Chapter Text
Terunosuke leaned against the wall of the changing room and slowly slid down until he was sitting on the ground. Enigma mirrored the movement . The stand had been constantly guiding him ever since he got his body back… what, half an hour ago? He hasn’t been telling it to do so, but it wasn’t unwelcome. If he knew how to use his body, he’d still be standing up. Standing up was seemingly too difficult for now. So he sat there and gazed at the impenetrably folded papers in his hand.
“Hey, Terunosuke! You all good in there? It’s been, what, ten minutes?”
The knock at the door snapped him back to reality. KT had been waiting for him for…well he’d think “who knows how long” , but according to her it had been ten minutes. He pulled himself up and unlatched the door. KT was standing there, hands on her hips, also in a new outfit. He thought it suited her well.
(AN: it’s a shiny aqua shirt with a clover shaped cutout and dark purple pants)
“Ah, there you are, dude. Nice outfit. I like the Galaga pattern.”
“Galaga pattern? What do you mean?”
Is that some sort of modern or Floridian slang term?
He thought, once again painfully aware of how out of touch he was. KT’s hands were in her pockets now, as she swayed side to side.
“Yeah, the little designs on your shirt. They look like those little ships from the video game Galaga.”
“The pattern’s name is Houndstooth, not Galaga.”, Fugo scoffed, appearing out of seemingly nowhere. “Nonetheless, I am glad to see that you changed into passione standard and non biohazardous outfits. “
“Houndstooth. It’s a tessellation…“
“The next step for you two is to get some food. It’s around breakfast time. Panza and her wife are already eating in the cafeteria. You don’t do mafia work on an empty stomach.”
Terunosuke was suddenly acutely aware of that persistent ache in his stomach. He hadn’t eaten anything for 22 years, so it was probably hunger. He had to eat something, and he had the opportunity, but come to think of it, he couldn’t remember what food he liked. Or what anything tasted like. Did he even remember how to eat? He’d be able to eat, right?
He sighed.
——
The walk to the cafeteria was strangely long, or at least that’s what KT thought. There were a lot of things about this place that didn’t add up to her. How did anyone, even a mafia boss, have such a comical amount of money that even the floors were gilded? Where did these perfectly fitted clothes come from?
Why was the building so clean? She’d learned that even small buildings take a lot of work to keep perfectly polished, and yet there wasn’t a speck of tarnish on any of the metal or dust on any of the furniture.
Did the mafia have a elite butler team?
It seemed silly, but she was at a loss. A loss for answers, words, anything.
Her life the past few days had been a metaphorical hydra. Every question answered caused 3 more left unsolved.
Even good fortune (Terunosuke getting his body back, for example) only begot more confusion. How was he going to go out if he’s legally 100% dead? Was it implied he gets a fake ID?
He was talking vaguely in her direction as she pondered these worries. Trying to name foods off the top of his head and in her opinion not doing that well, though she’d cut him a break because he had memory loss. She just nodded in response, lost in her own thoughts.
Terunosuke’s muttering and KT’s dwelling were interrupted by the sound of a door being opened and the faint melodies of Italian pop music.
They had walked into a room full of wooden benches and shining buffet stations, like if a Golden Corral was loved by God. Each platter was stacked with food that could only be described as looking absolutely scrumptious.
Fugo noticed the absolute wonder (and hunger) in the pair’s eyes.
“You can have as much as you want. Just be respectful, and don’t make a mess.”, he said, walking over to one of the tables and grabbing a plate with a strawberry croissant
Having got the go-ahead, they took a step towards the buffet tables, but KT paused when she noticed another odd detail.
“Hey, Terunosuke, did you notice there’s no kitchen in sight? The only door is the one we came in through. That can’t be right.”
He shrugged and walked past her.
“I don’t know if that’s normal. Anyway I’m going to go eat for the first time in two decades.”
Fair enough.
KT poked around in the corners of the room, looking for hidden entrances. Terunosuke gathered his first meal. When she found that there were no obvious hidden doors(read:was strictly glared at by Fugo from the juice bar), she decided to just do what she was supposed to and get some breakfast.
A few minutes later, she met Terunosuke at the bench he has chosen. She set her plate down next to his, which was piled high with one of every option at the breakfast bar. In his hands he gripped some sort of filled pastry.
Slowly, he took a small bite.
Something unfamiliar—a taste, a good taste, not the taste of blood or ink or dryness, but a good taste, hit him. As he chewed, Terunosuke realized his eyes were wet again.
KT, who was standing behind him, noticed his choked almost-sobs and went to pat her friend on the back.
This is a moment with every component of an explosion but the presence of a bomb.
There was a scream, the loudest KT had heard in a long time. It was honestly more like a shriek. A bloodcurdling sound of desperate fear. It was in Terunosuke’s voice. His entire demeanor had shifted. No longer comfortably sitting, he curled up in a ball on the bench, eyes squeezed shut and screaming to no one in particular to put him down and stop touching him.
Most surprising of all, thin and shallow yet painful cuts were spreading from KT’s fingertips to her wrist. Papercuts.
And Terunosuke was surrounded in a stand aura. Her heart skipped a beat when she came to what was seemingly the only rational conclusion.
“WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST DO?”
He looked up at her, prying one eye open, voice shaking.
“What did I just do? What did I just do? “
“Were you trying to trick me? Were you not satisfied just mentally scaring me? Why did you do that? “ Touch tone was partially manifested, defensively forming around her cut hand. Terunosuke somehow curled up even smaller.
“I- don’t touch me, you know not to-but-those cuts… Enigma can’t do that ! It’s weak! I didn’t do that!“
“ Why would I take your word for that when you’re surrounded in your stand aura?”
“I-don’t know! I didn’t do that! Why did you touch me! I thought you knew better than that!”
“I was trying to comfort you! And you attacked me! What’s wrong with you!”
The room fell silent. Even the higher-ups were just watching their altercation. Shaking with something slightly left of rage, Terunosuke slowly stood up.
“ You know what’s wrong with me. You know. You wanted to know the answer to that more than you wanted to know me. You ‘paranormal investigator’. You ‘Ghost hunter.’ Even those phrases make me feel sick. It’s just a fancy way to say you heard a years old rumor and came to poke around and wake me up. Disgusting. “
KT was at a loss for words. She was too scattered to even look for the right ones. She stuttered.
“Terunosuke- I.. but you’re my friend! just because I was looking for a ghost doesn’t mean I don’t-“
“Shut up, ghost hunter. You don’t care about me. “ Was that emotion coldness? A jaded hurt?
“Well, I don’t know much about you, so it’s-“
She finally found some words, but they were certainly not the right ones.
“I barely know myself, KT. Do you get that?It’s very clear. I can’t remember more than these few days. It’s so hard to keep myself coherent when there’s so little left of me. But I’ve told you every fragment of a thing I can remember, everything I know, and you aren’t fucking happy yet. You knew to not touch me. You did that to get a reaction. Did you want a reaction? Did you want it to give you a reaction? Well it gave you a reaction! Are you satisfied now? You got your reaction!”
“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to, I wasn’t thinking about it! Terunosuke, what’s gotten into you? I thought you liked me! I thought we were friends!”
She was stuttering, trying to backtrack, feeling the eyes of the adults on her.
“I thought we could be friends. I thought you respected me. I thought you actually wanted to help me. But now that I’m a person and not some object you can carry around, you just don’t care.”
The detonation was done.