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The familiar racket of wings fluttering is the last thread that connects his awake brain to his dream. He was, momentarily, back in his old bedroom. Nightmares melt away before his eyes snap open, pupils contracting.
Stone cold floor, walls made of termite-eaten wood, creaky and as useless as insulation from the weather as Keigo’s frayed jacket is. Low ceilings and the oppressive atmosphere of the stale air are more than enough to bring him back to a time when he felt as if his legs were tied to concrete blocks.
It had been like that all his life, growing up in tinsel and the stink of deep-fryer fat. His avian senses gagged at the mere thought of it, but luckily, the humidity and mold had covered the grease’s odor. Back then, he was grateful even for that, for anything that could take his mind off his surroundings. Today, he shudders just thinking about it.
He has fallen asleep in his dressing room. The sleep is shaken out of his body as he rolls his shoulders and cracks his neck, ruffling his feathers as he passes a hand over his hair. Keigo honestly hadn’t realized he was that tired. Should have drank coffee when he had the chance. He puts on a jacket and closes the door behind him, shivering as the cold sweeps into his bones.
It’s not only the icy wind but something else. Keigo, like the small bird he isn’t anymore, feels his body go rigid as if someone is watching him. The dim, broken street lamps do nothing to illuminate the empty eerie avenue as he walks down. He knows better by now, after living so many years in places like this, than to show fear to hunters. Whatever is watching might be unaware, but Keigo is no prey.
Instead, he focuses on the ugly decadence of the carousel. The horse’s chapped faces stare back at him across the night, and he sighs. They are alike, this inert, stationary effigies, and him. They are both an illusion of movement, but in the end, they glide in circles over the same endless circuit, at the will of the puppet master.
He kicks a rock.
It jumps, shadowless - as the night grants neither light nor shade- until inevitable gravity wins and it returns to the ground, unmoving. Keigo kicks it again exclusively out of spite because not everything has to stay on the ground, there should be things that could potentially fly and escape-
It’s not so bad, he reminds himself, and it sounds like his tamer’s voice. Honeyed but orotund, you are lucky, Hawks. Don’t you like your new life better? Be thankful, be thankful, be thankful, be thankful-
The rock falls down a cliff.
It’s a weird choice, the place they chose for this town. The carnival moves, every week, Keigo knows - he has been on the road for nearly all his life - and they usually camp in open outdoor venues, on the outskirts. His tamers like to avoid forests, but they probably didn’t have other option in this town.
Forests stir the supernatural in them, awakens the dormant parts of the creatures that are the carnival’s main attraction. It's not good for business, and the tamers know it, nature and haunted places make beasts less entertaining and more dangerous.
And of course, it calls Keigo too. It screams and shouts, boiling the blood on his veins, pupils dilated. But he knows better. He knows what happens to creatures who escape. He knows what waits for him after he breaks his chains and he’s not strong enough mentally anymore to bear it.
Keigo remembers well a time when the hand that fed him was also cruel and unforgiving of foolish attempts at disobeying, times when he had to steal muddy newspapers and learn how to count from the tricks the owners of the rigged games pulled on clients. Living in an enclosure just shy of a cage, going to sleep twice or three times a day because like his mom used to say, while you were asleep you weren’t hungry.
But beating all odds, because that’s what he’s best at, he learned. Keigo learned words, learned songs, learned how to memorize important information by heart, taught himself how to think . Observe, gather information, observe some more, and then formulate a theory. Try it out.
He hides his talons and smiles, wiggling his wings when children come close to his cage. He washes up and flutters his eyelashes, and learned to recognize people with weak hearts, and to cry when they spared him a glance, so he could collect the little things they slipped inside his cage.
And soon enough, his tamers realized he was worth more as an actual attraction than a mere image of a freak show. Keigo learned to act, and act accordingly, he does.
He found his place in the sideshows, rose from freak to thrill actor. He first learned how to work the trapezes from the Ashinagatenagas, eat fire from the Basans and Itsumades, and to throw knives from his mom, before she was taken away. After her departure, he took her place in Burlesque and well, his new life is nothing like it was.
He’s the main spectacle of the carnival when rides and stall games close and even has a show with a leading role. Food isn’t short, now he has clothes that shield him from the unrelenting cold and even his own bedroom, a real one, with a bed and a door between him and his ruthless tamers.
Does he like it here? The dead empty stare of the carrousel horses mock him and he throws his head to the sky, sighing. His hands itch for a smoke, but he resists the urge. His lungs have suffered enough, swallowing dust all this time.
Of course he doesn’t. Who would like to be a glorified performing monkey?
But what other option does he have?
He walks all the way to his trailer, opens the door slowly, and closes it as he always does, not without saluting with two fingers over his shoulder to the shadow that had been following him all night. Closes the door, locks it, and takes a breath, pushing the salt bowl with his foot until it's on his doorstep. He changes into his old jinbei, still too big on him but worn out over the years, and puts on his mom's silver necklaces. He blows the candle’s little flame and pretends to sleep.
He will never be prey again.
He sold his freedom for it.
*
He has mapped out in his head his tamer’s routines and schedules, he knows when they come in, come out, take a break to smoke, go to the restroom, sleep. He also learned from Satoris and the nasty Yamako that ogled his mom how to read a person’s mind by their behavior alone.
That’s why the blatant attempt at infiltration the ‘new employee’ is trying is so absurd. Keigo laughs under his breath. The uniform is stupid like all their formal attire is, but Keigo can’t deny he pulls it off. The red and golden, underlined by the black details accentuate the guy’s blue eyes, staring straight at him. Keigo smirks, the corners of his lips lifting just enough to hint at his fangs.
“Todoroki, quit fuckin’ around, look at me when I’m talking to you!” one of the clowns yells. He’s out of costume, bald head shining with sweat in the unforgiving morning sun. HPS Carnival is closed until the evening, following with the sinister theme.
It’s plenty sinister, especially what happens behind closed doors, so Keigo appreciates the integrity. Honestly Pretty Sinful Carnival, maybe, Keigo doesn’t get paid to think of acronyms - not that he gets paid for anything else.
“Hawks,” one of his tamers says, voice snapping like a whip. It resonates in his ears and he cocks his head to the side, smile strained. “You aren’t working, are you?”
“It’s my day off-”
“Not anymore. Show him around,” he orders and Keigo sighs. He nods at the newbie, who quirks an eyebrow as his tamer grabs him by the arm. “And you better behave . If you know what’s good for you.”
He tugs at his arm and turns away from his stinky breath. The newbie trails after him, and doesn’t say anything until they are far enough from the marquee.
“He always talks to you like that?” he asks and Keigo turns to get a look at him. Aloof, hands-in pockets and a bit hunched over in his shoulders, looking smaller than he probably is.
“It’s his job,” he explains; this guy is not here to work, but Keigo can’t let him know that he knows. “First lesson of the circus: hierarchy.”
“Which is?” Keigo stops and gets on his tiptoes, stealing the funny red hat on Todoroki’s head.
“Ringleader, tamers, stall owners, ticket boys like yourself, janitors,” he says. “The people that move stuff around, and then us.” Keigo takes his hat off and bows elegantly, “At your service.”
“Us?” Todoroki asks unfazed by his theatrics.
“Us.” Keigo nods.
“You and me?”
“Don’t make me say it,” Keigo whines and turns back to walk down the street, still toying with the ticket boy’s hat. He puts it on. “I have just been ordered to not scare you off.”
“You cannot scare me.” It’s said with such confidence that Keigo's forced to believe it. What has this boy seen that evil spirits don't scare him?
“Us, the main attraction of this sinister carnival,” Keigo says, extending his wings to their full size, intimidating. “The tamed demons.”
Todoroki stares at him, eyes never leaving Keigo’s golden ones as if his wings were not there.
“Why do you stay trapped here?”
“That’s a second date question, I’m afraid,” Keigo says, resuming his walk, arms over his head in apparent laziness. But he needs privacy to gather his thoughts. “Why did you come here?”
“To work.” The boy catches up, strides big and fast, and Keigo looks to the side, admiring his stoic profile.
“You're a bad liar,” he says, lips curling up in a smile. This boy hasn’t worked a single day in his life, he walks as if the world is already his. You gotta be born in a castle, knowing that you own the floor you are stepping on, to walk with such confidence.
“Why don’t you try to guess then, if you are so smart?” he replies with a dangerous smile. Keigo bites his lip and comes closer.
He cups the boy's face and brings him down to his level, examining ice blue eyes. Red roots on black hair. Piercings and scars, ears embellished with jewelry. He holds the boy’s gaze, making a point of caressing his palms with his fingers.
“Born in money,” Keigo says, pinching the cerulean earring with delicate fingers. “Haven’t worked in a circus before,” he says showing him his own hands with healing blisters from tugging at ropes all day. “But works somewhere where your appearance doesn’t really matter.”
“More or less,” Todoroki huffs, warm breath crashing against Keigo. He smirks. “You are a fortune-teller?
“But you aren't trying to make a point to daddy joining the circus either,” Keigo says, determined not to give out too much information about himself. “You don’t care about money, and aren’t in need of it. So, what are you doing here?”
“That - ,” Todoroki says, smirking with hooded eyes. “ - is a second date question.”
“Fair enough.” Keigo shrugs, smiling.
The rest of the day go smoothly. He shows Todoroki around, and leaves him at one of the rides, just before the opening hour, before middle schoolers and teens arrive, and then rushes into the dressing room to get ready for his show. He plays a mischievous tengu that possesses women in an attempt to seduce holy men, rob temples, and endow those who worship them with unholy power. Obviously, he ends up killed by an honest and pure priest who doesn’t succumb to his alluring advances.
He would feel put off by the fact that they always kill off the mean, bad, evil tengu in all the plays he participates in, but he’s allowed to be gay and have fun in this one so he doesn’t complain.
Not like he complained about any of his other roles either, for the record. Because he was lucky to be on stage instead of under it.
“Keigo.” He looks up immediately. Ryuoko is talking to him from the door, dressed and ready. “I’m gonna grab something to eat, do you need anything?”
“No thanks, I’d puke it,” he says in a breathy laugh. She grimaces. “It’s a joke Ryou, I’m fine.”
“Hunch over your shoulders when they kick you okay? Make room between your ribs-”
“I know.” He cuts in. They promised him the actors would act this time. “I have Burlesque after that, bruises don’t look pretty and don’t sell as many tickets.”
“Come back to the thrill acts, Keigo, please,” she says with sad eyes. “I know the food is short and you don’t get your own room and stuff but this-”
“I’ll consider it,” he smiles, even though they both know it's an empty promise. “Thank you.”
“Good luck out there.”
He doesn’t need luck, luck is for people that don’t have anything else. Keigo has his hard work and diligence. He’ll be fine.
*
Walking back, he feels the now familiar presence. The silence on the street can only be intentional, the unnatural sensation of complete stillness. Birds and bugs feel it too, that’s why they are hidden.
Keigo’s hair stands up on the back of his neck, and he gets goosebumps all over his body. He powers through the paralyzing fear and takes tentative steps. His bones vibrate with each one, ears trying to locate a single tell besides his paranoia that he’s actually being watched.
He resists the urge to curl his wings around him.
The old, decrepit rides creak in a metallic shrill, cutting through the night’s stillness.
His heart jumps into his throat and stays there, beating erratically. Show no fear, don’t run. Don’t provoke. Don’t give predators a fun hunt.
Only preys run
Yokai and other creatures know him, they wouldn’t hurt him, would they? He’s not one of them, not entirely, but they should be able to smell his blood, if not see the giant fucking red wings bright on his back.
A cloud covers the moon and Keigo sees it then. Clearly. A shadow darker than night itself, right in the middle of the street. He stills.
He would have sworn on everything he has that it was behind him.
The moon bathes the world of the living again and the image dissipates like an illusion. He bats his wings, grabbing the hidden knives he keeps there. Their blade is made of iron and as he slips it under his sleeve it stings, a pronounced itch, but nothing he can’t bear. If it bothers him it should concern an evil spirit.
He moves faster, steps thrumming to his heart’s rhythm, passing the streetlamps’ idle lights, their shadows looming over him as he goes. Keigo swears he can hear steps behind him, but it might be an echo, it might be his delusions. Take a breath, take a breath. It can’t hurt you, it can’t touch you-
He opens his door with a shaking hand and closes it behind him, back plastered to it as he catches his breath. He puts two bowls of salt, closes the curtains, and draws a salt circle around his bed, throwing some iron nails for good measure. His mom’s words play on loop as he prepares an incense burner, and he mutters the prayers she taught him. Not stopping until the acidic smell of rowan and vervain burns up his nostrils.
His eyes water and he probably won't sleep for more than a couple of hours before waking up with a sore throat and suffocating in this toxic air, but no evil spirit will dare set foot in his room.
He claps his mom’s necklaces inside his kimono, the cross and the dharma wheel, sizzling over his skin.
He's safe.
He's safe.
He's safe.
He’s safe.
*
“Keigo.”
“Keigo.”
“Keigo!” He saps out of it and almost lets the rope go. Ryuoko grabs him by the arm before he falls down the platform. “We are 20 feet up in the air, please focus.”
“-sorry. Sorry. I had a bad night.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No, no nothing to do with the show, it was-” He looks around, under the pedestal board. He lowers his tone. “Did you see anything yesterday? At night?”
“What?” Ryuoko says scrunching his eyebrows. “I don’t think so? What should I have seen?”
“Something out of the ordinary?” Keigo mutters, fastening the ropes attached to the trapeze bar. “Someone?”
“Something that should have worried me?”
“Never mind - you are a dragon, nothing would attack you.”
“There are creatures that hunt dragons too, you know,” Ryuoko says shaking her head. “Humans, for example.”
Keigo huffs. “Whatever it was yesterday night,” he tells her, voice low. “It wasn’t human.”
*
He’s sitting, eating his lunch. Sakamata had brought some meat for him and talked to him for a while before he had to go work. Sakamata, or Gang Orca, as he’s known in the carnival, is a halfbreed like him, half-human, half Isonade, and he has to spend some hours a day in a water tank to be able to walk. He was Keigo’s neighbor in the freak show display some years ago, and they have been good friends since.
Along with Ryuoko, Sakamata and Inui, a Jinmenken, the four of them were the main attraction of the Japanese folklore section, since they were the only creatures recognizable enough. Onis and other jokai had other works, and they didn’t interact much. At some point, some months after Keigo’s mom left they decided they wouldn’t keep being part of the freak show anymore. The following months weren’t pretty, and their tamers and bosses at the carnival put the four of them through a lot .
Thinking about this shit is painful, like his brain is conditioned to feel the burn of the whips and the hunger . But it’s fine, it’s better now. Inui, Ryuoko, and Sakamata do the heavy work and move some of the rides. He wasn’t big or strong enough to do that.
Keigo was alone for that part, trying to figure his new role in the carnival out before he wasn’t useful anymore. It was scary, it was dangerous , but he was nothing if not versatile. And fast, cause here if you aren’t, you might as well be dea-
“Takami.”
He looks up, squinting his eyes in confusion when Torodoki sits next to him. “Is this seat taken?”
“I’d stand up and check, if it were you may have crushed them,” he points out, nightmares dissipating in thin air to the voice of this standoffish boy.
“I wasn’t asking for your permission,” Todoroki says, opening a can of food. “There are things we don’t see in places we don’t expect.”
Keigo feels a shudder go down his spine. “Like what?” Blue eyes hammer on gold ones, and he smiles. “Are you… how do you say, a ghostbuster? Is that why you came here?”
And that makes the ticket boy laugh. Rich and from the belly. So he has emotions. Good to know.
“You’d say that sinister carnivals like this might be a good place to ‘bust’ ghosts?” Todoroki asks with a lazy smile, like he knows something Keigo doesn’t.
“Well,” he says, pushing the bones around the dish with his chopsticks. Saving them to enjoy later when he’s not talking to a cute boy. “The supernatural calls the supernatural.”
Todoroki’s intense glance makes him wonder. He bites his lip, looking down at his dish again. The ticket boy resumes eating, and it warms Keigo’s heart that sharing space quietly with someone he doesn’t know doesn’t feel awkward. That he doesn’t feel the need to talk, to fill the silence, and hide behind an illusion bigger than himself.
“You can eat that, you know?” Todoroki says, around a spoonful of beans. Keigo blinks, and Todoroki points at it with a finger. “The bones.”
“I’m not eating bones in front of you.” Keigo huffs, self-consciously. It’s not humanlike.
“You like them, don’t you?” Tokidoki says quirking an eyebrow. “So eat them.”
Keigo purses his lips.
“It’s gross.”
“Grosser than expired beans?” Touya frowns. “What’s up with this shit though? There’s not edible food here?”
“You are lucky you are having three meals a day. This is my last until tomorrow.” Keigo mutters, absentmindedly, pupils dilating at the mere thought of actually eating his bones now. “Honest? You don’t mind?”
“I’m more concerned by the fact that you don’t seem to mind how bad they are treating you.”
“It’s more food than I’ve ever had,” he says shaking his head. “Seriously though, man- can I? my mind is getting a bit numb-”
“Fix yourself.”
It’s probably the exact opposite of romantic or intimate, but as his jaws crush bones, his heart misses a beat at the mere thought that someone would be just as comfortable with his tengu side as they are with his polished, pretty human one.
*
“Todoroki,” Keigo says, resting nonchalantly over the banister. He probably shouldn’t be up here, not where children can see him. But it’s precisely because they are children, because they are not scared of him yet. To them he’s just a person with wings, an angel , some have said. That is until their parents see him, and drag them away by the arm. “You're pretty good with kids.”
“You could say I am,” he says, taking the last ticket and giving back the change before closing the door. The last pair is seated and Todoroki signals to the person controlling the Ferris wheel. “Aren’t you supposed to be kidnapping poor women and seducing priests?”
“Just on Wednesdays and Thursdays,” he says, jumping next to the ticket boy “Today I’m on the thrill show.”
“Which implies?”
“Come and see?”
Todoroki smirks, eyes hooded on his permanent lazy, uninterested semblance. “Maybe not.”
“Please?”
“I don’t want to see first hand how they treat you worse than animals,” Todoroki says. “Might want to burn this place down in flames.”
“Aw, you worry so much?”
“It’s fucking unfair,” Touya says, with a dangerous edge on his voice. “It’s a crime against your dignity.”
Keigo purses his lips and looks to the floor. “Can you at least come when I’m finished?”
“Why? The tamers bother you or-”
“No, nothing like that.” He waves his hands off. “Once I’m done with the show they don’t care about me.”
“Then?”
“There’s-” Keigo sighs. Does he trust this stranger? By all accounts, he shouldn’t , but there’s just something about him that ignites Keigo’s chest, something, an old, instinctive part of him screaming at the back of his head yes, yes, yes yes- “I think I was cursed, there’s just something out there, I don’t know, maybe it’s the forest there’s… I don’t know, just- forget it. Never mind.”
This is stupid, he should be able to deal with this himself, and he is able to . It’s just, the mere hope that someone may have his back if he needs to it’s-
“Hey,” Todoroki says, bringing him back with dark blue eyes, hands gripping Keigo’s arms gently. “It’s okay, you don’t need to tell me. If it’s making you uncomfortable it doesn’t need a bigger explanation.”
“It’s probably nothing-”
“It’s probably something, if you saw it,” Todoroki argues. “Eyes like yours don’t lie.”
Keigo gulps, overwhelmed. He tries to shut down the dumb part of him that’s preening over the fact that he trusts you, he trusts you, he doesn’t need anything else but your words he- “Three hours.”
“Huh?”
“I’ll be done in three hours. Main marquee. See you there?”
*
Keigo never asks him again, but Todoroki- Touya, he can call him Touya now - comes back. He comes back every night, to walk Keigo to his stupid trailer, and he will nag him about how shitty the carnival is, how bad the ‘working’ conditions are, how he should be outraged he doesn’t have a salary, and Keigo will listen to him, because he likes his soothing voice and because to hear someone get so angry on his behalf for stuff he doesn’t even care about anymore feels like … like being understood, and seen, and being something worth worrying for. Worth loving.
Until Touya gets too close.
“Why don’t you just fly away?”
They are in Keigo’s room, sitting on the floor. Since Touya started accompanying him at night, there haven’t been any other weird apparitions, following shadows, or uncanny eyes watching him.
“Metaphorically?”
“Literally.”
Keigo laughs breathily, wings flapping uselessly against the floor. It’s Friday, a big, important day. He had to fly across the trapezes and jump around fire loops, just as his tamers wanted. It’s getting impossibly complicated, today he even fell on his bad ankle. Touya is bandaging it, frown deeper than ever on his face. He says that the carnival and his tamers are a bunch of corrupt abusers. “I can’t,” he confesses softly.
“I’m not talking about your damn insecurities or fears or whatever-” Touya says exasperated.
“I just said I can’t-”
“You have wings, don’t you? Open them and fucking jump-”
“It’s not that easy,” he sighs. Touya rolls his eyes.
“It is. Open them, nice and wide, flap them around and-”
“I can't!” Keigo says, standing up, sharp pain stricking through his ankle. He grabs the first aid kit and closes it with a bang. Touya flinches. He knows his feathers are ruffled and his pupils slanted. He knows what he looks like, with his talons and his fangs and-
“I’m… I’m sorry. Got it. Second date question,” Touya rushes in to say, still frowning.
“No. Not allowed to ask.”
“Keigo-”
“Touya,” he says mockingly. “I’m gonna have to ask you to leave.”
“C’mon, songbird-”
“Leave.”
“I’m trying to help you-”
“I don’t need your help. I’ve done well withouth your help for 22 years. Get out,” Keigo says. “Please.”
Touya looks at him, lips pursed and fight in his eyes, that for the first time since Keigo met him - which wasn’t even that long ago - seem tired. He finally sighs, stands up with a crack on his back, and leaves the room without a single word.
And Keigo goes to sleep feeling like shit, obviously. Still, leaving the carnival . Such an easy thing to say for a human boy. A rich one at that. Not only he can he not, as in, he physically can’t - but also - what is waiting for him out there? A mob of furious and scared townspeople, calling on priests and exorcists to purge and seal for eternity the bad, evil demon? Living on the run, hunting, and hiding? A life of poverty and solitude?
He’s too busy going over it again and again, that he forgets to put the salt by his door. The necklaces, and the protective salt barrier circling his bed.
His brain is too tired and numb to register the door slowly screeching open.
The cackle of a ghost laugh, or the sound of nails tearing down his walls.
The steps, slow resonating, to the beat of his asleep heart, creeping closer
closer
to his bed
The smile, sharp as a knife and long, long, impossible long fingers stretching over like shadows
songbird
When demons plague his nightmares, he dreams of bloodied smiles, dark clouds, and bodiless hands, reaching reaching reaching-
Keigo wakes up in a sweat, eyes crazed and panting. He grabs the knife on his bed table and points at the door.
By the window, the curtains move, a gust of dead cold wind crossing the room.
His door
It’s wide-open.
*
Keigo steals about 6 ojuzus from the storehouse, and ties them to each wrist, repressing the stinging pain by pure will power. He grabs his blades, hiding them in between his wings, and a bottle of cleansing water. He knows, objectively, that none of this will work, if it comes to it, at least not separately. But Tengus are exceptional, skilled combat fighters, and his mom made sure he was one before she left.
These spirits were trying to fuck with the wrong demon.
He carries on with his life, eats quickly, and keeps busy for the entire day. Predictably, Touya isn’t waiting for him when he finishes his shift. But that’s good, that gives him a tactical advantage.
He has lived in this glorified barn that the carnival calls housing for ages, he knows its weak points, how to slither in unnoticed. He knows how to walk around quietly, and he knows how to creep up on someone without them noticing.
“Who are you and who are they,” he demands, blade pressed to Touya’s throat.
The boy opens his eyes immediately, and they shine blue, illuminating the darkroom.
“Keigo-”
“You come here out of nowhere and start working the very next fucking day this thing starts to haunt me. I can put two and two together.”
He presses the knife further, blaze razor-sharp, iron sizzling on the creature’s skin.
“So tell me,” Keigo says, squinting his eyes. “What are you doing at the carnival and why are you targetting me? The truth and only the fucking truth or you're dead. I’ll know if you lie.”
“The League,” Touya grunts. “Some call us the League of Villains because more often than not we burn hells like this one to the ground”
The knife clicks against the floor as it falls from Keigo’s hands. Touya kicks it away from them. The League . A children’s tale. Meant to scare them. Feared by humans, but worshipped by supernatural beings. Keigo takes a step back, shocked. “Y-you… wait, what? How? I should be able to see you.”
“Glamour. Hides it, even from eyes like yours,” Touya says. “And I’m a kitsune, I can shapeshift.”
“You are Dabi,” Keigo says, and Touya - Dabi? - smirks, dangerously. Keigo quickly takes another blade from his wings. Even if it is really the League, they are still haunting him and he’s not out of danger. The kitsune extends his arm and his hand lights up in blue flames that stay suspended in the air, illuminating the room with their soft light.
“How the hell can you touch that?” Touya says, pointing at Keigo’s blades. “If I weren’t already scarred, my skin would have burst into flames. That’s pure fucking iron.”
“Banking on the hope that it will hurt who I’m using it against more than it’s hurting me,” he says, taking a fighting stance. “Hope is a strong force.”
“It sure fucking is,” Touya says, hands up in a calming manner. “But still. The amount of charms you are wearing would seal a demon.”
“I’m only half tengu."
Touya nods, dusting his hands off on his black pants. “That adds up. And you can relax, I’m not here to hurt you.”
“Then what are you here for?”
“To free you.”
*
And so Keigo meets Kurogiri, the first of them he saw, an immortal shadow person and baby sitter of Shigaraki Tomura, rumored descendant of Kali, the Hindu goddess of creation, destruction, and power, and his group of ragtags.
Toga, the vampire that was converted as a teen and never aged. Who in one of her travels met Twice, a jinn, stuck for so long in a lamp that he went crazy. Magne, a fae woman who fell in love with a human, and after he died she couldn’t return to her old family. Spinner, a shy imori they had rescued from a carnival similar to Keigo’s own and ended up joining the League on their hunt. Compress, a former ring leader who one day realized the cruelty of the circus and started paying all the people working for him, which made other carnivals turn on him and crush his business.
And Dabi, or Todoroki Touya. Kitsune, whose mother was kidnapped by an angry, cruel human king. Keigo knows the story, it didn't happen that many years ago, about a big, uncontrollable fire that devoured a royal palace in blue flames.
Their usual modus operandi doesn’t involve engaging with the other yokai and creatures trapped in the carnivals, but apparently, Keigo was an exception.
“We met your mom a couple months ago, in another carnival,” Spinner tells him one night. “She asked us to take a look here for our next job.”
“Yeah, we’ve been watching you for some time! And Dabi was soooooo obviously crushing on you!” Toga tells him excitedly. There’s blood still dripping from her chin, and she doesn’t wipe it off. They are all like this, unapologetic of their nature, as if it isn’t a sin.
“He wasn’t!” Twice chirps in. Keigo has some trouble figuring him out, wrapped from head to toe as he always is in his robes, as if he fears he would dissipate if his clothes don’t contain him. “He totally was, since Osaka? Maybe Kyoto.”
“He was all Freud like, analyzing you like ‘someone like him won’t go willingly, his soul is chained to the carnival by fear’ or some shit like that.”
“But he didn’t know me? I didn’t even see any of you guys in Osaka,” Keigo says, ignoring the other comments.
“Apparently you guys met when you were children. He visited the carnival with his family or something. It did a number on him,” Compress says.
“Oh.”
*
Touya, - Keigo’s allowed to call him Touya, instead of Dabi, only Keigo- stays for the next town, and the League follows. The thing with HSPC is that there’s a lot of people involved, supernatural creatures and humans alike. They have support from society and are legitimized to keep their ‘business’ as the monster’s keepers. There are a lot of supernatural beings in the carnival, and for the League to ensure their safety if they do destroy the HSPC is… complicated.
So Touya stays. Keigo doesn’t have to ask him, he just does. He meets Keigo’s friends and helps him with his makeup and his shows, even if he never comes to see them. And after their work is done, the League squeezes in Keigo’s room and they plot how they’ll take down the carnival.
It’s nice.
Keigo looks forward to it. To spinner and Shigaraki arguing over the noise with their card games, Toga with her weird but clever remarks, and Kurogiri and Compress trying to put everyone in order. Magne and Twice dozing off on each other’s shoulders.
Touya and him, looking at each other across the room and having silent conversations with their eyes.
It’s home.
*
It’s in their next city that Touya grows tired of waiting for Keigo to make up his mind. He tells him, one night after the rest of the League has left and Touya has found a decent enough excuse to stay, and Keigo was too tired to fight him off and play coy.
“They cut my wings,” he whispers, playing with the thin blanket on his lap. “My primaries. I can’t fly without them.”
“What the fuck,” Touya says. “No they didn’t.”
“Yeah,” Keigo laughs. “Of course they did, how do you think they'd keep a literal bird on land?”
“Those bastards-” Keigo grips Touya’s arm and forces him to sit again. “Tell me you have not forgiven that.”
“Of course not. But it’s not like I can do anything about it either,” he grunts. “Revenge and anger occupy room in my head that I need to think. It’s useless to waste time going over and over again over a past that I can’t change.”
Touya purses his lips and stares, silently. “Still.”
“I miss it though,” Keigo says quietly. “I miss flying.”
Suddenly standing, Touya kicks his blanket off his laps and forces Keigo to stand, dragging him out of his room.
“Dude what the fu-”
“We are trying.”
“What? We are not. Didn’t you just hear what I said? They cut my primaries off. I can’t fly!”
Touya ignores him and keeps walking until they reach the main marquee. It’s dark but he lights up some tiny blue fires and they illuminate the creepy, old and dirty enclosure that Keigo has seen for nearly all his life with a different, somehow warmer light despite its cold color.
“Climb.”
“This is stupid.”
“Climb or I’ll make fried chicken out of you, don’t try me.”
He takes the familiar steps and climbs all the way up the platform, and helps Touya up.
“This is your genius plan?” Keigo grunts. “I still don’t have-”
“You should have fucking molted by now Keigo, how long ago was that?”
“I don’t know? I was very little,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest.
“They have grown by now, I’m sure.”
“You don’t understand-”
“I do! I do understand what you are going through. I wasn’t fucking mutilated but these scars and burn marks were not an accident,” he says sternly. “But I sure as fuck didn’t stay with the sick bastard that made this to me.”
“I’m sorry for that,” Keigo says. “But I can’t, I’ve tried and I can’t-”
“This is basic, shitty circus psychology, songbird. They’ve been doing this for ages. They chain small baby elephants to big wooden nails and they tug at it for days, and then they learn that they can’t get out, and they never try again, even when they are adults.”
“It’s not the same-” Keigo says, offended.
“It is, it literally is the same. They keep you caged and chained here to your fears, to the iron grip they hold in your mind,” Touya says, grabbing his arms. “But you can fly Keigo. You can leave on your own .”
“And where would I go?!” Keigo says. “Have you thought about that? I would be hunted forever!”
“You could join us,” Touya says. “You could join the League.”
Keigo stares.
And stares.
And if they were real, natural fire, the little flames Touya made would have died already.
That’s how long Keigo stays in silence.
And to Touya’s credit, he doesn’t pressure and he doesn’t leave. He stays, in silence, next to him. Quietly sharing their existence.
“You’d really have me?” Keigo mutters, voice small, probably eclipsed by the beating of his own heart.
“Of course, songbird,” Touya says, rolling his eyes, the jerk . “You are already one of us. It would be a pain to explain to Toga-”
“ Thank you ,” he says on Touya’s chest, as tentative arms come around him to return the hug. “Thankyouthankyouthankyou-”
“Not so fast, the offer is easily revoked if you don’t at least try to fly right now-”
“Oh c’mon-” Keigo whines, just to be difficult. Is it so crazy? To think that he will be able to fly again? He never thought he’d have a family again, and apparently, there are people that want him to, that would have him as a member of their group.
Touya hugs him, awkwardly, as if it itches his sensitive skin to do mushy shit, and then pushes him off and climbs down. Keigo stares, fond smile and soft eyes, as he walks all the way to the other side of the marquee and opens his arms.
“Jump, you giant chicken,” he says, voice carrying all the way to Keigo’s heart. “I’ll catch you.”
*
“Well. Does this count as a second date?”
Keigo bites his lip and kicks a rock. It rattles all the way down the slope and sinks into a small stream. But Keigo doesn’t care, he’s too busy staring at the sky. The League’s camp is well hidden in the forest, just outside a small village, where the stars can be seen spectacularly. Keigo has been with them for two weeks now, after they freed everyone at the carnival and it burned in blue flames for a whole night. He can’t say that he has ever been this happy.
He and Touya are walking back from dinner at a small restaurant they found, glamour hiding Keigo’s wings. Their hands are linked together, bellies warm and hearts happy. If he were alone, or if maybe Touya didn’t feel motion sick the single moment his feet stopped touching the ground, Keigo would fly the two of them straight to their tent.
“I don’t know,” he says, cocking his head to the side. “When did we have the first one?”
“When I taught you how to fly? It was romantic as fuck.”
“You didn’t teach me shit.”
“When I told u to believe in yourself and quit crying around pathetically,” Touya says, dodging Keigo’s pinching attempt. “Same difference.”
“You are an asshole.” Keigo laughs, pulling him back by their clasped hands. Touya allows it.
“But you like me,” he says, smirk in place, boyish. It wasn't a matter of giving up his life to follow Touya, or Touya opening his blinded eyes. He was always aware of the shitty conditions he lived in, he just never thought it was worth to break free. Touya was more of an inspiration to do better, be better. To stop considering his life a curse.
Keigo hums, and Touya takes it for what it is. A request to come closer, to taste that soft purr on his own lips. “Maybe I do.”
And in the end, it’s an easy decision. After all, they say that curses can only be broken with kisses.
*
They have a firebreather,
a genie, a vampire, a lizard
A nightmare, dressed in a shadow
Ghosts that live in your wardrobe
An evil fae, a skillful thief.
They'll bring the rich to their knees
Their master can turn you into powder
They'll make the world crumble
Rumors say, they now have a raptor
Eats bones, chews marrow
Sees in the dark, flies like an arrow
You can not hide if he's in the borough
*