Chapter Text
In the morning, over omurice, Reze says, “I’m thinking about dying my hair.”
Denji inhales an egg bit, coughing loudly as it catches in his throat, fending off Biscotti when she takes his coughing as a sign he’s done eating and tries to lunge for the rest of his breakfast. Reze ignores him completely, wrapping her bangs around a finger and glaring at the dark black-red shine.
Denji clears his throat, taking a sip of water - and nearly chokes on that too.
“Denji,” Nayuta says, tugging on his sleeve. “Sick?”
“No,” Denji croaks. “Just an idiot. Don’t dye your hair.”
Reze lets her bang fall back in front of her eyes. “It would help,” she says, “With stealth. I might even be able to pass as your sister if I bleach it blonde.”
“No you wouldn’t.” Denji says. Reze has the right eyes for Japan, sure, not the weird creasy faces from Western movies, but she’s still kind of sharp and boney in a way that’s different than Mitaka’s or Makima’s sharp and boney. Second, Denji’s face is built different than most Japanese boys he’s met, and in the wrong way - he has More Face than Aki or Yoshida do, a stronger nose, stronger lips, stronger eyes. Reze is pretty, beautiful even - not like Denji.
“I don’t know,” Reze muses, “Light hair and light eyes are pretty distinctive in Japan. I think it’d work out.”
“Don’t dye your hair,” Denji says again. “I like it this colour.”
“Black is boring,” she pouts.
“Black is cool,” Denji pretests, pointing at her with his eggy chopsticks. “And you and Nayuta look related!”
Nayuta nods solemnly. “Auntie,” she says, holding out a bite of egg rice for Custard to eat right off her chopsticks. It becomes a bakery rush, the dogs piling over one another to whine and plead for Nayuta’s attention. “Auntie Reze.”
Reze makes an aw, cute face. “But,” she says even so, “Stealth.”
“If anyone comes to take you away, we fight ‘em,” Denji tells her. “And we win.
“Better not to fight. The attention would be bad.” Reze crosses her eyes, staring at her hair, “Maybe red -”
“No.”
The sharpness of Denji’s voice hangs in the kitchen air, suspended by the sudden absence of noise. Even the dogs are quiet - even if only for a second. He blinks. He hadn't meant to say that.
Slowly, Reze nods. “Not red,” she agrees.
Not red.
---
Apparently Reze did the paperwork for the daycare yesterday. That means when they (him ‘nd Yoshida, since the stalker won’t leave him alone) drop her off, the woman at the front desk goes chalk white and stares at Nayuta instead of whisking her off too the back, where Denji can already hear kids shrieking and playing games.
It’s kind of weird - at six or seven or whatever, Denji was already parentless and paying off millions of yen of debt that wasn’t even his in the first place. Or was he older than that? It’s hard to remember, sometimes - there’s no point in remembering, not really, so he didn’t bother for years and years. It still doesn't really matter, Denji thinks, 'cause now he's out the other side and the past is done and dusted. It only matters to him, now.
When he was Nayuta’s age, or the age she appears to be, he was working and selling himself, menial chores and degrading asks keeping him just barely afloat. If it hadn’t been for Pochita, those asks would have become worse than just degrading, he knows. And Nayuta will never have to work like that, not if Denji has something to say about it. She’s going to be better than he is - and not so frigid, mean. Not so sharp and angry that she cuts herself on her own edges, just like Makima did.
Denji’s stupid. He knows he is. He can’t really read, and he doesn’t know how to do more than basic mathematics. Most of what he knows about history he learned off of cereal boxes or in documentaries. But he knows how he grew up was fucking messed up. That something went terribly, horribly wrong. And that old Yakuza bastard took advantage of it, because he sucked. And then Makima took advantage of it, because she was awful.
And he knows he still loves her, because awful is just the world.
“What do you have for school today?” Yoshida asks, Denji almost stumbling as he snaps back to attention. Yoshida raises one hand like he wants to steady Denji, but doesn’t actually touch him. “Any tests?”
“Hell,” says Denji, rubbing his knuckles into his chest. His heart aches a little. “Uh -” What was the question, again? School? “No, nothing. ‘Cept Kuroda-sensei wants me to read this book for next Monday and tell her about it, and I’m like two pages in.”
Yoshida nods. “What alphabet?”
“It’s a mix.” Kuroda-sensei’s a big believer in watching Denji fail to read and then telling him he knows this! Like somehow if he just wants it enough, the kanji will miraculously turn into words and not blotchy ink symbols on a page.
“What’s it about?” Yoshida asks, “The book?”
“No clue.”
“How long is it?”
Denji holds up a hand and holds his thumb and forefinger a bit away from one another to denote the thickness.
“That’s not too bad,” says Yoshida. “I’ll help you. On the weekend.”
“I go chainsaws and stuff on the weekend,” Denji protests. Those are his off days! For doing whatever!!! Such as murderizing baddies and visiting Rupinder and maybe terrorizing the building super with his dogs.
“I know.” says Yoshida, with one of his very deliberate and not-so-nice smiles. Jerk.
They don’t sit close to one another in any of their shared classes. Denji sits at the front usually, where the teacher can keep an eye on him, and Yoshida lurks in the back, surveying the room like the creep he is. Homeroom is no exception.
Which means, when Shimamura-sensei brings up the dance in his dry, tired voice, not even raising it to talk over the sudden squealing excitement of the girls, Denji feels Yoshida’s gaze settle in on his shoulders, sharp as a knife.
Denji folds his hands together on the desk. Right. Sure, last night they’d promised to go together. They’d even sworn it, using their fingers. Because that’s something normal people do. Make promises. Agreements. Contracts -
It’s not a real contract. Denji’s no Devil. He doesn’t really see the point of touching hands…
It was a tradition in my primary school, anyway. Now it’s yours.
Now it’s yours…
Denji’s never had a tradition before.
“-There is a dresscode for the dance!” Shimamura-sensei says loudly, scowling down at him with all the force a man in his sixties with chops like a drooling dog can muster. “Anyone caught violating the dresscode will be forced to cover up with one of the shirts we keep in the office, or will be made to leave. I better not see a single one of your shoulders or knees, are we clear?”
Wha - come on man! Can’t the girls get a little dressy? For Denji’s sake, if nothing else? But Shimamura-sensei has no mercy, continuing onwards without regard for anyone’s desire to wear something they actually like.
“The theme this year is,” Shimamura-sensei adjusts her glasses, squinting down at his paper. “Masquerade ball.”
The word masquerade means nothing to Denji, but the squeals of excitement are a good sign it’s something fun.
“Any questions?” Shimamura-sensei asks.
Like, a hundred different hands go up. Most of them are from the girls, since there’s no dresscode for boys. Boys aren’t going to show any skin in formalwear (thank goodness because Denji doesn’t want to see it). Some of the questions are good, though - can they bring friends from outside the school? No. How about siblings? No. How about their boyfriend? No - and all romance is banned at the dance, since it’s against school rules to date. The girl who asked gets a detention for having a boyfriend, which is retracted only after she swears up and down that she was only asking for a friend.
Denji privately considers himself the friend. Since he is, you know, going with Yoshida.
Is there a volunteer sheet? Yes, by the main office. How long is the dance? Six to nine in the evening. Are we supposed to wear western gowns? Anything formal works.
Yeah, the dance news takes up all of homeroom. Denji doesn’t really mind. He’s a little excited, too (even if he’d rather be going with Reze).
Science class occurs. It goes… poorly at best.
Denji’s never been to school before, okay? So don’t think he’s like this on purpose. He’s learning everything from the ground up. Just ‘cause everyone else got to do it when they were Nayuta’s age doesn’t mean they weren’t as stupid as he is at one point.
So they’re talking about space today in science. The night sky, the stars - and Denji, stupidly, boldly, puts his hand up and asks a question when he gets confused. He’s in a good mood from homeroom and… and he wants to know things!
Apparently it’s common knowledge that stars like… fly. In the sky. And just hang out, because there’s no walls in space. They’re not stuck to some kind of giant bowl around the planet. Because there’s no giant bowl. Also, the earth is also flying? And asking how it doesn’t just fall down nearly gets him a detention for wasting my (Read - Hagihari-sensei’s) time.
Denji’s head hurts. He doesn’t understand space. Or science. Or why everyone immediately thinks Denji’s being an asshole when he’s just trying to learn.
He skips computer lab to lie down on the library floor and be miserable. The carpet is itchy and hurts his face.
“Hayakawa-kun?” Iori-sensei wears the ugliest sneakers known to man, since her ankles are bad, and they make a very unique sound when she walks over the library carpet. It’s definitely her. When Denji opens an eye to glare at her, she’s leaning over him, her glasses held in one hand instead of perched on her nose.
“Hello,” says Denji.
“Hayakawa-kun, the floor isn’t a good place to sit.” she says, blinking at him. “Or lie down.”
“It’s quiet down here though,” he says, rubbing at his eyes with a closed fist. “Nobody’s here.”
“That’s because everyone else is in class,” she tells him. “Where you’re supposed to be.”
Denji grunts. Iori-sensei frowns. And then, even with her ugly shoes and her awful ankles, she collapses carefully to the floor, sitting next to him criss-cross-apple-sauce style. Something crackles loudly and makes her wince, but sit she does.
“What’s wrong?” Iori-sensei asks.
Denji grunts again. Nothing’s really wrong, he’s just kind of… not feeling so good. Inside. His chest kinda hurts, too.
“Denji,” says Iori-sensei, “Come on. I’m a librarian, and I spent the last twenty years either in schools or in low-income reading programs, which means I’ve heard just about everything. You can tell me.”
Denji inhales.
“How come…” words aren’t always easy for Denji, sticking in his throat like a fishbone. “I mean, I came to school ‘cause I wanted to learn stuff, right?” Denji says. Iori-sensei’s face is old and wrinkly like Kishibe-sensei’s, and it’s extra wrinkly right now as she frowns at him. “But it’s like all the teachers are mad I’m learning stuff instead of just knowing it.”
Iori-sensei sighs. “It’s a problem in any school,” she tells him, “Especially for kids with a learning disability.”
“I’m not sick,” Denji tell her right back, “I’ve just never done this before.”
Iori-sensei makes a face, like she’s thinking of arguing, then decides against it. “You’ll get there, Hayakawa-kun,” is what she says, “Help me to my feet. If you don’t want to go back to class, you can help me get the books back on the shelves.”
There’s a system of roman letters and numbers that organizes the books. Denji looks at the whole string of them and gets super confused, but Iori-sensei helps him. The whole thing doesn’t matter - just the difference between the book he’s putting on the shelf, and the books already on the shelf. The letters are supposed to be exactly the same, and the numbers have the smallest amount of difference possible.
That’s easier. Denji can spot differences between things with the best of them. Even better - he can really actually help out. Iori-sensei’s got a huge cart of books that needs shelving, since she has problems pushing the thing around once it gets too heavy (which means it only gets heavier and heavier).
Yoshida joins him for lunch again, appearing by complete surprise behind Denji while he’s stocking some thick books with dark covers. Denji doesn’t yelp like Cream Puff does when Reze accidentally drops something loud, no he does not. Anyone who says otherwise is lying.
“You skipped computer lab,” Yoshida says, kneeling down and picking up the book on top of Denji’s stack. “Did you skip tutoring?”
“Iori-sensei asked for help with the shelves,” Denji tells him. “I’m almost done.”
“Huh.” Yoshida sets the book down. “I’m going to go eat. I’ll be at the table we used yesterday.”
“‘Kay.” Denji says. It only takes him a few more minutes to finish up and join Yoshida for a lunch of salmon cat-shaped onigiri (catagiri, one could say). Yoshida is staring at them like they’re packed with explosives and not salt fish, but he is eating them so meh.
They eat in silence a minute. Or… as silent as eating gets.
Yoshida’s the one to talk first. “Can I ask you a question?”
“You just did,” Denji says. “Why?”
“Why?”
“Why.”
“Well,” says Yoshida, chewing thoughtfully. “I don’t actually know very much about you,” he says, “I got almost nothing in your file, which was fine before, but now that we’re interacting I feel like I’m lacking something… and yesterday, I was. Surprised. That you know how to be friendly.”
“Wha - surprised?” Denji puffs out his cheeks. “You! The wise, all-knowing Yoshida-sama -”
Yoshida throws a grape tomato at Denji. Denji, food expert, picks it up from where it’s fallen on the floor and eats it, ‘cause there’s no Nayuta at school to be a good influence for.
“Ass,” says Yoshida, watching Denji chew with a look of vague concern. “You’re allowed to tell me no, you know.”
Denji blinks. “Then stop stalking me,”
“I didn’t mean about that kind of thing.” Yoshida says, as though that makes any sense at all. Denji can either say no or he can’t. And the answer to that is usually that he can’t.
“Whatever.” Denji says, waving a hand. “You can ask me whatever, but only if I can ask you one back.”
“Deal,” says Yoshida immediately. “Why haven’t you gone to school?”
“Oh,” says Denji, relieved. That’s easy. “I was working.”
Yoshida tilts his head and opens his mouth -
“My turn!” Denji says, a little too loud for the library. Time to get some answers about something that’s been bothering the hell out of Denji. “How come you hate dogs?”
“I don’t,” Yoshida looks almost amused, a smile at only one corner of his mouth. “I like dogs. I’m just not a fan of seven huskies all trying to slobber on me at the same time.”
“That’s dog hatred.” Denji says.
“It’s really not. My turn. What do you mean by working?”
Denji shrugs. “My dad had a bunch of debts. The guys where I lived said I had to pay ‘em off. No time for school.”
Yoshida squints. The smile fades a bit. “But you went to school before that? While your mother was still alive, maybe?”
“That’s more than one question,” says Denji.
“I’ll give you two in a row, is that fair?”
Denji considers this. “My mom died when I was really little,” Denji says. He almost doesn’t remember her at all, just her rough brown skin, calloused and dry from working in the sun. The fact that she was sick, but only ‘cause of stories, not because he remembers it. “And my dad -” was murdered by me, ‘cause I got started on that kind of thing REAL early, “Committed suicide a few years later. I never went to school ‘cause I was working when it was supposed to start.”
Yoshida’s smile fades completely.
“And then I ended up with,” Denji drops his voice to a whisper, “Public safety,” and back to a normal pitch, “So you know the rest.”
“Hm,” says Yoshida.
“What?”
“Nothing. I really know nothing about you, do I?” he sounds almost annoyed by it. But! It’s Denji’s turn for questions.
“What about you?” for the first one, “What’s your family like?”
Yoshida turns his smile back on. Denji privately resolves to knock it off his smug face.
“I grew up with my mother, father, and my father’s brother,” he ticks them off on his fingers, “And I have three brothers and one sister. With me, that made eight. Busy house.”
Denji thinks he would go insane if he had to live with eight different people. Wow.
“I only talk to my sister now, though,” Yoshida says. “No dogs, no cats. Very peaceful.”
“Dog hatred,” Denji accuses immediately. Denji would also go insane if he were on his own, absolutely. And probably quicker than he would if he was around too many people.
“No.” says Yoshida.
“Yes,” Denji’s almost out of catigiri. Sadface. “Okay… uh…” Hmm… what other habits of Yoshida’s are super annoying? “Oh, hey, when you asked me out you were talking about some stuff I don’t really get. Have you had a boyfriend before?”
“Yes,” says Yoshida.
“Really?”
“Yes,” says Yoshida again. “Is that one up for me?”
“No way, you didn’t explain anything.”
“Is that a requirement now?” Yoshida asks, but apparently it’s a joke, because he adds, “I’ve dated a few people, but not for very long. Most of them were boys.”
“Huh,” Denji finishes off the last catigiri. No more food… sad.
“And now I’m definitely up,” says Yoshida, tapping his chin in thought. “And we’re almost out of time, so I guess I need a quick one.”
“Quickie,” says Denji, ignoring the blistering eye-roll Yoshida gives him in response.
“When you,” is Yoshida’s question, accompanied by a quick jerking motion near his chest - pulling the ripcord, turning into Chainsaw Man. “Does it hurt?”
Denji blinks. Does it hurt?
The chainsaws need to come out, is the thing. It’s still his body that they manifest into, that they poke out of. His bones go first, splitting or crackling. Like the world's worst migraine, his head opens from the inside to the outside, the bite of the chain catching on the slick underside of his skull and breaking it. The arms are easier - there’s two bones in the arm, Denji knows, so they run up between them and it’s just flesh and muscle until the saws hit his wrists and carve the little bones there into gravel. The flesh is chewed up so much like Makima’s organs through a grinder, blood spraying, giving in the chain.
It hurts, and it doesn’t hurt. It’s so quick, so all-consuming. It’s like throwing water onto a pan of burning oil and nearly burning down the kitchen. Bright and fast, and by the time he even understands it, it’s done, ‘cause Chainsaw Man doesn’t feel human pain like Denji does.
But. Does it hurt? To transform, just that first bit, with the ripcord - does it hurt?
“Yeah,” says Denji, Yoshida dark-eyed and unsmiling. “It hurts.”
Not enough to make him stop, though. Denji’s got a good tolerance going for unpleasant things.
---
They still don’t get to play with the saws in woodworking. Denji’s going to take up recreational chainsaw sculpting at this rate.
---
He survives school. Woo!
Yoshida’s already at their lockers when Denji gets there - he’d stayed back a little to ask Yamada-sensei about the library number-letters, since numbers are a part of math, right? But apparently that doesn’t count as math-math.
“But,” she’d said to him, “I’m glad you’re taking an interest in something, Hayakawa-kun. Knowing how to do less-than, more-than calculations is a good foundational skill.”
And that made up for the bad taste that science class had left in his mouth. Foundational is like basic or easy, but it’s the good kind of basic. Like how you can make an omurice out of eggs and rice and nothing else - a little boring, maybe, but still the thing.
Lots of people don’t like math (Denji doesn’t really like it either) but he does like Yamada-sensei.
“Bento,” says Denji, holding a hand out. Yoshida passes it over with a look of faint amusement.
“Do you have detention for skipping?” Yoshida asks.
“No,” says Denji, even though he probably does and just hasn’t gotten it yet.
Yoshida nods. “Any plans for the weekend?”
Denji squints at him suspiciously.
“I’ll come by tomorrow, then.” Yoshida says, “To help you with your book.”
“It’s Saturday.” Denji protests. “Saturdays are sacred.”
“Oh? And what were you planning to do with it?” Yoshida asks in a voice so gentle it’s an obvious mockery, “Sleep? Cook? Run around with your hellspawn -”
“Her name is Nayuta.”
“I meant your dogs, but since you said it first, her too.” Yoshida says, “I’ll help you get through some homework, at least. Since I’m so nice.”
“I sincerely doubt you’ve been nice a day in your life.” Denji lifts his nose. The eerie, glitterless black of Yoshida’s eyes and the empty smile on his face does not make hm seem nice, alright. “You’re only doing thing ‘cause of the chainsaws.”
“I want you to live in peace,” Yoshida says, and from anyone else it would be earnest, but there’s not a damn Devil hunter alive who still believes in peace. “And not to fail all of your classes.”
Denji sighs. “Fine. Saturday. But you owe me another grocery trip, ‘cause feeding you eats up a lot of my cash.”
“I’m sure the dogs have nothing to do with it.” Yoshida says.
“Nope. They live on wishes and air.” Denji lies. “Well?”
“Deal,” says Yoshida. This time, he holds out a hand. Denji stares at it in confusion.
“We’re supposed to shake on it,” Yoshida explains. “Here - hold my hand.”
Denji doesn’t really want to hold hands with a guy though. But at least it’s just Yoshida. Gingerly, he grips Yoshida’s hand, awkwardly wrapping his fingers around the bottom of Yoshida's hand, ‘round the back. It’s not right - Yoshida adjusts his grip on Denji to accommodate the weird hold. Denji refuses to be embarrassed about the fact that he doesn’t know how to shake on it.
“Now we squeeze,” Yoshida says, and then quickly, before Denji can try to break his hand, “Firmly, but not hard. Don’t hurt me, Hayakawa.”
“Fuck you,” Denji mumbles, but tries to match the pressure Yoshida is using. Yoshida doesn’t wince from pain (or embarrassment from Denji’s grip being weak) so it’s probably good enough.
“And now you shake, which is really more like moving your arm twice. Only from the forearms, don’t bring your shoulder into it.” Yoshida sounds like one of the sensei for a moment, stern and shit. About appropriate hand-holding-shaking procedure.
And then they shake hands. Finally.
“Is this another elementary school thing?” Denji asks when they let go, reaching down to grab his bookbag off the floor and shrug it on. Yoshida’s hands are warm again - are they always so warm? Denji’s hands have been cold for as long as he can remember.
“No, that’s how adults make business deals,” Yoshida says, “A good handshake can make or break a bodyguarding contract.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” Denji’s heard a lot of dumb things, mostly from himself, and that definitely takes the cake. You can get a bad grade in holding hands?
Yoshida sighs, his shoulders dropping a centimeter. For one moment, he looks like a real person, slightly frustrated and really tired, rather than a creepy doll-faced marionette.
“I know,” says Yoshida, straightening up, the moment of humanity erased. “Having a private job is like that.”
“Public safety didn’t involve handshakes.”
“Not for you, Denji Chainsaw-hands.” Yoshida says, “Are we picking up Nayuta today? Or… is her aunt doing it?”
“Us.” Denji eyes Yoshida. “How much do you sleep, man?”
Yoshida huffs a laugh. “Me?” he asks. “How about you?”
“I share my bed with nine pets and a six year old,” And Reze, which puts me on the floor, “I sleep when I sleep.”
“Hm,” Yoshida shoulders his bag. “Speaking of, let’s go get your kid. And the dogs, I guess.”
“And the cats.”
“Them too. Though, I don’t understand why they go on leashes.”
“Safety,” says Denji, “We’re a big safety-first household.”
Yoshida gives him a look like, pull the other one, like what Aki would do when Power was insisting nu-uh I didn’t eat the leftovers with crumbs all over her face.
“Aki insisted for Nyako,” Denji admits. “Since cats don’t really know what cars are. I don’t know, it’s how we did things. She’s an indoor cat. And I’m not letting Nyamaru out after I nearly had to scrape him off the road.”
“Hm.”
“And.” says Denji, “All the human-esque occupants of my place are immortal so, technically, we’re safety-first by default.”
Yoshida starts, then stares hard for just a beat too long. Even after he’s gone back to pretending to be Normal and In Control Of Everything, Denji’s waiting for the inevitable question.
Which… never comes. They walk all the way to the daycare in silence.
The front desk lady looks so relieved to see Denji when he walks in that he’s kind of afraid she’s going to cry. Nayuta is already sitting in the lobby, a sheet of wrinkly paper on her lap. When she sees Denji, she gets up and trot-trots right over to him, and holds up the paper silently.
“Aww,” says Denji, taking the paper. It’s all wobbly from too much water, some kind of painting done with brushes instead of finger or crayons. There's three figures, the tallest with a mess of yellow on its head, and two smaller ones with black hair and black clothes and empty white circles of faces. They’re crowded by what looks like a bunch of monsters made of nothing but teeth, jagged lines to denote happy puppy smiles - Denji recognizes the bakery brigade easily, and both Nyako and Nyamaru have made it in at the bottom, little smudges with long tails.
At the bottom of the painting is a big red mess that, with some thought, Denji is pretty sure is supposed to be either a pile of dead birds or maybe fire.
“It’s great,” Denji tells Nayuta, who doesn’t smile exactly, but her eyes brighten into a shining gold that has its own light in the dim lobby. “I love it. We’re gonna put it on the fridge.”
Nayuta bounces onto her tiptoes and back twice, and ducks her head before stepping closer to cling to Denji’s leg. The drawing needs to go somewhere so it doesn’t get bent in Denji’s fist -
“I’ll carry it,” offers Yoshida.
Denji eyes him… but Yoshida is much less likely to mess up the picture because he forgot he was holding it or something, so Denji gives it over.
“Anything else we need?” he asks the secretary.
She blinks at him. “Hayakawa-san…” she says, shifting her roll-y chair closer to the desk. “I know many kids sometimes take a bit to adjust to new places, but you might want to have a talk with Hayakawa-chan about playing nice with other kids.”
“Nayuta doesn’t play with other kids,” Denji says. Dogs, yes. Children? No. They’re sticky, she’s complained more than once.
“We noticed,” says the secretary. “Does Hayakawa-chan have any friends she can play with? Maybe a place she can go during the day that’s a bit quieter?”
Denji frowns. Nayuta clings tightly to his leg, burying her face into the black fabric of his trousers.
Yoshida steps forward, a smile on his face. “We’ll be back on Monday,” he tells the secretary. To Denji, “Let’s go.”
Nayuta doesn’t let go of his leg, so Denji picks her up and carries her like the limpet she is. He can feel her unzipping his backpack, peering around his shoulder, so she can root around inside for any hidden snacks Denji might have squirrelled away for her. There’s none today.
Denji exhales hard, trying to blow Nayuta’s hair away from his mouth. “That was rude, right?” he asks.
Yoshida makes a thinking noise. “Perhaps,” he says. “Probably. But it depends on what she says on Monday.”
“Eh?”
“If she was rude once, it was a bad day. If she’s rude twice, she doesn’t like Nayuta.”
“Ah.” Denji considers this. “I’m going to fight her.”
Nayuta shifts her head, and Denji can feel a smile pressed into his collar. She only smiles when he can’t see her, but he knows she can because of moments like this.
Yoshida sighs.
The dogs are barking when they get back to the apartment building. Who knows why - they closed the bathroom window last night since it’d dried out. Reze didn’t spill something again, did she?
She probably did. She’s not that clumsy, but having seven huskies underfoot absolutely determined to get at whatever’s in your hands makes anyone liable to dropping shit. And explosives don’t exactly require pinpoint precision, so it’s not like she’s been motivated to learn like Aki and his sword and his ridiculous balance. Denji tried to trip Aki a lot. It was very rarely successful.
“Yoshida,”
Yoshida looks at him. Denji stares back, because he didn’t mean to say anything at all. He feels his face begin to heat up in embarrassment, and turns away, stomping towards the apartment. “Whatever,” Denji snaps, “See you tomorrow.”
Yoshida, since Yoshida is very Yoshida, doesn’t follow. He doesn’t say anything either, he’s just gone when Denji turns to look while he’s unlocking the apartment door. Gone off to where? Who knows.
Denji sighs.
“Denji,” Nayuta tugs on the collar of his jacket. “Home?”
“Yeah, kiddo. Let’s go home.”
---
Reze opened the windows because she’s bleaching her hair.
“Stealth!” is what she says as soon as she’s pulled the bakery brigade off of Denji and Nayuta, rescuing them from being crushed to death by dogs - rescuing the painting was first, and it’s already on the fridge. Reze is the best. There’s a plastic bag on her head. And tin foil. It looks super weird.
“Oh no,” Denji is disappointed - like actually feeling it, deep in his chest. “But I like your hair.”
“I know,” and Reze looks a little sorry about it, but not really. “But it’ll be a little something extra for when I get my papers done. I bought a couple different colours, Nayuta do you want to help me colour my hair?”
Nayuta nods.
Well, at least the girls are having fun.
“How expensive was it?” Denji asks, throwing his bookbag into the corner. He’ll ignore it for the rest of the night.
Reze coughs. “Uh,” she says, “It wasn’t?”
“If you get caught stealing from the store again -”
“I know, I know! Just until I get everything in order and can get another job.” Reze tells him, “Once we’ve got income, everything will be fine.”
Denji sighs. “I bet the Crossroads will take you back,” he says, “Without papers.”
Reze doesn’t respond to that, busy sliding boxes of dye over to Nayuta. “Your stalker is good about bribing you, so we’re not going to run out of cash right away,” she says, “But we need to prep for it. And you can’t work between school and Chainsaw Man-ing it up.”
“I work!”
“You can make sixty yen an hour, max, pretending to be furniture.” Reze gives him a withering look. “That’s not a job. It’s exploitation.”
Isn’t that the same thing, though?
Whatever. “Yoshida is coming over tomorrow to help me read,” Denji says. Nayuta has three boxes in front of her - a light brown, a reddish brown, and blue. “You’ll have to hide.”
“I have a meeting tomorrow, anyway.” Reze says. “Denji, any opinions?”
“Not the red one,” Denji plants his hands on the table, giving the boxes a curious look. “Hm… Blue probably isn’t stealthy…”
“Blue,” says Nayuta, tapping the box.
“I’ll make it work,” Reze tells them both. “I’m going to go shower the bleach off, then. Are you cooking tonight?”
“I always cook,” Denji says, sliding the box of blue closer. It’s dark, at least. Reze might still look like Reze with dark blue hair. Blond would be wrong on her. “Do you think the lentils are still good, or have they been soaking too long?”
“No idea!”
He makes the dal (finally) while Reze dyes her hair. The lentils are beginning to sprout, but that’s probably fine? If not, Denji’ll eat all of it. It won’t kill him or anything.
That would be really funny, actually. Denji’s survived being blown up, cut in half, dousing himself in gasoline and lighting himself up, being beheaded, having Pochita torn from his chest… but lentils. That’s what’d do him in.
When Reze returns, she has another bag on her head. Denji valiantly covers up the fact that he’s laughing by calling “Food?” and letting the dog’s barking hide his snickers.
The dogs get fed. The lentils and shit cook on the stove. Denji uses less spices this time. Nayuta still decides she doesn’t like it and has bread and jam instead. Like you do, Denji supposes. She’s just as picky about Power, but way better about throwing food onto the floor.
“Any news?” Denji asks, while they scrub the dishes down. Reze’s hair is now hidden by a towel.
“Nope.” she tells him. He hands her a plate, which she judges critically under the bright kitchen lights, and hands it back to be scrubbed again.
Hm.
“How about you?” she asks him. “Busy day at school?”
“Nah.” Not busy. Frustrating. Irritating. Denji is trying so hard to live in the real world and it never seems to work out for him. “Hey, do you know what mask -a- ready means? Mass cure able? There’s a school dance -”
“Masquerade!” Reze cheers with wide eyes, seizing Denji’s sleeve. The cup she was drying clatters against the countertop and falls to the ground, just barely avoiding shattering on the floor when Reze catches it with her foot. “Your school is doing a masquerade dance?”
“Yes?” Denji says. Why, is that bad?
But Reze’s eyes are wide and glittery, and there’s a smile crawling across her face like Nyako trying to hunt down moths or flies that get inside. She squeezes Denji’s forearm tight and tells him “I’ve always wanted to go to a masquerade dance!”
“Ooh,” says Denji, “What is it, though?”
You wear a mask is the thing. The whole idea is for a masquerade ball to be a fancy costumed affair where nobody knows who anybody else is. They’re commonly seen in period romance movies, which is a genre, and Denji gets the feeling that the next trip to the movie rental is going to involve some research.
Also,
“Denji,” Reze tells him with gravity, with significance - like standing in the frigid pool water with the pale palms of her hands open to him. “I’m going to crash your school dance and possibly set it on fire.”
“Sounds fun,” Denji says, washing a knife. “I’m going with Yoshida, so make sure you don’t kiss him.”
“Mm.” a pause. “Oh man, are you going to kiss him?”
“What!? No.”
“You’re dating now Denji,” a sly glance, a flash of green from under dark lashes. “I bet if you kissed him while studying, you could get him eating out of the palm of your hand.”
Denji tilts his head. “Why would I want to do that?”
“It’s an expression.” she says, “Unless you’re actually into it as a sex thing.”
Denji considers that. Is he into that? Mmm… maybe if he were the one getting the food, but he doesn’t think he wants to mix food and fucking. There’s a difference between survival stuff he did when he was alone and fun cool stuff he can do as a regular person.
“Everyone I’ve kissed has tried to kill me,” Denji grumbles instead of answering.
“Which is why you need to come onto him this time,” Reze tells him firmly.
Denji’s mouth pulls down before he realizes he’s scowling. That doesn’t really… feel good, is the thing. Thinking about - what? Kissing Yoshida, like Reze kissed Denji? Her hand, cold on the back of his neck, her fingers sliding through his hair, her nails scratching across his scalp just hard enough to make him shiver? Definitely not like kissing Himeno, who’d thrown up in his mouth, and then fed him a mouthful of beer the second time.
He hands her another plate, which she stacks in the increasingly unstable Tetris pile in the rack. Telling Reze he doesn’t know how to kiss someone and the thought of trying makes him feel nervous seems lame. “We’re not really dating,” is what he goes with, “There’s no one to fool in the apartment.”
“All the better to practice here, then,” she says.
Denji doesn’t know about that.
“Yoshida and I aren’t really dating,” Denji repeats.
“He’s gay, though, right?” Reze asks. They’re almost done the dishes - just the pots and pans left. “I don’t think a straight boy would think of fake-dating you to fool a seduction plot, even if he were really dedicated to being a stalker.”
Denji shrugs.
“So he is,” Reze’s green eyes sparkle. “Come on, the best way to get him to calm down about your… you-ness -”
“You-ness?”
“Chainsaw activities,” she clarifies, “Is to get him to like ‘em. You need to be desirable.”
“Is this the freaky Russian spy shit you learned and are trying to escape from?” Denji asks.
Reze pauses. “...Yes,” she tells him. “But,”
“I’m good,” Denji tells her firmly. “I’ll figure it out as I go.”
Reze pouts, puffing out her cheeks. That’s her I’m not actually serious about being sad expression. “I’m just trying to help.”
“I know.” There’s dried sauce in this pot already- Denji’ll let it soak for a bit. “But you did like, bite my tongue off and -”
She smacks him on the bicep. “I was trying to kill you!”
“Is that you defending yourself?”
“Yes,” she says, “Obviously.”
“Wow,” Denji’s giving up on these pots entirely, actually. The rag goes on the facet and he washes his hands of soap. “So it’s okay to use the murder playbook for the fake romance playbook?”
Reze doesn’t hesitate a single second, “It’s the same playbook,” she tells him. “It’s all about stealing his heart.”
---
Denji doesn’t dream often. When he sleeps, he just sleeps. Sometimes it’s like he blinks, and then it’s morning - never feels too rested after that. Most nights he knows he’s slept, maybe even knows he’s dreamed. Doesn’t usually remember it though.
But some nights he has this dream, and he doesn’t know where he got it. Why his own brain would do this to him.
He dreams about killing Aki. But not about how Aki died. Not about the fight outside their home, not about -
Aki! HAYAKAWA AKI! Snap OUT of it! This is the LAST THING you’d even want to do, isn’t it?! The words ripping free like the ripcord being pulled, a violent ripping as a Devil reshapes him, as his oldest friend breaks him apart from the inside. The blood - the ringing in his ears, the way sound would stop after each gunshot because his eardrums fucking burst -
He dreams about that, too. But some nights it’s this -
He’s standing in shallow water that’s a bit too cold, his feet hurting and numbing to a prickle, black fabric heavy as it swishes around his legs. Stepping backwards the numb prickling of the water rising past his knees, soaking into his slip where it hands around his thighs. He dreams about the cold, staring past the city and the blue sky, past the trees and the buildings and the people and the everything, waiting, waiting, waiting -
He dreams about how Aki died, and how he knew immediately from the chain binding Aki to his will, and Aki hanging limply in the air, unable to even flinch as the bullet tears through him and he drowns on his own blood - about Aki, about Angel, about people Denji doesn’t even know. About standing in the water and letting it happen.
But before that… he dreams… he dreams of Aki’s blue eyes shining with tears, about Angel standing there and pretending not to care about this human he loves. He dreams of Aki’s face creasing with sadness and pain, but not because he’s hurt.
“Whatever happens…” Aki always says in this dream, “I want Denji and Power to survive… and be happy…” even as Aki cries, because he knows there’s no happiness once your family dies because of you, for you, it doesn’t matter. His wish, a wish so deep and true that it’s almost a prayer.
Denji dreams about this -
“Hayakawa. This is an order.”
He dreams -
“Say you’ll make a contract.”
And Aki can’t do anything but agree.
---
(But those are just bad dreams, and Nayuta is sleeping on the bed with Reze, with the dogs and the cats, with Denji close by to make sure she knows what love and wishes are this time.)
(It has to be enough.)