Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The rusted bell above the game shop door always jangled a half second too late, like it was apologizing for making noise at all. Kozuki Aika slipped inside without a word, her hands tucked deep into the pockets of her oversized hoodie, the same one she wore every day with the frayed sleeve and the ink stain near the hem that kind of looked like a paw print. She didn’t look up at the customer playing on the demo console or at the old man asleep behind the counter with a magazine balanced dangerously on the edge of his chest. She just headed for the back, past shelves crowded with dusty strategy guides and plastic bins of cracked Game Boys that nobody ever asked about.The store always smelled faintly like melting plastic and energy drinks, and Aika liked it more than she probably should have. It was quiet. Predictable. No one here asked her about school or if she had any friends or what her ears were for. No one tried to pet her tail, either, which was an unspoken miracle in a city as brash and boundaryless as Kamino.

Here, she was just the girl who fixed the busted buttons and cleaned out the cartridge slots and occasionally offered a wordless thumbs up when a kid managed to unlock a secret level on their own. She didn’t talk unless absolutely necessary. Words were tricky and slippery, and they never landed quite the way she wanted them to. But silence? Silence stayed where you put it.

She clocked in using the old analog punch card system because the digital reader had shorted out two months ago and nobody had the money or motivation to fix it. She knelt by the stack of busted controllers the owner had dumped beside the back room, popping open the screws with practiced ease. Her grey eyes stayed half lidded as she worked, letting her ears flick subtly with each tiny creak and shuffle of the shop. One of the JoyCons had gum inside it, she didn’t even blink.
Her tail twitched once, brushing against the leg of the shelf behind her. She tugged it closer, wrapping it around her hip like a belt the way she always did when she was trying to focus. The noise, the movement, the people, they didn’t touch her here. They blurred. Like background music in a game she already knew how to play.

After four hours and three barely edible rice balls eaten behind the counter, her shift ended, and she slipped out the back entrance with her earbuds already in. She walked fast, head down, the hem of her skirt brushing against her thigh and the laces of her boots coming a little undone. Aika didn’t mind. No one ever looked down anyway.

Kamino was loud even at night. Voices spilled from alleyways, and neon signs blinked. The air always tasted like exhaust and grease, and someone was always yelling two streets away. But even in the mess of it all, Aika moved like a shadow with a destination.

The arcade was buried beneath a parking garage that should’ve been condemned a decade ago. There was no sign, no menu of games out front, no flashing lights to lure in new players. Just a narrow stairwell and a door that stuck halfway through opening, forcing her to shoulder it aside with a grunt that never quite left her throat. Inside, it was dim and buzzing with the low hum of machines that had been left to rot into life. Half of them didn’t work. The ones that did were temperamental, flickering and glitchy and loaded with save data from players who had probably moved on or died trying.
But Aika came every night.

She made her way past the claw machine with the same three faded plushies dangling inside, past the broken coin pusher with its eternally jammed gears, and headed straight for her spot a shooter game, tucked beneath a half dead ceiling light. The cabinet was ancient. The buttons stuck. The screen had a green line running vertically down the middle. But it was hers.
She slid her coin into the slot, the metal clink echoed, and let her fingers find their home on the controls. The music pulsed in her ears, layered over the soft whisper of her own playlist. Her body moved without thinking, muscle memory and instinct, a route she’d walked into a thousand times before. Her tail flicked once, then went still. Her face was expressionless, but inside she was glowing, maybe just a little.

This was where she felt real. Not at work. Not at her run down apartment. Here. Under pink and blue lights that never asked questions, with high scores that stayed even when people didn’t. She was top of the leaderboard on almost every machine in the room. Her name, always the same

GHOSTKITSUNE.

A little joke to herself. A nod to something she wasn’t sure she believed in anymore.
When the game ended, she stood back, breathing steady, eyes fixed on the screen. The top score remained unchanged.
She smiled, just a flicker.
And then she played again.
Because no one was watching. Because nothing was waiting. Because the only place she mattered was here.

Chapter Text

The walk home always felt a little different depending on how long Aika stayed at the arcade. If she left early, there were still people on the streets. Kids messing around, a drunk or two yelling into the void, food carts packing up under cheap umbrellas. But tonight like most nights, she waited until nearly everything had shut down. The city had grown quieter but not softer, the neon signs still buzzing behind glass. Her boots clicked against the wet pavement, her tail tucked against her thigh, her hoodie pulled high enough to nearly hide her ears.
When she reached her apartment, she had to sidestep a delivery box someone left in front of her door and dig through her bag with one hand, keys jingling quietly. The hallway always smelled like mothballs and fried noodles, someone on the first floor made yakisoba every single night without fail.

Her apartment was small, technically a one bedroom, but only if you counted the closet sized corner with the kotatsu and bookshelf as a “room.” She liked it, though. It was hers. She locked the door behind her, shrugged off her hoodie, and sighed in that silent, invisible way only people who live alone do. Her ears twitched freely now, no longer pinned down under her beanie. The lights were already low, she hated overhead fluorescents and only used the string of soft pink bulbs that trailed from the window to the kitchen arch. Her computer blinked in sleep mode on her desk. A small plush wolf sat beside the keyboard, its tail always slightly tilted.
She tossed her bag onto the chair, peeled off her boots, and kicked off her skirt before tugging on one of her oversized gaming tees. It hung off one shoulder and had a cracked print of a bunny holding a katana. She sat at her desk, grabbed the bag of shrimp chips she’d been nursing for three days, and booted up her computer. As it hummed to life, her tail curled around her waist, brushing against the pink blanket draped across her legs.

The screen loaded her custom startup. Neon, glitchy, filled with looping synthwave art she coded herself. She logged into her favorite MMO and checked her guild notifications, which were empty as usual. She never joined voice chats. Never joined raids unless they were scheduled through text. But people knew her username. GhostKitsune was something of a legend in low key, sweaty PvP circles. She played support with a knife build. Nobody ever expected the damage. Nobody ever saw her coming.
She played for three hours without saying a word. Just the click of keys, the gentle thud of a falling boss, the soft “bing” of rewards, and the occasional stretch and sigh as she nibbled on chips or adjusted her ears. At one point she paused to water her tiny collection of succulents on the windowsill half dead little things she tried to save from a clearance shelf because they reminded her of herself. Not thriving, not dead. Just surviving.

By the time she crawled into bed, it was past three a.m., and the glow from her screen had faded into standby mode. She curled up under her fleece blanket, wolf ears twitching in response to the neighbors slamming a door. She fell asleep with her tail clutched in both hands, the same way she always had as a kid like she needed something warm to hold onto, something that reminded her of who she was, even if the rest of the world kept trying to make her forget.

The arcade changed on a Thursday. Aika noticed before she even went inside.
There were new lights out front, cheap but bright with colors that blinked and moved in patterns. There were flyers on the wall now promoting tournaments and coupons. One of them said “GRAND REOPENING” in bold red letters. The stairwell had been cleaned. Like, actually cleaned. She didn’t recognize it without the usual mildew stench.
She hesitated at the door, one hand resting against it like it might bite her. Her heart thumped in an uneven rhythm, something unsettled and animalistic. She didn’t like change. She didn’t want other people to be here. This was her space, even if it was dusty and forgotten. What were they doing to it?

When she pushed the door open, she nearly flinched at the brightness inside. The overhead lights worked now. All of them. New machines lined the back wall, all sleek. Polished cabinets with digital screens and flashing icons lit up the room. The claw machine had new plushies. There was an actual staff member near the entrance, wearing a headset and handing out wristbands for some kind of points system.
Aika’s stomach turned.
She walked deeper into the arcade, ignoring the clusters of teens huddled around the fighting games, the little groups squealing over photo booths that never used to work. Someone bumped into her shoulder and she didn’t even look at them. Just kept her arms close, tail wrapped tight, trying not to twitch too obviously.
Her shooter was still there. Thank god. But it had been moved. Polished. She squinted at the screen. Her high score was still there, but now it was second. She stared at the new name that had replaced hers at the top

DEADINPUT.

It hadn’t been there last night.
She stepped back slowly, jaw tight, ears pinning down with the kind of low pressure that only someone with feral instincts could understand. This wasn’t just someone playing around. This was someone challenging her.
She didn’t know why, but the thought made her blood go cold.

Chapter Text

Aika returned the next day with her earbuds already blaring, the volume up high enough that the bass thudded through her bones like a second heartbeat. She didn’t bother stopping at the counter or nodding at the new staff member, some girl in a polo shirt and glossy black sneakers who chirped “Welcome back!” like this place hadn’t spent the last three years rotting. Aika didn’t come here to be seen. She didn’t come here to talk.
She came here to win.

Her boots hit the floor harder than usual as she walked past the row of revamped cabinets, ignoring the polished sheen and new reward counters flashing useless numbers. The air smelled different now almost like scented cleaner and sugar instead of dust and hot plastic. Even the music was different. Brighter. Louder. Pop remixes she hadn’t heard. Aika hated it. All of it. Her ears flicked under her beanie in irritation as she passed a group of middle school boys shouting around a racing game.
She found her shooter first a classic cabinet game she’d perfected to muscle memory. Sniper Mode. The machine had been moved to the center aisle where people could see you while you played. She didn’t like that either. But her name was still second. That was worse.
She didn’t warm up. Didn’t test the controls. Just dropped a coin into the slot and started the game.
Her fingers flew across the buttons, her eyes narrowing at the sudden responsiveness of the new controls. They were too smooth. Too off. The recoil timing had shifted by milliseconds. It threw her rhythm entirely. She adjusted on the fly, but her hands tensed and her tail twitched against the cabinet’s side in visible irritation. She could feel people behind her watching. Whispering. She wanted to turn around and growl, but instead, she focused harder.
The game ended with a brutal boss segment she usually breezed through. This time, she missed one shot. Then another. She tried to recover duck, fire, reload but the explosion came too soon.

Game Over.

Her score blinked up on the screen

GHOSTKITSUNE – 998,000 pts.
DEADINPUT – 1,004,620 pts.

Her jaw clenched so tight she thought her teeth might crack. She tried again.
The next run was worse.
Her third try she came within spitting distance of her old high score, but a single stray bullet clipped her health bar and she crumbled in a furious haze of red pixels and static.
By the fourth attempt, her hands were shaking not from exertion, but from how hard she was gripping the controller. Her fingers twitched. Her ears were flat. Her tail thrashed once and earned her a startled look from someone nearby.
She didn’t care. She failed again. And again.
The fifth time, the screen just seemed to mock her blinking the word “LOSER” in font across the bottom like it was laughing at her personally. She backed away from the machine with a sharp exhale, her breath catching in the back of her throat like a growl she couldn’t release.
Without thinking, she stomped over to the fighting game WarCry Infinity, her second kingdom. She didn’t even check the score first, just shoved a coin in and started battling. When the match ended and the score screen appeared she saw it.
Her score was second there too.
And there in bold, mocking red

DEADINPUT.

She played until her wrists ached. Until her tail was a blur and sweat collected beneath her collar and the machine’s heat made her dizzy. Every round she lost by just a few points. The new machines were faster. Tighter. Somehow her opponent had adapted in ways she hadn’t. It was like someone had studied her playstyle, dissected it, and beat it just to make a point.
By the time she stepped away, her name was still in the same spot. Unmoving. She stood there, motionless, fingers curled into the sleeves of her hoodie. Her ears were rigid. Her chest tight. Her sanctuary was gone. Her throne stolen. Her kingdom infiltrated by some stranger that seemed to be everywhere now.

She hated him.

Whoever DeadInput was, they weren’t just good. They were deliberate. Intentional. A challenge.
She stormed out of the arcade with her tail flicking violently behind her, nearly knocking over a kid holding a drink. She didn’t apologize. Didn’t look back. Her face burned with frustration and betrayal, a sharp twist of emotion she hadn’t felt in years, not since her early foster days. That same helpless, violated heat pooled in her stomach and refused to be soothed.
By the time she got home, she was still seething. She kicked her boots off, ripped off her beanie, and let her ears twitch wildly in the safety of her apartment. Her hands were trembling not from anger anymore, but from exhaustion and something worse embarrassment.

She was embarrassed for losing.
For caring so much.

She threw herself into her desk chair, arms crossed over her chest, tail wrapped tight like armor. She glared at the plush wolf on her desk like it had answers. It didn’t.
The glow of her screen still showed her login for her MMO. Her guild messages were empty..
She closed the window. Pulled the blanket over her head, and whispered into the dark
“Get out of my arcade.”

Chapter Text

The next evening dragged by like wet fabric clinging to her skin. Aika spent her entire shift at the game shop coiled like a spring behind the counter, tapping her boot against the baseboard with enough intensity that her boss finally told her to take a break or go home early. She chose both.
She didn’t even bother changing. Just threw on her coat and stomped down the street, earbuds already in, music blaring like a battle anthem. Her black wolf tail lashed with determination behind her, and her ears twitched every few seconds beneath the weight of her beanie, catching sounds that barely reached her conscious thoughts. Scraping shoes, a distant horn, a dog barking far off in the city haze. None of it meant anything right now.

The arcade was still too bright. Still too full of strangers. But tonight, she didn’t care.She made a beeline for the shooter machine and stood in front of it like a knight before a beast that had humiliated her in public. Her lips pressed together in a tight line. Her fingers flexed and hovered. She took one deep breath through her nose and let it out slow, tail curling once around her leg like a hug.
Then she dropped a coin in, the moment the screen lit up and the digital gun clicked to life beneath her fingertips, everything else fell away. The chatter behind her dulled to white noise. Her heartbeat slowed to match the rhythm of the crosshairs. She leaned forward just slightly, eyes sharp, every movement controlled and intentional.
This time, she didn’t miss. She anticipated the new recoil. She adjusted for the timing of the updated software. She didn’t let her tail twitch or her breath falter, not even when the boss segment appeared with its chaotic bullet pattern. She didn’t blink. Didn’t flinch. Just moved in flawless sync with the machine like it was an extension of her thoughts.
When the screen flashed VICTORY, she almost didn’t react, almost didn’t allow herself to believe it.
Then the high score board scrolled in.

GHOSTKITSUNE – 1,005,880 pts
DEADINPUT – 1,004,620 pts

Her eyes widened just a fraction as she analyzed the screen. She stepped back, her tail wagging slightly, embarrassingly. Her heart pounded not from rage, not from defeat, but something more dangerous. Relief. She smiled at the screen, not a wide smile, not quite open, but it was real. Like a little flicker of warmth at the edge of her ribs. Without hesitation, she marched over to WarCry Infinity, selected her main, her favorite stage, and executed her combo string so cleanly that even the new onlookers gave a few quiet “whoa”s. Her score climbed. Climbed. Climbed. When the leaderboard appeared, she was back on top.

GHOSTKITSUNE – 990,220 pts
DEADINPUT – 989,400 pts

It wasn’t a blowout, but it was enough. Enough to feel it. She didn’t linger after that. She didn’t want applause. Didn’t want company. She just grabbed her bag, pulled her hoodie higher, and slipped out into the night, tail twitching in what she could only describe as smug satisfaction. Even the city seemed less loud, the neon less harsh. Her boots tapped a lighter rhythm against the sidewalk. For once, her music wasn’t trying to drown anything out.

She went home and watered her plants, even the succulents seemed happier today. She sat at her desk and watched the MMO logo flutter across her screen. Her MMO guild was still quiet, but she didn’t care. She didn’t even log in. Instead, she spent an hour drawing in her sketchbook something she never did unless she was actually, inexplicably content. Sometimes when she was agitated too but that didn't matter right now. She drew and it was messy, not her best but it made her grin.
When she crawled into bed, she let her ears twitch freely, tail flicking in a slow, lazy rhythm. For once, she didn’t curl up tightly. She sprawled a little. Stretched. She felt whole. Just for one night.

The next day, the air was different before she even reached the arcade.
There was a buzzing beneath her skin like something had shifted without her noticing. Her earbuds couldn’t cover it. The streets felt narrower. The sounds sharper. Aika’s stomach twisted with every step, though she didn’t know why. She hadn’t checked the scores online she liked to see them in person. Needed to. She shoved the door open, letting the bright new lights assault her without flinching. She marched toward the shooter first, breath tight in her chest like a balloon about to pop. The cabinet screen flickered to life as she approached, like it was waiting for her.
She stopped cold.

DEADINPUT – 1,020,000 pts

Below it, the next line flickered.

GHOSTKITSUNE – 1,005,880 pts

Her throat closed up. Twenty thousand points ahead. Twenty fucking thousand. That wasn’t a win, that was obliteration. That was intentional. That was a message. She turned to WarCry with trembling hands. Maybe, just maybe she still had that one.

DEADINPUT – 998,400 pts
GHOSTKITSUNE – 990,220 pts

Her hands curled into fists at her sides, tail bristling like static. It wasn’t just that he beat her it was that he’d waited for her to win. Let her have it. Let her breathe. Then came back and stole everything, like it never mattered in the first place. She stared at the screen, ears flat, mouth pressed into a tight line that trembled at the corners. Her tail twitched. Her knees locked. Her heartbeat was a wild staccato against her ribs. She didn’t play. Not this time. She just stood there and hated him. Whoever DeadInput was, he wasn’t playing for fun.
He was playing her.

Chapter Text

The arcade was too quiet that night, and it wasn’t because there were fewer people. If anything, there were more, kids laughing too loudly near the rhythm machine, a group of girls screeching over the claw game that now inexplicably held pastel alpaca plushies instead of the worn out bears Aika remembered from her earliest visits. But somehow, even in the crowd and the artificial cheer, the silence wrapped around her like a weighted blanket. She hadn’t touched a cabinet in over ten minutes. She just stood in the middle of the glowing chaos, hands stuffed deep in the sleeves of her hoodie, heart pounding with something that wasn’t excitement or even frustration anymore, but something cold and crawling that scratched at the inside of her chest like it wanted out.

She couldn’t say why she’d come back tonight, especially not after yesterday. After that, that obliteration. The complete humiliation. It wasn’t like she expected to win. She hadn’t brought coins. Hadn’t even planned to play. But her feet had still carried her here after work, like some magnetic pull she couldn’t fight. And now she was rooted to the same spot where her score used to sit at the top, watching the leaderboard like it might glitch, like maybe this had all been a mistake. But the numbers didn’t flicker. They didn’t change. They stayed exactly the same, bold and red and infuriating.

DEADINPUT.

It stared at her like a dare.
She bit the inside of her cheek so hard she tasted metal, then turned toward the back row, where the fighting games were lined up in their newly refurbished glory, each cabinet gleaming like a smug grin. Her tail curled tighter around her hip, bristling with tension she didn’t try to hide. Her ears pressed flat beneath her beanie. She didn’t care how it looked. Let them stare. Let them whisper. She was mad, and worse, she was curious. That was the dangerous part, the part that made her stomach twist and her thoughts spiral in endless loops.
Because someone had done this to her.
Someone who had watched her rise, and waited, and then knocked her down so hard it felt like the floor had vanished. Someone who knew she would notice, and worse, had probably wanted her to. Someone who had walked into her world and decided it was a game worth breaking.

She turned to leave. She didn’t want to be here anymore. She didn’t want to look at the scoreboards, or the new carpet, or the stupid alpacas, or the bubbly new employee with her headset and “We’ve got a new champion!” smile. Aika wasn’t the champion anymore. She was second place. A placeholder. A joke.

And then she saw him.
Or… maybe she didn’t. She wasn’t sure.

He was walking away from the Sniper Mode machine, hands tucked into the pockets of an oversized jacket, hood pulled up over unruly, pale blue hair that stuck out in angles like he’d fought with it and lost. His clothes didn’t match the polished crowd ripped sleeves, worn pants, red shoes that clunked heavily against the floor like they didn’t care about blending in. She couldn’t see his face. Couldn’t see anything, really, except the shape of him, the weird, twitchy way he moved almost like he was impatient with the world itself, like just walking through it was a chore he hadn’t agreed to.
She didn’t even register she was staring until he disappeared around the corner, past the claw machines and toward the old vending machine that still only took exact change. She blinked once. Twice. Her heartbeat, which had been an angry throb all evening, shifted into something slower, something sharper.
Could that be him?
Could that be DeadInput?
The thought hit her like a brick through stained glass. She turned toward the machine he’d left, her legs already moving before her brain gave permission. The cabinet screen was still on the high score menu, blinking softly. No one else was nearby. The timing of it, his timing. It was perfect. Her name was still second. His name still at the top.

DEADINPUT – 1,020,050 pts

It had to be him.
Fifty more points than yesterday. She had the score that obliterated her previous one, memorized enough to notice the difference.
She stood there, frozen, every sense sharpened like the moment just before a storm breaks. Her ears twitched beneath her hat. Her tail flicked once, twice. Her fingers curled into fists in the fabric of her sleeves. She hadn’t seen his face. Didn’t hear his voice. But now there was a shape attached to the score. A silhouette carved into her thoughts, etched deep with every step he’d taken, every piece of clothing he’d worn, every damn pixel on that cursed leaderboard.
The obsession bloomed quickly almost dangerously fast. He was real now. Not just a tag on a screen. Not just a phantom. He had shoulders and shoes and hands and a hoodie that probably smelled like dirt and old coin tokens. He moved like someone with something to hide. Like someone with teeth beneath the surface. And she couldn’t stop thinking about him.
Even as she left the arcade, boots hitting the pavement in a rhythm too fast to be casual, music pounding in her ears but not quite drowning out her thoughts, Aika’s mind spun in dizzying, spiraling circles. What did he look like? Was he older? Younger? Was he watching her, even when she didn’t know it? Did he pick the same machines on purpose, or was that part just in her head?
She hated him. She hated him. But she also wanted to see him again.
She went home and sat on the floor of her apartment, half in the kotatsu, her tail flicking restlessly behind her as her fingers hovered over her keyboard. She pulled up the arcade’s new leaderboard site, staring at his name again. DEADINPUT. All caps. No numbers. No profile image. No link to anything. Just a void.
She clicked the refresh button three times.
Then she closed the window. Opened it again. Closed it once more.
Later that night, when she finally crawled into bed, she stared at the ceiling and whispered to no one,

“I’m going to destroy you.”

But even as she said it, her pulse stuttered because what if he heard her?
What if he already knew?

Chapter Text

The city tasted like rain and traffic fumes when Aika stepped outside after her shift, the kind of humid, sticky air that clung to your clothes and made your scalp itch under a beanie. Her hoodie was too warm for the weather, but she wore it anyway black and oversized with thumbholes she’d stretched into oblivion, sleeves too long. Her boots thudded across the sidewalk, laces half dragging, music already playing in her ears to drown out the honking, shouting, and murmur of Kamino's evening crowds. She didn’t rush tonight. For the first time in days, she felt almost calm. Focused. Not quite happy, but balanced in that rare, slippery way that only came when everything in her small, curated routine clicked just right. Her ears twitched with anticipation beneath her beanie, and her tail was steady, loosely swaying behind her like it had forgotten it was supposed to be anxious.

The arcade loomed ahead with its still too bright lights and flyers taped up haphazardly on the walls. She didn’t pause this time. She didn’t hesitate. Just slipped inside, past the chirpy employee and the kids shrieking at the rhythm game, past the photo booths where a group of girls were busy picking out bunny ear filters, past the vending machines where someone stood muttering at the drink options like they held state secrets.
She went straight for Sniper Mode.
The cabinet looked the same. Smug. Waiting.

But tonight, she wasn’t playing out of rage or desperation. Tonight, she had her calm hands back, those steady fingers that knew the muscle memory of a hundred thousand hours. The part of her brain that counted seconds in sound. She dropped her coin, adjusted the controller grip just slightly, cracked her knuckles, and let it all fall away.
The game melted into instinct. The chaos of the room blurred into background ambiance. Her breath matched the reload cycles. Her tail stilled. Her wolf instincts, once coiled and tense, shifted into something more focused. Predatory, maybe, but not violent. Precise. When the final boss dropped, and the screen pulsed a massive VICTORY in red and white strobe, she didn’t celebrate, not right away. She waited.
The leaderboard loaded.

GHOSTKITSUNE – 1,024,300 pts
DEADINPUT – 1,020,000 pts

Her lips parted just slightly. Not a smile, exactly. Something smaller. A smirk, maybe. A breath that hitched with satisfaction, like a scratch finally reached after days of itch.
She had done it. Again.
She turned, half expecting someone to be watching. No one was. Or, at least, not that she could tell. There were people around, yes, but no one looking her way. No twitchy hoodie wearing figure in the corners. No heavy footsteps approaching. Just the low drone of chatter, the rhythmic thuds of another fighting game tournament nearby, and the mechanical groan of a photo strip spitting out pictures across the floor. She debated walking away, going straight home while the victory was still warm in her chest. But for once, she felt something softer tugging at her something that almost felt like contentment. So instead, she turned toward the new food counter that had been installed two weeks ago near the back wall. The menu was tacky, digital, and glowed with overly bright pink font that blinked every few seconds. It offered things like takoyaki, curry rice, and oddly enough, sushi rolls in small plastic trays. She’d never even considered eating here before it felt too social, too public, too exposed. But today felt different. Today felt earned.
She approached slowly, cautiously, reaching for a melon soda as her eyes flicked across the trays until she found one with salmon and avocado slices, wrapped tight in rice and seaweed. It looked fresh. Or fresh enough. She paid, took the tray and a pair of chopsticks, and found a spot at one of the narrow tables pushed along the wall.

No one sat with her. No one looked her way.
She liked it that way.

She peeled the lid back with careful fingers, ears flicking slightly beneath her hat as she caught snippets of nearby conversation, the squeal of someone winning on the claw machine, a tiny beep from the photo booth announcing a “kawaii mode filter.” Her tail curled around the leg of the stool. Her foot tapped once, slow and lazy. She ate slowly, savoring each bite not because it was amazing. It was fine, but because it was hers. This moment. This tiny island of victory in a world that usually took more from her than it was willing to give. Her high score was back. Her name, her title, her rhythm. It was all still hers.
She didn’t think about DeadInput.
Well she tried not to.

But every time she glanced up from her sushi, her eyes drifted across the room to the shooter machine. Like maybe he’d appear again. Like maybe she’d catch him this time, just a glimpse. Like maybe that's why she decided to sit there in the first place. Her seat faced the games, and she observed like an animal waiting in the bushes to strike. Watching for any movement that didn’t belong. The thought made her stomach flip in a way that was definitely not related to the raw fish.
She picked up her drink and took a long sip. Her fingers tapped absentmindedly on the plastic lid. Her mind kept running over how fast she’d moved during the boss segment, how close her margin of victory had been, how deliberate his previous win must’ve been to hit exactly the way it had.
She didn’t know him. She’d never heard his voice. But he was in her head now like a song she couldn’t delete, looping endlessly, changing pitch every time she thought she’d figured it out. Maybe he wasn’t watching her. Maybe he didn’t even know she was watching him. But that only made her want to prove herself more.

She finished her food, tossed the tray in the bin, and headed back for a final round, not to play, just to check. Just to make sure her name was still on top.
It was.
And this time, it stayed there.
She walked home lighter. She didn’t run. She didn’t twitch. She didn’t even need music in both ears. Just one.
Tomorrow, he might come back.
Tomorrow, he might try again.
But tonight, she was Player One.

Chapter Text

The air in the arcade had shifted again. Not in any tangible way there were no new machines today, no renovations or promotions cluttering the entrance, but Aika could feel it, down to the microscopic twinges in her bones and the strange, shallow breaths she didn’t realize she was taking. She stepped through the door like a soldier returning to a battlefield, her eyes sweeping the room in a quick, instinctive arc before she even approached the machines. Her boots scuffed lightly against the fresh tile. Her tail flicked once, twice, then coiled tight around her thigh as if bracing for something unseen.

Her ears strained beneath the fabric of her beanie, attuned to every flicker of sound. The clatter of coins, the plastic ping of a high score melody, the soft hush of sneakers over vinyl flooring. It was the same arcade. But not. It had started to feel like he was here even when he wasn’t. Like his energy had burrowed itself into the circuits and monitors and lived in the wires now. Like DeadInput was no longer a username, but a presence that hung in the air like static before a storm.
And it was wrong. This place was hers.
She’d carved her name into these machines a hundred times over, left behind countless fingerprints and stray hairs and the occasional scuff from her boot heel when a match had gone badly. Her scent lingered in the nooks of old leather stools and beneath the cracked buttons of her favorite rhythm cabinet. She knew the heartbeat of this place. It pulsed with her.
But now, now it smelled different. Now it pulsed off beat. Not enough for anyone else to notice, but her wolf senses were sharp. Too sharp, sometimes. A curse and a survival tool rolled into one. And they were telling her something had changed. She stalked past the rhythm games without stopping, ears twitching as she swept by a couple arguing over a win streak. Her boots tapped a rhythm on the floor as she rounded the back row toward the shooter cabinet. Her name was still there.

GHOSTKITSUNE – 1,024,300 pts

Still holding. Still hers. But the moment she saw it, something in her gut twisted not in relief, but anticipation. Waiting for the fall.
She didn’t play. Not today.
Instead, she paced the arcade.
Casual on the surface. Tail swaying, hands stuffed in her hoodie pockets, earbuds looped around her neck but not playing anything. She just watched. Observed. Not the machines. Not the scores. The people.

She scanned the crowd like a predator tracking a scent she couldn’t quite catch. Her eyes flicked from face to face, frame to frame, posture to posture. Was that him? Too short. That guy? No, too clean. The kid in the hoodie near the vending machine? Her heart kicked once but no, wrong hair color. Wrong shape. Still, her skin prickled. Her nose twitched.
She was hunting. And she didn’t know what she’d do if she caught him.
There was no plan, no grand confrontation fantasized in her head. Just a gnawing ache in her chest that wouldn’t go away until she saw his face. Heard his voice. Smelled the truth of him. It was getting under her skin, burrowing down deeper than frustration or rivalry. This was instinctual. Territorial. Wolf born. Her space had been challenged, and some primal part of her wouldn’t let it go. It was the type of behavior common for Aika, but the type that got her moved around more then she could count.

By her fifth lap around the arcade disguised as browsing, checking machines, pretending to be interested in a coin pusher that had never worked properly, she realized she was sweating. Just a little. She tugged the beanie down lower, hoping no one noticed how on edge she was, how weird she probably looked just stalking the perimeter of the space like a haunted Roomba.
She stopped in front of the vending machine. The same one he’d been near that day she thought she saw him. She leaned against it and didn’t buy anything. Just stood there, eyes scanning, pulse thumping behind her teeth like a warning signal. She didn’t know what she was doing.
But her body did.

Because when she walked past the shooter cabinet again twenty minutes later, her nostrils flared before her brain caught up. There was a scent. Not just sweat or cleaner or food from the back counter, but something different. Metallic, like old coins. Dusty, like mothballs and rotting fabric. She paused in her tracks, heart hammering so loud she was sure someone could hear it. She leaned closer to the cabinet, not enough to be obvious, but enough to catch it again.
There. That.

She breathed in slow through her nose, then jerked herself upright before she could spiral any further. She was losing it. She was actually losing it.
“Get it together,” she whispered under her breath, tail lashing once with irritation.

But she didn’t leave.
She couldn’t leave.
Instead, she sat down at one of the metal stools near the back wall where the free WiFi signal was strongest. She plugged her earbuds in, but she didn’t press play. She scrolled through menus on her phone she didn’t care about. She kept her eyes open.
She stayed for over an hour.
Because maybe he’d show up.
Because maybe she wanted him to.

Chapter Text

Aika didn't remember when she started drawing him.
It wasn’t intentional. At least, not at first. The first time, she was half asleep under her kotatsu, curled up in an old Tshirt and one sock, her long black hair adorned with the cotton candy pink she loved fanned across the cushion like a storm cloud. She’d been doodling absentminded shapes in the margins of her sketchbook while a music playlist looped softly in the background, something lo-fi and lazy and laced with distant static. It was her usual ritual for decompressing, a silent ceremony after long shifts and longer walks through city streets that smelled like metal and rain.

The lines started small. A hand, knuckles twitching, too many seams for comfort. Then a slouched posture. An oversized hoodie. A shoe, scuffed and heavy, the toe turned out just slightly as if the figure it belonged to never stood still. She didn’t even register what she was doing until the page was nearly full.
And even then, she stared at it like it belonged to someone else.
She closed the book gently and didn’t open it again that night.
But it kept happening.
Tiny shapes. Half finished eyes, never fully formed. A jagged profile turned away. A bent elbow resting against a cabinet. The outline of a hood. She’d catch herself doing it during slow hours at the shop, crouched behind the counter while her boss napped with a manga over his face, or after hours while her game loaded, They were never detailed. Never faces. Just impressions. The essence of him, or at least what her brain remembered. The scratchy silhouette of someone who had never once looked her in the eye. A presence, not a person. DeadInput had taken root in her subconscious like a corrupted save file, just a few lines of broken code repeating beneath everything else. And the worst part wasn’t the sketches.
It was the dreams.

At first, they didn’t feel like dreams at all. More like long arcade nights that ended without memory. She’d walk through the glowing haze of the arcade, her name always second on the board, the screens always flashing red. And then she’d see him, but never clearly. Just movement. Flickers. She’d chase him, but never catch up. She’d speak, but no words came out. Her tail would lash in frustration. Her ears would ring. And every time she woke up, the shape of him lingered behind her eyelids, sharp as the flick of a joystick and twice as haunting.
Some mornings she stared at the ceiling for an hour, blanket clutched in both fists, tail wrapped tight around her ankles like a leash she didn’t remember putting on. Her heartbeat wouldn’t slow down. She didn’t tell anyone, not that she could, there was no one to tell. Just the wolf plush on her desk and the succulents on her windowsill.

She wasn’t obsessed.

She wasn’t. She just wanted to win. She just wanted to understand. Who was he? What kind of person went out of their way to play the exact games she played, to beat her by microscopic margins, to wait until she reclaimed her spot just to knock her off again? It wasn’t random. It couldn’t be. There was a method to it. A rhythm. A message. The thought made her stomach twist in ways she didn’t want to unpack.
One night, she sat on her bed with her knees pulled to her chest and flipped through the sketchbook. Page after page of arcade scenes, snippets of crowd silhouettes, bits of broken machines drawn lovingly like memories. And in between, always him.
That hoodie. That unreadable presence.
She picked up her pen. Hesitated.
Then, in the corner of one page, she wrote
“I hate him”
She stared at the words.
Then scribbled them out so hard she tore the paper.

The next day at work, she almost called in sick. Her brain felt fogged over, like her dreams had followed her into the daylight. She couldn’t focus. Every time the bell above the shop door rang, she looked up with a tiny spike of adrenaline only to find the same regulars, the same old men picking up vintage titles, the same junior high kids asking if they sold cheat codes like it was 2002.
She didn’t talk. Barely moved.
Just sat behind the counter, her phone open to the leaderboard app like she was waiting for it to update on its own. The score hadn't changed. She was still winning. For now.
But the calm didn’t come.
Instead, her wolf instincts curled tighter in her chest, whispering things she didn’t have the language for. Not danger, exactly. Not yet. But something looming. Something coming.
Territory threatened.
Game on.

Chapter Text

The wind had teeth that morning, sharp little daggers that clawed through Kamino’s alleys and scraped against Aika’s skin like it wanted to peel her open. She pulled her hoodie tighter, fingers clenched in the fabric like it could offer more protection than it had the right to. Her boots scuffed the concrete, and her tail flicked once beneath the oversized coat she wore, a subtle tremor of irritation that matched the pulse in her jaw.
She hated this kind of weather. The city always smelled more bitter after a cold snap, like burnt metal and old oil and anger that never cooled off. The sky was bleached and brittle above the skyline, and everything in her warned her to just go home, to curl up in her kotatsu with leftover rice and a raid stream playing on her phone.
But she didn’t.
She went to the arcade.

The streets weren’t empty, but they felt lonelier than usual. No kids laughing at the vending machines, no vendors shouting across stalls. The only sound was the wind, rushing, aggressive, unpredictable and the occasional flap of paper signs torn half loose from telephone poles. She turned a corner and stepped into the gust head on, teeth gritted, when it happened.
Her beanie flew off.
She hadn’t secured it properly. She’d worn it every day for years, tugged low over her ears, stretched from habit, soft with wear. But the wind snapped at it like a predator and tore it off in one clean sweep, sending it tumbling down the sidewalk like a discarded piece of her.
Aika froze.

Her black wolf ears stood out immediately twitching in reflex, fully exposed. The cold bit at them, and she reached up instinctively to cover them, but it was too late. A couple of people walking by glanced up. One snorted. The other just looked away like she’d coughed something unpleasant into the air. She bent quickly, snatching the beanie off the pavement, her cheeks burning, tail puffed out in betrayal beneath her coat. She shoved it back on, face down, eyes shadowed.
Then she kept walking.
She didn’t run. But her steps were faster than usual. Harder. The arcade entrance came into view like a lifeline, and she yanked the door open with more force than necessary, half expecting the warm neon buzz to soothe her fraying nerves. But the air inside was colder than usual. Not in temperature.
In presence.
She stepped into the entryway, boots clicking softly on the floor, and immediately noticed how few people were there. Off hours. Midday on a week with no tournaments. Perfect for what she wanted silence, screens, and the chance to win without noise.
She passed the rhythm game. The claw machine. The still flickering scoreboard display.
Then she turned the corner and her body stopped moving.

He was there.
Walking away from the Sniper Mode machine.
Not slouched this time. Not hiding in the shadows. Just moving with the kind of deliberate, detached grace that spoke of someone who didn’t care whether or not he belonged. His coat swayed behind him as he walked, heavy and oversized, a faded hoodie peeking out from underneath. His hair pale and unruly moved with the draft from the fan turnin slowly in the back. She only saw the side of him at first. Just a profile. A shoulder. His hand hanging at his side bare, long fingered, twitching subtly like it wasn’t quite used to being still. But then something pulled him to a stop. Maybe instinct. Maybe sound. Maybe something else entirely.
He looked over his shoulder.
And their eyes met.
Smoke latched onto flame. She didn’t breathe.
Not because she was scared.
But because something in her gut said don’t move.
His eyes were red, like blood under moonlight. Tired eyes. Angry eyes. Eyes that had seen too much and decided not to care anymore.
But they focused on her like a predator noticing movement in the underbrush.
There was no smirk. No reaction. No twitch of recognition. Just stillness.

Then, slowly so slowly she almost didn’t believe it his gaze dropped to her ears, the beanie on her head having slid back.
Something flickered in his expression. Not amusement. Not disgust. Not anything she could name.
And then he turned back around.
And walked out the door.
Just like that.
Gone.

The sound of her own pulse thundered in her ears, louder than any rhythm game, sharper than any rage she’d ever felt over a stolen high score. She pulled the beanie down roughly over her head coving her ears again. Her whole body felt too hot and too cold all at once, her chest tight, her tail refusing to uncoil from where it had knotted itself behind her. Her fingertips tingled.
She stared at the door long after it had closed.
And then without thinking she walked to the cabinet he’d just left.

The Sniper Mode screen was still dim with the afterglow of a finished run. The high score list was pulled up.
He had taken first place.
DEADINPUT – 1,030,720 pts
Her name had dropped to second again.
GHOSTKITSUNE – 1,024,300 pts
But for once, she didn’t move to reclaim it.
She just stood there.
Breathing like she was drowning on dry land.
He was real. He had a face.
And now that she'd seen it, really seen it. She couldn’t get it out of her head.

Chapter Text

The next morning, Aika told herself she wasn’t going.
She said it out loud in the bathroom mirror, just to make it official. Voice flat, fingers clutching her toothbrush like it owed her something, hair still tangled from tossing and turning through half sleep nightmares that weren’t really nightmares at all, just looping images of a pale red stare locking onto hers like it knew what she’d buried.
“You’re not going,” she mumbled, spitting into the sink, tail twitching irritably behind her. “You’re not.”
She didn’t need to.
She’d seen his face. Well, part of it. Enough to know he was real. Human. Tall. Tired looking. Like he hadn’t slept in weeks or just didn’t believe in resting anymore. He wasn’t what she’d imagined. He wasn’t some smug, cocky gamer god with a smirk and perfect posture and obnoxious style.
And his eyes.
No, she wasn’t thinking about him.

She pulled her hoodie over her cropped tank top and ripped black jeans, tugged a fresh beanie down tight over her ears even though they were still twitching beneath the fabric. Her boots scraped loudly against the stairs as she stomped down to the street below and made her way to work, her route on auto pilot.
She was early. Way early. Her boss raised an eyebrow at her entrance but didn’t say anything, just went back to inventory and left her to pretend she wasn’t vibrating with bottled tension behind the counter.
She rearranged the manga display three times.
Then alphabetized the controller shelf.
Then stared at her phone.
Not because of the leaderboard. Just to check the time.
Totally normal.
Totally fine.
She didn’t check the arcade app. She almost opened it twice, but her thumb hovered just above the icon before pulling away like it had been burned.
“You’re not going,” she muttered again as she wiped dust off an unopened box of collectible figurines. “You have things to do. You have a life.”

Her wolf instincts were gnashing their teeth in the background of her brain.
She was pacing the perimeter of a threat. Circling it. Wanting it close enough to sniff but not touch. She hated how it made her feel, this constant low hum under her skin, the electric tension that made her hyper aware of every movement around her, as if the world had sharpened in his wake.
At lunch, she opened her sketchbook, not even realizing what she was doing until she was halfway through outlining a loose, angular shape, a jawline turned away. A hood half draped. The curve of a hand, fingers spread. She stared at the drawing. Flipped the page. Started another.
When she got home, she made rice but didn’t eat it. Just stared at the pot while her phone blinked on the counter. The leaderboard app hadn’t been touched. Her MMO was closed. She sat in front of her dual monitors and stared at her own reflection for a full minute in the darkened screen, her grey eyes almost ghostlike, her expression unreadable even to herself.
She didn’t care.
She wasn’t obsessed.
Just because her tail had been curled tight for the past three hours and her ears kept twitching every time the pipes made a noise didn’t mean she missed the arcade. Didn’t mean she was thinking about the way his shoulders slouched when he walked, or how he didn’t glance back when their eyes met, or how her body had recognized him before she even fully understood why her breath had caught in her throat.
Just because she hadn’t won that day didn’t mean she’d lost.
This wasn’t about him. This was about her.
And she was not going to the arcade.
She laid on her bed for hours, scrolling, not scrolling, staring, flipping through the sketchbook again, rereading the half scribbled line she’d once written and scratched out.
I hate him.

The words still showed faintly under the ink. Like they didn’t want to be erased. At some point after midnight, she cracked. Not fully. Just enough. She didn’t go to the arcade. But she opened the leaderboard app.
He hadn’t played again.
Her name was still second. She stared at the screen long enough for it to dim on its own.
She didn’t close the app.
She left it open on her pillow. She told herself she just wanted to know.
Knowing wasn’t obsession.
Knowing was control.
And Aika was in control.
Obviously.
Totally.
Definitely.
Right?

Chapter Text

He didn’t usually linger after playing.
He hated crowds. Hated the sound of overlapping voices, the erratic brightness of arcade lights that never synced in rhythm, the artificial cheerfulness of machines that chirped and blinked like they weren’t all decaying pieces of junk underneath the polish. He hated the fake coins, the smell of sweat and burnt plastic, the squeal of losers trying to convince themselves they’d won. But mostly, he hated people. In every form. Loud. Confident. Cruel. He hated the way they moved. Almost like they believed they were safe, like they were solid, like nothing could unmake them.
So he didn’t linger. He came. He played. He left.

Simple.

Clean.

But not last time. No, last time something changed.
He hadn’t planned to stay. He hadn’t planned to look. He’d finished his run on the sniper game tight, sharp, better than his last without even trying and turned to go, same as always. But then something shifted in the air behind him. The softest sound. The scent of static and heat and something vaguely like peach shampoo.
And then her.
She’d looked at him like she’d already known.
Like she’d been waiting for him.
And her eyes, fuck, her eyes. Those storm gray eyes hadn’t flinched. Not even when she realized he was watching her just as closely. For a moment, he thought she might say something. But she didn’t. She didn’t run either. She just stood there, utterly still, like an animal too intelligent to bolt, too proud to submit.
Then the moment passed.
And he left.
But he remembered.

He hadn’t meant to beat her scores when he first started. He hadn’t even been aware of her, really. Just saw some name GhostKitsune on the leaderboard and thought, decent. Played the games he liked. Thought nothing of it. But then her name kept showing up. Same games. Same rhythm. Like another player who got the feel of the machines the way he did, not the logic, not the rules, but the flow. The tempo of it. The aggression beneath the patterns.
He liked that.
He’d wanted to see if she could keep up.
But now he’d seen her.
And now he couldn’t not think about it.
He tried to shrug it off. Tried to ignore the weight of her in the back of his thoughts, like an echo stuck on loop. But it scratched at him. She scratched at him. It made him itch how under his skin she was now. She was all sharp glances and downcast lashes and that wolfish tension coiled around her body like she was always ready to fight or bolt or both. Her beanie had slipped that day, and he’d seen the ears. Black. Fluffy. Twitching like a radio tuned to something he couldn’t hear.
It wasn’t cute.
It was infuriating.
He hated curiosity.

But he went back anyway. This time, he played just enough.
Not to win. Not to humiliate. But to move the score just a little. Enough that she’d notice.

DEADINPUT – 1,032,100 pts
GHOSTKITSUNE – 1,031,300 pts

It wasn’t a victory.
It was a nudge.
A breadcrumb.
He played the fighting game next. WarCry. Not his favorite, but he remembered her score, remembered the tight combo strings she favored and the weird way she lingered on certain moves like she liked the rhythm of them more than their damage output. He hadnt watched her play once or anything. Of course not.
He didn’t touch her score.
Just played second best.
Let it sit.

GHOSTKITSUNE – 990,220 pts
DEADINPUT – 989,100 pts

And then he waited.
Not at the arcade.
But in the back alleys of his own thoughts. She’d come back. He was sure of it. People like her didn’t just walk away from a challenge. And now that he’d seen her, now that she had a face and a scent and a presence, he wanted to see what else she could do. What she’d look like angry.
What she’d look like when she won.
He didn’t understand why. Didn’t like it. But the thought of her seeing those updated scores of her heart racing, of her tail flicking, of her fingers clenching around the joystick like she could burn through the plastic with sheer will alone. It made his stomach do something unfamiliar.
Something irritating.
But not entirely unpleasant.
“Come on, Ghost,” he muttered under his breath as he slipped out the back exit of the arcade, hoodie up, hands tucked loosely in his pockets. Careful, always careful.
“Show me your teeth.”

Chapter Text

The sky was a gray soup when Aika stepped outside after her shift, and the wind no longer howled, it hissed. Kamino always seemed meaner when it was quiet. The kind of silence that wrapped around your ankles and whispered run, even if nothing chased you. Her boots hit the pavement with more weight than usual, her hands shoved deep into her sleeves, fists clenched so tight her fingers ached.
She hadn't planned to go to the arcade.
That had been the whole point of the last three days. Not going. She’d stayed away on purpose. She’d gone home early, cooked herself real food for once, even reinstalled a game she hadn’t touched in months. Anything to prove that she wasn’t thinking about him. That she wasn’t obsessed.

But that morning, something itched under her skin so badly she couldn’t sit still. Her tail twitched nonstop. Her ears refused to relax no matter how she adjusted her beanie. Her thoughts were loud, crowded, circular. She didn’t remember the walk to the arcade. She only remembered the weight of her boots against the concrete, the simmering heat crawling up her neck, and the image of his face burned into the back of her mind, those rusted red eyes and the way he looked at her like he already knew she’d be back.
The door creaked open with a hiss of warm air and fluorescent buzz. She stepped inside like it was enemy territory, tail low but tense, body buzzing with restless energy. It was quiet today. Mid afternoon lull. A few regulars hung out near the rhythm games. A pair of middle schoolers crowded around the claw machine. But she didn’t hear any of it.
Her eyes went straight to the shooter cabinet. She walked up to it immediately, it was as simple as gravity.
And her heart dropped.
Then snarled.

DEADINPUT – 1,032,100 pts
GHOSTKITSUNE – 1,031,300 pts

Her name wasn’t at the top anymore. Again.
But this time, this time it wasn’t just a score. It wasn’t a passive challenge. He hadn’t blown past her, hadn’t wiped her off the board. He’d crept ahead by inches. Calculated. Deliberate.
He wanted her to see it.
Her ears flattened under her beanie. Her tail thrashed once behind her before she reeled it in. Her fingers flexed as she dropped a coin into the slot, nails biting into her palm through the sleeve of her hoodie.
This wasn’t a game anymore.
This was a declaration.
She didn’t bother with warm up runs. No pacing herself. No second guessing. Her hands moved like they were wired into the machine itself rapid, precise, merciless. Her eyes didn’t blink. Her body barely shifted. She was still, but everything inside her was howling.
The crosshairs snapped from target to target, headshots popping like firecrackers. Her kill streak stacked higher and higher, the boss fight appearing in less than half the time it normally took. Her heartbeat was in sync with the countdown. Her teeth clenched. Her ears twitched in time with the reloads. Her tail locked behind her like a spine.
When the screen flashed VICTORY, she didn’t flinch.
She waited.
Let the leaderboard load.

GHOSTKITSUNE – 1,040,500 pts
DEADINPUT – 1,032,100 pts

There.
She stared at it, chest rising and falling too quickly, breath fogging in the space between her and the screen. Her hands were shaking, but not from fear.
From release.
She’d won. She’d buried him.
She stepped back, panting softly, and let the tension drain from her shoulders in slow, measured breaths. Not a smile. Not satisfaction. Just quiet fire. Her gaze lingered on the screen, like she could burn the numbers into place with her mind.
“You started this,” she muttered under her breath, voice low, ears twitching beneath her hat. Because this? This was hers.
And he could play all the games he wanted, but Aika didn’t submit.
Not to him.
Not to anyone.
She turned and walked toward the back of the arcade, not toward the food counter, not toward the WiFi tables, but toward the corner where the old, busted cabinet used to sit before the remodel, her thinking spot, where no one usually bothered her. She sat down, legs crossed, arms tight over her chest, eyes fixed on the rhythm machines like she could see through them.
She wasn’t waiting. She wasn’t hoping. But if he showed up?
She’d be ready.
Let him come. She was done playing nice.

Chapter Text

The morning light bled pale through the windows of Aika’s apartment, dull and cold, the kind that didn’t invite anyone outside unless they had something to prove. She wasn’t planning on going to the arcade again. Not really. But she’d dreamed about it. About him. Not just once. Not just hazily. He was there, standing behind her shoulder as she played, close enough to feel but never touching, his breath silent, his presence heavy. And when she turned to confront him, the machines were empty, the room full of smoke, the leaderboard flashing just one word: ERROR.
She woke with her fists balled in her blanket, her tail wrapped so tightly around her legs that it had gone numb. The first thing she did, before water, before food, was check the leaderboard app.

GHOSTKITSUNE – 1,040,500 pts
DEADINPUT – 1,032,100 pts

Still hers.
Good.
But it didn’t feel like enough.
She showed up to the arcade just after lunch. Early enough to avoid the crowds, late enough to tell herself she hadn’t rushed. Her hoodie was zipped up halfway, her combat boots loosely tied, the frayed hem of her plaid skirt catching on the wind just outside the arcade door. Her beanie was secure. Her ears hidden. Her heartbeat was annoyingly fast. She entered without hesitation.
The glow of the machines flickered across her eyes like always, comforting and sharp, and the hum of digital background noise wrapped around her like a second skin. Her tail shifted beneath her coat, twitching low and slow as she approached Sniper Mode, already knowing what she’d see.
Still at the top.
She didn’t even need to play, but her fingers were already itching.
She dropped a coin.
She played.

This time, it was clean. Smooth. Like the machine recognized her hands. She didn’t push herself to beat her own score, she didn’t need to. This was just reinforcement. Reclaiming her space. The digital landscape blurred by in fluid motion, headshots, reloads, perfect cycles. When the game ended, she didn’t even check the score. Just stepped back, already feeling the pride curling in her stomach like a warm flame.
She’d won. Again.
She turned on her heel to leave, her mouth forming the ghost of a smirk, her tail flicking once like punctuation.
And then she saw him.
He was walking in through the back entrance, smooth, casual, like he belonged there more than anyone else. The light from the vending machines hit him first casting his face in sharp contrasts, that familiar pale blue hair rumpled under his hood, his eyes unreadable from this distance but unmistakable. His coat shifted as he moved, heavy and worn, the kind that made you wonder what he kept in the pockets that made it weigh so much.
Her eyes locked on him before she could stop herself. And then he looked back.
Only for a second.
No smirk. No surprise. Just the flicker of acknowledgment. Like he expected her. Like she was just another stop in his rhythm. Her jaw clenched. She turned to leave again, faster this time, but he didn’t stop. He walked up to her game. The exact cabinet she’d just played.

And he stood there.

She froze mid step, stomach twisting, heat flooding her face as she turned just enough to see what he was doing. He wasn’t looking at her. He wasn’t looking at the leaderboard. He was just standing there, fingers twitching near the buttons, head tilted slightly as if listening to a rhythm she couldn’t hear. Like he’d been waiting for her to finish. Like this was always going to happen. Her ears burned beneath her beanie. He didn’t even look in her direction again.
And that, that was what broke her.
She turned sharply, boots stomping against the tile with a force that echoed far louder than necessary. She didn’t care who heard. She didn’t care who looked. Her tail was lashing wildly behind her as she shoved the arcade door open and stormed into the street, cold air biting at her skin, heart hammering in her throat like it wanted to scream.
He hadn’t said a word. He hadn’t had to. And now she was spiraling all over again. Because somehow, him not playing felt worse than him beating her.
He was toying with her.
Or worse
Studying her.
And she had no idea what he wanted. But she sure as hell was going to find out.

Chapter Text

Aika didn’t go back.
Not the next day. Not the one after that. Not even when her boots took her halfway there before she yanked herself down a side street and muttered curses under her breath, shoving her hands so deep into her hoodie she nearly tore the seams. She didn’t need to go. She had her win. She’d walked away. He’d followed her in, like a whisper behind her footsteps, like a static echo she hadn’t given permission to exist, but she had left before he could do anything. That meant she won.
Right?
Right.
So she didn’t go back. But she did check the app.
Only once. Per day.
Okay twice.

In the morning and at night. Sometimes in the middle.
And maybe once during her lunch break at the shop, crouched behind the counter while pretending to reorganize game cartridges that hadn’t moved in six months. Her phone brightness dimmed all the way down. Her tail curled tight around her calf. Her face expressionless, ears flat beneath her beanie as her eyes flicked to the high score list again and again and again.
For four days, her name remained on top.

GHOSTKITSUNE – 1,040,500 pts

It gave her the illusion of control. The illusion that she’d broken whatever weird psychic staring contest they’d fallen into. She could see him rising slowly behind her on the list, his score ticking up in increments, like he wasn’t just playing to beat her, but learning her. Reading her.
1,035,000
1,036,800
1,038,500

She didn’t draw him again. She told herself she wouldn’t.
But she did stare at that one sketch, the partial profile, the sharp jawline, the messy hood, longer than she wanted to admit. Her fingers hovered over it sometimes, pen twitching like it wanted to finish what it started. She refused. Let the lines stay unfinished. Let him stay unreal.
She kept herself busy.
She stayed online late playing MMOs she didn’t care about, her kills erratic and impatient, her support spells mistimed because she kept glancing at the clock. She listened to music loud enough to give herself headaches. She scrubbed her apartment obsessively, even though she hated the smell of lemon cleaner. Her wolf instincts didn’t like the stillness, didn’t like being penned in. But still, she refused to go back.
That would mean losing.
Then, on the fifth day, just before midnight, her screen lit up with a notification. She didn’t check it right away. She told herself she didn’t care. She brushed her teeth. She fluffed her tail and laid it neatly against her legs. She turned off the light. She rolled over.
Then she rolled back, grabbed her phone, and tapped open the leaderboard app with one thumb.
She saw the score. And the air left her lungs.

DEADINPUT – 1,041,600 pts
GHOSTKITSUNE – 1,040,500 pts

One thousand one hundred points.
Not a brush past. Not a mistake. A message.
A claim.
Aika stared at the screen for so long her eyes burned. Her tail thumped once against her mattress, then again, harder. Her ears twitched violently under the weight of her blanket, her jaw clenched tight enough to ache. She sat up slowly, tossing the blanket off, hoodie falling off one shoulder, fingers digging into her knees.
She didn’t move for ten full minutes.
Then she launched herself out of bed, paced three laps around her room, and punched the wall once, not hard enough to break anything, but just enough to feel it. Her breath came in sharp bursts, not panicked but feral, like something just beneath her ribs wanted to claw its way out.
A thousand points.
Not coincidence. Not casual. That was taunting. That was a line in the sand. He’d waited. Just like her.
He’d watched.
And when she didn’t come back? He took the throne.
She opened her sketchbook again and stared at the unfinished linework of his silhouette, heart pounding loud in her ears like a warning bell. She didn’t touch it.
But she didn’t look away either.

Chapter Text

Aika didn’t sleep.
Not really.
She tossed for hours, blanket twisted around her legs like a trap, tail flicking so violently she’d knocked over the fox plush that lived at the foot of her bed. Her ears refused to stay still, twitching at every creak of the building, every gust of wind outside her cracked window. She didn’t check the leaderboard again. She didn’t need to. The numbers were carved into her skull like a burn mark.

DEADINPUT – 1,041,600 pts

She knew exactly how much he beat her by. She could see the damn numbers every time she blinked. So when the sky started to shift from deep black to bruised gray, she was already pulling her hoodie over her head and jamming her feet into her boots. She didn’t even register that her phone was still on her nightstand, its screen dark and undisturbed. Her beanie soft, stretched, lay curled on the counter like a ghost of herself, but she didn’t reach for it. Didn’t even notice.
There was no time. No thought. No logic.
Just fire. Just win.
She tore through the city like a storm in thigh high socks and scuffed combat boots, her hair a wild halo of black and pink strands dancing in the wind, her tail out and thrashing behind her with every furious step. Her ears stood tall, defiant and exposed, catching the early chill as the world woke around her. A few people stared. Someone laughed. She didn’t hear them.
The arcade wasn’t even technically open when she arrived. She waited outside, breath fogging in the cold air, pacing like a caged animal until the employee unlocked the front door with a startled,
“Oh uh, you’re here early…”
She didn’t answer. Just walked past him, boots echoing sharply through the mostly empty arcade, the overhead lights not even fully warmed yet. The neon still buzzed faintly, the machines humming in half sleep like beasts ready to be roused.
She didn’t look around. She went straight to the shooter. Dropped her coin.
And attacked.
Every second of that run was surgical rage controlled, precise, explosive. Her body remembered everything, timing, recoil, weak points, enemy placement. Her instincts did the rest. Her hands moved faster than she thought possible, and her brain wasn’t even in the room. It was submerged in the rhythm, riding every reload and flick of the crosshairs like a wave cresting toward something inevitable and holy. When the final boss dropped, she was breathing so hard her ribs ached, but she didn’t falter. Didn’t miss. Not once. The machine blinked.

VICTORY

The leaderboard flickered up, and she stepped back, panting, sweat beading at the nape of her neck. Her tail twitched, her ears perked high.

GHOSTKITSUNE – 1,045,900 pts
DEADINPUT – 1,041,600 pts

Her lips curved. Not a smile.
A smirk.
She’d done it. Crushed him. She hadn’t just clawed her way back she’d obliterated him.
Her heart was still racing, her fingers twitching from the adrenaline, but it was good. Clean. A high she hadn’t felt in weeks. She let the moment sit, just for a second longer. Let the machine bathe her in its blinking pixel glow like a victory crown. Then she turned to leave.
And froze.
Across the arcade near the rhythm machines, half sunk into the shadows like a cutscene character waiting to be triggered he was there. Leaning against the wall.
Watching her.

His arms were crossed over his chest, long fingers curling loosely against his sleeves. His hood was down this time, pale hair wild and messy, catching the light like static. His red eyes, sharp and steady, locked onto hers the moment she looked up. He didn’t blink. He didn’t flinch.
He’d been there the entire time. Watching her.
Her stomach dropped.

All the heat of victory evaporated in a flash of cold realization. Her tail stiffened. Her hands curled into fists. Her ears twitched violently in the open air. She hadn’t just performed.
She’d performed for him.
She hadn’t just won. She’d won under his gaze. And he hadn’t said a word.
He didn’t move. Didn’t smile. Didn’t taunt.
He just looked.
Like he was memorizing her. And somehow,
that was worse.
She stood there for a full second too long heartbeat in her ears, skin burning, breath caught between a growl and a curse and then she turned and stormed toward the exit, her boots thudding against the floor loud enough to challenge thunder. This time, she didn’t look back.
She didn’t need to.
Because she could feel his stare all the way down the street. And for the first time, she wasn’t sure who was hunting who.

Chapter Text

The walk home should’ve cleared her head. The air was cold enough to sting, and the streets of Kamino were just chaotic enough to demand her attention. The occasional honk, a drunk stumbling across the sidewalk, a distant dog barking at something only it could see. Normally, the noise helped. Normally, movement helped. Normally, she could walk the static out of her system.
But nothing helped this time.
Because every time she blinked, she saw his eyes. Red. Deep. Not glowing, but burning. The kind of quiet fire that doesn’t flicker, doesn’t waver. Just smolders.
He hadn't smiled. Hadn’t spoken. Hadn’t even moved.
And that somehow rattled her worse than if he’d smirked or clapped or said something, anything. She could have dealt with cockiness. Could have matched that energy, rolled her eyes, tossed a sarcastic comment over her shoulder and walked out like she owned the place. But no. He just watched her. Like she was something to be studied.
Like he had been waiting.

She slammed her apartment door a little too hard behind her, tail whipping as she paced her entryway, boots still on, jacket still clinging to her like it might shield her from what just happened. She tore it off, tossed it onto the couch, then stood in the middle of her living room, suddenly unsure what to do with herself. There was no win in her chest.
Only pressure. Only that gaze, echoing in her bones.
She walked to the kitchen and made tea. Burned her tongue.
She sat on the floor with her sketchbook and flipped through the pages with such force they crinkled at the corners. She found the silhouette of him again the half formed figure, the hoodie, the clawed lines of his hands and stared at it for a solid minute.
Then she picked up her pen and didn’t draw anything.

The next day at work was worse.
She showed up late. Her boss barely looked up from the box of retro game cartridges he was cataloging, just grunted and waved her toward the counter. Aika stood there like a ghost.
The shop was warm. Familiar. Dusty. It smelled like solder and old plastic and comfort. But her skin itched under her sleeves, her tail twitched with irritation every time someone walked past the window too slowly, and she couldn’t stop glancing at the reflection of herself in the glass half expecting to see him standing behind her. She couldn’t focus. She rang up the wrong game twice. Told a customer a used controller was new. Forgot to scan her employee card at checkout. Her tail knocked over a display of keychains and she didn’t even flinch. She spent half her shift sketching idly in the receipt margins hands, wrists, hoods, shadows, eyes.
Always those eyes. And none of them came out right.
She hated it.
She hated that he had taken up space in her brain like a boss fight she couldn’t beat. That her wolf instincts kept pacing inside her chest like a caged thing, ears constantly twitching toward sounds that weren’t there.
He hadn’t even done anything.
That was the problem. What the hell kind of guy just watched a girl dominate a high score, stood across the room like a glitch waiting to load, and then didn’t say a single word?
Not even a smirk. Not even a nod. Just watched.
It was maddening.
She found herself mouthing half formed retorts at the counter when no one was around.
“Oh, you liked the show?”
“Next time, bring a notebook. Maybe you’ll learn something.”
“Can I help you stare harder, or…?”
But none of them made her feel better.
Because she knew if she said any of that to him, he’d probably just blink once and shrug. Or worse smirk just a little. And she'd explode. Or implode.
Or both.

By the time she got home, she was drained. She didn’t turn on her computer. Didn’t eat. She just sprawled on the floor, tail draped across her legs like a question mark, sketchbook resting on her chest unopened. Her ears twitched at every passing car. She hated how quiet it was. She hated how loud he still was in her head.
He hadn’t touched her. But somehow, she felt marked.
Claimed.
And the worst part?
She didn’t know what she wanted more. To beat him again.
Or to make him speak.

Chapter Text

It started as a coincidence.
At least, that’s what she told herself.
Aika hadn’t meant to remember the time he’d walked in. Hadn’t meant to clock the exact minute the door creaked open and his shadow slid across the tile like a glitch waiting to render. But her body remembered. Her instincts remembered. And a few days later, when she found herself standing outside the arcade ten minutes before that same time, it wasn't a strategy. It was curiosity.
Just curiosity.
The next day, she showed up five minutes earlier. Coincidence again. The day after that, she took a longer break from work and happened to wander into the arcade around the exact moment he’d been there last week.
Totally innocent. Absolutely not a pattern.
But the moment she saw him again, across the room, hood down, posture hunched in that twitchy, restless way of his, eyes scanning the machines with lazy, lethal focus her breath hitched.
She didn’t play that day. She just watched.
From behind a rhythm cabinet, half hidden, tail curled nervously against her leg as if trying to tuck itself out of sight. Her ears twitched under her beanie, heart thudding so loudly she was sure someone would hear it. He didn’t see her.
But it didn’t matter. Because she saw him. And that should’ve been enough.
It wasn’t.

She started wearing her crop tops more. The black one with the tiny pink skull on the front. The mesh one with slashes across the sides. The one with the silver zipper down the middle that she tugged just a little lower than usual.
She dusted pale shimmer across her cheeks. Lined her eyes in smoky black. Painted her nails. Dabbed scent behind her ears, a soft blend of cherry blossom and citrus that she told herself was for her. Just to feel good.
It had nothing to do with him. Nothing at all.
She didn’t think about the way his eyes lingered when they passed, slow, deliberate, not in a way that felt lecherous or indulgent but in a way that felt assessing, like he was cataloguing details. She didn’t think about the way her skin heated under his gaze. She didn’t think about the fact that she had seen him three times this week and hadn’t touched a single cabinet because she’d been too focused on where he was standing. How he was watching her.
She wasn’t trying to get his attention.
But… if he looked?
She wouldn’t look away.

The fifth time she saw him, she walked into the arcade with her head held high, her hoodie unzipped to show the new strappy black bralette she’d bought on impulse, silver chains swinging from the hem of her skirt. Her tail was curled with purpose today. Her walk had rhythm. Her makeup was perfect.
And he was already there.
Leaning over the WarCry cabinet. Hands loose, sleeves pushed up to his elbows, fingers tapping the side of the machine with that eerie, rhythmic twitch she now knew by feel. His pale hair was a mess again. His posture casual. But his head turned the moment the door opened. The moment she walked in.
Their eyes met. And for a second, her entire body went very, very still. Like prey. Like something cornered. But then his gaze flicked downward barely a second and came back up again.
No smile. No nod. No reaction. Just a look.
A long one.
Then he turned back to the game and resumed his quiet tapping. Like she hadn’t just set herself on fire in front of him. Aika stood frozen by the claw machine, fists clenched in the sleeves of her hoodie, ears burning so hard she was afraid they’d twitch visibly under her hat. Her tail snapped once, betraying her.
She wasn’t sure what she expected.
A word? A smirk? A goddamn acknowledgment? But he said nothing.
Again.
And somehow, that stung more than any loss. She walked out five minutes later, face burning, heart hammering, her boots hitting the street like gunshots. She didn’t look back. But if she had?
She would’ve seen him still standing there.
Watching her reflection in the arcade glass long after she was gone.

Chapter Text

Aika didn’t put on makeup that day.
Didn’t layer her clothes or time her walk. Didn’t check the leaderboard app five times before noon. She didn’t even bother looking at the mirror before leaving the apartment. Her ears twitched lazily beneath her hoodie, tail flicking in a rhythm that felt more steady than usual, her boots scuffing carelessly against the sidewalk like she wasn’t walking into a battleground. Because she wasn’t. Not today.
Today, she didn’t care if he was there. She didn’t. She just wanted to play.
The city air was heavy with moisture, the sky a sickly gray smear above rusted rooftops, but the arcade was warm inside, bright and oddly quiet. She stepped through the door and didn’t scan the room. Didn’t check the back corner. Didn’t let her eyes flick to the rhythm machines where he sometimes lurked, half in shadow like a virus waiting for activation.
She went straight to Sniper Mode, dropped a coin, and started playing.
Her hands were relaxed. Not lazy, not sloppy, just steady. She wasn’t fighting for survival. She wasn’t clawing for revenge. She wasn’t watching over her shoulder.
She was just playing.
And for a few minutes, it actually felt good. The click of the buttons under her fingertips. The pulse of the crosshairs syncing with her breath. Her wolf instincts weren’t coiled tight today, they were alert, yes, but at peace. This was hers. This was still her space.
Then she heard the voice.
“Hey. Mind if I jump in? You’re really good.”
She blinked, pulled halfway out of the rhythm of her reload cycle. A boy maybe nineteen or twenty, around her age at least, was standing beside her. Casual, lean, friendly grin, expensive looking jacket with a little hero agency logo stitched on the sleeve like a brand name. He looked completely out of place here.
Aika opened her mouth, closed it. Her first instinct was to say no. Her second instinct was to say hell no.
But she hesitated.

This was normal. Normal people did this. They shared games. Played together. Smiled. Spoke.
“Yeah. Sure,” she muttered.
He grinned. “Sweet.”
He dropped a coin and slid onto the second controller like he’d done it a hundred times, fingers drumming the edge of the console. She could feel the space between them shrink. He smelled like cologne and laundry detergent. His elbow bumped hers. She didn’t like it.
“Never seen you here before,” he said as the round loaded. “You always top the scores like that?”
She didn’t answer. Just focused on the screen. He didn’t get the hint.
“GhostKitsune, right? That’s you? I checked the board. You’ve been killing it.”
Her ears twitched violently under her hood. Her tail curled once around her leg.
“Cool name,” he added.
She flinched slightly.
“Thanks,” she muttered, fingers tight on the buttons now, aim just slightly off.
They played the round. He was decent. Talked too much. Died twice before the boss fight. She carried the run. Got them to a clear. It should’ve felt good. It didn’t. When the screen flashed VICTORY, she stepped away so fast her boots squeaked on the tile.
The guy reached for the leaderboard. “Let’s see if we-”
“I have to go,” she blurted.
He blinked. “Oh uh, okay. Cool playing with you, though. I’m Kei.”
She was already walking away, hoodie up, tail tucked, pulse pounding. She didn’t glance back. She didn't notice him watching.

Shigaraki stood in the far corner, barely visible behind the row of fighting cabinets. One shoulder pressed to the wall. His red eyes locked on her and her guest, unmoving. He hadn’t twitched during the entire exchange. Not when the boy stepped close. Not when he smiled.
But his hands?
His hands twitched. His fingers curled into the fabric of his hoodie. They scratched at his neck till blood pooled.
And his stare? Didn’t move from Aika once.

She pulled up the leaderboard that night out of habit, sprawled on her floor in pajama shorts and a tank top, the fox plush propped against her knee like a witness. She tapped the refresh button once. Twice. Then saw it.

DEADINPUT – 1,062,300 pts

Twenty thousand points.
Her throat went dry.
She sat up straight, phone clutched in both hands, tail puffed behind her like a threat. He hadn’t just beaten her. He’d erased her. She hadn’t even touched the board today. Only played with that random guy once, then left.
He’d taken it personally.
And now?
So would she.

Chapter Text

Aika hardly slept, she kept repeating the numbers over and over.
She was awake in the apartment for exactly six seconds before rage grabbed her by the ribs and threw her into motion. She pulled on the first pair of boots she could find untied, mismatched laces, one sock sliding halfway down her ankle,ripped her hoodie off the hook by the door, and slammed it on over her tank top with a fury that almost popped a seam. Her beanie was nowhere in sight. Her ears were up, high, twitching like radar dishes locked onto a target.
And her tail? Full puff. Furious swing. A threat and a warning. She didn’t even lock the door. Didn’t grab her phone. Didn’t slow down. Kamino passed by in a blur of neon signs and sideways glances, and for once, she wanted the attention. Let them stare. Let them see. The ghost had teeth now.

The arcade door slammed open with enough force to rattle the claw machine by the entrance, but she didn’t notice. She was on a mission. Aika stormed in like a lit match looking for a fuse, boots echoing, hoodie flapping behind her like a cape made of rage.
And there he was. Back corner. Of course he was. Same lazy lean. Same ruined hoodie. Same bored, crooked posture like the weight of his own existence was an inconvenience. His pale hair was wilder today, and his eyes?
Already on her. Waiting. Like he knew.
She didn’t stop walking. Didn’t care who was watching. Didn’t care that her ears were fully visible, tail snapping behind her like a whip with every step.
“Hey,” she snapped, voice sharp as broken glass. “What the hell is your problem?!”
He didn’t react. Not right away. Just tilted his head slightly, eyes dragging from her boots to her face like he was measuring her pulse through the floor. She stomped closer.
“You think I didn’t see that?” she hissed, jabbing a finger toward the shooter cabinets. “You wiped my score. Erased it. Twenty thousand points? Are you kidding me?”
He still didn’t answer. Not a word. But something shifted in his mouth.
A flicker. Just barely there. But unmistakable. A smirk. Slow. Lazy. Disrespectful.
Amused.
She blinked, stunned for half a second, heat flooding her face like an open flame had licked her skin. Her breath caught in her throat, too fast and shallow to keep up.
“You think this is funny?” she spat, voice rising, ears twitching violently now. “You’re some kind of, what? Keyboard warrior? Ghost in the machine? Too cool to talk but not too cool to cheat?”
He finally moved.
Pushed off the wall, one hand in his pocket, the other scratching at his neck like he had all the time in the world. He passed by her without a word. Not a glance. Not a breath. He leaned in as he passed, just enough for her ears to catch one soft, rasped word.
“Triggered.”
Then he was gone. Out the side door. No footsteps. Just absence. Aika stood frozen in place, entire body trembling with unshed fury. Her tail was fully fluffed, her teeth clenched so hard her jaw popped. Her hands were curled into fists so tight her nails bit into her palms.
Triggered.
Her vision blurred. Every part of her was burning. She wanted to scream. She wanted to throw something. She wanted to win. And suddenly, she didn’t care how far she had to fall to do it.
The second that door shut behind him, it was like someone cut the strings holding her together. Aika didn’t scream. She didn’t cry. She didn’t make a dramatic exit or storm back into the street like some shattered cliché. No, she stood there perfectly still, tail twitching like a whip, ears pulled back so tight they hurt, and planned. Her hands shook. Her chest ached from the force of her breathing. Her face burned. But her mind? Ice cold. If he wanted to trigger her? Fine. Consider her launched.

She marched straight to Sniper Mode, dropped a coin with a violence that almost jammed the slot, and didn’t hesitate for a second. Her fingers found the buttons like old scars, and the second the game started, there was no sound just her heartbeat. No room. No arcade. No rhythm machines. No watchers.
Just her.
She played like she was trying to kill something. Every reload snapped like a threat. Every shot was vengeance. Every enemy that flickered onto the screen was a proxy for his face, that smirk, those too red eyes. She cleared the first round in record time, didn’t even look at the score. Dropped another coin. Another. Another.
By the fifth round, her fingers were numb. By the sixth, a crowd had gathered. Not huge. Not loud. But a few regulars. Some kids. A staff member leaning over the counter with wide eyes. No one spoke. No one interrupted. She didn’t see any of them. She only saw the mission.
Erase him.
She played until her boots were digging trenches into the carpet and her sleeves stuck to her skin. Until her tail drooped from the weight of focus. Until the neon lights blurred in her eyes and the world narrowed to just numbers. On the eighth round, her hands slipped. The streak ended.

GAME OVER

She breathed for the first time in what felt like years, shoulders hunched, face flushed and sticky. She stepped back slowly, wobbling just slightly on her feet, her ears twitching wildly with overuse. And then the leaderboard lit up.

GHOSTKITSUNE – 1,068,300 pts

Her name. The machine was hers again. She didn’t smile. She didn’t smirk. She just exhaled slow, sharp, victorious. And turned her back on it. If he wanted attention now, he’d get none. He’d forfeited the right the moment he walked away.
She strode across the arcade like she didn’t feel her legs aching, like her head wasn’t pounding from spite fueled adrenaline, like her wolf blood wasn’t singing from the hours she’d just spent on the hunt. She passed the rhythm games without looking. She passed the counter and ignored the curious glances. She didn’t care.
Let him choke on the silence she’ll give him. She didn’t look back. Didn’t know if he’d returned to spite her, but her ears flicked once.
Just in case.

The arcade hadn’t seen her in three days after that.
Not because Aika was avoiding it, far from it. She still checked the leaderboard app religiously, refreshing it between customers at the game shop, between gulps of instant ramen at home, between midnight and morning when sleep refused to land. But her name sat unchallenged, carved into the top like it had always been there, like he had never touched it at all. The last entry under DEADINPUT remained frozen at 1,062,300, his parting shot. No new scores. No retaliations. No games.

The first day, she stayed braced. Waited for the strikeback. Kept her hoodie zipped, her tail taut and flicking, her hands poised like she’d need to sprint out at any second. Nothing came.

The second day, she was annoyed. Not angry, not exactly. Just.. raw. Like she’d wound herself up expecting a fight that never arrived. She’d stalked through Kamino with her ears twitching at every movement, waiting to catch a glimpse of that ghostly blue hair around every corner. She didn’t see him.

By the third day, she told herself it was better this way. That it meant she’d won. That silence was his surrender, his retreat, his final bow. Her name stood unchallenged on the machine. Her tail stopped lashing. Her heart slowed. Her sketchbook stayed shut.

It was just a game. Just a boy.
Just... over. And yet.

Even in the aisles of Kamino Mart, beneath the stale yellow lights and soft beep of barcode scanners, Aika still moved like a threat might step out from behind the cereal boxes. Her hoodie was off today. It was too warm inside for layers, but too cold outside for skirts. Her ears twitched openly with every flicker of movement down the lanes. She wore a black crop top under an oversized denim jacket dotted in enamel pins, ripped jeans with a chain swinging from one side, and thick combat boots that squeaked slightly on the tile with each slow step.

Her basket was half full, ramen, milk, canned coffee, protein bars, a discount bag of gummies shaped like tiny axolotls, when she turned down the last aisle, dragging her fingers along the freezer door handles just for the chill. The store was mostly empty. A man reading a tabloid by the entrance. An elderly woman arguing with a self checkout terminal. A mother wrangling two screaming toddlers near the oranges.
She reached for a box of mochi ice cream. And just stopped, something flickered in her peripheral vision. It wasn’t a face. It wasn’t even a full shape. Just a silhouette, a shift of movement at the far end of the aisle, next to the canned drinks, right at the point where the old fluorescent bulb buzzed like an insect in heat. She wouldn’t have looked twice if it hadn’t moved like him, that specific, slow, uneven gait like someone whose body never fully decided if it wanted to slouch or stalk. Aika didn’t breathe. Her hand hovered halfway to the freezer door, and for a moment, her whole body was still not calm, not paralyzed, but listening. Her ears twitched, straining past the hum of lights, past the tinny music crackling over cheap speakers.

She turned her head slowly. The aisle was empty. Just soup cans. Bottled drinks. That damned buzzing light. But her tail had already puffed slightly, a twitch of warning, her pulse thudding once hard beneath her skin like a knock at the door.
It couldn’t have been him. Why would it be him? She’d never seen him here before. If it was him, why now? What possible reason would he have to be here, amid milk cartons and discount sushi rolls like some disgruntled NPC dragged into the wrong level of the game?

Aika shook her head, jaw tight, forcing her breath out slow. She reached for the mochi again, grabbed it, shoved it into her basket like it had personally offended her, and turned around to head for the self checkout. But then she stopped again. Not because of what she saw. Because of what she felt.
The weight of a stare. Right at the back of her skull. The kind that lingers just long enough to not be imagined. She spun so fast her hair whipped into her face, pink ends catching the light like sparks. Still no one. Just empty aisles. But the basket in her hand suddenly felt heavier. Her boots scraped quietly against the tile as she moved down the main aisle again, slower this time, heart beating too loud in her ears to hear the store music anymore. She passed the drink section. Paused by the freezer again. And then, just before rounding the corner to the checkout lane, she saw it.

A hoodie. Black. Oversized. Just the sleeve of it. Vanishing around the edge of the aisle like it had been waiting for her to look. She froze in place, her tail stopped moving. Because now she wasn’t sure what terrified her more. That it was him.
Or that it wasn’t and she was going insane.
Aika left the store faster than she meant to.

Her basket hit the plastic checkout platform with a little more force than necessary, the scanner’s robotic voice chirping through each item like nothing had happened, like she hadn’t just caught a glimpse of something, or someone that had shaken her loose from the inside out. She barely heard it. Barely watched the total rise on the screen. Her fingers moved automatically, tapping her card, grabbing her bag, tucking her head as she pushed through the too slow sliding doors like she could walk fast enough to outpace the thoughts clawing up the back of her brain.

The wind outside was sharper than before, colder, an awful contrast to the temperature inside. It was biting across her cheeks and sneaking down the back of her neck where her jacket had slipped. She didn’t fix it. Didn’t pull her hood up. Didn’t dig out her beanie. Her ears were exposed, twitching violently with every gust, every car horn, every rustling paper cup skittering across the sidewalk. She didn’t want to dull her senses. Because for the first time in days, they were awake.

Aika took the long way home. Not because she wanted to, because she had to. Her usual route, the straight shot from the market through the narrow alleys behind the game shop and down toward the stairwell behind her building, suddenly felt too quiet. Too easy to trap someone. Too many shadows, not enough witnesses. And she hated that her heart was racing, hated that she was walking faster now, hated that her tail was curled tight around her thigh like it was bracing for impact.
She wasn’t scared. Not really. She was just… alert. Vigilant.

Her boots thudded steadily against the cracked pavement as she crossed into the side streets, her bag swinging heavily against her hip. She told herself it was just a weird encounter. Just a trick of the eye. A coincidence. Maybe some other guy with bad posture and a black hoodie. Maybe her brain was wired too tight, snapping into patterns where none existed because it wanted to feel like the game wasn’t over yet.

But no matter how many times she repeated that thought, it never sat right. Because that hoodie, it hadn’t just looked like his. It had moved like him. And worse, she hadn’t just seen it. She’d felt it. That stare. That flicker. That half second pull at the back of her neck like static caught in her hair. It hadn’t been imagination.
She turned a corner and ducked under a busted streetlamp, the light overhead flickering once like a dying firefly, and suddenly the air around her felt wrong. Too dense. Too full. Her ears perked, her tail stilled, and her feet slowed. Not because she heard something. Not because she saw movement. But because every instinct inside her screamed you're being watched.
She clenched her bag tighter. Didn’t look back. Didn’t run. But her pace shifted, quieter now, sharper, the kind of walk that knew how to flee at a moment’s notice. She passed the alley behind the noodle shop and glanced down it despite herself.

Empty.

But the hairs on her arms rose. Her stomach twisted. And the silence felt watched. By the time she reached the stoop of her apartment building, her keys were already between her fingers like claws. Her hand trembled only slightly as she jammed one into the lock, not out of fear, she told herself, out of frustration. Confusion. Maybe something deeper, something worse.
She slammed the door shut behind her and leaned against it for a moment, heart still thrumming like a snare drum under her ribs, tail still half puffed with the tension she hadn’t let show on the street. She didn’t move for a long minute. Just breathed. Just listened. Nothing followed her. She was alone.

Except she wasn’t sure anymore what that meant.

Chapter Text

The sun came in too soft the next morning.
Aika blinked once, then twice, tail twitching lazily across her legs as her brain caught up with the fact that her alarm hadn’t gone off yet. She reached for her phone on instinct, eyes still heavy, the weight of last night’s unease clinging to her like a second skin.
Then she saw it.

Notification: New High Score – Sniper Mode

DEADINPUT – 1,068,400 pts
GHOSTKITSUNE – 1,068,300 pts

One. Hundred. Points.
She sat up so fast her tail snapped against the sheets, ears flicking into high alert, every nerve ending firing awake in an instant. Her chest flooded with heat, rage, adrenaline, something messier beneath the surface. He hadn’t just returned. He hadn’t just beaten her. He’d threaded the needle.
One hundred points. Not enough to humiliate. Not enough to destroy. Just enough to provoke. To summon. It wasn’t a challenge. It was an invitation. And Aika? She would never turn that down.

Aika didn’t wear her beanie that morning. Didn’t fix her hair. Didn’t line her eyes or gloss her lips or layer anything that might be misinterpreted as caring too much. She wore what was closest, ripped jeans with one knee blown out, a cropped tank top with a cracked design of a cherry blossom skull, and an open flannel two sizes too big that flowed behind her when she walked. She didn’t hesitate. She walked into the arcade like she had business there. Like something was owed. The place was quiet, just a few regulars, a kid crying near the prize wall, the neon lights still warming up to full glow. The hum of the machines buzzed like static in her bones as she crossed to Sniper Mode without even glancing sideways.

Her coin dropped clean. Her hands found the controller like an old friend. And her heart, traitorous and fast, pounded like a war drum in her throat. But before she could press start, she felt it. That now familiar weight of being seen. She didn’t turn around. Didn’t need to. She just watched, through the corner of her eye, as a shadow broke away from the back wall. As he walked, not slouched, not hesitant, not hiding, toward her with a steadiness that stole her breath from her chest.

He was still in that ruined hoodie, the one she swore she saw last night. Still pale as moonlight. Still messy haired and sharp edged in ways that didn’t make sense. But this time, there was no distance. No corners. No shadows. He walked straight up to her. Right to her side. And picked up the second controller. No words. No smirk. Just movement.
Deliberate.
Aika’s tail went still behind her, her fingers tightening on her controller like she needed to ground herself to stay standing. Her breath caught somewhere between her ribs and refused to move. He didn’t look at her. She didn’t look at him. The screen blinked.

PLAYER ONE: GHOSTKITSUNE
PLAYER TWO: --

He clicked a button.

PLAYER TWO: DEADINPUT

No smirk. No comment. Just the unmistakable, shift of presence. And then the game began.

They played in absolute silence.
No glances. No muttered instructions. No insults or cocky banter. Nothing but the rhythmic click of buttons and the pulsing glow of the screen painting both their faces in a wash of blue and red light. He was fast. Precise. His kill count crept up with terrifying steadiness. She met him beat for beat. But it wasn’t a competition this time. Not exactly. It was something else. Something synchronized. Like music. Like war, but the kind you fight together.
And as the game neared its final wave, as the boss appeared in a flash of digital shrieking, she found herself lookin, not at the screen, not at the enemy, but at him. He was focused. Expression unreadable. Lips parted just slightly. Eyes narrowed, red and sharp but not cruel. Just intense. Alive.
He sensed her watching. Didn’t turn his head. But she saw it. The tiniest flicker. A twitch at the corner of his mouth. Not a smirk. Something softer. Almost invisible. But there.
She looked away before he could catch her seeing it. They cleared the level. The screen went dark.

VICTORY

But neither of them moved. Not for a moment. Not until he stepped back, controller still in hand, and finally, finally, turned toward her. And in that hoarse, sandpaper voice that scraped more than it spoke, he said, without blinking.

“Not bad.”

Then he dropped the controller. And walked away. Again. But this time? She didn’t feel defeated.
She felt seen.

By the time Aika made it home, she couldn’t remember the walk. She didn’t notice the broken sidewalk outside her building. Didn’t notice the way the wind tangled her hair into her mouth or the puddle she stepped in just outside the stairwell door. She didn’t even flinch when the neighbor’s cat, usually a growling little gremlin, darted past her legs with a hiss.
Because her head was somewhere else entirely. It was still at the arcade. Still standing beside that cabinet. Still hearing his voice so low, broken, deliberate, cutting through the neon haze like a blade.
Not bad. Two words. Just two.
But they hit harder than the smirk had. Harder than the silence. Harder than the hundred point gap and the lingering stares and the half seen shadows in supermarket aisles. They weren’t taunts. They weren’t passive aggression. They weren’t bait. They were real. And she didn’t know what the hell to do with them.

She dropped her keys twice before she got them into the lock, her fingers shaking in that quiet, frantic way that had nothing to do with cold. Her tail was puffed to full alert again, even though she was technically safe, technically alone. She closed the door behind her with a little too much force and didn’t even bother flipping on the lights before kicking off her boots and stumbling over her own laces. She was still wearing the same flannel, the same ripped jeans, the same crop top he’d seen her in and she didn’t take them off. She didn’t want to break the spell.
Aika collapsed onto her couch, sketchbook in her lap before she even thought to grab it, pen already clutched in her hand like she’d summoned it by sheer willpower. The page was blank for a full minute, her grey eyes staring down at the paper like it might tell her what to do next. Then her hand started to move. Not slow. Not soft. Frenzied. She drew him.
Again. And again. And again.
Not his face, she still hadn’t really seen it properly, but his posture, his silhouette, the twitch of his hands on the controller, the way he leaned in just slightly when the enemy count rose. She drew his hoodie draped like smoke, his shoes half untied, the lines of his shoulders and the angles of his elbows like puzzle pieces she hadn’t realized she’d memorized. She drew the moment before he picked up the player two controller.
And the moment he dropped it. And the space between. Her tail curled against her thigh like a tether, as if to remind her to breathe, to ground herself, but it wasn’t working. Because she wasn’t in her apartment anymore. Not mentally. She was still there. With him. Ghosting through that moment on an endless loop.

Not bad.

She should’ve hated him. Should’ve ripped the words apart in her head, twisted them into sarcasm, mocked the flatness in his voice and thrown the entire exchange into the mental garbage pile where unfinished business and unspoken apologies went to die.
But instead? She replayed it.

Again.
And again.
And again.

She let herself imagine, just for a second, what it would’ve felt like if he’d stayed. If he’d kept talking. If he’d turned his head just a little more and let her really see him. If his voice had said something else.
Want to play again?
Her fingers trembled, pen leaving a dark scratch across the margin of the page. She cursed under her breath and snapped the sketchbook closed. Then she moved back against the cushions, stared at the ceiling fan that wasn’t even on, and listened to the buzzing in her head that refused to quiet. She wasn’t obsessed. She was just curious. Just watching.
Waiting.
She wasn’t counting the minutes until he showed up again. She wasn’t. But when she reached for her phone, the leaderboard app opened before she could stop herself.

DEADINPUT – 1,068,400 pts
GHOSTKITSUNE – 1,068,300 pts

Still there. Still holding the line. Her tail flicked once. So be it. She could wait.
For now.

Chapter Text

The first day she went back, she wore her favorite hoodie. The sleeves were too long, the hem was stretched from years of nervous tail twitches, and the faded embroidery on the chest, a little stitched wolf head with Xs for eyes, had come unraveled at one corner. But it was comfortable. Familiar. A shield she didn’t need to think about wearing. She didn’t put on makeup, didn’t style her hair, didn’t plan a dramatic entrance.
Because this wasn’t for him. She just wanted to play. At least that’s what she told herself.

When the arcade door opened and the cool blast of conditioned air greeted her, something felt off. She glanced around. Once. Twice. The usual rhythm of the place hummed, machines lighting up in their fluorescent dance, a few regulars mumbling at the claw games, a pair of kids arguing at a DDR cabinet. But the space by the shooter games?

Empty.

No crooked posture. No twitching fingers. No shadow figure watching from behind flickering neon. She lingered by the food bar longer than she meant to, tail swaying uncertainly, ears shifting as if waiting for a sound she couldn’t quite place. But it didn’t come. No flicker in her periphery. No static prickling the back of her neck.
He wasn’t there. DeadInput was still on the scoreboard. Still holding the top slot. But the player?

Gone.

Aika played anyway. One round. Then another. Then three more back to back until her hands were sore and her focus began to dissolve around the edges. She beat his score by nearly three hundred points on her fifth run. It didn’t feel triumphant. It felt like leaving a voicemail no one would check.

The second day, she didn’t even wait. She walked in, straight to the machine, dropped her coin, and played like she had something to prove. Like her performance could summon him. Like precision was a prayer and the leaderboard was an altar. She cleared another new high score.

GHOSTKITSUNE – 1,068,800 pts

Still nothing. No shadow at the wall. No scrape of boot soles against the tile. No presence pulling her tail taut with unseen tension. She stayed longer than she should’ve that night. Bought sushi from the food bar and picked at it without tasting. Played one round of the fighting game he never really touched. Sat at a rhythm cabinet and stared at her hands until the screen timed out. When she walked home, her tail didn't move behind her, like it was just as tired.

The third day, she didn’t plan to go. She told herself it was pointless. Told herself she had work to finish. Groceries to buy. Laundry piling up in the corner of her room. A sketchbook still open to pages filled with his ghost. But her feet carried her there anyway. The walk blurred. The city moved around her, unbothered by her unrest, and the arcade came into view like a landmark carved into her bones. She stepped inside, and again, the air felt hollow. As if it noticed the absence. As if it missed him too.

She didn’t check the leaderboard. She knew he hadn’t played. Not even to reclaim the crown. And when she stood at the shooter game, her fingers hovered over the controls for a long, long moment. Not out of hesitation. But grief. Because she realized,too late, too deep, that she hadn’t wanted to win. She’d wanted him to answer. To meet her again. To speak again. Even if it was only with a controller in hand and fire in his movements. Instead, the second controller stayed cold. And when she played this time, she didn’t count the kills.
She just waited for the shadow that never came.

More days pass and the lies started with the socks. Pink with little pixelated skulls. Hidden under black fishnets and a pair of combat boots she hadn’t worn in months, the ones with the heart shaped buckles and the soles that added two inches to her short height. She stood in front of the mirror longer than she meant to, fingers adjusting the black pleated skirt she’d paired with a cropped tee, a broken joystick on it. Her hair was styled half up, two tiny pigtails poking from behind her ears. Her eyeliner was darker than usual. Gloss a little shinier. Tail twitching with nervous energy she didn’t feel like naming. It wasn’t for him. He wouldn’t even be there. She told herself that twice.

Three times.

She was dressing for herself today. Because she felt good. Because she’d won. Because she wanted to. Not because there was a chance, just a small one, barely real, that he might be there.
The walk to the arcade felt louder today. The city around her more alive. Honking cars and barking dogs and the buzz of shopfronts layered like static under her thoughts, which looped endlessly back to the same invisible script.

He won’t be there.
And if he is, it means nothing.
And if it means something?

Don’t let him know.

The arcade door opened with its usual mechanical chime. And her breath stopped. Because he was already there. Same hoodie. Same slouch. Same sharp angles folded into the far corner like he belonged to the flickering neon itself. His hair was a mess of pale strands hanging over his face, and his eyes, those red, impossible eyes, locked onto her the second she stepped inside. She didn't mean to freeze. But she did.

Half a second of stillness, her tail puffed in the middle before she caught it, forced herself to keep moving. Her boots clacked with too much force on the floor, her skirt brushing against her thighs like an accusation, and her fingers itched to fidget with something, anything, but she didn’t. She walked right past him. Didn’t glance. Didn’t blink. Went straight to Sniper Mode. And just as she dropped the coin into the machine, she felt the weight shift in the room behind her. Not a sound. Just presence. And then he was there. Next to her. Again. Not a word. Not a breath. Just the soft tap of plastic as he settled at the second controller. Like it was always his. Like she was the one joining him.

Aika’s pulse leapt up into her ears. Her eyes stayed fixed on the screen, but she saw him in every corner of her vision. The way his fingers twitched when they hovered over the buttons. The way his shoulders curved, not hunched, not tense, just drawn inward, like he was always trying to make himself smaller and more dangerous at the same time. He didn’t speak. But he smirked.

Once.

Sideways. Sharp. It wasn’t taunting this time. It was worse. It was knowing. And it made her fingers slip on the first reload. She cursed under her breath and tried again, tail twitching once behind her, brushing against the hem of her skirt. He said nothing, but he heard it. She felt him hear it. Felt the way his smirk stretched just slightly wider, like he knew exactly what she was thinking and planned to say absolutely nothing about it.

The game moved fast. Too fast. Her senses blurred into the rhythm, into the sharp sounds and flashing lights, and her heart was not in her chest anymore, it was somewhere in her throat, or maybe in her stomach, a twisting, thing that had very little to do with the game and everything to do with the ghost at her side. And when they won? When the final shot landed and the screen burst into digital fireworks and the scoreboard blinked back at them with both of their names now side by side. She didn’t cheer. She didn’t smirk back. She just exhaled. Like she’d been holding her breath for days. He didn’t drop the controller this time. He set it down gently. And then?

Without looking at her, he turned and walked away. Not fast. Not urgent. But with just enough weight to make her want to follow. She didn’t. She stood there. Still buzzing. Still frozen. Still wrapped in the echo of what hadn’t been said. Because maybe words weren’t their language after all.

Maybe this was.

Chapter Text

The new cabinet sat like a wound at the back of the arcade, black, gleaming, alive. Wedged between a dusty DDR machine and a vending unit that hadn’t worked in months, it pulsed red like it had a heartbeat. NOCTURNE: CO-OP NIGHTMARE. The name glared in jagged horror font, flickering like a threat. Like a dare.

Aika hadn’t even looked at it yesterday. She’d been too busy pretending not to stare at him from across Sniper Mode, too consumed by the sharp rhythm of their rivalry, the dance of silence, the ghost of his presence hovering always just behind her. But today, she was early. Alone. And that game was waiting.

She hated horror games. Hated dark spaces, jump scares, the echoing screeches of synthetic monsters. But she stepped closer anyway, tail twitching low like it didn’t trust her judgment, like it knew where this was going and still couldn’t look away. The booth was enclosed on three sides and walled in, a bench wide enough for two, long velvet curtains draping the entrance like some cheap stage play. Inside, it was dim. Trapping. The kind of space meant for intimacy or fear. Meant for a shared scream. She sat. Not out of bravery. But because something in her had started to ache whenever she wasn’t close to danger. The curtain whispered shut behind her, brushing her shoulder like a breath. The screen glowed cold and blue, the mounted gun warm beneath her fingers. Her pulse skipped. The title screen flickered. The game refused to start without a second player. And then she heard it.

The soft slide of the opposite curtain. Not rushed. Not clumsy. Intentional. Her ears twitched violently. She didn’t have to look. Her body already knew. He slid into the space beside her like smoke, soundless, weightless, deadly. He didn’t speak. Didn’t even glance her way. Just picked up the gun and leaned back like he’d been waiting for this all day. Like this was his seat.
The glow from the screen lit his profile in shards of red and blue, sharp cheekbones, shadowed eyes, blue hair falling in broken strands around his face like static. She sat perfectly still, muscles locked, the air between them suddenly thick with heat and something worse. The bench wasn’t wide. Their knees nearly touched. Every time she shifted, she brushed against him. Every second she didn’t, she wanted to. The game launched. Monsters shrieked from digital shadows. And Aika?
She fell apart.

Not outwardly. Not obviously. But her aim was shit. Her shots scattered like nerves, her movements too jerky, her breath catching every time a beast lunged. Her tail puffed. Her spine stiffened. Her fingers clenched the trigger so tightly her knuckles ached. He, of course, was surgical. Cold. Barely blinking. Unmoved by the chaos, fingers dancing over the controls with deadly grace, like the screams of the game couldn’t touch him. Like nothing could. But he kept glancing at her. Not mocking. Not gentle.
Noticing.

She hated it.
She loved it.

“You’re enjoying this,” she muttered, low, barely audible. He smirked. Didn’t answer her. Didn’t need to. Another monster jumped. She jolted hard, tail snapping instinctively and hit him. Square in the thigh. Solid impact. Silence.

She froze.
Mortified.

His head turned slowly toward her. Their eyes met in the dark. There it was again. That look. Like she wasn’t a girl at all. Like she was a problem he wanted to solve with his hands. Like she was a new kind of monster. His kind. The moment cracked when the level ended.

She didn’t wait.

The gun dropped from her lap with a clatter. She tore the curtain open like it had insulted her, nearly yanking the whole damn thing off the rail, and ran. Not dramatically. Just fast. Desperate. Like she could outrun the feeling in her chest or the heat in her veins. She didn’t glance back. Didn’t look for his reaction. She fled the arcade like the building was on fire, like he was the fire.

By the time she hit the street, she was breathless and pink and shaking. Her tail puffed to hell. Her hoodie hood yanked up over twitching ears as if it could hide her from what had just happened. But it wasn’t the game. Wasn’t the jump scares. Wasn’t even the dark.

It was him.

The way he sat beside her without a word, close enough to feel. The way he didn’t touch her but made her want him to. The way he didn’t make her apologize when her tail hit him. The way he looked at her like he’d let her do it again.

She could die. Right here. In the street. Instead, she swore she’d never return.

She lasted one day. Maybe two. She didn’t delete the app. Just hid it. Moved it deep into a folder. Told herself she didn’t care. Told herself it was over. But then she saw it.

DEADINPUT — 1,068,900

He beat her. By one hundred points. Again.
That wasn’t a coincidence. It was an attack.

By day three, she was pacing her bedroom in full armor, flannel, skirt, boots, gloss, rage. She wasn’t going for him. She was going to end him. Burn his name from the machine. Shove his smug little score back down his throat and make him choke on it.

She didn’t look for him when she entered the arcade. She felt him. Before her boots even hit the shooter platform. Before the game loaded. Before her fingers gripped the controller like a weapon. He was there. Across the room. Back against the wall. Hood half up. Watching her like a tiger in a cage.
She ignored him. Focused on the game. Burned through the first level like a girl possessed. Halfway through the round, she felt it. The air shifted. That low hum of presence just behind her. Not touching, but close enough to set her teeth on edge. When the round ended, she tilted her head just slightly. There he was. Still smirking. Still watching. Still absolutely sure she’d come back.
Because he’d known.

He hadn’t expected her to run that night in Nocturne. Hadn’t expected her tail to slap him or her cheeks to flush or for her to bolt like she’d seen something real in his eyes. But gods, he’d loved it. The panic. The shame. The thrill of knowing she’d felt something. And when she disappeared for a day or two, he waited. Like a hunter waits for an animal to return to the same waterhole. Because she was obsessed. Just like him. Just as sick. Just as starved.
And when she came back? She looked right at him. Didn’t say a word. Just loaded the game like she was preparing for war. He didn’t move. Didn’t interrupt. Just stood there and watched her like she was already his.
Because deep down, she was. And worse, he was hers. She had no idea what kind of monster she was unlocking.

But the game was just getting good.

Chapter Text

The score blinked across the screen like a dare.

GHOSTKITSUNE – 1,069,100 pts
DEADINPUT – 1,068,900 pts

Aika didn’t flinch. Didn’t hide her pride or soften the edge of her victory. She turned. Full bodied. No flicker, no glance. Just a look. Bold and defiant, ears perked, tail curling behind her like a warning and a question all at once. Her breathing came quick, sharp. Her eyes locked onto his like she’d just drawn blood. Like she wanted him to bleed more.

And he, he just watched. From across the arcade, half in shadow, unreadable as ever, the faint glow of the cabinet flashed across his face. He didn’t clap, didn’t sneer, didn’t even blink. He tilted his head once, slow, almost lazy. Then smirked. Not wide. Not friendly. A crooked, dangerous thing that looked more like the beginning of a threat than the end of a compliment. And stil she wanted to chase it down and make it happen again.

Then, without a word, he turned his back. Not toward the exit. Toward the nightmare. The booth. The horror cabinet at the end of the arcade with its velvet drapes and blood red glow and walls meant to trap. He slid inside like it was a throne built for monsters and didn’t look back once.

She followed.

Not because she was brave. Not because she was reckless. But because her mind wasn’t in control anymore. Her obsession had claws, and it dragged her forward. Each step pulled from something deeper, something wild and cracked and ancient in her blood. She told herself it was a strategy. Told herself she needed to prove she could handle it. Told herself a thousand excuses that sounded nothing like the truth.

The truth was simple.
She needed to be near him.

She sat beside him in the booth, the curtain falling behind her like the closing of a vault door. Her fingers shook around the plastic gun. The shadows devoured everything except the pulsing LED lights of the screen, casting her in red and him in blue. She didn’t look at him. Not directly. But she felt him. He was still. Too still. A kind of quiet that only exists before a disaster.

She hated how much she loved it.

The game started. Monsters shrieked, blood sprayed pixels across the screen, and her breath caught again and again. She flinched. She yelped once. Just once. Small. Humiliating. Her tail betrayed her, puffing up and lashing across the booth again.

She didn’t see him move. She felt it. Like a shift in gravity. His attention wrapped around her throat like invisible fingers. And then came the sound. A low huff. Almost a chuckle. No real breath in it, just rasp and something dangerous curled at the edges.

He was laughing at her. But it wasn’t mean. And that made it worse. Because it was something else. Something worse. Something fond. And Aika couldn’t handle it. She didn’t even wait for the round to end. She bolted. Gun clattering to the floor. Curtain yanked open with shaking hands. She didn’t look back as she fled the arcade, ears burning, tail stiff behind her like a blade. The night swallowed her whole and she didn’t stop running until her lungs screamed.

And behind her he didn’t move. He sat there in the booth with the ghost of her yelp still ringing in his ears, her scent still clinging to the velvet, his heart beating too fast for all the wrong reasons. That tiny sound. That twitch of her tail. That shame that hit her harder than any monster. He’d seen it. All of it. Felt it. And now, sitting in the dark, jaw clenched so tight it ached, he realized something he hated more than anything. Why he kept getting her into the booth, why he didn't mind for a second time she ran from him.

He wanted her to do it again. He wanted to make her jump. Make her yelp. Make her run. Make her come back. Make her stay.

She didn’t return the next day. Or the next.

But when she logged into the app, He saw it. Midnight check, her account showed online. He had left her with the same score. Still ahead. Taunting him. Tempting him. So he beat it. By a hundred points. Just enough to make her twitch. Just enough to make her crack.

She didn’t show, so of course he found her.

Kamino was a graveyard after sundown, broken neon signs flickering in alleyways, the wind always carrying something rotten. She didn’t belong here. Not with her twitchy ears and her soft hoodie and that tail always betraying her. She was closing up the game shop, alone, key ring jingling in her pocket when he stepped from the shadows and leaned against the wall like he hadn’t been waiting an hour.

“You run away a lot,” he said.

She froze. Like prey. But she didn’t bolt. He liked that.

Her voice cracked. “I don’t-”

“You do.”

Simple. Honest. Unforgiving.

Her tail twitched violently, like it wanted to fight even when her mouth didn’t. He took a step forward. One. Enough to close the air between them. She tensed like she expected him to hurt her. She was wrong. He wouldn’t hurt her. Not yet. Not unless she begged.

“You gonna run now, too?”

She didn’t. She stood there, ears flat, breathing fast, gaze locked on his like she couldn’t decide whether to snap or shatter. He didn’t press. Didn’t touch. Didn’t smile. He didn’t need to.

“Be there tomorrow.”

He said it like a prophecy. Like an inevitability. And it was. When she didn’t speak, he left. No victory lap. No gloating. He didn’t need her to chase him. Because she would. Eventually.

She dreamed of him that night. Not shadows. Not outlines. Him. Face and all. Her name in his mouth. And when she woke up, she whispered it back. Like a curse. The next morning, she didn’t get ready like usual. No makeup. No tail fluffing. Just hoodie, boots, and the weight of obsession dragging her out of bed and across the city.

When she arrived the arcade buzzed with low light and electric hum. He was already there. Of course. Leaning against the game cabinet like he owned the world. Their eyes met. And the world disappeared. Because this wasn’t a game anymore.  It was a war.  And they were both dying to lose.

There was something different about being beside him now. Not the placement, not the silence, they'd always shared silence like it was language. But this was different. Thicker. Heavier. Every second they spent side by side added weight to a question that had been quietly unraveling in the back of her mind since the first night she saw his name on the scoreboard. Or rather, not his name. Not anyone’s name. Just a handle. A mask. A wall of text that blinked at her in red and dared her to chase it.

DeadInput. 

It had meant nothing once. A string of syllables with no meaning. But now? Now it made her stomach twist. Because that was all she had.

They stood beside each other like strangers with a shared secret. Not quite friends. Not enemies. Something else. Something unnamed. The game today wasn’t the shooter. It was hers, the fighter. She’d almost forgotten he could play it too. That he’d beaten her there first. It felt like years ago now, though it hadn’t even been a full season. Time with him moved differently.

He didn’t speak when she picked the cabinet. Didn’t comment when she chose her favorite character. He just joined. Slid the coin in. Took the other side like he always had, like he shared some unspoken claim to the second controller. His fingers hovered over the buttons with the same strange, twitching grace as before, four always touching, never five.

Aika couldn’t help but notice that, even now. The way he lived like the world itself might disappear if he held on too tightly. Maybe it was his quirk? She wasn't really sure.

The matches were close. She won some. He won more. But for once, it wasn’t about the scoreboard. She couldn’t focus on that. Her mind was too loud, thoughts overlapping, her wolf instincts coiling tighter with every glance she stole at the side of his face, every quiet moment between matches when she should’ve said something but didn’t.

It was ridiculous. She’d stood next to him for hours across weeks. She’d seen him in the dark, heard him laugh, dreamed of his voice speaking her name. But she didn’t know who he was. Not really. Not at all.

And maybe worse, he didn’t know her either.

Not Aika. He’d never asked. Not once. And maybe that was part of the unspoken deal, don’t break the illusion, don’t risk making it real. But it was real now. It had been for a while. So when the final round ended, when the game blinked out and the lights dimmed into standby mode, she didn’t move.

She stood there, tail curling slowly behind her. He stood like he always did. Ready to leave. Ready to slip out into the shadows and become part of the silence again.

And just before he turned, she spoke.

“What’s your name?”

The words were so quiet she barely heard herself say them. She wasn’t even sure he would hear it. But he did.

Because he paused.

His shoulders tensed, just for a second and then relaxed again. He didn’t turn back. Didn’t look at her.

And then? He laughed. Not loudly. Not mockingly. Just that same low, amused breath that sat somewhere between a chuckle and a sigh, and something inside her chest cracked. He walked away after that. No answer. No glance. Just the echo of his footsteps and the faint, lingering echo of his laugh.

She sat there for a long time after. Still. Silent. Her tail curled tight around her knees and her fingers clenched white. Not because she was angry.

But because she’d never wanted to hear someone speak so badly in her entire life.

Chapter Text

She didn’t sleep that night. Not well, anyway. Not in a way that meant anything. She laid there for hours with the lights off, her room lit only by the lazy pulse of her PC monitor in sleep mode and the occasional flicker of headlights brushing past her curtains. The world kept moving. Time passed. Her body remained still. But her mind? It was running.

His laugh echoed over and over again in her head, not loud, not sharp, just constant, as if her brain had decided to replay it until it dulled the edges of her shame or sharpened them into obsession. Her tail twitched relentlessly under her blanket. Her ears flicked at every sound. She should’ve been tired, should’ve been exhausted after a week of emotional upheaval, of games and stalking and tension that tied her in knots, but she couldn’t rest.

Because he laughed. Because he walked away. Because she still didn’t know his name.

And he didn’t know hers.

That fact clung to her like smoke. It stuck to her skin, her thoughts, her every breath. It haunted her worse than any of the arcade’s horror cabinets ever could. This realization that she was trying to name a ghost, and he didn’t even seem to care that she existed outside of high scores and shared silence. She rolled onto her side and stared at her phone screen. Her finger hovered over the app icon for the leaderboard, but she didn’t open it. She knew he’d still be ahead. It wasn’t about the score anymore.

She wanted to know him.

She wanted to know where he went when he disappeared at the end of the night. If he had friends. If he lived alone. What kind of music he listened to. If he ever listened to music at all. She wanted to know if he’d always been like this, silent, sharp, watchful or if something made him this way. She wanted to know if he played other games. If he worked. If he slept. If he dreamed. If he ever said anyone else’s name the way he had said hers, well in her dream, in that voice that sounded like the end of something sacred.

She wanted to know his Quirk. Because no one moved like that without reason.

She’d seen it, how careful he was. How precise. How he hovered around the fifth finger like it was cursed. She didn’t believe in coincidence. Not with him. Not with the way he never touched anything fully, not the controllers, not the walls, not even the air around him. There was power there. Something dark. Something coiled tight beneath his skin like a snake waiting for command. And she wanted to see it. She wanted to understand it. To understand him.

And she hated herself for it. Because he’d never once asked about her. Never even tried.

Not her real name, not her Quirk, not her life, not her heart that practically announced itself every time he stepped into the room. He didn’t need to know her to pull her into his orbit, and somehow that made her feel less real like she could vanish tomorrow and he’d just move on to the next username in the ranking system without blinking.

But she couldn’t do that to him. She couldn’t pretend she wasn’t already deep in this, already ruined by him, already rebuilding her world in the shape of his shadow.

She sat up in bed, the sheet falling around her waist, her breath fogging the cool air of her room. The lights outside had changed faded from early evening yellow to the cold blue of near dawn. She hadn’t moved for hours.

Something had to give.

Because she couldn’t keep doing this letting him exist in pieces, fragments, pixels and shadows and smirks that made her chest ache. She couldn’t keep building him up like a myth in her mind while knowing nothing but his presence. She had to do something. She had to find out. Something. Anything.

A real name. A clue. A thread to pull. She couldn’t ask him, not again. Not after he laughed. But there had to be a way. She could ask around. Pretend it was casual. She could listen more, watch more, pick up patterns in his timing, in his path. She could find something he left behind, something he forgot, something that pointed toward the truth of who he was. She had to. Because this wasn’t curiosity anymore.

It was need.

The arcade felt colder without the beanie.

That was the first thing she noticed as the sliding doors hissed shut behind her and the familiar hum of neon and circuitry wrapped around her like a static filled memory. No hoodie, no hat, just her usual skirt, a long sleeve crop top, and the soft flush of her exposed ears twitching at every burst of artificial sound. Her tail swung low behind her with a slow, distracted rhythm, betraying the calm she tried to wear on her face.

She hadn’t come here to play today. That wasn’t the plan. She needed to sit. To think. To watch. So she made her way past the front rows of claw machines and idle rhythm cabinets and settled at one of the small, cracked tables tucked near the back wall. A lonely little corner booth with peeling laminate and a plastic tray holder that never quite held anything. She set down her lunch, some convenience store onigiri and a bottled iced tea, then sat with her legs folded to one side, eyes scanning the arcade floor like a wolf in waiting.

She wasn’t sure what she was hoping for. Clarity, maybe. Closure, more likely.

But mostly?

She wanted to see him.

And then, as if her thoughts summoned him, the door opened.

He stepped inside, just a long figure in a weather beaten hoodie, pale hair even more disheveled than usual, red eyes already flicking across the room like he was checking for ghosts. For her. His gaze found her instantly locked, sharp, unblinking and for the briefest moment, her breath caught in her throat. She didn’t move. Didn’t smile. Didn’t gesture. She just let him look.

And then? He walked toward her. Not toward the shooter game. Not toward his usual post by the machines.

He walked to her table.

Aika’s fingers tightened around her tea bottle as he approached, something between a tremor and a thrill blooming at the base of her spine. Her tail curled against her thigh. Her ears twitched once, he reached the table, looked at the empty seat beside her, and sat down without asking.

No tray. No food. No coin for the games.

Just him.

Sitting beside her like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like they’d been doing this for years. He didn’t speak. Neither did she.

For a moment, they just sat there in silence, the chaotic symphony of game sounds and arcade noise fading into a soft, buzzing blur behind them. She didn’t look at him directly, but her body felt it, his presence , the weight of him, the way his knee just barely angled toward hers, the scent of static and dust and something faintly chemical that clung to his hoodie like memory. Her appetite vanished entirely. The rice in her hand felt heavy, ridiculous, like she was trying to eat during an earthquake.

She swallowed once. Then, softly, so softly she wasn’t sure if she meant to say it aloud she murmured, “You don’t play when I’m not here..only when you're trying to beat my score.” A statement. Observation. Not a question.

His eyes didn’t leave the game floor. But the corner of his mouth twitched. Aika stared at that faint smile like it was a riddle she couldn’t solve. She set down her food, laced her fingers together in her lap, and tried not to visibly wither under the heat rising in her chest. She didn’t know how to exist like this. In stillness. In proximity. In the strange limbo between not quite strangers and something far more dangerous. She didn’t know why he came. Why he stayed. Why he hadn’t said her name. Why he hadn’t asked for hers.

But he was here. And so was she. No scoreboard between them.

Just a table. Just a chair. Just two bodies suspended in the kind of tension that didn’t need noise to be deafening. Aika turned her head slightly, her gaze brushing over his profile. His hand rested on the table now. Four fingers curled inward. One hovering, always aware. Always careful.

And for once? She didn’t want to look away.

She didn’t expect him to speak. Not really. She’d come to accept the silence like a second atmosphere thick, tense, uniquely his. Words between them were rare, brittle things that shattered before they could fully form. So when he shifted beside her just slightly, just enough to close the distance by a breath she almost didn’t register it at first. But her body did. Her ears twitched. Her tail went still. Every instinct inside her stilled like prey sensing a predator at the edge of the clearing.

Then his voice, low and dry and frayed around the edges 

“What’s your name?”

The words hung in the air like a glitch in reality. She blinked, unsure if she’d imagined it, if maybe her brain was finally breaking under the weight of too much hope. But no, he was looking at her now. Not through her. Not beside her. At her. Those blood red eyes pinning her in place with more weight than any hands ever could.

“Aika,” she said, and her voice cracked on the first syllable. She cleared her throat and tried again, quieter this time, like offering something fragile. “Kozuki Aika.”

And then just like in her dreams, but somehow worse he chuckled. Not loudly. Not mockingly. Just a breath of sound, soft and raspy and amused, curling at the corner of his lips like he’d already known it. Like he’d always known it. Like he’d waited to hear it just to see how it sounded in his mouth.

“Aika,” he repeated, and hearing it in his voice was nothing like the dream.

It was worse. It was better. It was devastating.

He said her name like a question, like a test, like a game she hadn’t been told the rules of until he already had her in checkmate. Her whole body reacted, ears trembling, breath stalling, heart hammering against her ribs like it might actually burst its way out. Her fingers clenched beneath the table, nails digging crescents into her palms, and for the first time in days, she forgot entirely about the scoreboard.

Then he stood up. Just like that. Smooth. Unhurried. As if her name had been the whole reason for coming. He didn’t wait for her to speak again. Didn’t even glance at her. He just walked. Slowly. Deliberately. Toward the horror cabinet,  the same booth. The same suffocating dark that swallowed sound and space and breath. He stepped inside. Sat down. And waited. Not like he was asking.

Like he knew she would come.

Like it was already written.

Aika sat there frozen, her heart pounding so violently she thought for a moment it might be audible over the din of the arcade. Her lips parted. No sound came out. Her tail twitched once behind her, confused and flustered and betraying her even more than usual. Her name still echoed in her ears, Aika. Not just the sound of it, but the way he’d said it. Like it belonged to him now.

She stood.

Not because she wanted to. Not because she had to. But because not following him felt like holding her breath.

And she was already suffocating.

Chapter Text

The booth was already dark when he slipped inside, the heavy velvet curtains hushing the world behind him. The glow of the loading screen bathed the cabinet in flickering red and blue, casting distorted shapes across the padded interior, making everything look soft, sick, and surreal. It was warm in here. Close. The kind of closeness that made people sweat and squirm and make bad decisions. But he didn’t squirm. He didn’t sweat. He didn’t make bad decisions. Not unless she was involved.

He didn’t come for the game. He never came for the game. The monsters were predictable. The terror was fake. The blood, the screams, the twitching animations meant to scare children and drunk teenagers, they meant nothing to him. Manufactured fear. Cheap shocks dressed up as chaos. No. What scared him what really got under his skin, was her.

Because Aika was soft. And stupid. And dangerous in the kind of way that made him want to rip something apart. She didn’t even realize it.

That first time, the tail incident, her face flushing crimson like she’d been skinned alive, the way she fled the booth like he’d set her on fire. It should’ve been forgettable. It should’ve been beneath him. But it wasn’t. It lodged in his head like a shard of glass and stayed there, cutting deeper every time he remembered how she looked at him like he was something between a nightmare and a god.

He hated it.

He hated the way her scent lingered like sugar and electricity. He hated the way her voice caught on the edges of words. He hated how her silence made him curious, how her tremble made his neck itch, how her name, Aika, felt like a word he shouldn’t say but wanted to ruin anyway.

And yet he waited.

Alone in the velvet box, breathing in stale static and her ghost scent, hands twitching against the controller like maybe if he gripped it hard enough, he’d stop thinking about how close she’d been last time, how close he wanted her now. He told himself she wouldn’t come. That she was too smart. That she’d learned her lesson.

But then the curtain moved.

Soft. Hesitant. A whisper of motion. The kind that made your instincts sit up and growl. She stepped into the booth with the fragile caution of prey walking straight into the lion’s den, already knowing how it ends but needing to do it anyway. Her silhouette glowed in the screen light, hands clenched around the plastic gun, tail coiled around her thigh like a leash she was trying to hold onto. She didn’t look at him. But he felt her heartbeat in the air. Fast. Nervous. Stupidly brave.

He said nothing.

Just shifted subtle, deliberate, the back of his hand brushing so close to hers on the console that the air between them hissed like static. And when the first monster jumped from the shadows on screen with a crackling screech, she flinched. Not a little twitch. A full body jerk. Her shoulders hit the seat. Her ears folded. And her breath caught mid chest like she’d forgotten how to survive.

He exhaled. Not a sigh. Not really. Something darker. Amused. Possessive. Dangerous. Because she was cracking again.

And god, he loved watching her fall apart.

Every little movement every twitch of her ears, every tremble in her fingers, every time her thumb hovered too long on the reload button, was a tell. A signal. A weakness. He should’ve exploited it. Should’ve pushed until she broke and ran again. But instead he watched her. Not the game. Not the score. Not the monsters.

Her.

The way her lip caught between her teeth, like she was trying to chew through her panic. The way her eyes jumped from corner to corner, always trying to stay ahead of the horror, always failing. The way her tail, despite all her effort, betrayed her, twitching with every scare, fluffing when his knee shifted too close.

She was trying so hard not to touch him. And he wanted to grab her by the neck and ask why.

Because he could. Because he would. Because she didn’t run from him in that terrified way anymore. She flinched, yeah, but not from fear. From confusion. From want. From the awful, ugly fact that she liked this. Liked him . Liked the pressure. The proximity. The tension. The way he watched her like he could dissect her from the inside out and still not be satisfied.

She was sick. Maybe sicker than him. And that made it worse. Made it better.

He leaned back in the seat, stretching his arm along the padded wall of the cabinet close enough that his fingers almost brushed her shoulder. Not touching. Not yet. But the suggestion was enough. Her posture shifted. She stiffened. And that flicker of fight or flight came roaring back into the space between them like smoke in a burning room.

Good. Let her feel it. Let her drown in it. She needed this.

They both did.

And just when she started to relax when her aim steadied, when her breathing leveled out, when her tail started to sway gently behind her again, he struck.

He leaned in.

Closer. Slower than a threat. Closer than a lover. His breath ghosted past her cheek, warm and quiet and too human to be safe. Her whole body locked. She didn’t move. Didn’t blink. And then, low and sharp like a knife pressed to her skin, he whispered.

“See you tomorrow, Aika?”

Her name. He said it like a secret. Like a sentence. She jolted.

The gun fell from her hands, clattering loudly in the tiny booth. Her tail thrashed once, hitting the curtain. Her breath hitched in her throat, sharp and panicked and utterly delicious. And then, she looked at him. Really looked. Eyes wide. Pupils blown. Lips parted like she might speak, scream, or sink her teeth into him just to make it stop.

He didn’t wait for her answer. He didn’t need it.

Because she’d be back.
Because she wanted this.
Because she was his.

Whether she knew it yet or not.

He stood, silent, letting the curtain fall closed behind him like a blade. Left her sitting there, alone in the booth, her thoughts burning a hole through her skull, her chest still heaving from something that wasn’t quite fear and wasn’t quite pleasure.

And outside, beneath the dying buzz of the arcade lights, Tomura Shigaraki let himself smile.

Not soft. Not warm. Predatory. Because she was breaking.

And soon she’d beg him to finish the job.

Chapter Text

She could still feel it.

Not just the sound, though it haunted her like a phantom hum in her chest but the shape of it. The weight. The exact cadence of syllables curling behind her ear like barbed wire dipped in honey. “See you tomorrow, Aika?” Her name had never sounded like that before. Soft as a secret. Dark as a threat. His voice dragged over it, casual and cruel in the way only he could make cruelty feel intimate. It hadn’t been a taunt. Not this time. It had been something closer to a warning. Or a promise. Or a brand.

And now it echoed under her skin like a second heartbeat.

She walked slow through Kamino’s streets, boots hitting uneven pavement as the sunset bled molten gold and rust across the edges of every broken building, turning the alley shadows long and clawed and hungry. Her ears twitched against the wind, but she didn’t feel cold. Not even close. Her blood was still warm. Still humming. Still wrecked by what he’d left her with inside that booth where every breath felt like it could've turned into something irreversible.

She didn’t smile. Her face was too dazed for that. Her thoughts rewinding and looping that moment in the dark like a cursed reel of film, his breath so close, the heat of it brushing her cheek, the word “Aika” heavy with possession. She didn’t want it. She didn’t need it.

But if he asked again, she'd come crawling.

And maybe that scared her more than anything else that she’d already made space for him in places she didn’t even know were empty.

She didn’t hear it at first. Just the city. The muted, twitchy hum of Kamino’s usual chaos the distant sound of sirens, the buzz of broken neon, the low growl of something unsaid. But then, footsteps. Too close. Too fast. A second shadow bleeding into hers.

Her instincts flared. She turned just in time to see him a stranger, tall and ragged, moving like a weapon, face half obscured beneath a mask, one eye gleaming through the cracked lens with a predator’s glee. His Quirk lit up his hands, flickering orange and green, something acidic and unstable that hissed against the air like it was starving. He didn’t speak. He didn’t demand. He just grinned, like he wanted to see what her insides looked like.

The first blow came before she could even react.

It slammed into her ribs, flinging her into the brick wall hard enough that the air left her lungs. Pain lit up her nerves like a wildfire white hot and blooming fast. Her spine scraped down the alley wall, her head ricocheted off the brick, her ears rang, and the metallic taste in her mouth told her she was already bleeding.

He laughed. She hated that laugh. Too wet. Too certain. Like he thought this was going to be fun. But he didn’t know what she was.

Her vision narrowed. She could hear her pulse louder than his footsteps now. The pain in her side became irrelevant, swallowed whole by something ancient and vicious that lived beneath her skin and waited for moments like this. Her fingers dug into the pavement. Her breath stilled.

And then her body broke itself apart.

It wasn’t controlled. It wasn’t heroic. It wasn’t for anyone’s benefit but her own. Her spine cracked with the sharp, sick sound of transformation, fur ripping through flesh as her hands became claws, her bones lengthened, her shoulders widened, and her mouth, once soft split open into rows of sharp, dripping teeth. Her tail lashed once behind her, and the moment her snarl echoed through the alley like thunder, the air changed.

She wasn’t Aika anymore.

She was the wolf.

Fast. Brutal. Silent no longer.

She lunged.

Her claws found skin first ripping through cloth and muscle like paper. Her teeth sank in second, deep and unyielding, tearing into him like he was a chew toy and she’d just remembered she had something to prove. She didn’t hear him scream. She didn’t care. All she saw was red. All she felt was the heat of her own rage, the vindication of giving the world what it always expected from her. A monster.

Because maybe it was easier to be the beast than try and explain the girl. He tried to fight back. She didn’t let him. She wanted him to hurt. Not just bleed. Hurt. Because the world didn’t listen to soft voices. The world didn’t fear crying girls on sidewalks.

But it feared this. And she loved that.

Until the sirens.

They sliced through the air like glass, sharp and final. Flashing lights strobed across the alley walls. Her body went still, teeth still buried in the bastard’s shoulder. A spotlight flared.

And a voice loud, male, barked out orders like it was a curse.

Then pain.

Worse than the ribs. Worse than the fists. This pain was cold, mechanical, designed. The collar hit her neck with a sharp hiss and a blinding surge of static, and everything inside her snapped. Her limbs recoiled, muscles spasming violently as the quirk suppressors forced her transformation in reverse, crushing bones and ripping fur back beneath skin like someone trying to shove a tsunami into a bottle.

She hit the ground. Bruised. Bleeding. Small.

Her ribs ached. Her back screamed. Her knees were raw. She laid on the pavement in the glow of police headlights, nothing more than a shaking, half conscious girl with blood on her lips and her heart still racing with teeth it didn’t have anymore.

“Don’t move!”

She didn’t. She couldn’t. Her body was still rebooting, lungs struggling to remember how to inhale without growling.

“I was attacked,” she tried to say, but her voice cracked halfway through, barely more than a rasp of broken glass and breath.

“Unlicensed quirk use in a civilian sector,” someone snapped. She couldn’t see who. “You know the law.”

“She saved herself-” another voice murmured.

But it didn’t matter. They didn’t care. The cuffs came anyway. Cold. Unforgiving. They locked around her wrists like shackles meant for something dangerous, not a girl still shaking from being hunted. And in that moment, the humiliation hit harder than the attacker ever had.

Because they didn’t see someone bleeding on the concrete. They didn’t see someone barely breathing, ribs splintered, skin torn. They saw a threat. A rogue. A liability in a hoodie and a heartbeat too close to breaking.

They saw a wolf who got off her leash. And no one cared why.

The cell was too bright.
The light buzzed with a high whine, vibrating through her skull like a scream held just below the surface. Fluorescent panels cast hard shadows across concrete and steel, and every sterile inch of the place smelled like bleach trying to cover blood that had already dried. It was suffocating. Clean in the way morgues are clean, impersonal, cold, unfeeling. The bench beneath her was steel bolted and unforgiving. She didn’t move. Couldn’t. Her body trembled not from fear, not anymore but from the aching cold that soaked into her bones like punishment.

No blanket. No water. No name spoken since they shoved her in.

Aika sat hunched, knees drawn tight to her chest, arms wrapped around her legs as if that might hold her together. Her shirt clung to her in damp patches, her black tail twitching involuntarily with every phantom sound that echoed off the walls, doors slamming down the hall, boots scraping, keys rattling. She couldn’t stop the twitch. She tried. Bit the inside of her cheek raw trying to stay still. But it wouldn’t stop. It never stopped when she was on the edge like this. Half wolf. Half girl. All teeth.

It was the fatal flaw of her Quirk. When she shifted the wolf healed almost instantly when hurt, but outside the shift, the girl she was didn't. Her lip was split open and dry now, crusted in blood. Her eye had swollen shut completely, the bruise branching out like a spiderweb of purples and greens blooming across the high arc of her cheekbone where her head kissed brick. Her neck burned where the suppression collar had latched too hard and hissed against her skin, leaving a welt that felt radioactive. And her ribs, fuck, her ribs throbbed with every breath, cracked or bruised or maybe both, she didn’t know. Didn’t care. 

They’d dragged her in like an animal. They didn’t even try to pretend she was a person. Didn’t ask questions that meant anything. They saw a girl shift and a bleeding man on the pavement and made their call. That was it.

“Unlicensed Quirk use in public with intent to harm,” the officer had said, clipboard in hand, voice so flat it could’ve been a vending machine. As if it hadn’t been self defense. As if the man hadn’t already been glowing, already smiling when he swung first. It hadn’t mattered. They didn’t care who threw the first punch.  All they cared about was what she looked like after, fangs bared, fur bristling, blood on her mouth, eyes alight with something primal and loud. Something not meant for daylight. Something Kamino had never allowed to exist without a muzzle.

So she’d gone quiet. Didn’t argue. Didn’t beg. Didn’t try. Because that would’ve made it worse. They wanted her to lose it. They wanted her to snarl. They wanted the wolf.

She gave them silence instead. But her silence was not submission. It was something else entirely. Something darker. Something careful. It didn’t matter how they tried to dress it up. “No formal charges at this time,” the woman had said later, voice brisk and professional as she avoided eye contact, shuffling paperwork with fingers that trembled just enough to betray her composure. “Pending further review,” and “you’ll be released in the morning,” and not a single apology in between.

Because they didn’t owe one. Because monsters didn’t get apologies.

When the metal door buzzed open just after sunrise, Aika stepped out slowly, painfully, her tail dragged low behind her, ears pinned flat to her skull not in defeat, but from something more ancient. Shame. Rage. Something primal and coiled and burning. Something that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the fact that she hadn’t ripped them all apart just to prove she could.

They thought they’d broken her. All they did was teach her what it would feel like when she stopped pretending not to bite.

She walked home. Didn’t speak. Didn’t think. Didn’t lift her head once. Her hands shook the whole way, tremors rattling through her fingers like aftershocks from something bigger, something unsaid. By the time she reached her apartment, the shaking had spread through her whole body. It took her three tries to get the key in the door. Four to turn it. She didn’t cry. Not yet. Her body was too wrecked for that. Crying required breath. It required safety.

And Aika had never had either.

She didn’t change out of the bloodied shirt. Didn’t clean the dried streaks off her face. She kicked off her boots, and collapsed onto the bed face first like her skeleton had given up. The scent of fabric softener and sweat hit her like a memory she hadn’t asked for, and that’s what did it. That’s what made it real.

She broke.

Not gently. Not with quiet sobs and trembling lips. It was a violent, bone deep, feral kind of grief. The kind that had no name. No dignity. No purpose. Her whole body shook, curling inward on itself, tail wrapping tight like a tourniquet around her legs as if it could keep her from unraveling completely. Her ears flattened harder, burying into the pillow, Every sob dragged up from her gut like poison. Ugly. Animal. Her throat scraped raw, her chest a cage too tight for what lived in it, and still it came. The tears. The shaking. The absolute, heart splitting ache of knowing that no matter how good she fought, no matter how hard she tried to walk the line they would always see her the same.

As a threat. As a warning. As something meant to be chained or put down if it got too loud. She didn’t want to be feared. She didn’t want to be a wolf. She just wanted to be. But Kamino didn’t leave room for that. Not for her. Not for people like her. Not for monsters with pretty faces and Quirks that looked better in nightmares than in hero lineups.

She didn’t sleep. She just laid there, broken and burning and drowning in silence.

When she woke the next morning, the sun had already risen high above the skyline, casting light that felt too warm, too bright for how cold she felt inside. Her body protested with every movement, a throb in her ribs, the dull pulse of her bruised eye, the stiffness in her neck where the collar had clamped down, the aching burn it left behind. But none of it compared to the pain in her chest. It wasn’t even really pain. It was emptiness. A numb, echoing silence where something else used to be.

The arcade wasn’t even a question in her mind. Not today. Not with her face like this. Not with the way her tail twitched too visibly and her ears refused to lift from their low, defeated droop. She showered slowly, water scalding and steam thick, as if she could boil away the humiliation. Her reflection in the mirror was a cruel reminder, puffy eye, discolored skin, swollen lip. She dabbed concealer over the worst of it, not because she thought it would help, but because trying made her feel more human.

She got dressed anyway.

Long sweater to hide everything, thick tights, boots. She ran a brush through her waist length black and pink hair even though her hands kept shaking when they neared her scalp. Her ears flicked but didn’t rise. Her tail refused to lift. And somehow that felt more naked than anything else. She was still her but not the version she liked. Not the girl who could hold her own on a leaderboard, who knew her controls better than her heartbeat, who snuck glances at the boy with red eyes and smug smirks like it was a game worth losing.

She didn’t feel like that girl. She felt marked. Not just by bruises, but by something more permanent.

She couldn’t stop thinking about the look in that officer’s eyes or the heroes behind him. How quickly they moved, how hands had gone straight for the suppression collar like they'd been waiting to use it. They hadn’t even let her speak. Hadn’t asked if she was okay. They just saw a wolf and reached for a cage.

If she’d had any other Quirk, telekinesis, lasers, hell, even pyrokinesis they might’ve called her a hero. Might’ve offered to escort her home. Might’ve asked for her statement and praised her for her courage. But she had fur. And claws. And the kind of strength that didn’t look good in PR posters. So she was cuffed. Collared. Dragged into a patrol car with blood still dripping down her temple and shame in her throat.

And now? She couldn’t even look at her phone. She knew the scores were there. Probably updated. Probably taunting her. His name hovering just below hers or maybe already above it again. She knew he was probably there. Waiting. Wondering. Watching that cabinet with the second seat empty like he had plans for her today.

She pulled her curtains closed tighter, and sat curled in her desk chair like a ghost trying to remember how to haunt its own house.

Outside, the city moved on. Inside, Aika did not.

She wanted to stay home, hide, lick her wounds, but Aika could never stay away from him for long. That had become just a simple fact of her life.

Chapter Text

She was supposed to be there.

He knew it the second he stepped through the flickering glass doors, cold air hissing against the back of his neck like a warning too late. The arcade always buzzed with something feral, flashing lights, static laced music, the constant whir of machines chewing quarters. It was familiar. Predictable. But that day? It felt wrong the moment he walked in.

Because she wasn’t there.

He didn’t plan to be early. He never did. Plans were for people who needed structure, and he was chaos incarnate with a heartbeat. But something pulled him today, something sharp and restless that dug under his skin like a bad itch. A weight behind his ribs. A twitch in his fingers. A sensation like unfinished business. Like today was supposed to mean something. Like she’d be waiting just as he told her, ears perked, tail flicking, hands curled tight around the shooter cabinet controls, pretending not to notice the way he hovered just close enough to feel her breath when she lost focus.

But the cabinet was empty. The table in the back is untouched. The leaderboard unchanged.

Her name still blinked at the top, all smug and untouchable in that quiet little way only she managed. His score was just beneath it like an insult. Like she’d dared him to come back. Like she wanted to be chased.

But she wasn’t here. And that, more than the score, pissed him off.

He told himself that’s all it was. That he was annoyed. Irritated. Off balance because she’d earned her victory and hadn’t even shown up to smirk about it. That she’d denied him the satisfaction of seeing her blush when he leaned too close again. That she’d left the game unfinished. That she didn’t get to win and disappear.

But that was a lie.

Because the longer he stood there, still as death, the more that raw nerve behind his ribs twisted into something colder. Something hungrier. Something that tasted like obsession burning through disappointment. She always showed up.

Always.

Even when she hated him. Even when she was hiding it. Even when she flinched like he might sink his teeth into her throat. She came back. Every single time. She showed up with her too big hoodie sleeves and her twitchy little fingers and her weird candy sweet scent like she’d rolled in sugar and sleeplessness and called it perfume. And now?

Gone. Without a trace.

He leaned against the side of the cabinet and stared at the high score like it owed him an explanation. Like her name was a trigger. A scar. A whisper in the dark meant only for him.

Aika.

It wasn’t fair. She was supposed to be soft. Fragile. Dumb. Something to crack open and crawl inside until she broke or bled or begged until he could say mine and make it true in a way that hurt. But now she’d ghosted him like he was some side quest. Like he didn’t matter. And that was unacceptable.

His jaw tensed. He remembered yesterday. The booth. The dim light. The exact moment she’d realized how close he was. The snap of her breath. The shape of her throat beneath her skin. The way her eyes had gone wide, not with fear, not really, but something worse. Recognition. She’d seen it. Him. Not the player. Not the gamer tag. Not the twitchy asshole with red eyes and a death wish. She’d seen the real him. And she hadn’t run. Not then. She’d blinked. Stared. Frozen like she liked the feeling of teeth this close to her pulse.

So what changed?

What the fuck happened between "see you tomorrow" and nothing at all?

He should’ve pushed her harder. Should’ve yanked her tail when he had the chance. Should’ve said her name with all the venom it deserved, bitten her pride in half and spit it out in front of her. She liked pain. He could feel it. She liked the edge. The burn. She’d lean closer every time he threatened to cut her off.

So why the silence? Why now?

His hands clenched in his hoodie pockets, twitching like they needed something to hold. Something to decay. To hurt. He could see her face in his mind, eyes glassy, lips parted, tail swaying like a hypnotic metronome to her own undoing. He could see how her fingers would tremble if he cornered her again. He could hear her say his name, even though she never had. Not out loud. Not yet. But it was coming. It had to. He’d tell her it one day. Maybe.

She was his. Whether she knew it or not.

And if someone else had touched her, if someone else had interrupted this thing between them, this game they were both pretending wasn’t killing them in slow motion. 

He’d end them. Not dramatically. Not loudly.

He’d erase them. Decay them. Breath by breath.

Because she wasn’t allowed to disappear.

Not without telling him first. Not without bleeding for it. Not without looking him in the eye and saying she was done, and even then, he wouldn't believe her.

He let his head fall back against the machine, breathing through his teeth. If she was gone, really gone, he didn’t know what he’d do. Burn the arcade down? Hunt her across Kamino? He knew where she worked, go there? Rip open the entire city until he found that stupid sugar and static scent on the air again?

He didn’t like this. Didn’t like how the absence of her made everything feel hollow. Didn’t like how she’d woven herself into the fabric of his routine without asking. Didn’t like how empty the seat beside him looked without her there to flinch at the game and steal glances like maybe he didn’t notice.

He did. He noticed everything.

The horror cabinet waited in the corner, dark and curtain drawn like a mausoleum no one had entered since the last time she sat beside him and pretended not to want the exact thing they were both breathing toward.

But the booth stayed empty.

And the worst part? He stayed anyway.

Because something told him the second he left she’d show up.

And he wasn’t going to miss it.

An hour passed and he was about to give up, when he almost didn’t notice her sneak her way in. Almost.

The hoodie was oversized, long enough to hang over her hips like armor, sleeves swallowing her hands until only trembling fingers peeked out. Her leggings were dark and plain, unadorned with the usual frayed edges or knee high socks or whatever other punk soft bullshit she used to wear like a second skin. The boots were the same, but she moved differently in them now, less like she was striding, more like she was apologizing with every step. And the beanie.

Fuck. The stupid beanie was back. Tugged low, stretched tight, pulled so hard over her ears it looked like she was hoping it might make her disappear entirely.

He hadn’t seen her enter. But he saw her now. And what he saw? Wasn’t her.

It was a silhouette. A half erased sketch of the girl who used to make his blood itch. She didn’t head to the cabinets. Didn’t hover near the horror game like she was pretending not to wait for him. She didn’t look at anything, really. Just moved like a shadow toward the back corner, to the table he always associated with her laughless lunches and twitchy sidelong stares.

But she didn’t sit. She stood there for a moment like she forgot why she came. Let out a small stuttering breath he noticed from across the room, then turned to go.

That’s when he moved.

He didn’t think about it. Didn’t plan it. Just cut across the room, barely registering the low hum of ambient sound or the flickering colors splashing across his shoes. His eyes locked on her like a glitch in the system. Her head turned at the last second, just slightly, and that’s when he saw it.

The bruise.

Purple and ugly, just below her jawline, where the hood didn’t quite reach.

He stopped cold. And for a second? He didn’t feel like himself.

He felt angry .

And not the usual kind, the simmering, petty, restless kind that lived in his bones and made him scratch his neck like a tic. This was different. This was targeted. Sharp. Possessive in a way that made his teeth ache. He didn’t know who’d put that bruise there, but he wanted to make sure they couldn’t walk right ever again.

Because it wasn’t just that someone had hurt her. It was that someone else had.

And that was unacceptable.

He wanted to touch it. Just to know it was real. Just to know who else had dared lay a hand on her, to know what it felt like to bruise her like that because if anyone was going to break her, to tear into that fragile little frame and make her shatter, it should’ve been him.

Her gaze slid away from him before he could speak. Not that he would’ve. Her eyes, what he could see of them, didn’t hold the usual frantic flicker. No flushed cheeks. No bashful tail. Just this hollow, flat stillness that made his skin crawl.

She wasn’t just scared. She was numb . Like whatever happened had snapped a string inside her and now she was hanging slack.

He hated it.

“Nice hat,” he said, because he was a bastard and didn’t know how to say ‘Why does it feel like I lost something that belonged to me?’

She flinched anyway. Didn’t answer. Didn’t smile. Just stood there like she was waiting for him to walk away. And maybe he should’ve. But instead?

He leaned in.

Just close enough to see the edges of another bruise under her eye, faintly covered by makeup that didn’t match her skin tone.

His jaw tightened.
His fists itched.

He hadn’t touched her like that. Not yet. So who the fuck had?

“You hiding from me?” he asked, voice low, dry, biting like acid behind velvet. ‘Say yes, give me something. Anything.'

Still, no answer.

But her tail, he saw it. Tucked around her waist under the hoodie. Hidden like it was something to be ashamed of. The same tail that used to flick with every killshot. The same tail that knocked into him in that dark booth. The one that moved when she was happy, even if she didn’t know he knew that yet.

Now it didn’t move at all. And for some reason, that hurt worse than the silence.

He stepped back. Cold. Silent. And for the first time in weeks, he didn’t smirk. Didn’t tease. Didn’t follow.

He just watched her walk away.

And for the first time since this stupid game began, he didn’t win. He didn’t own her like he thought he did.

Someone else got to her first. And that burned.

Aika didn’t stop walking once she stepped outside.

The cold didn’t matter. The ache in her ribs didn’t matter. Not the way her boots pinched at the back of her ankles or how her hoodie hung too heavy over her frame. She just needed to keep moving. Away from the lights. Away from the noise. Away from the weight of him watching her like she’d undone something in him just by showing up wrong.

She hadn’t planned to stay. Just needed to see it again, to remind herself the world hadn’t stopped just because she had. But he saw her. Of course he did. 

She heard his footsteps before he even got close. His boots hit the pavement like punctuation. Too steady. Too heavy.

“Aika.”

Soft. Almost human. She didn’t stop.

“Aika.”

Sharper.

Only when he was close enough that she could feel his presence behind her, thick like a storm cloud rolling in too fast, did she stop. Not because she wanted to. Because it was inevitable.

“You always run?” His voice was flat, dry as bone. “Or just when someone gets a look under the costume?”

She didn’t look at him. Didn’t answer. She could hear the wind kick up around them, pushing trash down the cracked sidewalk, the glow of a dying neon sign above them flickering like it might go out completely.

“I didn’t do anything,” he said, more annoyed than defensive. “I said your name. I sat down. You didn’t show up.”

Her fingers tightened inside the sleeves of her hoodie.

“I’m not asking for a fucking diary entry,” he pressed, stepping in front of her now, blocking her path like it was his right. Because it was. “But if someone put their hands on you-”

She flinched. Just a little. And that was enough. His expression changed. Not softer. Not kinder. Just colder. Sharper.

He grabbed her.

Not hard. Not yet. Just enough to feel the shape of her arm under the hoodie. Just enough to remind her she was still his , that no one else got to make her flinch like that. That no one else had the right.

“Did they?” he asked, eyes narrowing, voice like broken glass. She raised her head slowly, one side of her face still half shadowed beneath the beanie. Her voice, when it came, was flat. Raw. 

“I hate heroes.”

It wasn’t the answer he expected. It wasn’t an answer at all. But it stopped him cold.

For the first time, she looked at him directly. Really looked. No stutter. No blush. Just a slow, dark burn behind her eyes that had nothing to do with shyness and everything to do with fury too big for her small body to contain.

“They only show up to clean the mess,” she said. “Afterward. After you’ve already been bleeding. After they’ve already decided who the bad guy is. If you’re a monster, if you look like one, they don’t ask questions. They just come with cuffs.”

His lips parted. But no words came.

“And the cops?” Her voice broke, but her gaze didn’t. “They didn’t care that I was attacked. They cared that I wasn’t dead when they got there.”

He stood still as stone. Possessive rage crawling up his spine like static. The streetlamp above them buzzed once. His hand dropped and she stepped around him without another word, her boots echoing down the street, her tail stiff beneath the folds of her hoodie.

And he didn’t follow. Because for the first time since this stupid little game began, he didn’t feel like the one pulling strings. He felt like he’d just met someone real . And the way she’d said heroes, like it was a slur, not a title, itched inside his skull like something dangerous.

Something familiar . Something worth keeping.

And next time?

He wouldn’t let someone else get to her first.

Chapter Text

Three days.

That’s how long it had been since she vanished, like a ghost swallowed by the digital static of the leaderboard that still screamed her name at him every time he looked. Aika. GHOSTKITSUNE. First place. Still winning. Still haunting. Still missing. Not even a whiff of her stupid pink and black hair in the wind. 

And Shigaraki was losing his fucking mind over it.

He’d come every day. Not for the game. Not for the booth. Not for the stupid high score that meant jack shit now. He came for her, for the twitchy glances over her shoulder, the flutter of that tail when she caught him watching, the way her breath hitched like she wanted to run but her feet never moved. He’d show up and linger, lean against the cabinets and seethe, eyes locked on the spot she should’ve been. The silence she left behind was louder than anything else in Kamino.

And now it was personal.

He stood in the arcade again, jaw so tight it felt like his teeth might crack, hoodie sleeves wrinkled where he’d fisted his hands deep in the pockets like maybe if he could dig far enough, he’d find the thread that tethered him to her and yank her back through it. She wasn’t supposed to disappear. Not now. Not after that look. Not after that breathless little flinch when he said her name like a threat and a promise all at once. She wasn’t supposed to make him wait. And for a guy who was used to being ignored by the world, this silence she left was infuriating.

She’d let him in. Just a little. Enough to show that crack under the softness, the rot beneath the pretty, ‘I hate heroes’ she’d said, and he still tasted it like blood in the back of his throat. It hadn’t been performative. It hadn’t been for him. That was what stuck.

She wasn’t trying to impress anyone. She was just done. And then she disappeared again. Like she expected the world to punish her for telling the truth. And maybe it would. But he wasn’t the world. And he wasn’t letting it end like that.

He left the arcade and he just walked. The bar wasn’t far, but it felt like dragging nails through cement, every step fueled by that low, boiling fury that started somewhere behind his ribs and burned hotter with every breath.

The door opened for him like it knew not to hesitate. Inside, shadows bent themselves around him out of habit or fear, he didn’t care which. Kurogiri looked up from behind the counter, that ever patient calm barely flickering. His tone, when he spoke, was too smooth.

“Tomura. You don’t usually come back so soon unless something’s wrong.”

His fingers twitched at that. “Something is,” he said, low and feral.

Kurogiri didn’t ask what. Of course he didn’t. He waited, polished an already clean glass like he was preparing it for something.

“I need a name,” He said, stepping forward, shoes heavy on the floor like punishment. “Kamino district. Civilian file.”

Kurogiri blinked slowly. “Who?”

There was a pause. Just long enough to be dangerous. Because saying it made it real. Saying her name felt like surrendering ground he hadn’t meant to give, like inviting something into his bloodstream that he’d never get rid of. But he said it anyway.

“Kozuki Aika.”

The name dropped like a weight. And Kurogiri, who rarely reacted to anything tilted his head ever so slightly.

“The arcade girl. Isn't it?”

Of course he knew. He always knew. His lip curled.

“She hasn’t been there in three days. Looked like she’d been in a fight last time. Said some shit about heroes and cops, I want to know who she is. What happened. If someone touched her.”

“And if they did?” Kurogiri asked calmly, mist swirling off his cuffs.

His eyes narrowed. “Then I want names.”

Kurogiri stared at him for a beat too long. He was measuring. Weighing. Like he saw something behind Shigaraki’s glare he hadn’t expected to find. But he didn’t push. He didn’t dare.

“I’ll find what I can,” he said, already turning toward the portal that hissed open beside him.

“No,” Shigaraki snapped, sharper now, the words cutting. “I want everything. Address. Quirk registration. School records. Medical files. Arrest logs. Don’t filter shit. I want the whole thing.”

“And she’s not a target?” Kurogiri asked, voice flat.

“No.”  Then quieter, as if the sound burned his throat to say it, “She’s mine. ”

Kurogiri said nothing. He just vanished into the portal like a shadow curling into a whisper. And when he returned thirty minutes later, with a flash drive and a single warning look that Shigaraki didn’t bother acknowledging he left.

Back in his room, he tore through the files like they’d wronged him personally. And in a way, they had.

Kozuki Aika.

Nineteen.

Her address, some apartment dangerously close by, he made sure to write that one down.

Quirk: Wolf type heteromorph, full shift, enhancements.

Danger rating: 6.2

No license. Suppression collar recommended. Arrested four days ago.

His chest tightened.

She had been in a fight, and they’d fucking collared her for it. Self defense, the notes said. Quirk use in a public zone. Injuries to the assailant were severe. But the write up was cold. Dispassionate. They didn’t see a girl getting attacked. They saw a creature who needed to be leashed.

He gripped the sides of the desk until the cheap wood splintered beneath his fingers. The blood pounding behind his eyes turned to static. He didn’t realize he was breathing too fast until the screen started to blur. 

She had bruises. A suppression collar mark still fresh on her neck. They listed her as “noncompliant.” Not violent. Just refusing to be helpless. And for that, they made her into a monster. Of course they did. He kept reading like it would unlock something, anything to make her return.

Kamino born. Orphaned young, parents dead by accident or neglect or both. The case file was vague and impersonal. “Quirk incident.” “Structural failure.” “No charges filed.” Just enough to imply tragedy. Not enough to explain it. He read it twice, then moved on.

She’d grown up being punished for surviving. Every part of her file read like a warning label they’d slapped on a bottle they never intended to open, Foster system. Multiple placements. None stable. None long term. The notes blurred together quiet, withdrawn, avoids eye contact, limited verbal engagement, potentially trauma linked behavior patterns. 

They didn’t say she was broken. But they wrote it like she was. 

Her school record was full of absences, unremarkable grades, mood stabilizers, disciplinary marks. They filed away her grief, her instincts, her rage like it was all just something inconvenient to medicate. She’d grown up being punished for surviving. Every part of her file read like a warning label they’d slapped on a bottle they never intended to open, all dressed up to look like “support” when really it was just sedation. Muzzle the wolf. Clip the claws. Pretend she’s a girl instead of a weapon they helped forge.

He sat back, letting the words sink in.

She’d never had a chance.

Of course they arrested her. Of course she was cuffed and silenced and dragged into a holding cell for protecting herself. It wasn’t because she’d done something wrong. It was because she’d done something too well. And the wrong kind of power, wild, animal, ugly in the eyes of the world, was never tolerated for long.

They didn’t want people like her surviving. They wanted them submitting. He hated them for it. But he hated himself more for understanding. He was the same.

He read until the words didn’t mean anything anymore, just lines and boxes and numbers that felt too small to hold the weight of her. Then he snapped the laptop shut, the echo loud and final like a door slamming in his own face.

The shadows shifted behind him, Kurogiri spoke again.

“You’ve read it all?” He didn’t turn around.

“Yeah.” “All of it?” “Every fucking word.”

Another pause.

“She’s not one of us, Tomura. She’s not like-”

“She’s exactly like us,” he hissed. “She’s been crawling through the same broken system since she was a kid. No family. No protection. Just power she was told to hide. That kind of rage doesn’t go away. It grows teeth.”

“I would caution you,” Kurogiri said, stepping forward just enough to be visible in the dim light, “not to lose focus. She is a civilian. A troubled one. This could distract you.” 

“She’s not a distraction,” he snapped, too fast.

Kurogiri tilted his head slightly. “No?”

“She hates them,” He growled. “Heroes. Not like the public says after their favorite Pro gets caught in some scandal. She means it. She’s lived it.”

“Rage is not loyalty.”

“She doesn’t need to be loyal,” he muttered. “She just needs to be angry enough.”

The silence pressed in with everything unspoken ‘You’re being pulled off track. You’re letting a girl with a twitchy tail and broken mind steer the ship. You can’t rise if you’re kneeling at someone else’s feet.’

He was already halfway out the door before Kurogiri could answer. And in his head, the thought burned too bright to ignore

If the world was so afraid of her when she was caged. 

What would they do when he set her free?

Chapter Text

The days began to blur.

Not in that dreamy, drifting kind of way, but in the heavy, sluggish drag of someone who couldn’t find her footing anymore. One day folded into the next with the same mechanical rhythm, wake up, shower, dress in something muted, take the long walk to the game shop, stand behind the counter for hours with her earbuds in and eyes on the floor, then go home to her too quiet apartment where the silence screamed louder than the customers did.

She hadn’t opened her sketchbook in days. The page where she last left off, a half finished drawing of the horror game cabinet, two silhouettes seated inside, her tail accidentally curling toward the second figure, mocked her every time she passed the desk. It sat there on the edge like it was waiting for her to pick up the pen again, like it didn’t understand that the version of her who’d drawn that had been hopeful.

And Aika didn’t feel that anymore. She didn’t go to the arcade. Not because she didn’t want to. But because she didn’t deserve to. That’s what her brain told her now, loud and looping, pressing the thought in like a bruise. ‘You’re too much. Too dangerous. Too broken. You ruin everything you touch.’

Even him.

Especially him.

She hadn’t meant to pull him into it. Into her gravity. He didn’t ask for that. All those weeks of looks and glances and wordless challenges, she let herself think she was something to him. Something interesting. Something that didn’t repulse or annoy. But she must’ve been wrong, because the moment she let the real world bleed into their game, it stopped.

Maybe she scared him. Maybe he realized she wasn’t worth the trouble. Maybe he didn’t even notice she was gone.

It didn’t matter.

Because she still woke every morning with the same heavy chest, dragging herself from bed like her bones had been weighted in the night. She still showed up to work, hood up, eyes shadowed, her voice barely above a whisper when she had to speak. She still came home to an apartment that didn’t feel like hers anymore.

She didn’t cook. She didn’t draw. She didn’t log into her MMO. She didn’t even check the leaderboard app anymore.

She just… existed.

Her ears never lifted beneath the beanie. Her tail curled low and still, even in sleep. And every time she passed a mirror, she caught herself hoping for something wild in her reflection, something feral, something real. But all she ever saw was a tired girl with haunted eyes and no place to put the ache growing inside her.

Aika lay in bed that night, curled on her side, her phone untouched on the floor beside her. She stared at the wall, the quiet of her apartment pressing in like a second skin.

She didn't cry. The room felt hollow. 

And so did she.

She hadn’t meant to pass the arcade. Not today. Not like this.

Her brain was still half melted from three nights of shredded sleep and stomachfuls of instant noodles that refused to taste like food. Her limbs moved like they were puppeted from somewhere outside her body, drifting on autopilot past alleys and storefronts she used to pretend were hers. She didn’t belong anywhere anymore. She didn’t feel real. The only thing grounding her in her own skin was the dull ache from the collar bruise around her throat and the way her ribs still stung when she breathed too deeply.

The grocery list was short and sad, milk, ramen, dumplings, something fruit adjacent if it was cheap enough but her legs didn’t take the back route. No. They took her straight down the street, past the electric hum of neon that buzzed like a heartbeat and bled colors onto cracked concrete, and by the time she realized where she was, it was already too late.

Because he was there. Not in the booth. Not inside. Outside. Walking.

In the flesh and fury, hoodie slung over one shoulder, hands sunk into his pockets like they were hiding knives instead of fingers. His shoes scraped the sidewalk like they meant to split it open, like maybe the earth itself should part for him. He was leaving the arcade, and for one breathless, devastating moment, Aika thought ‘if I don’t move, maybe he won’t see me.’

She yanked her beanie lower. Kept her head down. Made herself small. Still healing. But then footsteps. Steady. Close. Matching hers like they belonged there. A shadow that didn’t need to reach for her to feel like it was gripping her spine.

He didn’t speak. Of course he didn’t. She didn’t look up. Didn’t have to. She knew. The way prey knows . Not just danger. Him.

The air around him bent differently. Quieter. Heavier. He didn’t radiate rage, he curated it. Held it inside like something sacred. Something volatile and intimate and only barely leashed. And now he was walking beside her like it was the most natural thing in the world.

The little grocery mart at the corner didn’t feel real when the doors opened. It felt like a dream filtered through antiseptic, humming with too much artificial light and not enough color. She grabbed a basket. He followed. Not behind. Beside. Like he belonged there. Like this was some sort of silent ritual they’d both agreed to.

He didn’t touch anything. Didn’t say anything. Just watched.

Her fingers trembled against the metal of the cart. She tried to breathe normally, tried not to react, tried not to feel the weight of him in every aisle, every turn, every flick of her tail that curled tighter around her thigh with every step. She hated that her heartbeat picked up. Hated that she could still smell him, dust and metal like danger baked into denim. Hated that it made her feel safe.

By the time she reached the milk cooler, her hands were aching from holding in everything she didn’t know how to exhale.

She glanced sideways. He was watching her. Not like before, not with that cold, flaying cruelty he wore like a second skin at the arcade. No this was worse. Quieter. This was cataloguing. Calculating. Like he was measuring the damage. Like he could see every place she’d broken since their last meeting and was deciding whether to repair it or rip it open wider.

And still he said nothing. She didn’t want it to mean something.

But it did.

Every aisle they crossed became a scar they shared. Every shelf, a page they turned together. And somehow, the silence was more intimate than anything they’d ever said. Because he was still there . Every footstep screamed ‘I noticed you disappeared.’ Every breath said ‘you didn’t answer, so I came to find out why.’

They exited the store side by side. She clutched her bag like a lifeline, fingers white knuckled against the plastic handles, the ache in her ribs sharpened by the cold. Her breath fogged in the air, short and shallow, but the worst part wasn’t the wind or the pain.

It was that he wasn’t leaving. He stayed. No questions. No judgment. No mockery. Just this twisted, unbearable constant. His presence like a bruise pressing back against her spine, keeping her upright by force of will alone. She didn’t understand it. Didn’t want to. But she didn’t ask him to stop, either.

Because that part of her, the feral one, the wounded one, the one who only ever breathed when threatened, liked it.

The walk stretched longer than it should have. Her boots echoed against the sidewalk. She didn’t say a word. Neither did he. The crosswalk light blinked red. 

Then green. They crossed. She turned onto her street.

He stopped.

Just like that. A full halt. Shoes planted. Shoulders slack. Still facing forward, but not moving. She took two more steps before she noticed.

Then came his voice. Low. Flat. Deceptively calm. Like a knife on velvet.

“Tomura.”

She froze. Turned. Slow.

Heart in her throat like a swallowed stone.

He wasn’t looking at her, not quite. His gaze hovered over her shoulder, but his mouth there was a twitch at the corner of it. Not a smile. Something meaner. Something secret.

It wasn’t a question. Wasn’t a test. It was a name.

His name.

And it hit her like a quake beneath her ribs.

Not DeadInput. Not “him.”

Tomura. 

The syllables rang in her ears like something private. Like a confession. Like he’d bled for it. Given it to her in silence because she’d earned it, not by being good, but by being his.

She opened her mouth but there were no words.

He turned. Walked away.

No explanation. No goodbye. No promise. Just the ghost of his name still heavy in her lungs, burning like a brand no one else could see. And she stood there on the sidewalk, fingers cramping around her grocery bag, knowing that something had shifted permanently. Because that wasn’t a game.

That was a claim.

And the next time they touched, She wouldn’t flinch.

She’d burn.

Chapter Text

It didn’t come crashing in like nightmares usually did. It wasn’t violent, wasn’t sharp around the edges or soaked in fear like the ones that used to jolt her awake gasping for air, heart stampeding and tail strangling tight around her waist like her body was trying to consume itself from the inside. No, this was slower. Slippery. A sickness that masqueraded as comfort. A fever dream made of velvet and shadow.

It came in pieces. Not jagged. But soft. Seductive.

The kind of dream that didn’t slam through the door, it seeped in through the cracks in the window. It crept beneath the floorboards and coiled around her spine, so gentle she didn’t even notice she’d been marked until it was far too late to escape.

His voice. That was the first thing.

Not the way it usually came, snarling, mocking, hungry with something cruel just behind the teeth. No. This time it was quiet. Hollowed out. Tired. Like a breath caught on the edge of sleep, more ghost than man. It settled in her chest like smoke and stayed there, staining her lungs black.

“Tomura.”

He said it again. Not loud. Not angry. Not even demanding.

And in the dream, he wasn’t walking away like he had before. He wasn’t disappearing into the static of her broken mind. He was behind her, no around her filling the room with his silence, with the low voltage hum of his presence. She couldn’t see him, but she didn’t need to. She knew the shape of him by now, the tension coiled in every inch of his slouching posture, the crackle of power bleeding through fraying edges, the way the air warped when he got too close, like the atmosphere was holding its breath for her.

She didn’t flinch. Didn’t pull away.

She leaned into it.

Because something in her recognized the pattern of his voice like muscle memory. Like instinct. Like a tether she’d been waiting her whole life to grab with both hands and never let go of again. And when she woke up, slow, dazed, curled in her nest of tangled blankets like she’d grown roots there the name was still in her ears. Not whispered. Branded . Echoing like a second pulse behind her real one.

Tomura.

The syllables sent a shiver skating down her spine, her skin prickling with goosebumps despite the layers she’d wrapped herself in overnight. Her breathing was shallow. Uneven. And for a long moment, she didn’t move. Just stared up at the ceiling as the light from the blinds painted her in stripes of gold and dust, watching the shadows shift across the room like they were listening.

She whispered it once. Out loud. Barely audible. It still felt dangerous.

Tomura.

Like if she said it too clearly, something would happen. Something irreversible. Like it wasn’t just a name, it was a summoning. Her lips parted, and for the first time in days, they didn’t tremble from fear or shame or exhaustion. They curled upward, soft. Haunted. Not quite a smile, but the kind of expression someone wears after watching the world end and deciding maybe it’s better this way.

She didn’t leave bed. Not right away. Didn’t check her phone. Didn’t eat. Didn’t think about what she looked like, or whether the bruises under her eyes had deepened into permanent ink. Her tail curled loosely around her legs like a quiet sentinel, twitching every now and then like it too was dreaming.

Eventually, her body moved. But it wasn’t a decision. It was an inevitability.

She found herself at her desk, and her sketchbook was already open, she didn’t remember doing that. Couldn’t recall when she’d last touched it. But the pages were waiting, blank and silent and hungry. Her hand reached for the pencil before her brain caught up, and when the lead touched the paper, something broke.

She didn’t draw a scene. No setting. No distractions.

Just him. Over and over.

The curve of his spine when he slouched forward in that cabinet. The heavy shadows beneath his red eyes. The cracks. The skin stretched too tight over sharp bones. His mouth, the cruel tilt of it, the way it never quite smiled but always looked like it might snap.

She drew his hands.

Again and again.

Not the whole of them. Just the tension . The way they hovered. The way they almost touched her.

And in the margins, like confession, like worship. His name.

Tomura.

Scratched in looping strokes, over and over, until the paper wore thin beneath her fingers. Sometimes large. Sometimes hidden between sketches. Sometimes repeated in patterns that looked more like madness than art.

She didn’t try to stop. Didn’t tell herself to calm down. Didn’t feel guilty when the line between fear and devotion blurred so completely it disappeared.

Because for the first time in what felt like forever she didn’t feel numb. She didn’t feel invisible. Didn’t feel like a mistake crammed into too small skin.

She felt real. Because he’d seen her. Not just looked. Seen.

With those dead red eyes like razors and ruin, he’d seen everything she tried to hide. The rot. The fury. The wildness she could never quite smother.

And he hadn’t turned away. He’d said his name.

He’d given it to her like a weapon. Like a bond. Like a leash she could wrap around her own throat and pretend it was affection.

And if that made her obsessed? If it made her crazy? If it made her just as broken as him?

Good.

Because numbness didn’t care if you lived or died. But obsession?

Obsession could keep you alive.

Chapter Text

She told herself she wasn’t dressing up for him.

She told herself that twice while pulling out her softest fishnet tights, the ones with the tear up the left thigh she never bothered to fix. She said it again when she slipped into the black skirt with the frayed hem and the crop top she hadn’t worn in weeks. Pale pink lettering scrawled across the chest read GAME OVER in glitchy font. Her tail flicked once as she looked in the mirror, a soft twitch she tried to ignore.

Her ears were visible. No beanie. No hoodie. She left them both on the hook by the door.

She swiped lip balm over her chapped mouth, dabbed just the lightest touch of shimmer beneath her eyes, and told herself she wasn’t hoping for anything. She was just going for a walk. Maybe grabbing a drink from the vending machine across the street. It didn’t matter that it was five blocks in the wrong direction. It didn’t matter that her stomach was already twisting itself in loops.

She just needed air. She needed out. And if she just happened to pass by the arcade?

Well. That didn’t mean she was expecting him.

The walk was cold, wind tugging at her hair and sending wrappers dancing down the empty sidewalks like strange little ghosts. She kept her eyes forward, not rushing, not hesitating. Just moving. One foot after the other. Her tail coiled lightly behind her legs, not tense, but aware.

The lights of the arcade blinked into view like a memory. She didn’t go in at first. She just stood across the street, watching it through the glow of a nearby neon sign that buzzed faintly against the dark.

There was no sign of him. No slouching figure by the wall. No flash of pale hair and red eyes and irritation wrapped in shadow. Still, she crossed.

The arcade door opened with a familiar jingle. Too familiar. Too loud. She hesitated inside, eyes adjusting to the dim light and rainbow blur of motion. It smelled the same, sweaty machines and fried something and synthetic neon nostalgia. Her heart thudded in her chest like a glitching rhythm game, too fast and out of sync with everything around her.

But she didn’t leave. She didn’t even look around for him. Instead, she walked to the same old machine where she’d first carved out her territory, the shooter with the red joystick and the greasy handprints on the second controller. She dropped her coins, lifted the controller like it meant something, and started to play.

And for a while, it was just her. Just the game. Just the flicker of muscle memory and the static buzz of her mind finally going quiet. But in the back of her head? A whisper curled like a ribbon around her thoughts.

Tomura.

Not a hope. Not a prayer. Just a name. And the smallest flicker of fire, licking at her ribs with every pull of the trigger. She didn’t see him that day. 

But he saw her.

From the shadows. From the far end of a grimy arcade cabinet that hadn’t worked in weeks. He stood there, flicking broken gum wrappers with his shoe, pretending to be part of the scenery. Watching.

She didn’t notice. She never fucking noticed. Not anymore. Not after that bruise. Not after she came in looking like a sketch of herself, eyes flat, tail still, hoodie stretched over her frame like she could disappear if she held still enough. The girl he’d toyed with, teased, poked just to hear her voice stutter, she was gone. Or at least buried.

And it shouldn’t matter. He told himself that. But it did . It mattered that someone else got to her first. It mattered that her silence had changed. It used to mean defiance. Now it sounded like retreat. And he couldn’t stand it.

Because she wasn’t supposed to retreat from them. She was supposed to retreat from him.

He was the danger. The threat. The warning label. If anyone was going to make her shudder, it should’ve been his voice in her ear, his fingers curling near her neck, his words lodged like thorns beneath her skin.

But someone else had tried it first.

And now she walked like a ghost in his space, the outfits were back, the exposed skin that made his body itch. But he could tell, even from where he stood the shadows still followed her. Her tail didn't move the same, her ears stayed forward, no annoying twitch, even after yesterday. After he gave her his name, and now she didn’t even have the decency to look at him.

It was disrespectful. It was infuriating.

And it turned whatever interest he’d been nursing into something else entirely. Something feral. Something that scratched at the inside of his skull like a buried instinct. He didn’t want her to be okay. He wanted her to be his . Her quirk. Her rage. Her monster under the bed silence. The look in her eyes when she talked about heroes like she wanted to bury them six feet deep and salt the earth. That wasn’t just hot. It was familiar. It was home.

She didn’t fear him. She feared everything else. And that, that was a problem. Because he needed her to flinch. Not from anyone. From him . He needed her so used to his shadow she couldn’t tell where it ended and hers began.

He'd spent too long hovering behind her like some bored phantom, tracing the line between patience and hunger, letting the tension stretch taut between them until it sang. But whatever he was waiting for, whatever she used to give so freely was gone now.

And he was done waiting. Done with glances. Done with silences. Done pretending his fixation was anything short of obsession with a fuse shoved in its mouth. He wanted to know how her voice sounded when it broke on his name.

He wanted to hear her laugh and lie and curse and scream for him, not just around him.

He wanted to push until she pushed back. And if she didn’t?

He’d teach her how.

That tail of hers used to betray everything. One flick and he’d know if she was annoyed, pissed off, playing coy. Now it was still. And it made his skin crawl.

He didn’t want her numb. He wanted her vibrating with rage.

With need. With him.

He moved closer and leaned against the wall just behind the booth she’d walked up to, lips twisting at the sound of her fingers tapping buttons. She was good. Of course she was. Fast. Focused. That eerie kind of still that only came from being carved too thin on the inside.

She reminded him of himself. Which should’ve been a red flag. But he didn’t do red flags. He did obsession, violence, and control. And tonight?

She’d get all three. No more testing her boundaries. No more making her come to him. If she wanted to shut down the world, fine.

He’d be the only one allowed to turn the lights off. And if she wanted quiet?

She could scream into his hands.

He pushed off the wall slowly, hands in his pockets, hood up, breath steady. The arcade lights flashed against the pale edges of his jaw, shadows cutting across his mouth like a grin he hadn’t earned yet. Every step toward her felt like trespass. Every beat of silence stretched into something holy and profane.

She was in the zone. She didn’t hear him walk up. Didn’t hear the flick of a coin between his fingers. Didn’t hear it drop into the slot next to hers with a clink sharp enough to split the room.

He didn’t say her name. Not yet. Names were for later. For when she was breathless. For when she stopped pretending she could play this game without him. Because he’d decided.

Tonight, the match restarts. And he never plays fair.

Her fingers froze for half a second, instinct catching before thought did. She didn’t turn her head. She didn’t need to. Her whole body already knew who it was. The air changed when he was near. It always had. Thicker, somehow. Less oxygen. Or maybe too much. Like the space around him didn’t follow the same rules.

He didn’t speak. Just reached out, one hand curling around the player two joystick with practiced ease. He didn’t touch the controller with all five fingers.

Just four. Always four. She wondered why. But not out loud. The game started before she could spiral or gain the courage to ask.

And just like that, they were back. Side by side. Shooting together. Playing together. He was fast. Not showy. Not flashy. Just efficient. Dangerous. There was something unnerving about the way he moved, always calculated, always just one step ahead of the game’s rhythm, like his brain was processing everything three seconds before the screen caught up.

Aika followed. Matched him where she could, caught the rhythm where it mattered, tried not to show how her hands were shaking just slightly with every score flash. They didn’t look at each other. Not directly. But she could feel his eyes on her sometimes, in the pause between rounds, when the screen flashed a boss intro, when the stage changed and the music shifted into something darker. Like he was studying her again. Not cruelly. Not like a game.

Like he was remembering. And god help her, it felt good. She didn’t ask why he came. Didn’t ask what this was. She just played. Because having him next to her, silent and strange and inexplicably hers in that moment, it was the first time in days she felt like her body wasn’t too much. Like she was allowed to exist exactly as she was.

Flawed. Bruised.

Seen.

They finished the level with twin perfect scores, the words STAGE CLEARED flashing gold across the screen. Her chest rose and fell with something too heavy for adrenaline.

He still didn’t speak. Didn’t move. Just kept his hand lightly resting on the joystick and let the silence sit there like a third player neither of them could name. And Aika, staring at the screen but not really seeing it, found herself whispering his name.

“Tomura.”

It wasn’t a question. And he didn’t answer. But he smiled. Just barely. And that was enough.

She didn’t look at him. Couldn’t. But she didn’t have to. Because when he chuckled, low and dry and soaked in something dark and pleased and cruel, it wasn’t sound. It was touch. It sank beneath her skin, pricked the hair at the nape of her neck, sent heat crawling up her back in waves so thick she could hardly breathe through it.

She turned, slowly, only in time to see him move from the booth with all the lazy menace of a predator that knows it doesn’t have to chase. No look. No smirk. No command. Just a quiet, practiced departure across the room, past the flickering pinball corpses, through the maze of claw machines and straight for that booth.

The one they always ended up in. The horror cabinet. Dim. Shrouded. One bench, and two guns. It was supposed to be gimmicky. A haunted house for your thumbs. A scream simulator. But between them, it wasn’t a game anymore.

It was ritual.

He slid into the booth like a king stepping into his throne, elbows loose, legs spread, head tipped back just enough to cast his face in shadow. Not a glance over his shoulder. Not even a pause. He didn’t check if she followed.

He knew she would. And she did. Not because she owed him. Not because she felt brave. But because she was losing her mind slowly, gloriously, beautifully, and something in her liked it. Liked the pain, the pull, the jagged anticipation of what he might say next, what he might do if she leaned in a little too close or said the wrong thing with the wrong tone. He was a chemical reaction. A lit fuse. And she wanted to burn.

The curtain brushed her shoulder as she slipped inside, and this time she didn’t flinch. She had something to prove this time, she wouldnt run. Her tail twitched once, involuntarily, but she didn’t apologize for it. She was done apologizing. The world could choke on its judgment. He could burn in his own obsession. And she? She would sit beside him with her spine straight and her mouth set and her blood hot with everything she wasn’t supposed to feel.

The game started. The screen stuttered, reds and blacks and static screams layered over a soundtrack built to unsettle. Cheap horror. Jump scares. Digital blood. 

But the real terror? Sat beside her.

And the worst part? She wanted it closer.

She played like her life depended on it, hands steady, posture rigid, refusing to let her fingers betray the way her stomach flipped every time his shoulder brushed hers. The sound design was relentless, sharp shrieks and distant footsteps, but none of it mattered. Not when she could feel the heat of him like a phantom at her side, not when his breath hit the air just seconds after the first scare and whispered.

“You missed one.”

She flinched. She hated that she flinched. Because of course he noticed.

Her head snapped to the side just in time to see that cruel little curve on his mouth, sharp and smug and soft in a way that didn’t make sense. Not sweet. Not mocking. Something in between. Something dangerous.

Her breath caught mid throat. He didn’t move. Didn’t smirk harder. He just watched. And she ached. She ground her teeth together and turned back to the game, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a stammer or a blush, but she could feel it, the heat rising beneath her skin, the way her tail betrayed her in slow, traitorous movements. He didn’t touch her, no. But his presence was all over her now. Clinging. Crawling. Burning.

The final level began.

She nearly forgot to reload. Nearly missed the shot. But she held her ground, sweating through it, biting the inside of her cheek until the tang of blood gave her something real to hold on to. The cabinet’s volume peaked with that last cinematic shriek, and then.

YOU SURVIVED.

Except she hadn’t. She was wrecked. Hands shaking. Heart galloping. Lungs refusing to reset. The silence in the booth was immediate and terrifying. Too full. Too loud. The kind of quiet that makes your body forget where it begins and ends.

And then he spoke again. “Didn’t think your ears could twitch more than your trigger finger.”

The words were a bullet straight through her ribs. Casual. Cold. Calculated to devastate. Her whole body went still. Frozen. And when she reached up, out of reflex, out of shame, out of need, she felt the heat in her cheeks with the kind of horror you can’t hide. He knew. Of course he knew.

But he wasn’t done. Not even close. He leaned in, just enough to let his voice slither along her jawline, intimate and low and completely unearned.

“And your tail... cute when it’s trying not to give you away.”

Her stomach dropped. Because something about the way he said it, so soft, so smug, so absolutely sure of her unraveling made her dizzy. A sound escaped her. Not a word. Not quite a whimper. Just breath and want and heat.

She hated it.

She loved it.

Her tail betrayed her again, curling tight and snapping once against the side of the booth before falling still. Her whole body locked like a glitch in the system, muscles refusing to obey. He watched her crumble like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like this was the point of the game. And maybe it was.

Then, just as suddenly as he’d cornered her with his words, he was gone. Sliding out of the booth. Hands in pockets. No look back. No final line. Just absence.

And that was the worst part of all. Because the air he left behind? Still tasted like him.

Aika sat there like a detonated building, staring blankly at the flickering YOU SURVIVED text like it might blink into a different truth if she just kept looking. Her breath came in shallow gasps. Her fingers were numb. She had not survived.

She’d lost. Completely.

Ten minutes later, she stumbled out of the arcade, her bag slung haphazardly over one shoulder, her tail twitching in frantic, traitorous arcs, her ears pulled low, and her entire nervous system alight with the echo of his voice still crawling through her skin.

Cute. He called her cute.

Sort of.

Maybe. And that?

Was so much worse than anything the cabinet could throw at her. Because for the first time in a very long time

She wanted more.

Chapter Text

He saw her before she saw him.

Not just saw, marked. Like a target. Like prey.

She stepped into the arcade like she owned it, hips swaying beneath a too tight skirt, shirt knotted just enough to flash a sliver of stomach that had no business being that distracting. Her boots clacked, her ears stood tall, catching the light like sharp velvet knives. The jacket wasn’t oversized. It wasn’t armor. It was a statement.

No beanie. No hoodie. No shields. Let them stare. Let him stare. And that’s exactly what he did.

From the shadows by the claw machines, half concealed behind a cracked cabinet, he watched her claim the space like she’d never disappeared into silence and bruises and shadows.

It should have made him pleased. It made him livid.

Because she hadn’t looked for him. Hadn’t scanned the crowd. Hadn’t glanced at the booth where he always waited like a demon ready to be summoned.

She didn’t look for him at all. Her coin hit the machine. Player One. Just her. He waited. Waited for the pull of her scent. The flick of her tail. That instinctive shift she made when she felt him nearby. He used to get to her without speaking. A breath was enough. The air always changed around them. Always. But she didn’t flinch.

And then he saw it. Someone else was already beside her.

That boy. That forgettable one with too white teeth and the kind of voice that made his skin crawl. He’d spoken to her before, weeks back. He remembered the way she brushed it off, the way her tail twitched, uncomfortable but polite. He hadn’t thought twice of it.

He should have.

Now he sat where he was supposed to be. Took Player Two like it was available. Spoke to her like she was something soft. Teased her. Nudged her shoulder.

Shigaraki’s nails bit into his palm. His chest hollowed.

And when she didn’t shove him away? Didn’t recoil? Didn’t even glance back at him? Something inside him snapped .

He didn’t think. Didn’t speak. Didn’t show his face.

He turned. And walked out the door.

The bell jingled above him like a punchline, and the night hit him like a slap to the face cold, bitter, cruel. He stormed down the cracked sidewalk, hood up, fingers twitching, vision blurry at the edges. He was seething. Burning. Not with embarrassment.

With possession.

That wasn’t about the game. That wasn’t about a controller or a score or a stool with his name carved in shadow.

It was her. It had always been her.

She was his obsession. His goddamn glitch in the system. Her quiet hatred of heroes. Her wicked, beautiful quirk. That rage boiling under skin too soft. She was made of sharp edges pretending to be something harmless, and he’d seen her first. And now she was letting someone else stand beside her like it meant nothing.

Like he meant nothing. The thought alone made him nauseous. Because this thing inside him the one he thought was just fascination, was clawing out of its cage. It wanted her punished. It wanted her ruined. It wanted her on her knees and shaking for him, not flinching for anyone else.

And then he heard it. Her voice.

“Tomura!”

It cracked in the cold, desperate and stupid and perfect . He didn’t stop. Didn’t turn. Let her chase him. Let her remember what it felt like to lose him. She followed him around the corner, down the alley where no light reached. And he was waiting. Before she could speak, his hand was on her, fast and brutal, slamming her back against the brick hard enough to knock the breath from her lungs. Her bag hit the ground. Her body froze. His eyes, glowing like firelight through ash held hers, and he didn’t blink.

He didn’t touch her skin. But his body caged hers like a prison.

“You let him take my spot,” he growled, low and cracked, all gravel and venom. “Player Two?”

Her mouth opened. No sound. His voice cut through her silence like a blade. “He touched the controller like it belonged to him. Like you did.”

“It wasn’t like that-” she started, breathless, stunned.

“You didn’t stop him,” he hissed. “You let him sit there.”

Her heart pounded against her ribs, every beat like a scream. Her hands were shaking, but not from fear. No, not from that. From something deeper. Something darker. Something clawing up from under her skin like a wolf finally waking.

He was too close. And it felt like oxygen.

“You’re jealous,” she whispered.

His expression twisted. Not in denial. In fury. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

“You are,” she repeated, softer now, eyes wide and bright. “You’re furious.”

“I’m pissed,” he snarled, slamming his hand against the wall beside her head. The sound cracked through the alley like thunder. But his pinky never touched. Four fingers. Always four. Aika’s breath hitched. Because he wasn’t pretending anymore.

She could feel it, the weight of him, the want. Not romantic. Not gentle. Nothing soft or safe. Just that primal, consuming need radiating off him like heat from a wildfire. It called to her. Lit up every predatory instinct she’d spent years taming. It wasn’t logic. It wasn’t reason. It was him.

It was that look in his eyes obsessed, betrayed, violent. And it made something deep inside her purr.

“You’re obsessed,” she said, voice shaking like she didn’t want it to be.

“So are you,” he spat, and it was the truth.

It shouldn’t have felt like a confession. But it did. Her tail twitched behind her, ears twitching high. Her pupils dilated. And he saw it.

God help her, she wanted this. Wanted him. Not the version everyone else feared. Not the public threat. The real him the monster barely holding himself together. The villain that didn’t ask permission. The nightmare that left people in ruins.

His hand lifted. Slow. Controlled. Trembling. And wrapped around her throat. Four fingers. His pinky hovered near her pulse, just brushing air. The rest curled tight, not choking just claiming. He didn’t squeeze. He didn’t need to. Her breath caught anyway. He leaned in, breath hot against her cheek.

“You make me want to kill you,” he rasped, raw and broken. “You make me want.”

It was the closest thing to love he’d ever said. And it broke something open in her. She didn’t move. Didn’t run. Didn’t flinch. She tilted her chin up just slightly, that razor thin distance between submission and defiance burning in the air like gunpowder.

“I’m right here,” she whispered. His eyes snapped to hers, wild and starving.

“You ruin everything,” he growled, shoving her against the wall harder, not enough to hurt, but enough to feel. Her ears flattened, her tail curled, her hands clenched and still, she didn’t break eye contact.

“Then ruin me too,” she breathed. It wasn’t permission. It was a dare.

His hand trembled against her throat. And for one agonizing second, he leaned in closer. Their mouths almost touched. Not a kiss. Not tenderness. Just destruction and hunger, teeth and breath and the whisper of what could have been if either of them were sane.

But they weren’t. And that’s why it worked.

He yanked away like she’d burned him. His chest heaved. His hand clenched into a fist. He looked at her, truly looked and hated what he saw not weakness, not fear. Recognition.

She wanted him. The worst parts. The broken ones. The rot. The decay. She wanted it. And he didn’t know if he wanted to devour her or disappear. So he turned. Left her there. Pressed into that wall like a mark. Like a wound. Still watching. Still wanting. Still his.

He didn’t say a word as he vanished into the dark. And Aika, breathless and shaking, slid down the brick behind her like her legs had stopped working.

Not from fear. From hunger. Because he was hers too. Even if it killed them both. She didn’t move. Not at first. Even after his shadow disappeared down the alley, even after his presence faded like smoke on the wind, Aika stayed exactly where he left her, back against cold brick, throat flushed with heat, her pulse wild in her chest like it had nowhere else to go.

He’d walked away. Just like that. After all of that.

Her knees gave first. Not from weakness but from everything else. From the flood of adrenaline crashing back down, from the words still ringing in her skull, from the imprint of his four fingered hold still burning around her throat like a phantom touch she didn’t want to lose.

“You make me want to kill you.”

She heard it again, like he’d whispered it straight into the marrow of her bones. His voice had been sharp, cracking at the edges like something old and broken and just barely holding itself together. He’d said it with rage. With conviction. With something too raw to name.

And still her fingers brushed her neck like it was something precious.

She slid down the wall slowly, the hem of her skirt catching on chipped brick, her tail coiling tight around her leg like it was trying to ground her. Her ears twitched helplessly, every sound from the distant city now too loud, too alive, too wrong because he wasn’t there anymore.

He had touched her. She’d never realized how much she’d wanted to be touched until that exact second when his hand came around her throat not to choke, not to punish, but to remind her he could. But he didn’t. He wouldn’t. Because even when he was angry, even when he stood inches from her with murder in his eyes, he held back.

That meant something. And it wrecked her.

She stared at the far end of the alley, at the place he vanished into shadow, and bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood. Her face was hot. Her chest too tight. And her mind, her traitorous, obsessed little mind, replayed the entire moment like a looped cutscene in one of her games.

His body against hers. His breath on her lips. That rage. That restraint. She should be terrified. Should be rethinking everything. But instead She wanted to find him again. She wanted to be thrown against that wall again, just to see how close he’d get. Just to see if he’d really do it. Just to feel him choosing not to.

And fuck she wanted to make him choose. Her hands trembled in her lap as she sat there in the dark, the world moving on without her. She was lightheaded. Shaking. But not from fear.

From need. He could kill her. He said he wanted to. But he didn’t. And somehow, impossibly that made her feel more wanted than anyone ever had before.

The walk home was a blur.

Her hands never quite stopped shaking, but not from the cold. She couldn’t feel the cold. Couldn’t feel anything except the lingering ghost of four fingers on her throat and the echo of his growl carved somewhere behind her ribs. The city buzzed around her but it all sounded distant, like it was underwater or happening in a dream she hadn’t quite woken from.

She didn’t even realize she was crying until she tasted salt on her lip. It wasn’t sobbing. Nothing dramatic. Just slow, stunned tears trailing down her cheeks like her body didn’t know how else to process the way he looked at her. 

When she reached her apartment, she didn’t bother flipping on the light. She dropped her bag by the door and stepped out of her boots in silence. The room smelled like her shampoo and the faint smoke of old incense. Her world. Her safe place. And suddenly it felt small. Not comforting.

Empty.

She moved like a ghost to her desk, flicking on the lamp with trembling fingers. Her sketchbook waited there, pages already filled with his face, his profile, his hands, his eyes. She flipped past them all with something close to panic. None of them were enough.

She grabbed a pencil. She didn’t think, she couldn’t. The drawing bled out of her like it had been hiding under her skin, waiting. His hand on her neck. Her back to the brick wall. The shadow across his eyes. The almost pain of it. The way his thumb didn’t press. The way his fifth finger floated, like it knew exactly what it could do and chose not to. She didn’t sleep that night.

The next morning, he wasn’t at the arcade.

Or the day after.

Or the one after that.

The longer the silence stretched, the worse it got. She checked her arcade app constantly not for scores anymore, but for his tag. DeadInput. Nothing. The leaderboard didn’t change. His name remained frozen, staring back at her like a taunt. Like a ghost. She started walking by the alley again, every night, hoping she’d catch him there. Waiting for that familiar slouch. That slow, deliberate stride. She stood across the street sometimes, watching, tail wrapped around her legs like a leash. 

Nothing. He didn’t come. Not to the arcade. Not to the streets. Not even to the shadowed corners of her thoughts where he used to live.

Her tail drooped, Her ears went flat under her hood again, the confidence she’d built peeled away like old paint. She stopped wearing makeup. Stopped sketching. Stopped logging into her game. She just… waited.

And every day that passed without him made her obsession worse. Because he’d wanted her. He’d said it with his hands, his eyes, his rage, and then he disappeared.

And now all she could wonder was, did she imagine it? Did she break something? Or had he walked away for good? The uncertainty was worse than violence. Because at least when he was angry, he was real. But this? This silence?

It was killing her.

Chapter Text

Tomura hadn’t left the hideout in five days.

The walls felt too loud. The air too thin. The shadows too crowded with memory. He didn’t eat. Didn’t sleep. The only thing he did was rot.

Not physically no, not yet. But mentally, at the edges, like mold creeping under wallpaper. The static in his skull never stopped. A low, high buzz behind his eyes, needling and screeching and building like a storm. His fingers wouldn’t stop twitching, itching not from his Quirk or bone deep fury, but from something worse.

Need.

The kind that wasn’t satisfied by screams or broken bones. The kind that slid in beneath skin, sat in the lungs like smoke, and stayed. Every time he blinked, she was there.

Aika.

Her name wasn’t a word anymore. It was a brand. Burned behind his eyes, curled on the tip of his tongue even when he didn’t speak. His lips moved with it in the quiet. His jaw clenched around it like a curse.

She wasn’t supposed to matter. She wasn’t a threat. She wasn’t a plan. She was a speck, a nameless thing.

But she looked at him like she knew him. Not who he was. What he was. And didn’t flinch. Didn’t scream when he pushed her back against that alley wall. Didn’t beg when his hand curled around her throat. Didn’t cry when he whispered I should kill you, like it was a promise made of poison.

She breathed through it. Spoke his name like it tasted good in her mouth. And now she wouldn’t leave his fucking head.

“Tomura.”

The voice that cut through the storm was deep. Ancient. Too calm. He didn’t turn around. Didn’t need to.

All For One's presence rolled in like pressure before a thunderstorm, cold and absolute. Even through the screen he spoke from, The master. The puppeteer. The ghost wearing a human face who had carved Tomura down to bone and built something dangerous from the pieces.

“You’ve been absent,” AFO said smoothly, like he hadn’t already been watching. “We have work to do.”

Tomura sat on the floor, blank eyed. He didn’t blink.

“All Might is at UA now,” AFO continued, “It’s the perfect moment to strike.”

Silence.

“Do you have a plan?”

“Yes” Tomura muttered, voice brittle and wrong.

“Then why are you still here?”

No answer. Because there wasn’t one. Because every time he closed his eyes, all he saw was her. Aika, back against brick, lips parted, eyes wide, not afraid, not begging. Wanting . Like she understood what he was. Like she wanted it anyway.

And worse, he wanted her to.

She wasn’t a goal. She wasn’t a weakness to exploit. She was a distraction, a problem, an infection. Something wild and inconvenient and alive in a way that made his teeth grind. She’d looked at him like he was real. Like he was more than rot. And now he couldn’t look away.

“You cannot let sentiment cloud your mission,” AFO said. His voice didn’t rise. It didn’t have to. It never had to. “You must become what I made you to be. You must kill the Symbol of Peace. You must end their illusion.”

Tomura’s jaw locked.

“I am focused,” he snapped, more vicious than convincing. A long pause. The air thickened.

“Then prove it,” AFO murmured.

And Tomura was alone again. Alone with the burn. Alone with the truth. He wasn’t focused. Not even close. Because while he was supposed to be thinking about All Might’s throat between his fingers, all he could think about was her.

The controller in his lap clicked once. Then again.

Square. Left. Trigger. Reload. Muscle memory. Useless now.

He barely felt it. The game was nothing. It used to help to drain the noise. Give his fingers something to do that didn’t end in ash. But now? Now it felt hollow.

Everything did. Because now, every flicker of blood on the screen reminded him of hers.

Aika. His Player One.

The girl with too long sleeves and a tail that couldn’t lie. The one who flinched at nothing. The one who let him hold her like a blade to her neck and didn’t break. She watched him with wolf eyes, sharp and shining, full of something old and feral and hungry.

He grabbed the controller tight, every one of his fingers grasping the cheap plastic. It decayed instantly. Didn’t help. Nothing helped. Because he couldn’t forget the sound of her breath. Couldn’t stop picturing the way she said his name like a confession, like a spell she’d cast without meaning to.

You’re obsessed too.

It wasn’t an accusation. It was an invitation. And he hated her for it. Hated that she’d undone his plan with nothing more than a look. Hated that her scent still clung to his hoodie. Hated that the more he tried to erase her, the deeper she sank into him like poison under his skin.

She had no right. She wasn’t special. Not in a way that mattered. He told himself she was useful. That was it. She had a Quirk that was dangerous. She could be an asset. A tool. Another name on the list of things he could use and discard when the world burned.

That’s what he told himself. Over. And over. And still he stood. The chair screeched backward. His breath came shallow. If he couldn’t kill the itch then maybe he could bleed it out.

He grabbed his hoodie, yanked it on, Just see her. One glimpse. That would be enough.

Kamino was colder than usual. The streets near her apartment felt sharp and hungry. Cracked pavement. Rusted signs. The kind of neighborhood no one looked too hard at, because looking too long meant you’d get dragged under with the rest of the broken. 

He liked it.

Her building sat squat between two storefronts long since caved in, its porch light flickering like it was afraid to stay on. Mailboxes broken. Windows dirty. But her light? Her light was on.

And that did something to him. He didn’t move closer. Just stood across the street, half shrouded in shadow, hood pulled low, breathing like he’d run miles. Her light was soft. Amber. Flickering from behind thin curtains like a secret being whispered.

She was there. Real. Alive. Still breathing in a world that wanted to cage her. And she wasn’t flinching. Not from him. Not yet.

His hands trembled in his pockets. Fist clenching, twitching, curling. The itch didn’t stop. But it changed. It quieted. Because now he didn’t feel like he was unraveling alone. She was there. And if he needed to burn the world down just to stay close to that light? So be it.

Aika ruined everything. And he couldn’t wait to do the same to her.

Inside her small apartment Aika crouched in front of her fridge, knees bare against cheap linoleum, the door yawning open to spill cold light across her skin like a spotlight on something lonely. The box inside mocked her. Empty. Forgotten. Betrayal in pastel colors and crumpled plastic. Mochi. Gone.

She blinked at it like it might refill itself under pressure. She’d been good all week. Worked. Functioned. Laughed on cue. Scribbled his face only in the margins of her notebooks instead of giving in and covering full pages like a lunatic. She hadn’t gone back to the arcade. Hadn’t stood under flickering lights hoping to catch a glimpse of shadow where he used to sit. She hadn’t looked.

But tonight?

Tonight she wanted something soft. Cold. Sweet. Not because she needed comfort. Because she wanted to remember she had needs at all. That she was still human, still alive, still something underneath the numbness.

She wanted mochi.

The corner store was close. Three blocks. No big deal. She tugged on boots, pulled her hoodie on, still clinging to it like a habit, shoved a beanie low over her ears to hide the twitch, the alertness, the instinct already whispering danger into her bones.

The city air kissed her face like a blade. Too quiet. Too still. Something was off. Not wrong just watching. She felt it before she heard anything. A prickle beneath her skin. A change in the air pressure. Her tail curled tight at her back. She told herself it was nothing. Told herself to walk faster. But she hadn’t made it halfway through the shortcut when it happened.

A hand snatched her wrist and yanked. She slammed into the wall before her brain caught up, spine colliding with crumbling brick, head snapping back, stars exploding in her vision. But before panic could flood her veins, recognition hit harder.

The hood. The eyes. The smell of fury in human shape.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

Tomura.

His voice scraped raw like rusted metal dragged through gravel and venom. Her heart launched against her ribs, breath gone, mouth open and still, she didn’t scream.

She didn’t flinch. He was too close. Always too close. His grip was bruising, fingers clamped around her arm like he meant to snap bone. His breath was sharp. Chemical. Barely human.

“Mochi,” she murmured, dazed. Like it was obvious. Like it was funny.

“Mochi?” His lip curled in disgust, eyes scanning her face like he was trying to read instructions in a language he despised.

“I was out,” she breathed, as if this was normal. As if being slammed against a wall by the man who made her blood sing was just another Wednesday. “I wanted ice cream.”

He stared at her like she was a puzzle made of broken teeth and razor wire.

“You’re walking around alone at night. Again.” His eyes flicked to the shadows. Always assessing. Always calculating. “You think that’s smart?”

“I thought you weren’t coming back,” she said before she could stop herself.

The honesty was a knife. The silence after worse .

His fingers tightened. Hard enough to make her wince. Not enough to make her pull away.

“And that makes you stupid?” he snapped.

“It makes me obsessed ,” she hissed.

That hit him. She saw it. Felt it. Like static exploded in the air between them. His red eyes snapped to hers, pupils blown, chest rising like something inside him was trying to tear its way out. For a moment, he wasn't a boy or villain or shadow.

He was a monster. Unapologetic. Unhinged. Starving. And she loved it. This wasn’t the boy from the arcade. This was the threat. The rot. The sick fascination clawing its way through her like wildfire. And she was welcoming it in.

“You don’t know what I am,” he whispered, voice low and lethal.

“I think I’m starting to,” she whispered back.

The shift was immediate. He shoved her harder against the wall, brick scraping her shoulder blades, his body crowding hers like a cage made of fury. His mouth hovered over hers not in invitation, but threat.

“You’re not scared of me.”

“I think I should be.”

“Then why the fuck aren’t you?” he growled.

Her ears flattened under the beanie. Her tail twitched once, defiant.

“Because you didn’t hurt me.”

Not last time. Not yet. Something snapped behind his eyes. His grip loosened, but only for a second. Then he laughed. It wasn’t pleasant. It was fractured . A sound that came from the bottom of something cracked and crawling.

Then he moved. Fast. Violent. His hand wrapped around her throat,  slammed her head back against the brick, not gently.

Four fingers. Thumb pressing just beneath her jaw like a dare. Her breath hitched. But not in fear. Her body betrayed her and went still, arched slightly into the pressure, eyes wide and shining not with tears but heat.

He leaned in close, forehead nearly touching hers, voice cracked and quiet.

“I’m not a good person.”

“I know.”

“You think this is a game?” His grip flexed, her pulse hammering against his palm. “You think I won’t break you?”

Her breath trembled. Her knees didn’t buckle. Her lips parted.

“Then why haven’t you?”

That wrecked him. She watched it happen. The twitch in his eye. The way his jaw clenched, like he wanted to say something else, something final but couldn’t. His hand didn’t move. It shook. Rage, need, confusion all bleeding together into something messy and horrifying and human.

He could kill her. She made him want to.

“You’re sick,” he said, voice splintering. 

Her lips curved. Just barely. “So are you.”

He jerked his hand back like her skin was acid. She gasped, chest heaving, but didn’t collapse. Didn’t even stagger. She just looked at him like he was the center of a gravity she’d already chosen to fall into. Like he could kill her, and she’d still crawl back for more.

He wanted to disappear. Instead, he grabbed her wrist, rough. Unapologetic. Not cruel, but not careful either.

“Come on.”

“What?” she asked, blinking.

“You wanted mochi,” he muttered. “Let’s go get your fucking ice cream.”

Aika followed. Not because he made her. Because she wanted to. Because something in her understood this wasn’t kindness. This was obsession, barely leashed. This was a monster trying to act like a man for just one second.

And she wanted to be there when he failed. His grip didn’t loosen. And she didn’t ask him to. They walked in silence down the dark street. One of them too calm. The other too far gone. 

The silence stretched between them like wire. Cold air, cracked pavement, flickering street lamps, and the echo of her boots scuffing alongside his. He didn't look at her. Not once. Just stalked forward like the world had personally offended him, like each step was one more offense he was willing to endure only because she was trailing behind him.

His hand stayed wrapped around her wrist, fingers tight not careful, not kind, just there. Tethered. Commanding. Her arm ached. She didn’t care. She’d have let him bruise her. Just for the reminder that she was real. That he was real. That this awful, electric, unholy thing between them was happening in the open air and not inside her head.

He walked like violence.

Shoulders tense. Hood half fallen. That twitch in his fingers like he was seconds from tearing the world in half because the wrong brand of mochi might be sold out.

And still, all Aika could think was, he’s touching me.

His fingers were calloused, knuckles sharp. His palm was warm despite the cold. Every tug, every impatient jerk forward when she wasn’t fast enough, only made her fall deeper. Her tail twitched in confused, frantic circles behind her, like it didn’t know whether to flee or curl around him.

She didn’t either.

The corner store buzzed in hazy fluorescence. Tomura didn’t stop when the door opened just barreled in like it was the scene of a crime and he was the cleanup crew. Still holding her wrist. Still dragging her like a disobedient dog on a leash.

“Pick one,” he snapped, not looking at her. “Fast.”

She blinked at the freezer. Mochi glared back at her in pastel boxes, like they knew this moment was heavier than it had any right to be.

She reached. He growled.

“Not the stupid green tea one.”

Aika smiled. Bit her lip. Picked it anyway.

He muttered something under his breath that sounded like fucking brat, but he didn’t stop her. Just threw crumpled bills at the cashier like the transaction offended him on a spiritual level and stormed out again before anyone could look too long.

She followed. Of course she did.

Because there was something sacred about how he never once let go of her wrist. Not through the door. Not down the steps. Not even as they turned back down the alley where he'd shoved her against the wall not twenty minutes ago.

It should’ve terrified her. It made her stomach twist into something sweet and vile. The mochi box was cold in her free hand, pressed against her hip like a secret she wasn’t ready to open. He had her close, so close her tail bumped into his leg. He didn’t comment.

Not until they reached her street. And then? He stopped walking. Yanked her hard enough to make her stumble. Spun her so fast her hoodie twisted at the collar. Her hand went out to catch herself, but he was already in her space too close, always too close, breath hitting her lips like frostbite.

Then his hand was in her hair. Not gentle. Not teasing. He yanked. Her head snapped back, eyes wide, breath frozen.

“Don’t ever do something that fucking stupid again.”

His voice was low. Sharp. Sick with the kind of worry that didn’t know how to speak itself without knives. She gasped. Not from pain. From heat.

“Tomura-”

He leaned closer, growling inches from her mouth. His grip in her hair didn’t ease. His eyes burned down into hers like he was reading her soul and finding it disgustingly similar to his own.

“You think this is a joke?” he snarled. “Walking around alone like some idiot. What if it hadn’t been me? What if you got arrested again?”

Her throat worked. Her lips parted. She wanted to say something clever, something scathing, something sane.

Instead, she whispered, “But it was you.” 

And that was all it took. His breath hitched. His nostrils flared. His jaw clenched. She waited for him to scream. To shove her. To disappear again. But instead he released her hair with a grunt, shoved her shoulder once, hard enough to jolt her back into motion.

“Go inside.”

She nodded. Clutched her mochi like a bomb. But before she could take a full step, he grabbed her again, fingers curling in the back of her hoodie, dragging her back just enough for his lips to nearly graze her ear.

“If you go out alone again,” he said, voice like death wrapped in silk, “I will break something. And next time, it will be you Aika.”

Then he let her go. Turned. Gone. Just like that. Aika stood frozen on the porch, breath visible in the cold, cheeks burning hotter than hellfire. Her heart was beating too fast. Her knees weak. Her ears twitching against her beanie.

She should’ve been terrified. Should’ve cried. Should’ve locked her door and called herself lucky. Instead, she bit back a smile. Because he cared. It was twisted. Unholy. Dark. But it was his version of affection. And she wanted it like a sickness. 

She stepped inside, closed the door, and slid down against it with a shaky exhale. The mochi sat in her lap, forgotten. And in the quiet, all she could think was, he touched me.

He warned her. Threatened her. Said her name. He saw her. And somewhere deep inside, where the sane part of her used to live.

She never wanted him to stop.

Chapter Text

Aika closed the door behind her with a soft click, then stood there in the dark like a sinner outside a church, heart still rattling in her ribs like it hadn’t figured out how to stop. She didn’t move for a long moment. Didn’t breathe properly. Just leaned back against the wood like she’d barely made it through the walk home, like being beside him had stripped something from her she hadn’t realized she still had left.

She didn’t cry. She didn’t smile. She just stood there and shook, the soft hum of her fridge buzzing like white noise under her skin, her hands still burning from where he’d held her; rough, possessive, wordless. She hadn’t even tried to pull away. Of course she hadn’t.

Her brain was still filled with the way he dragged her so harshly, like a greedy dog with a toy. How his fingers tightened around her wrist as if he was daring the bones to snap. How he yanked her by the hair and growled against her lips ‘not to be stupid,’ and it hadn’t scared her. It hadn’t even surprised her.

It excited her.

She glided through her apartment like a phantom. Jacket and beanie discarded to the floor, tail slowly unwinding from her waist like it was still trying to catch up with her pulse. Her ears twitched with every sound, even her own, the way they always did when something primal sat awake behind her ribs. She didn’t change, didn’t even tie her hair. Only wasted the night with a pace.

She climbed into bed still wearing her clothes, still tasting the frost of his voice in her throat. She stared at the ceiling like it had answers to questions she hadn’t worked up the courage to ask. Her fingers dug into the edge of her blanket, twitching with memory. She could almost still feel his hand on her throat, four fingers like a brand. The way he touched her never casually, never gently, only like he was daring himself not to destroy her.

And lord help her, she wanted him too. He should terrify her. But nothing had ever made her feel so seen.

Across the city, Tomura was pacing like a storm looking for something to tear in half. The couch looked like a crime scene hoodie flung across the armrest, game controller blinking like a taunt where it lay half cracked on the floor. He hadn’t slept. Wouldn’t. Couldn’t. His body refused to power down with her scent still clinging to his hoodie and the shape of her silence still pressed between his shoulder blades. His head was full of her.

Every step he took, every crack of his knuckles, every restless shift of his weight was another attempt to scrape her out of his bloodstream but she wasn’t leaving. Her voice still echoed against the back of his skull. Her eyes still stared at him through every wall. Her skin still sat under his fingernails like something he could peel open and crawl inside if he just dug deep enough.

She didn’t fear him. She should have. He’d shoved her. Yanked her. Threatened her with more than just words.

And she simply blushed.

She’d followed him like it was a promise. Looked at him like he was salvation dipped in acid. No one had ever looked at him like that. Not All For One. Not his father. Not even himself in the mirror.

She made him real. And he hated her for it. Because the more she stared at him like he was something holy, the more he started to wonder if she wasn’t wrong.

So when the sky bled from black to ash grey, he couldn’t stay still.

He didn’t plan to stop by.

Didn’t think it through, didn’t check the time, didn’t bother dressing for anything but the cold. He just pulled his hoodie over his head, shoved his hands in his pockets, and let his legs carry him across Kamino like they always did when the itch under his skin got too loud when he needed to see her to keep from tearing apart the nearest wall. Maybe it was pathetic. Maybe it was worse than that. He didn’t care, but when the door opened.

Fuck.

She wasn’t supposed to look like that.

Her sweater hung lopsided off one shoulder, exposing pale skin that looked too soft for a world this cruel. Her skirt was short. Not indecent. Just enough to make his throat go dry and his thoughts go feral. Her tail twitched low, curling slightly behind her like it wasn’t sure if it wanted to flee or coil around his leg. Her ears were tucked back in quiet surprise, her hair messily flowing down her back like she'd tried to tame herself and failed.

Tomura stared.

And for once, he didn’t scowl. Didn’t snap. He just blinked, slowly, and said, a little too low

“Didn’t know you were gonna look that cute.”

She froze like he’d thrown a rock through the moment. Eyes wide. Lips parted. A flush crawled up her neck like she wasn’t sure whether to thank him or slam the door.

Her voice was soft. “You…came all the way here just to say that?”

He looked away, embarrassed before he could stop it. “No. I mean yeah. Maybe. I don’t know.”

She giggled. Actually giggled. Not a nervous one. A real one. Something in his chest pulled tight like a wire winding.

She leaned a little into the doorframe, smiling now. “You’re ridiculous.”

“And you’re wearing that to walk to work?” he muttered, voice dipping lower, sharpness creeping in under the softness. “You know it’s freezing, right?”

“I’m not cold,” she said, shrugging like it was nothing.

He shifted on his feet, and the words came out before he could stop them

“Get your shoes. I’m walking you.”

Her brows lifted, but she didn’t argue.

She slipped on her boots, pulled a jacket around her shoulders, and followed him out into the morning like it was the most natural thing in the world. The wind picked up, brushing her hair across her face. He didn’t touch it, but he watched the strands flutter and thought about tucking them back behind her ear. He hated even thinking something so soft. 

The walk wasn’t quiet. It was comfortable. Like a thread stretched between them, steady and familiar. She talked a little about work, about the game shop being slow, about the weird old guy who kept trying to sell his broken controllers. He made a sound that might’ve been a laugh. She kept glancing at him out of the corner of her eye like she was checking to see if he was real. 

And when they reached the shop? He didn’t leave. She looked at him like she expected him to, but he stepped a little closer, enough that she had to tilt her chin to keep looking at him, and said, calm and simple

“I’m picking you up when your shift ends.”

Aika blinked. “You don’t have to-”

“I’m not asking.”

There was no edge in his voice. No threat. Just the solid weight of someone who didn’t plan on letting go anytime soon. She stared up at him, ears twitching, tail curling in a loose spiral behind her legs like it couldn’t decide whether to wrap around her or not.

“Okay,” she whispered. “I’ll wait.”

His mouth twitched. Almost a smile. Almost.

Then he reached out slowly, deliberately and tugged her jacket collar straight, fingers brushing the curve of her throat for half a second too long.

“Good,” he said softly. “You’re mine to keep safe.”

And then he turned and walked off, leaving her blinking against the wind, heart in her throat, stomach full of something sharp and sweet and terrifying.

She didn’t know what it was. She only knew she loved the feeling.

And she was already counting the hours until he came back.

The plan was still perfect. The coordinates hadn’t changed. The countdown hadn’t paused just because his mind did. Everything was set, All For One had whispered the words that turned intent into permission. Destruction hummed in Tomura’s blood, close enough to taste, close enough to bleed for. So why the fuck was he pacing like some lovesick stray outside a rundown game shop? He wasn’t supposed to be here. Not tonight. Not with everything so close.

He was supposed to be preparing for war. The attack on UA wasn’t just a mission, it was everything. His name would burn through the headlines. His face would haunt every hero's dreams. They would remember him this time, not as a glitch or a whisper but as a reckoning. The final blow. The one that never stopped coming. And still here he was. 

Pacing in the cold, hood pulled low, teeth grinding behind clenched lips, waiting like an idiot for a girl who didn’t even know he’d already claimed her. She didn’t know. Not really.

Not that the Nomu were his. Not that the League’s chaos had his fingerprints smeared across every corner. Not that in less than two days, her world would be reduced to rubble. She didn’t know he was the monster they warned heroes about, the one who didn’t stop at the line between mercy and massacre. She had no idea the hands she watched twitch in the dark were the same ones that would pull pro heroes apart like wet paper.

And she still smiled at him. That was the problem. That was the itch beneath his skin. She wasn’t running. Not yet.

And he hated that it mattered.

Hated that her absence made him feel lost. Hated that her silence rang louder in his ears than All For One’s voice. Hated that this girl, this sharp, stuttering mess in combat boots had somehow cracked into the part of him that felt anything at all.

He stared at his phone again, the screen flickering like it might bite him, just Kurogiri, demanding updates, reminding him that time was running out.

He didn’t respond. Couldn’t. Because the moment he looked up there she was, stepping out from the shop’s shadow like she hadn’t just pulled the pin on a grenade and handed it to him with a smile.

She was bundled up against the cold, keyring jangling in nervous fingers. Her walk was small, guarded, and practiced. She didn’t see him at first, not until she glanced up, ears twitching like she felt him before she saw him.

Then her eyes landed on him, red meeting grey in the wash of a dying streetlamp. And she smiled. Not a full smile. Not bold. Just a soft, half curled thing that hurt more than any wound he’d ever earned in battle.

He didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.

He wanted to drag her back inside. Push her against the nearest wall and demand to know why. Why she still met his eyes like she didn’t feel the violence coiled beneath his skin. Why she hadn’t screamed and run the second he leaned too close.

He wanted to scare her. Just to prove that he could. But he didn’t. Instead, he walked beside her. Because he wasn’t ready to let go. Not yet. Not when she still looked at him like there might be something worth keeping.

“I wasn’t sure you’d be here,” she said softly, eyes flicking up and then away again.

“I didn’t have anything better to do,” he muttered. It came out harsher than he meant, but she didn’t shrink from it.

They started walking without deciding to. Her bag bumped lightly against her hip. Her tail twitched occasionally, brushing the back of her leg like it was testing the air for tension, waiting for the moment things might snap.

He didn’t snap. Didn’t raise his voice. Didn’t bark something ugly just to see if she’d flinch. Not tonight.

Tonight wasn’t for that.

They passed under a cracked neon sign advertising “best ramen in Kamino” like it wasn’t half flickering. The scent hit him first, garlic, miso, something sharp and real. Something grounding.

He paused. “Wanna eat?” he asked.

Aika blinked up at him like she wasn’t sure he was serious. “Here?”

He shrugged. “You like ramen, don’t you?”

She hesitated, then smiled small, surprised. “I do.”

And just like that, they slipped inside.

It was quiet, almost empty, just a pair of high schoolers in a booth near the back, a delivery guy arguing softly with the cook. Tomura took a seat near the window, not waiting to be invited. She slid in across from him, tucking her tail in beside her, hands resting lightly on the edge of the table.

No menu needed.

She ordered her usual with barely a glance at the waiter. He did the same. And then silence. Not awkward. Just… present.

She toyed with her chopsticks. He stared out the window like he was memorizing the way the lights bent around her reflection. The ramen came fast, steam curling between them like a veil. Aika’s hands stilled. Tomura watched her for a second, watched the way her fingers hesitated before picking up her chopsticks, the way her ears flicked when she noticed him watching.

They ate slowly, like neither of them really wanted the moment to end. She told him a story about a customer who dropped an entire console on his foot and cried for ten minutes while she fixed it. He didn’t laugh, but the corner of his mouth twitched. She counted that as a win.

When the check came, she reached for it automatically.

He was faster.

“Hey-” she protested.

“I got it,” he said.

“You didn’t have to-”

“I know,” he said, voice quiet. “Let me.”

She stopped arguing.

The walk back was slower this time. No rush. No silence, either. Just the occasional brush of her arm against his, the shuffle of boots on pavement, the low murmur of distant traffic and wind. Her apartment wasn’t far. He could’ve left halfway. Could’ve turned back the second they reached her street and vanished into the night like he always did.

But he didn’t. He walked her all the way to the door. She paused on the step. Turned to him. Her breath clouded in the air like smoke. Her tail curled loosely, ears tilted back just slightly not nervous. Just… soft.

“Can I ask you something?”

He looked at her. Didn’t speak.

“I want your number...Not because I’ll text all the time!” she rushed. “Not to bug you or anything. I just, sometimes I don’t know where you are. And I hate not knowing. I hate not being able to say something when it matters.”

He didn’t flinch. Just pulled out his cracked phone, thumbed it open, and held it out to her with the contact screen up. She blinked at it like it might disappear.

Then took it, her fingers shook as she entered it, her number, her name, a little wolf emoji because she wanted him to remember her if this ended. He took the phone back. Didn’t say anything. Didn’t need to. She turned to leave, pulse racing, heart a fucking storm.

When the door shut behind her, he finally looked at the screen. Then he did the one thing he hadn’t done in years. He memorized her number. Because if the world ended tomorrow, if he tore it all down like he planned, he still needed to know how to find her again.

Just in case.

Chapter Text

He didn’t go back after leaving her apartment, not to the hideout, not even to the arcade where her scent still clung to the old consoles and the air hummed with memories of laughter she never meant to let slip.

Instead, he walked. Nowhere specific. Just the edges, the bleeding boundaries of Kamino, where the streetlights flickered like warning signs and the air reeked of rust, oil, and the kind of silence that only criminals and strays respected. The city here was all bones and broken neon, and he liked that. It looked like how he felt. Hollowed out. Cracked at the corners. Dangerous.

He shoved his hands into his hoodie, shoulders hunched, hood pulled low over his face. Not that it mattered, no one in this part of town gave a shit about who or what you were, they all had their own ghosts. Their own reasons to look away. But he couldn’t stop looking inward. Couldn’t stop thinking about her. He hadn’t meant to get this deep. He hadn’t meant to need anything.

But Aika Kozuki, that feisty little wolf had curled around his mind like smoke and seeped into the cracks in his logic and settled behind his ribs like a second heartbeat. She was in his blood now. In his bones. In the aching itch at the tips of his fingers that no scratch could soothe. She was poison. In his veins. Coursing through him like a virus he didn’t want cured. She made him feel things. Ugly, raw things. Things that clawed at the back of his skull until he wanted to peel his own skin off just to breathe. 

And worse than that? She had hope. Hope that he’d call. That he’d text. That this, whatever the hell this was wasn’t just a fluke. He let her type her number into his phone with her little emoji like that meant something. He let her smile at him like he was worth remembering. He let her look at him like he was already hers. And the worst part? He wanted to be. But he still hadn’t texted her, he could’ve. He pulled out his phone for the hundredth time, thumb hovering over her name. Her number. Her stupid little emoji that somehow felt like a punch to the gut every time he saw it. He could text her. Say something, anything. Tell her he was thinking about her. That he couldn’t stop. That she’d fucked him up and now he couldn’t breathe right without hearing her voice.

But what was he supposed to say?

That he was planning a massacre? That he’d picked the kids they were going to kill? That he’d memorized her number in case he had to go underground? That he hadn’t killed her yet because he didn’t know how to let her go ? He growled low under his breath and kicked a dent into a rusted streetlight pole. The hollow clang echoed down the alley, but no one looked out. No one cared. And that was the point. He was a ghost in this city. A hand without a body. A whisper of war coming fast. But she saw him. And worse she made him want to be seen. 

His phone buzzed. He pulled it out so fast it nearly slipped from his fingers. Just Kurogiri.

Again.

“All For One is asking for confirmation. Final strike in thirty six hours. We move then.”

Tomura didn’t answer. He just stared at the message like it meant nothing. But it meant everything. Because thirty-six hours from now, he’d set the world on fire. Heroes would die. Children would scream. And she would see him for what he really was. 

He shoved the phone back in his pocket like it burned. Because maybe it did. Maybe she did. Because every goddamn second he spent thinking about her was a second he wasn’t sharpening his claws, a second he wasn’t planning how to kill the symbol of peace. He didn’t text, because if he gave her a thread, she might follow it straight into the fire. And if she burned, he didn’t know if he’d survive it. 

As the first slit of grey light dragged itself across Kamino’s crumbling rooftops, He didn’t sleep. He hadn’t even tried. He’d sat through the whole damn night with his back against a rusted chain link fence, hood pulled up, red eyes staring blankly at the apartment complex across the street.

Her building. He didn’t even pretend to justify it anymore. He was here because of her. Because he needed to see her.

One more time. Before it all burned.

Before the Nomu tore the ground open and the heroes came flooding in with smiles and lies and fists full of justice. Before blood ran in the dirt and his name meant something more than DeadInput to the girl with wolf ears and crooked grins.

Before she looked at him and saw a villain. He was wired. Itching. Every nerve buzzing just beneath his skin like static. His fingers twitched for his phone more than once. He thought about sending her something. Just one line.

Come outside.

I’m here.

Let me see you.

But every time he came close, he remembered the clock. Thirty hours and counting. There wasn’t time. There was never time.

And yet, when the lights in her apartment blinked on, when her shadow moved past the curtains, and the door creaked open. She stepped into the cold morning in a short plaid skirt and a black crop top, hoodie tied at her waist, tail swaying lazily, ears visible and twitching. Time didn’t matter at all.

She looked like temptation and softness and something he was never meant to touch. And yet he couldn’t look away. She turned to lock her door. Tugged her headphones into place. And when she started down the stairs, her eyes scanned, and found him.

And lord, the way her lips parted, like she hadn’t been able to breathe until she saw him. Like he was worth the wait.

Tomura felt something crack beneath his ribs. Just one more time, he told himself. One more walk. One more breath. Before she knew who he really was.

He was already standing there when she stepped outside. Like he’d never left. Like he'd been waiting all night, all morning, maybe forever.

Aika’s breath hitched in her throat, and she couldn’t help the way her ears twitched, or the way her tail betrayed her immediately, curling with startled interest before she could force it still. The early morning chill slid across her bare skin, but it was nothing compared to the sudden heat in her chest.

There was no text. No warning. No promise. Just him. And the second their eyes met across the street, something ancient inside her settled , like a wolf recognizing another beast in the dark. The chaos in her mind went quiet, the noise dropped out, and all that was left was the way his eyes pinned her in place like a knife through silk, violent, reverent, and far too familiar. It was the look of a predator not deciding whether to devour her, but how slow he wanted it to be. And she didn’t flinch.

She swayed.

Because that’s what he did to her. That’s what he always did.

He made stillness feel like surrender. He made silence feel like a vow. And even from across the street, with nothing but space and sunrise between them, she felt the leash tighten, one he didn’t even try to hide anymore.

And the worst part? She fucking liked it.

Because deep down, she wasn’t prey. Not really. She was a matching wound. A blade with no sheath. And he was the only one who ever cut deep enough to make her bleed and beg in the same breath.

He didn’t move right away. Just stood there, hands in his pockets, hoodie up, red eyes burning like low coals beneath the shadow of it. He looked tired. Edged. Like the world was grinding its teeth behind his ribs and he was one heartbeat from tearing out of his skin but still, he waited.

For her. She didn’t ask why. She didn’t need to.

Aika walked toward him slowly, the sound of her boots tapping against concrete the only rhythm she trusted. Her headphones hung silent around her neck now. Her bag was slung loose across her shoulder, her hoodie tied lazily at her waist, and she knew the way her legs looked in the early light, the way her skirt swayed with every step. She didn’t care who else saw.

But he did. She could tell.

He was already watching, too closely, too intensely, like the mere sight of her might snap his spine. And when she reached him, when she stopped close enough to smell the scent of his hoodie and feel the buzz of static under his skin, he didn’t say anything. But she didn’t need him to.

“Good morning,” she said softly, voice cautious, not quite a whisper but close. Like anything louder might break the spell.

He nodded. No smirk this time. Just eyes.

God, his eyes.

“Walking me again?” she teased, trying to keep it light, trying not to tremble under his stare. “What’s the occasion?”

His mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. Not quite a sneer.

“Just making sure you get there.”

Her heart flipped. That was new. There was something off about the way he said it. Not mocking. Not flirty. Almost... resigned. Still, she wasn’t going to question it. Not now. If he wanted to walk beside her like a silent shadow, like a storm wrapped in skin, like he belonged there?

She was going to let him.

They started down the sidewalk together, the city slowly waking around them. Aika glanced sideways at him more than once, trying to read the shape of his quiet. He wasn’t smirking like usual. He wasn’t looking around like he was expecting a fight. He was just there. Steady. Focused. Present.

It was strange, the way it made her feel safe, and shaken, and strangely warm. Like something inside her was relaxing for the first time in years, even though everything about him screamed danger. 

She didn’t speak again until they were only a few blocks from the shop.

“I don’t get it,” she said softly, brushing her hair out of her face. “You’re different these past few days.”

His jaw tightened. She immediately regretted it.

“I mean..not bad,” she added quickly. “I just... I don’t know what changed.”

He didn’t answer. Of course he didn’t. But he did glance down at her, just once, and his gaze was molten. Controlled. Heavy with something she didn’t have words for.

“I’m not different,” he muttered.

And that was the worst part. Because maybe he wasn’t. Maybe she was just seeing more now. But it didn’t matter. Not right now. Because the game shop was in sight. And he hadn’t left. When she stopped in front of the door and turned to face him, breath catching in her throat like it always did

He reached out, just the barest motion, and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear with careful fingers. Then pulled back like it hadn’t even happened.

“I’ll see you,” he said simply.

Not later. Not maybe. Just ‘ I’ll see you.’ A promise. Or a threat. She didn’t care which.

Because either way, she’d wait.

Aika drifted through the front door of the game shop like she’d never touched the ground to begin with. She barely remembered unlocking it, flipping the sign, straightening the display shelves with trembling hands. Her body moved automatically, fingers dancing across buttons and cases, muscle memory kicking in while her brain played an entirely different game.

Her thoughts weren’t here. They were outside.

Still walking that cracked sidewalk next to a man who shouldn’t make her heart beat faster but did, still hearing the low growl of his voice like it had crawled up her spine and made a home there. Still replaying that moment, his hand, those four deliberate fingers brushing back a strand of her hair, grazing the edge of her ear like he knew it would paralyze her. And it had. She’d been frozen. Ruined.

The entire morning was a blur after that. She was wrecked in the most beautiful way.

It had taken three tries to ring up a customer who wanted a discount on last year’s fighter game, and she’d spaced out so hard during her lunch break that her miso soup had gone cold before she’d taken the first bite. Every notification on her phone made her stomach twist. But it was never him. And she couldn’t even be mad about it.

Because this was his rhythm. He didn’t call. He just showed up. And lord, she hoped he’d show up again. Every time the door chimed, her heart leapt. Every shift of shadow outside the window made her ears twitch. She nearly dropped an entire stack of collectible figures when a customer with pale blue hair walked in but it wasn’t him. Not even close.

Still, the hope stayed. Crawled into her lungs and nested there.

By the time the sky began to stain orange and the last few customers trickled out, Aika was a mess of nerves and adrenaline and want. She tried to distract herself by wiping down counters, reorganizing the newest game releases, pretending like she wasn’t already glancing at the clock every thirty seconds.

Almost there. Just a few more minutes.

She straightened her skirt, checked her reflection in the dusty front window. Smoothed her hair. Chewed on her lip. Thought about adding gloss, decided it looked like trying , added it anyway. And when the final minute ticked past, she flipped the sign to CLOSED with a flick of her wrist that might as well have been a prayer.

Her phone stayed silent. But her heart roared. She stepped outside slowly, carefully, like the street might shift beneath her feet. The sky was soft and bleeding, clouds brushed in warm golds and greys. The wind tugged at her hair, lifted the edge of her skirt. Her ears flicked as she stepped down onto the sidewalk, eyes sweeping the block like she might summon him if she just looked hard enough.

There he was.

Leaning against the lamppost across the street, hood up, one shoe crossed over the other, arms folded, red eyes gleaming in the dying light like a sin waiting to happen. Aika didn’t even try to hide the way her breath hitched, or how her tail wagged slightly. She didn’t say anything. Neither did he. But her feet moved anyway. Straight toward him. Like gravity. Like fate.

Like maybe the end of the world could wait one more night.

The walk home was quiet.

But not in the way silence sometimes felt, empty, awkward, heavy with things unsaid. No. This silence was different. It was warm. Comfortable. Like the lull between songs when the air still vibrates from the last note. Aika didn’t speak, and neither did he, but her smile said enough. So did the lightness in her steps, the occasional skip of her boots on cracked pavement, the way her tail swayed behind her like it was dancing to some unheard melody.

She was happy. He could see it. And fuck, that made it worse. Because Tomura wasn’t happy. Not even close.

He felt hollow.

Like he’d been scooped out from the inside and left to walk around in his own skin like a disguise. His hoodie was too tight. His chest was too full. His hands wouldn’t stop twitching at his sides, itching to scratch. Everything in him screamed to pull away , to vanish into an alley and disappear before she noticed something was wrong.

But he didn’t. He stayed.

He watched her, really watched her like he was trying to memorize her before the curtain fell. The way her hair glinted under the streetlights, streaks of pastel pink at her ends catching the glow. The way her ears flicked toward every tiny sound like they had minds of their own. The way she smiled to herself when she thought he wasn’t looking. Like this was everything she’d hoped for. And maybe it was.

But she didn’t know the truth.

She didn’t know what he was going to do tomorrow. What he had to do. That this walk, this night, these last twenty minutes might be the final time he was ever close enough to touch her.

When they turned the last corner onto her street, when her building came into view, old and worn and safe in a way nothing else ever had been his heart dropped straight through the cracked sidewalk beneath his shoes.

She slowed as they reached her door. Turned toward him, hopeful, blushing, about to say something, but he didn’t let her speak. He couldn't, or he'd never let her leave.

Instead, he stepped forward. Close. Closer than he’d ever dared before. So close he could see the exact flecks of silver in her gray eyes. So close he could smell the faint hint of something sweet on her breath. She blinked up at him, startled. But she didn’t pull away. And so very, very carefully, Tomura reached out with his right hand, and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear again. The movement was slow. Gentle. Reverent. His fingertips brushed the edge of her ear, lingered there just a moment too long, Then running down her face caressing her jaw lightly

Aika shivered.

Her tail curled tightly behind her legs. Her knees went soft. Her lips parted like she was going to say something but forgot how to form the words. He let his hand drift up to her head. And patted it. Softly, with a fondness she wasn't even sure he knew he possessed. One, two taps.

“Be good..Aika” he murmured.

The words were quiet. But not playful. Not really. There was something final in them. Something heavy and sharp, buried deep beneath the surface. Something she didn’t understand, but he did.

And then he stepped back. Didn’t wait for her to respond. Didn’t let himself linger. He just turned. And walked away. Aika stood there in front of her door, smiling like her heart had been kissed, her cheeks flushed and warm, her pulse skipping like a child’s song.

Tomura walked into the dark. Every step was agony. Because he knew what tomorrow would bring. And she didn’t. And somehow, that made this worse.

Because for the first time in his entire miserable life.. He didn’t want to destroy something. He wanted to protect it.

Even if it meant letting it go.

Chapter Text

The street felt darker now. Colder. Every footstep sounded louder than it should’ve. Like the city itself was mocking him, whispering warnings into the wind ‘You can’t have both. You can’t burn the world and still expect her to hold your hand.’

Aika’s face kept pressing into his mind like a thumbprint on wet glass. Her eyes. Her tail twitching nervously behind her when he’d touched her. Aika wasn’t soft. She only looked that way. That tail, that voice, those eyes that got too wide when he touched her too rough, she wasn’t scared. She wanted it. She fucking loved it. She didn’t flinch when he snapped, didn’t run when his voice dropped into that low, violent register that made others sweat. She smiled. She stared. She leaned in. She provoked. And now she’d settled under his skin like a parasite he never wanted to cut out.

God, what was wrong with him? He should’ve walked away. Should’ve left her alone weeks ago when he first saw her at the arcade, ears twitching, mouth quirked, playing like the world didn’t matter. But he didn’t. He went back. Again. And again. Like a dog returning to its own fucking leash. He walked her to work. Waited outside her job. Let her brush too close, smile too easy, press herself into his world like she belonged there. Like she’d always been there. And now he was dragging her toward the edge of the cliff with him, teeth bared, bleeding at the gums and daring her to jump. Every second of her was a lie he let himself believe in, and now he was dragging that lie straight toward a grave. 

By the time he reached the alley behind the bar, his fists were clenched so tightly his nails dug crescents into his palms. Kurogiri was already there, smoke bodied and still, standing like a sentinel in the doorway. Calm. Always calm. Tomura hated it.

“You’re late,” Kurogiri said, voice low, patient. “I expected you an hour ago.”

Tomura didn’t answer. Just brushed past him, shoulder slamming into the doorframe harder than necessary as he stalked inside. The room was dim and cold. Everything was in place, maps, names, locations. USJ’s weak spots scrawled in angry markers across the cracked whiteboard.

But all Tomura could see was Aika.

“We need to finalize your entrance route,” Kurogiri continued, as though he hadn’t noticed the blood on Tomura’s neck from tearing into it the whole walk home, or the absolute war raging behind his eyes. “The Nomu will create a distraction in the plaza. From there, you and the others will-”

“She has no idea,” Tomura said suddenly, voice quiet, hollow, a little cracked.

Kurogiri paused. “Who?” Tomura shot him a glare sharp enough to peel paint.

He sighed. “Tomura. I warned you.”

“I know.”

“This will compromise you.”

“I know that too.”

Tomura’s hands shook. He shoved them deep into his hoodie and started pacing, shoes thudding softly across the floor. The silence between them stretched. Tense. Brittle. Like if anyone breathed too loudly, the whole plan would shatter.

“You’re going through with it?” Kurogiri asked finally.

Tomura stopped moving. He didn’t turn around. Didn’t speak. But his stillness was answer enough.

“You can’t protect her from this,” Kurogiri added, quieter. “Not if you want to succeed.”

Tomura flinched. Then he laughed. It was a bitter sound.

“Who said I ever could?”

Because that was the truth, wasn’t it? He couldn’t protect her. Not from them. Not from himself. And maybe he didn’t want to. Because she wanted the danger. She kept asking for it. Pushing, poking, smiling like a lunatic as he broke her down inch by inch. She liked the violence. Liked being watched. Liked knowing that the most dangerous thing in the room was obsessed with her. And maybe he was a monster, maybe he’d always been, but she was a willing sacrifice, walking straight into the fire with her tail swaying and her eyes wide open.

That’s what made her worse. That’s what made her perfect.

Because Tomura didn’t do soft. He didn’t do gentle. He did blood. He did ruin. He did scars that never closed. And somehow, she wasn’t afraid. She never looked afraid. Even when his hands twitched too close to her throat. She was just as sick. Just as twisted. Just as gone.

And now she was going to see it all. The Nomu. The attack. She’d see the blood on his hands and the smile on his lips. She’d see him for what he really was. And maybe, just maybe she’d love him more for it. Because when the dust settled and the bodies cooled, if she was still standing there still looking at him with those wide, wild eyes, he didn’t know if he’d kiss her or kill her. And either way?

She’d thank him.

The sun was too warm for a city like Kamino. It soaked the streets in lazy gold, painted the rooftops with light like some kind of peace offering. Her boots clicked down the sidewalk. It was her day off. No work. No responsibilities. No excuses.

So she walked to the arcade. Because of course she did. She didn’t expect him to be there, not really. But hope had a way of slipping into her coat pocket and coming along for the ride. Maybe he’d be waiting again. Leaning against the wall. Hoodie up. Eyes dark and unreadable, like he’d never once thought about doing anything else but being here.

He wasn’t though. She knew the second she stepped inside. No flicker of red eyes from the shadows. No subtle shift of weight near the horror cabinet. No presence vibrating at her side like gravity had decided she needed an anchor.

Still, she stayed. She always stayed.

She dropped her coins in with practiced fingers. Her tail curled loosely behind her, not hidden today, not buried in shame or fear. Her ears twitched at every little sound. She played her usual fighting game solo, silent, focused, and when she finally beat the high score for the third time this month, there was no one standing beside her to smirk or challenge her claim.

It shouldn’t have mattered. But it did.

She ordered takoyaki from the upgraded snack bar. Sat in one of the little booths, the buzz of the arcade filling in the silence Tomura had left behind.

God, she missed him. Even though he’d never really been hers. Even though she’d seen him just last night. She didn’t have his number. Couldn’t call. Couldn’t reach out. She kept glancing at her phone anyway like maybe he’d change the rules. Maybe he’d just decide she was worth breaking his silence for.

But the phone stayed cold. And the day stayed still. Until it didn’t. Until the entire room shifted like something unseen had pulled the thread holding the world together. It was the TV. Mounted up in the corner. Usually tuned to some late night anime rerun or city news no one paid attention to. Today, it buzzed with static for half a second. Then cut to a live emergency broadcast. Aika looked up slowly, a frown tugging at her lips. 

Students. UA students. A training exercise gone wrong. A villain attack. The camera footage was shaky, panned too fast. Screaming. Chaos. The camera caught glimpses of warped monsters, people in costumes, quirks flying like debris through the smoke.

Then she saw him. Or someone.

No-no, it couldn’t be. But her stomach twisted anyway. A figure in black. Lanky frame. A face hidden beneath a mask made of hands. So many hands, twisted like dead fingers across his face, his shoulders, his arms. Fingers clenched tight like they were clinging to his soul.

He moved like him. He walked like him.

That slight hunch. That weight in the way his shoulders swayed. Even the lazy way he turned his head as if he was already bored with the carnage. Her heart stopped. Her fingers froze over her drink.

“No,” she whispered, barely audible beneath the roar of the arcade machines.

Her eyes stayed locked to the screen, even as the footage cut again, another angle, another glimpse of chaos. Heroes bleeding. Students screaming. And always him in the center. Moving like a ghost through flame.

It wasn’t him. It couldn’t be.

But she knew him. She felt it in her ribs. In her bones. Like a warning that had always been there, waiting to be noticed. The arcade didn’t notice. No one screamed. No one panicked.

Just her.

Sitting at a booth her lips parted in stunned silence, her hands shaking as she clutched her phone tighter than ever, waiting for something, anything to tell her she was wrong. That the boy who walked her home, who tucked her hair back with careful hands, who whispered “be good” like a prayer, wasn’t the same one laughing behind a costume of dead hands.

But the silence that followed wasn’t comforting. It was confirmation. And Aika didn’t know what to do with that. The takoyaki sat untouched on the plate beside her. Her fingers trembled around her drink. Her ears usually flicking toward every sound lay flat against her head, and her tail curled like it was trying to make her disappear. The air around her grew thick, loud, too many overlapping noises that suddenly made no sense. The game machines beeped and hummed, the familiar music loops played like nothing had changed.

But everything had. Because the TV hadn’t lied. Because that man, whoever he was, whatever they called him moved like him. And when the camera had caught just the barest glimpse beneath the mask, something inside her recognized him before she even had time to deny it.

‘It can’t be. It isn’t him. He’s not, he wouldn’t-’

But there was no one else like him. There was only one person she’d ever seen move like that. Lean, graceful, bored and angry all at once. The sharp, deliberate way he moved his hands. The arrogance. The confidence. The devastation in every motion, as if nothing could ever touch him.

She stood suddenly gasping in a breath, her tail swishing wildly behind her.The news footage hadn’t stopped. the emergency broadcast showing flashing shots of the villains, the school, the injured students. And finally him.

There, again. The slow easy stride of someone who didn’t care that All Might had just landed ten feet away.

And All Might was there now. The broadcast shifted to chaos. All Might’s voice, booming, righteous, defiant echoed across the sound system. The villain, ‘Tomura, please not Tomura’ spoke back, his voice filtered through static and laughter and something darker.

And then they moved.

And Aika ran. She didn’t even remember leaving. Didn’t remember pushing open the arcade doors, didn’t remember the way the sunlight stabbed into her eyes like a betrayal. All she could see was him. The boy who never gave her his last name. Who never let her touch him with more than a glance. Who told her to 'be good' and kissed her with his fingertips while hiding a war beneath his skin.

She ran. All the way home. Her boots hit the pavement hard, tail tucked, ears flattened, heart pounding so loud she could barely hear her own gasps. She turned corners she didn’t remember choosing. She dodged pedestrians without thinking. She flew up the stairwell of her apartment building like the devil was chasing her, and maybe he was.

Maybe he was.

The second she slammed her door shut, she collapsed against it. Slid down. Hit the floor, knees to chest, tail wrapped tight. And sobbed. Not like she was scared. Not like she’d been attacked. But like something inside her had cracked so wide it would never close again.

She saw him. She saw Tomura. Even if no one had said his name. Even if the world didn’t know it yet. She did. And still, her heart refused to hate him. That was the worst part. Because she should hate him. She should be terrified. She should feel betrayed. But all she could think about was the last time she saw him. The way he touched her face. The way he walked away like he already knew he wouldn’t come back.

And maybe that was his way of saying goodbye. Maybe that was all he had to give her.

She sat on the floor, curled against the door like it might hold her together if she pressed hard enough. Her phone beside her, dark and useless. It never buzzed. It never rang. And why would it? She didn’t have his number. He never gave her anything she could use to reach him. He was always the one in control, slipping in, slipping away, speaking only when it suited him.

She never thought that would matter. Until now. Until it felt like the space between them had become a chasm lined with blood and fire, and the only bridge left had been burned on national television.

The news didn’t stop.

It kept playing on loop across every channel. When she did eventually move and make her way to the TV all Aika saw was raw footage, headlines screaming TERROR AT UA, speculations about who the villains were, what they wanted. The reporters said the name “Tomura Shigaraki” only once unconfirmed, spoken like a question, but it rang like a gunshot in Aika’s ears.

‘Tomura. She knew that name.

Whispered it to herself like a secret for days. Wrote it in her sketchbook. Doodled it beside his face in messy pencil lines with hearts she never meant to draw. ‘Tomura.’ And now it was a name all of Japan might learn soon enough.

Her sketchbook sat forgotten on the bed, pages open, eyes watching her in silence. She hated how she’d drawn him. Too soft. Too pretty. Too kind. She let out a sound, somewhere between a sob and a laugh and buried her face in her knees.

He didn’t lie to her. That was the worst part, he never lied. He told her he wasn’t a good person. He pushed her into an alley and said he’d kill her. He wrapped fingers around her throat and looked at her with something darker than anger, something broken, something real.

And she let him. She let him. Because she thought it was just a game. Because she thought if she played it right, maybe she'd win. But there were no winners here. Just victims. And monsters. And now she wasn’t sure which one she was. Her mind kept going back to the way he touched her. He was always so careful.  

That night in the alley when his breath was hot against her cheek, when his fingers curled just tight enough to warn her, he hadn’t been playing. He wasn’t flirting. He was telling her the truth. That he could end her. That her life, her bones, her breath were all one twitch away from being nothing in his hand.

And she let him touch her anyway. She let him close. She craved it. 

What kind of person did that make her?

She stood on trembling legs, tripped toward the bathroom, gripped the sink like it might stop her from throwing up. He could’ve killed her. He chose not to. That didn’t make him good.

But it did mean something.

Didn’t it?

She didn’t even know. She didn’t know anything anymore. All she knew was that he wasn’t there. That he wasn’t texting. That he wasn’t knocking on her door like he had no right to and pretending he did. He was gone. And the boy who used to sit beside her at the arcade was now the villain shaking Japan from the inside out.

Aika sank to the bathroom floor and curled up tight. She whispered his name once. Not like a curse. Like a question.

Like maybe if she said it softly enough, he would come back to her.