. Reigen had texted her ahead of time to let them know Shigeo would be home late, so she isn’t upset by the hour.
It’s the fact that Shigeo looks so small and lost.
He slips into her arms, clutching her shirt in trembling hands. Says he loves her. That she is the best mom in the world. Repeats this with his father. With Ritsu. He isn’t hungry. She tucks him into bed and brushes his bangs off his forehead until he falls into a fitful sleep. It worries her that he allowed her such a babying gesture.
He said nothing had happened, but she doesn’t believe him.
Mayuko chops vegetables and watches the news drag Reigen through the mud. She doesn’t really give a rat’s ass if the man is a fraud or not. He was good for Shigeo, but if they’ve wrung all the usefulness from their relationship then so be it. Shige isn’t a little boy anymore (no matter how much she dreads the thought) and Reigen needs to understand that and act appropriately.
Said teen is currently standing rigidly in front of the TV as the press release begins right on time.
Reigen falls silent and Shigeo walks out of the house.
Saburo is getting all the dishes set on the table for Shigeo’s victory dinner when the doorbell rings.
Uh.
Ritsu entered them in a drawing for a spa weekend. That’s. Well, its actually darling of him, but some notice would have been nice. He says it was planned as an early Christmas present and that Shigeo is in on it and won’t be upset if they leave without saying goodbye. Apparently, they didn’t realize the drawing was the same day as the endurance run. Just an unfortunate coincidence, but Ritsu assures her that she can make Shigeo a special dinner when she gets back.
They reluctantly say yes. There is a flicker of something desperate in Ritsu’s eyes, and this messenger boy is adamant that they need to leave as soon as possible so that they don't miss their shuttle. She kisses Ritsu on the top of his head on her way out, heart thudding uncomfortably in her chest.
She and Saburo eat delicious meals on the floor and wear silk robes and soak in the hot spring.
They come home to a house that looks too clean to be theirs, and a son who will not stop hugging them.
There's a gigantic broccoli in the middle of the city.
Mayuko has long since known that she was missing out on important events in her children’s lives. She ignored the idea for a long time. It was too anxiety inducing to really think about. To think that to some degree it was potentially her fault. At what point had their family become one of secrets? Weren’t they supposed to all come home and talk around the dinner table?
Wasn’t this supposed to be a family that communicated?
Was it too late to get that back?
One night the broccoli flies itself off into the ocean and Mayuko feels like she just woke up. She doesn’t remember much of the week. Longer? It’s not clear. Everyone seems to feel the same way. It should be terrifying to not be able to recall, but there's a soft swirl of peace in the back of her mind that assuages any fear.
Saburo does not remember.
Ritsu does not remember.
Shigeo… if anyone would be able to remember it should be Shigeo. But her son comes home as dazed as the rest of them, pale and exhausted. Minutes later he says he doesn’t even remember getting home. He doesn’t want dinner, but that’s honestly fine because Mayuko forgot to make any.
Everyone goes to bed early, but Mayuko sits on the floor outside Shigeo’s room and listens to him cry himself to sleep. The lull of peace in her mind is strong, but motherly instinct is stronger. Mind empty and chest aching for her child’s pain, she cries with him.
She can’t make dinner when the world is ending.
Dinner is the furthest thing from her mind. The table sits abandoned in the kitchen. Mayuko paces the living room, hands wringing themselves raw. There is a sentient tornado downtown. She was evacuated early, sent home to find her house empty. Saburo is in the basement of his work building until the all clear has been given.
Ritsu is not answering.
Shigeo is not answering.
Reigen is not answering.
The TV crews and cameramen cannot get close enough to the phenomena to get any visual on what is at the heart of the destructive whirlwind. They do get a blurry shot of people going flying through the air and Mayuko’s heart stutters, stops, and restarts when a neon yellow aura engulfs each and every one of them and holds them in the air away from danger.
She knows both of her son’s auras. That belongs to neither of them.
The yellow glow overtakes the camera screen and the live footage is cut off abruptly. Mayuko doesn’t know if this is better or worse. She knows her boys are there. She is not sure if she is having a heart attack or if she just can’t feel large sections of her body. Her legs continue to cut a path through the carpet. Phantom sensations of Shigeo’s tiny body cradled in her arms come and go. Of a fussy, squirming Ritsu refusing to brush his teeth.
These are her babies.
And she has lost them in one way or another. They are so close but so far away.
She wanted them to talk more. Shige had been coming out of his shell the past few months. Ritsu had been less stressed in general.
Mayuko doesn’t know what she will do if they don’t come home. If they don’t get to continue to grow as a family. Mayuko bites her nails. Every breath without her children beside her is a knife between her ribs.
And then the door opens.
Reigen has brought them home. She could kiss him, but to be honest she barely sees him standing there, scratched to shit and his jacket and shoes missing. There is another man beside him she does not recognize.
She only has eyes for her two little ones.
Ritsu is dirty. His clothes are a little worn and his hair is in disarray, but overall he seems to be in one piece. There's something on his face that's not quite a smile, but he looks more comfortable in his skin than she has ever seen. His hand is on his big brother’s shoulder.
Her eyes dart to her first born and fear curdles in her stomach.
“Shige?” Her voice trembles as much as her hands. He's curled in on himself, a sunflower clutched in his hands and pressed to his chest. He's looking at the floor, but she can see silent tears dripping off his chin.
The others shuffle back out of respect.
She takes one step forward and Shigeo’s head snaps up. There's dark blood crusted on his temple.
Her world is crumbling around her. Her feet do not move. Her hands are tingling. She does not blink. She does not want to scare her baby.
And then Shigeo drops the flower, hands reaching for her instead, a gesture she has not seen in too long. He sobs suddenly, a broken thing in the air.
She stumbles to him, dropping to her knees to hug him.
Mayuko does not care that he is almost fifteen. She does not care that he may be embarrassed. She does not care that there are strangers in her home that she has not greeted, or invited inside, or offered tea to. Her whole world is secure in her arms and nothing else matters. Shigeo is crying, sobbing, wailing freely in a way he hasn’t since he was small enough for her to worry about crushing him. His body is not so fragile now and she crushes him to her and only hopes it's tight enough for him.
“I’m so sorry! I didn’t want to, I promise.” He clings to her and hiccups. “I couldn’t stop and I was scared. I didn’t want to hurt anyone, Mom. I didn’t- I didn’t…”
She rocks them, pressing kisses to the crown of his head. She will get Ritsu later, but for now this child needs comfort.
She thought this was the end of the world.
She had no way to know it was a new beginning.
Shigeo hands her his latest math test. He’s smiling. His eyes are sparkling with pride.
His grades are up. A friend named Hanazawa has been helping him. He did forty pushups in club today. He is helping with the school festival again this year. Inukawa wants them all to go to karaoke this weekend. Tsubomi-chan will be coming back to town to go with them. Tome-chan invited her.
Mayuko knows these things because he has been talking to her. Not always at the dinner table, but that is not important.
What’s important is the happy flush that takes over his face when she praises his hard work and gives him permission to go out with his friends.
Shigeo misses dinner sometimes but now it isn’t because of work. He also spends a lot of time in his room on his phone.
Ritsu smirks around a spoonful of rice one night and asks his brother who he’s been talking so much with. The quirk to his eyebrows implies he already knows the answer.
It's interesting when Shigeo puffs up a little, his spoon wiggling like a snake. His cheeks go pink and he looks over at the closet door.
“Teruki.”
Ritsu’s spoon ties itself into a pretzel, his eyebrows lost in his hair.
“Oh- oh, really?” he chokes, and then smiles like the cat that caught the canary. “Hanazawa, hmm?”
Saburo catches her eye and they make a silent agreement.
It’s a chilly night in the middle of September when Hanazawa Teruki joins them for dinner. He isn’t exactly what Mayuko had been picturing. With all the homework help going on, she had kind of imagined the boy as something closer to how Shigeo is. Quiet. Reserved, but book-smart. A good friend to spend time with when relaxing outside of school.
The teenager sitting across from her has bleach blond dyed hair and sparkly aqua nail polish on. He's wearing a magenta t-shirt with lightning bolts and cat faces patterned across the front. He gestures wildly and spins a tale of adventure so outlandish she thinks he could write fantasy novels.
Shigeo is staring at him, entirely engrossed.
Ritsu is rolling his eyes.
Saburo and Mayuko use every ounce of willpower they have not to make embarrassing comments.
Dinner is going well until Shigeo suddenly sneezes and everything on the table shoots towards the ceiling. It's something that happens. It's something that has been making Shigeo stifle his sneezes since he was six. It probably wasn’t very healthy to hold them in, but after the third time washing teriyaki sauce off the walls, something had to be done.
Therefor it’s startling that Shigeo lets this one out. So startling that even Ritsu jumps, too surprised to react with his own psychic powers.
Mayuko braces herself, but nothing happens. Food does not rain down upon them. Glasses do not shatter. The table receives no new dents from falling plates.
She opens her eyes to see everything hovering over their heads, shrouded in an electric yellow glow.
“Oh my goodness, bless you!” Teruki laughs, soft and warm.
He hands Shigeo his napkin, gently lowering the airborne dinner back to the table with the shift of a finger.
Shigeo beams.
Oh. Mayuko’s heart is melting. She doesn’t care what this kid looks like or the fashion atrocity he brought to the table. If Teruki can help her son like this- With the part of his life she was never able to touch… All she can do is be grateful.
They are rosy cheeked as Mayuko watches them, hoping no one will notice her eyes getting watery.
And then Ritsu ruins the moment by telling them to get a room.
Shigeo actually tells his little brother to shut up for perhaps the first time ever and Mayuko can’t bring herself to reprimand him.
The next time Teruki comes to dinner, the boys hold hands under the table like they think she won’t notice. Shigeo shyly announces that they are dating and Mayuko pretends to be surprised. Tome-san had already confirmed her suspicions two weeks ago.
Saburo just nods and laughs.
Ritsu fake gags, but under all the grossed out little brother style teasing, Mayuko can see how happy he is.
Christmas is coming fast and Teruki joins Shige and herself on a shopping trip to the mall.
She’s waiting in line for some greasy, overpriced food for an early dinner when the boys spot something and rush off claiming they will be back before it’s their turn to order.
“Holy shit, holy shitholyshit-“ A teenager behind her is close to wheezing. His friend’s face is mottled both pale and red at the same time, looking like he just escaped death.
“That was Teru, right? Terror of Black Vinegar?” A third kid leans forward to hiss his question, eyes wide.
“Who the hell cares about him, did you see who he’s with?”
“Are you saying that’s White-T Poison? Are you shitting me? That’s the kid that took Teru down and shook up every middle school gang in the city? You’ve got to be joking.”
“No, no man, I’m serious! My cousin was there in the alley, he goes to Miso Middle and he swears to god he saw that kid take down a psycho kidnapper too! He blew up half a building!”
“I heard rumors the two of them were running around together now, but like, holy crap I thought that was just people making shit up. What the hell are they doing? Are they together together?”
“My sister’s friend goes to Salt Mid and heard that they’re both trying to get into Chili Pepper High. That school is going to be fucked with the two toughest damn shadow leaders as first years.”
The awe-stricken boys continue to gossip behind her.
Mayuko’s gaze slides over to where Teruki and Shige have run off to. There is a pet supply shop across the corridor with kittens in the front window. Shigeo is in love, pressing his face and hands against the glass, gushing at the tabby pawing at him from the other side. His jacket is undone and slipping off his shoulders, his winter hat almost off the back of his head from rubbing against the store front. Teruki is a rainbow disaster, bouncing in place and teasing one of the more active kittens with the string from his hoodie.
Mayuko looks around, squinting.
Maybe there was another Teru around she didn’t know about.
Not every day is full of sunshine and joy.
Yes, Shigeo is doing better now than maybe ever in his life. Yes, Ritsu got his wish and has psychic powers. They both have a decent social life and dinners are frequently filled with conversation and laughter.
But there are always bad days, and sometimes life is hard even when everything is going well.
Mayuko bakes cookies. Ritsu is out for the night with that mysterious Suzuki friend that she has never met and Shigeo… Shige and Teruki are crying in the living room. She tries to make as much noise as possible as not to give them the impression she is eavesdropping. She isn’t really. Only bits and pieces of their conversation are getting through the banging of the cookie sheet and the mixing bowl.
She knows Shigeo still struggles. She knows Teruki isn’t always bright and cheerful and happy. No one can be that way all the time.
It just hurts to see them like this.
She bakes cookies and allows herself a sigh of relief when the tears turn to laughter.
“Think there’s enough? I think there’s still some food in China you managed to miss. Want me to go fight someone for it?” Saburo chuckles, staring at the array of food that may just be making the dining room table’s legs buckle.
“Oh, stop it. It’s a lot of people. A lot of growing kids. You’ve seen Teru eat, haven’t you? That boy could probably wipe out half the table on his own!”
Mayuko fits the last tray of desserts into a small open place right on the edge.
It’s Shige’s birthday. Her baby is sixteen. She can’t believe it. She is going to cry.
Mayuko pats her cheeks. No tears. Right now she has a mob to feed and they are all waiting patiently for her to declare the kitchen open.
She does so with great pleasure and the group all jumps and runs to eat. Every one of them gives their most heartfelt thanks and it makes Mayuko feel like glowing. Her boys have surrounded themselves with the kindest people.
The Body Improvement Club. The Telepathy Club. Some kids from something called The Awakening Lab. Reigen and Serizawa (she has been officially introduced to the man now). A few of Shigeo’s classmates, Takenaka, Onigawara, and Mezato. Ritsu’s interesting friend Shou (he looks so familiar but cannot place him for the life of her). And Teruki, of course.
Mayuko stands back and feels Saburo wrap an arm around her shoulders. They watch the party with a swell of peace in their hearts.
Everyone is laughing.
Shigeo is laughing.
And then someone leans against the table and it's too much. It was never made for this amount of weight. Something cracks, and suddenly all the food is up in the air, a kaleidoscope of different colors shimmering around it all. More personal auras than she can count.
The table is removed.
They eat outside.