Two Hours - Chapter 1 - Shigaraki x Reader
***
Maybe, just maybe, some things might be worth waiting for.
***
Two hours.
He was late by a full two hours. Meaning 120 minutes, 2700 seconds, 7200000 precious milliseconds wasted of your life. You'd know, you counted.
You glared at the library clock again, as if it was its fault you had been stood up. Disgruntledly, you pushed back your chair, getting up to put your laptop and revision materials back in your bag. It was the last time you'd try and help a stranger because clearly, strangers sucked.
You had done tutoring for different classes since your second year in college. Literature, philosophy, anthropology, history- name it, you could teach it. And you loved doing it like few other things made you happy. Was there anything as wonderful as showing others the beauty of human nature, its creativity, its passion, its sincerity?
"Sincerity my ass," you thought, angrily shoving your backpack on one shoulder. It clunked loudly as it bumped against a wooden shelf, and the librarian threw you a dirty look from the other side of the room. Part of you felt bad; you had spent a while trying to cultivate a good relationship with the older man, since you spent most of your free time in the library. But the rest of you, which was to say almost all of you, didn't care, because you were unbelievably frustrated.
You had had students give you tons of excuses before: they were sick, their mom was sick, their neighbors' dog was sick, and they just had to skip the tutoring session. You didn't mind that; they'd always text at least an hour in advance, and you'd have the time to read their message and go home with a smile, instead of walking all the way to the library.
But today's guy was different. You knew he had your number and your email address: it was part of the tutoring agreement you had both signed online. And yet he hadn't had the decency, the respect, to send a single message to tell you he couldn't come to the two-hour appointment he himself scheduled. And now, you had just wasted two hours, excitedly waiting to expose the wonders of literature to a guy who couldn't even bother to text you "can't come".
You gave the librarian a half-hearted nod of apology and headed toward the big glass doors at the front of the building. The weather looked moody outside, the sky grey and heavy like rain could start pouring at any moment. You didn't need to check your bag to know you didn't pack an umbrella. It was clear this was one of the days.
Sighing, you opened the heavy door to walk out at the same moment a man pushed to get in. You tucked your body to the side to keep the door open for him, but he flatly ignored the gesture, walking past you without uttering a "thank you".
"Yup," you thought, "strangers suck."
Before you could take more than a few steps outside, a droplet of water fell right on top of your nose, stopping you in your tracks. And then another, and another, and in a flash, the area was getting flooded, puddles already forming around on the dark asphalt. You couldn't help as another sigh escaped you, bracing for the impact of the freezing rain as you took a step forward into the tempest.
Then, something grabbed you by the shoulder.
You yelped in surprise and turned around, fists instinctively bunching up to your chest to protect yourself, heart racing. It took you a few seconds to recognize the rude guy who had just passed you on his way in.
He was tall, taller than you had first realized. His oversized hoodie made it hard to gauge his frame, the visibly worn-out fabric stretched shapelessly around his torso. Your eyes looked up for a face you couldn't find: the black hood fully obscured his features, and for a second, images of killers in horror movies alarmingly flashed through your mind.
You shoved yourself out of his grip and took a step back, eyes wide. He nonchalantly placed his hand back in his pocket, an unimpressed glare staring right back at you. His eyes were red, bright red.
"You're the tutor, right?"
You looked at the ominous figure incredulously.
"What ?"
"You're the tutor, right ?" he repeated in a low, raspy tone. He sounded annoyed.
You kept staring at him, wondering if he was speaking in a foreign language you had never heard of.
Then, his words started registering.
"Tomura..." you started uncertainly, the math adding up in your head as you remembered the name on the little manilla folder you had prepared for today, "Shigaraki ?"
A small smile etched itself onto the man's face, and you noticed how cracked his lips were, a faded scar going through the dried skin. Strands of slightly greasy hair, white as snow, rebelliously escaped the black hood, and for a second you caught another glimpse of his crimson eyes. But they disappeared back under the shadow of the fabric, and you realized your body had tensed like a rock.
"I'm the guy," he said nonchalantly, the hand you had pushed away going up to his neck and mindlessly scratching the skin there. There were marks there, some old, and others so fresh they looked like they were bleeding. Anxiously, you wondered if instead of a killer, you had stumbled on an addict.
"Hey, so when do we go get a seat inside? It's fucking cold out here," he added, gesturing lazily towards the library.
You kept staring.
And staring.
And staring.
He hadn't possibly said what you thought he had just said. No one was so impossibly clueless and self-centered that they would come two hours late to a meeting and act like they were the one who was being bothered. But the cold rain falling down your face made it aboundedly clear: this was real.
"No," you finally said, enunciating the word slowly.
He looked as confused as you first did, the smug, composed look on his face instantly falling. He didn't look like he was told "no" often, and you felt the flame of anger start to burn inside you.
"What do you mean, no?"
"I mean no," you replied drily, feeling confidence coursing back through your body. There was no doubt in your mind you already looked like a drowned rat from the rain, and that your waterproof mascara was starting to reach its limits. But you weren't about to be scared of some loser trying to look tough with a crusty hoodie and unwashed hair.
"You came two hours late for the tutoring, which lasts two hours. My work slot with you is from four to six, and it's exactly," you snapped, bringing your phone up to his face, "Ten past six, so my work here is done."
He stared at your phone in incomprehension, then back at you, irritation slowly settling on his pale features. His thin brows frowned, and you noticed another scar marring his right eyelid the piercing crimson stare bore into you. Maybe he was some kind of gang member, and if so, was it a good idea to mouth off to him?
"Look, I don't know what crawled up your ass, but I'm paying to have a tutor," he snarled drily. "That's not fair."
You had to wonder if you were even talking to an adult. So maybe he was a killer, or an addict, or a gang member, and he would end up stabbing you for it, but by God, were you going to put that guy back in place.
"Well, tough luck, buddy," you almost spat out, your usually level-headed patience entirely fizzled out, "it wasn't fair to make me wait two hours and then expect me to have nothing other to do in my life than tutoring your sorry ass. But life isn't fair, is it ?"
You turned around, throwing the man one last angry look: "If you want tutoring, then be there next week. On time."
You felt oddly proud of yourself as you walked away, leaving him wet and alone in the rain. And if you were slightly trembling at the feeling of the crimson stare boring through you all the way down the library path, well, you just had to pray he didn't notice it.
---
"Huh," you noted with both surprise and apprehension, "you're here."
And indeed, there he was, slumped in one of the library's chairs, the stranger you were certain wouldn't come to your meeting this week: Tomura Shigaraki.
You had spent a few days feeling bad about the way you had handled things; yes, he had been incredibly late and entitled, but you never gave him any time to explain himself for it all. Maybe he did have a good reason, and maybe he had only acted so entitled because he was having an especially rough day.
One look at the condescending glare he threw you was enough to confirm that wasn't the case.
"Yeah, I'm here," he muttered, looking away, his right hand still ripping away at his neck like the last time you had seen him. You couldn't help but wonder about the gesture, the practiced way his fingers would visibly carve into the skin. Allergies? Eczema?
His vermillion eyes never left your figure as you put your bag down and awkwardly sat across from him, looking down at the carpeted floors.
"Why are you that surprised ?" he added flatly, "I told you, I'm paying for this shit."
You weren't a confrontational person; or at least, you did your best to avoid confrontation. But you'd been tired last week, and his whole little disrespectful charade had pushed you over the edge. You weren't sure you were up to deal with it again.
Your lack of response seemed to irritate him; he picked up a small handheld console from his lap, immediately busying himself in a game like your presence held no meaning to him.
You took a small breath, not wanting your temper to rise again; if you wanted this to work, you'd need to be the first to give the olive branch. You put on a nice, professional smile: "Let's put everything to the side for a moment, start over. Maybe we could both introduce ourselves again ?"
His thumbs toyed with the joysticks on his handheld, disinterest palpable."Why? I know who you are."
You could have strangled him.
"Nevermind," you smiled so forcefully it hurt your cheeks. "So, you're here for Lit 3250, Absurdism in Literature. That's a fun class."
"I'm only taking it because I have to," he grumbled. "I'm in computer programming. They make us take a class in the humanities department because the education system is fucked."
You raised an eyebrow at that, genuinely surprised: "They're making you do literature in computer science ?"
He shrugged, his eyes going back to the game on the small screen with obvious boredom.
"Told you. The system is fucked."
You pulled out the little manilla file you had prepared for him from your bag, spreading a few documents on the table between the two of you. For a second, you could have sworn his bored expression flickered into something new, but it was gone before you could register it.
"Well, I might not be able to do much about that, but I can try and make the class easier," you smiled a little more genuinely this time as he put his handheld to the side to look at the papers you had slid in front of him.
To your complete astonishment, as you guided him through the material, the man listened, never once taking notes, yet able to answer any question you threw his way in the shortest, most concise way possible. He seemingly absorbed the information while looking wholeheartedly disinterested, like remembering the words was barely any more work than eating or breathing. You had to wonder if the programmer in him coded the sentences in his mind, imputing every word as little lines of binary code, or if he was just this naturally, annoyingly smart.
"Alright, that's it for today," you concluded, noticing you had gone over the material you had planned for two sessions in just the last two hours. "I didn't take you for the kind of guy to listen to a tutor, but you've done a really good job today."
You gave him an honest smile, hoping to finally mend the bridge from last weekend's incident. Instead, he promptly looked away, lips tightening into a thin line.
"S' just cause I need to pass the class to get my diploma. I don't really give a shit about any of this stuff."
If he saw your face fall at that, he didn't show it. He grabbed his handheld and shoved it in his front pocket, promptly throwing his ragged backpack over his shoulder, as if the last thing he wanted was to stay here a minute longer with you.
"I'll see you next week, then," you hesitantly said, more a question than a statement. He didn't look back at you when he spoke with a grunt, already making his way out.
"Whatever."
---
"So Camus' thing is society is fucked, and as soon as you realize it you gotta kill yourself, right ?"
"Basically !" you beamed excitedly, circling a paragraph in the text facing him with the tip of your finger. "It's the idea that when you understand your role as just a cog in the machine in a mindless daily life, you have to either ignore it to rejoin society, or leave society altogether."
A small smile danced on Shigaraki's chapped lips, as smug and mocking as all his smiles were. You sometimes wondered if his face could ever express pure, genuine happiness, or if it was perpetually stuck with that self-satisfied expression.
"Yeah, I can get behind that."
It fit him, in a strange way. And he had every reason to be pompous: in three weeks, you had both gone through double the material you had planned for his first sessions, as be blasted each lesson like a simple tutorial fight in one of the many video games you'd catch him play before each lesson.
"Me too, actually," you agreed.
He looked at you disbelievingly: "You? Feeling like you're not a part of society? Give me a break, you're a tutor in university, there's probably a normie award for that."
"Well, even us normies are really just always doing the same thing, aren't we ?" you explained, laying your chin against your hand pensively. "Take the two of us. We always meet here at four o'clock on Wednesdays, at the same library, at the same table. We don't go through the motions because we want to, we do it because we have to, and that's what everyone expects from us. Kinda makes you want to quit society too, doesn't it ?"
For a moment, he said nothing. There was something unsettling in the way his ruby eyes bore into you, like he was judging your very soul. You felt your cheeks unwillingly redden after a few seconds under his piercing stare, looking away in slight embarrassment. If a few weeks spent with him were enough to convince you he wasn't a serial killer, you still found yourself troubled whenever he'd look at you too long.
He finally seemed satisfied with whatever he found looking into you, eyes mercifully leaving your face before settling on something on the table.
"That's a Plus Ultra sticker," he commented flatly.
You followed his gaze to your cellphone, face down, the small video game logo barely visible on the cover. How had he even noticed it?
It wasn't that you were ashamed of gaming in your free time, but you knew for a fact the entire literature department bore a clear disdain for any media not printed onto pages. They laughed off anything else as childish and a waste of time. Needless to say, you had never shared that passion with anyone on campus before that moment.
But damn, did you love Plus Ultra.
You couldn't help but grin excitedly at him: "Oh wow, you play too !"
"Sometimes," he shrugged with obviously fake disinterest, his crimson eyes brighter than you had ever seen them before."It's not the best game or anything, but it's alright. I feel like the whole hero fantasy trope is kinda overplayed."
He suddenly clammed up, like he had just remembered who he was talking to. The classic sour, haughty look you had gotten to know reappeared on his face.
"I just didn't know any girls played that game," he mumbled.
And there he was, the asshole you had met on that first rainy day.
"Well," you replied drily, "I play, and I'm actually one of the top All Might players in the country."
His pale fingers tremored at that, the excited brightness that he was trying very hard to conceal back in his eyes. It was so childish it was almost endearing, in a way.
"Well, what a coincidence. I'm also a top All Might player, except I was in the world ranking, last time I checked," he bragged, nonchalantly picking at his fingernails. "Maybe I could teach you a thing or two later."
As soon as the words left his mouth, the implication of a "later", of a world where you would be together outside of the required tutoring time, seemed to dawn on him. He stammered wordlessly, red spreading like fire on his pale face. It was... a lot more endearing than you would have thought.
"F-forget it. That was stupid."
You couldn't help but soften at that. Maybe, underneath the dirty hoodie and the deadly glare, he was as timid and insecure as you felt he was. The lashing out, the quips, the bratty entitlement- were they all just a facade for a guy who genuinely didn't know how to interact with others?
"Well," you hummed, "maybe after you're done with your midterms you could come over to my dorm for a match. There's a big communal TV you can pair consoles with."
The cold, detached mask was back, but it was much harder to believe with the pink coloring that reached the very tip of his ears.
"Yeah, maybe."
---
A month passed before you encountered your first hurdle in your tutoring work with Shigaraki, in the form of a "CLOSED" sign glaring back at you from the library's glass doors.
"Damn it," you mumbled, opening up your phone to find an unread message from the faculty announcing a temporary shutdown. Shigaraki, who had taken up the habit of coming on time for your sessions, looked incredibly pissed.
"So the fuckers think they can send one email and be done with it ?" he angrily snapped, kicking the library's plexiglas door so harshly it made you flinch. You took a mental note to never do anything to find yourself on the wrong side of that kick.
"Well, we can reschedule for tomorrow!" you chirped. Perhaps he'd appreciate you trying to put a positive spin on the situation.
The look he gave you could have turned you into dust.
"I'm already here. And I'm busy tomorrow. I have important things to do."
Briefly, you wondered if by important things he meant staying home and gaming. The college's main campus wasn't very large, and in the few years you had studied here, you had never caught a glimpse of him once. He had the kind of dim presence one could easily forget, but if you had passed him before, you would have known.
"I think the law building lets you take rooms for study sessions, " you proposed.
He sighed, voice raspy with irritation. "It's full of pretentious assholes," he replied drily, "and it's almost a thirty minutes walk from here."
"You're kind of a pretentious asshole yourself", you thought silently. It was clear he wasn't going to help or do anything that required too much effort on his part. When Shigaraki wanted to be annoying, he was really annoying.
"You got a better option ?" you mumbled, frustrated.
He looked down at his shoes, suddenly silent. "Ah ha", you thought victoriously, "didn't think so".
Then, words you could have never expected came out of his mouth: "Yeah. Come to my place."
You looked at him incredulously. He looked as surprised as you did, like he wasn't the one who had just talked.
"I live like ten minutes from here," he explained hurriedly, glaring down at the asphalt like it might melt and swallow him whole, "it'll take way less time."
It wasn't as if you didn't know the guy at all, but to say you knew him enough to go to his house, alone, was a stretch.
Although you had been able to shake off your initial fear of him, you still felt something dark and looming in the way he carried himself. For as easy as it was to read him when he was embarrassed or caught off guard, the calculating, sharp gaze he seemed to judge the world with still left you at a loss. Even more so right now, when it was directed at you.
"Ok," you eventually said before you could decide against it. What was the worst that could happen?
At first, you hadn't had much reason to worry; you walked along the main streets that cornered the campus, still filled with quite a few students going about their business. But then, he took you into a small alleyway. And then another, and another, and another, to the point where you couldn't recognize what part of the city you were even in. The buildings you passed had gotten older and older the more you walked, most of the ones surrounding you were now decrepit and abandoned. They loomed over you and Shigaraki, fully blocking the sun, a claustrophobic maze of old bricks and concrete.
You realized that you had drifted closer to Shigaraki unconsciously, your shoulder almost brushing against his. But you couldn't bring yourself to move away, the simple proximity of someone you at least relatively knew reassuring to your mind.
If Shigaraki noticed, he said nothing, his long, lanky legs moving forward without hesitation. You took a moment to discreetly observe the man, his features more detailed now that you stood next to him. The scarring was much worse than you had first realized. It spread from the small glimpses of his forehead you could see behind strands of shaggy white hair, to the start of his chest hidden by his black shirt. In some spots, the skin looked dry, old; in others, it was like it had been freshly ripped apart by sharp and uneven nails. You had found it worrying for yourself, at first, when you thought he was some kind of junkie; but now you found yourself worrying over how much the bruising hurt him.
His hand protectively grabbed his neck when he noticed your staring, thin eyebrows frowning in annoyance.
"Before you ask, yes, I've tried creams and ointment and all that shit the doctors send you to buy at the drugstore. It doesn't work. I know I'm ugly, you don't need to rub it in."
A pang of guilt hit your chest. You didn't think before honestly replying: "I don't think you're ugly."
He looked at you coldly, any trace of friendliness gone: "You think you're real smart playing with me, don't you?"
"No, I mean it, I don't think you're ugly!" you hurriedly exclaimed. "Just, ok, look."
You quickly pulled back the sleeve of your shirt, showing him the inside of your forearm with insistence. His eyes narrowed suspiciously: "What the hell am I supposed to look at?"
"A scar," you replied, showing him the thin pale line that crossed your skin. "I got it as a kid when I fell from a tree in kindergarten. Oh, and I also have this one!"
You tugged at your pants to reveal a darker webbed mark on your ankle, the skin smoothed by time: "That one is really stupid, I got it from wearing heels three sizes too small at my high school prom and falling down a flight of stairs. And I also have this other one-"
"I get it !" he interrupted, frustrated. "Yeah, alright, you have some scars too, but it's not the same thing as me."
"I know it's not," you replied calmly. "I'm not trying to say it is. But... I don't think having scars makes me ugly. I think they show I've been through something, and I'm still here to tell the story. And I think you might have been through a lot, but you're still standing here with me. So... if you don't think my scars make me ugly, then you shouldn't think yours do."
He didn't reply, silently making his way forward. Had you made him feel angrier, or even embarrassed? In one last effort to get your point across, you added:
"I think they kind of make you like Eraserhead in Plus Ultra 3."
That made him stop right in his tracks.
"You...think I look like Eraserhead ?" he hesitantly asked.
You nodded, and his cheeks reddened slightly. He took a few seconds before letting out the next words:
"Don't laugh," he warned you, "or I'm leaving you here. You can just find your own way back or get murked in an alley for all I care."
You crossed your fingers, presenting them to him ceremoniously.
"I won't laugh. Promise."
"I actually decided to grow out my hair to look like him."
Cute.
That was the first word to come into your mind. Cute.
You quickly chased the very strange and unwelcome thought away, in case Shigaraki interpreted your pause as a laugh.
"Well," you replied, "when I was seventeen, I dyed my hair bright yellow to look like All Might. I think I definitely got the short end of the stick in the idea department. "
He laughed, honest to God laughed, a raspy and genuine sound that made something foreign in your chest tightened. You started laughing too, and soon, you were nothing but two giggling idiots in the absolute middle of nowhere.
"Guess you're not that smart after all, miss tutor," he commented with a smirk.
His eyes lingered on you for a moment too long, like he wanted to say something else, but ultimately chose against it. He continued walking without a word, and you followed him the rest of the way in companionable silence, never straying far from his side.
---
It was a bar.
Or rather, the remains of something that once was a bar. A dingy neon sign with the three-letter word hung precariously above the door, the large "B" flashing within an ounce of its life. The walls were covered in graffiti and grime, a suspiciously moldy smell seemingly emanating from the bricks themselves.
"You... live here?" you asked hesitantly as Shigaraki made his way towards the building with no hesitation.
"Yeah," he let out, head snapping back around and eyes narrowing defensively. "You have a problem with that?"
Yes, several, including the probability of being stabbed to death here and my remains being found in the back of a garbage truck.
"No, no problem," you said.
He answered that with a grunt. The small staircase that lead to the entrance creaked under his weight, and he pushed the front door open.
"Wait here," he commanded. It was clear the subject wasn't up for discussion, so you opted for nodding along. "I'll come get you when I'm done with something."
It was all starting to feel like a terrible idea. So what if he liked the same games you did and actually seemed to listen to you rant about literature? You barely knew anything else about him.
You knew he felt lost in society and rejected by the world. You knew his whole face would become red as a tomato anytime he felt embarrassed or flustered. You knew he would bite his lip in concentration when he played on his handheld, and that his leg would bounce up and down like a puppy's tail every time he got close to winning. You knew his eyes were unlike any you had seen before.
But what did you really know?
"You lost ?"
You spun around so fast you stumbled on your own feet, almost falling straight onto the dirty pavement.
The man standing in front of you had sneaked by so silently you had never registered his presence, even with how close he had gotten. He seemed very amused at the way you backed away in fear, your eyes wide.
"No, no I'm fine, I'm- I'm waiting for a friend, actually," you managed to stammer out.
Somehow, he didn't look like he believed that at all.
He was the picture-perfect example of men your parents had told you to stay away from. His skin was covered in dark tattoos, their shapes incomprehensibly mingled with what appeared to be burn scars, seemingly spreading all over his body. In the dark, one could mistake him for a walking corpse, blue eyes glistening unnaturally in the middle of a patchwork face.
The man dragged his cigarette across his lips, letting a dark puff of smoke escape.
"What a friend, making you wait outside in the cold," he commented, the burnt and inked skin around his mouth moving in a manner you could only describe as uncanny. "Pretty stupid of you to hang out with people from here, princess. Lots of creeps in the area."
He moved closer, so close you could smell the tobacco off his breath, and the instinctive need to run coursed through your body.
"No need to be scared though," he let out with a smirk that screamed the absolute contrary. "I can stay with you for a while. Protect ya."
He was too close for you to run, now; if you tried, he could easily grab you with the large hand that was nonchalantly making its way toward your waist.
"Dabi."
Your head spun towards the entrance at the same time as the man's did. Relief spread through your body at the sight of Shigaraki, standing in front of the door where he had left you. His crimson gaze, which usually never left your form alone for more than a few seconds, was not focused on you, but on the stranger, who looked back at you with an utterly flabbergasted expression. Whoever he was, Shigaraki wasn't happy to see him.
"That's your friend ?" the stranger snorted as he started laughing uncontrollably, like he had just heard the funniest joke in his life. "Holy shit, you're even dumber than I thought you were !"
Clearly, Shigaraki did not find that funny in the slightest. You had forgotten how cold his expression had been when you first met him, uncaring and eerie. This was that, but colder, angrier, like the ripples that started forming in the water as a devastating storm would approach.
"Dabi," he repeated, and his tone was dark, final. For the first time in weeks, you felt something akin to fear at the sight of him, even knowing his anger wasn't directed at you. Had he always looked so unnervingly intimidating?
"Ok, ok, she's all yours, boss," the man finally said as he backed away, dropping the butt of his cigarette before unceremoniously stomping it. "Didn't mean to touch the property."
Tomura silently walked towards you, a rigid, cold hand forcefully grabbing yours and pulling you towards him. He headed back in, fingers so tightly clutched against yours that it hurt, and you followed without protest. You threw one last look at the man he called Dabi, a look of pure amusement on his face.
"Property", he had said.
The innards of the bar were much cozier than the outside view let on. It was relatively well kept, with a red counter with a few retro-style stools occupying the majority of the space, the leftover corner dedicated to an old leather couch facing a battered TV. With no windows on the walls, the only light came from a few yellowish neons hanging on the ceiling. The room was empty except for the well-dressed man behind the counter, who you could only assume was the bartender. He merely nodded at your arrival, his face obscured by a cloud of dark hair in the dim light, what you could discern of his body barely a shadow against the wall of bottles.
Shigaraki ignored him, pointedly dragging you to a door at the back, which lead to a small, dark corridor. He only stopped when he reached the last door, swiftly turning the rusty knob.
It wasn't difficult to understand it was his bedroom; the only light came from the double monitor screen connected to an impressive gaming PC. With the exception of a few shelves filled to the brim with trinkets and figurines, the walls were mostly bare, the white coat of paint discolored and yellowed. Visibly dirty clothes were pilled up in a corner, as if someone had hurriedly picked them up for the floor and tossed them there in an unsuccessful attempt to conceal them.
"Sit anywhere," he grumbled, looking away. "Or don't. Whatever."
He was even worse at hiding his blush than he was at hiding his clothes. You couldn't help but smile.
There were only two spots you could sit in the room: the expensive-looking gaming chair, which was clearly the most valuable item in the entire bar, or the messy one-person bed, which seemed to not have seen a washing machine in a while. The last thing you wanted was to anger Shigaraki after the encounter with the man outside, so sitting in his gaming chair seemed like a bad idea. You opted for the bed, praying to God the sheets naturally looked so patchy and discolored.
"W-what the fuck are you doing?" he sputtered immediately as you sat, eyes wide.
"Sitting," you replied simply.
"Not there! Are you stupid or something?" he audibly cringed. Damn it, you had made the wrong call. "Just sit on the floor. It's not dirty or anything, Kurogiri cleaned it recently."
You glanced doubtfully at the impressive amount of energy drinks and used tissues littering the room before lowering yourself down out of fear of seeming rude. Briefly, you wondered if Kurogiri was the man you saw mend to the bar. He looked nothing like Shigaraki, and referred to him far too politely to be family. He was too young to be his father either way. Was he both the bartender and the housekeeper?
"But why would Shigaraki have a housekeeper?", you wondered silently
"The guy outside, Dabi," you finally said. "He called you boss."
Shigaraki didn't even bother turning around to answer flatly: "And ?"
"Do you... own this place?"
"Something like that. Here."
He handed you a controller you immediately recognized, your hands automatically wrapping themselves around it just like with the one you had spent countless hours playing with at home. Shigaraki smirked slightly at the sight of you already being ready for combat.
"So, spill it out. What's your tragic backstory ?" you asked, leaning your back to the wall with a mischievous smile.
"What ?" he replied, seemingly caught off guard.
"C'mon," you pressed. "I've never seen you wear anything other than a black hoodie over a black shirt and black sweatpants. You're not subtle about it."
"I don't think you've unlocked that dialogue option yet," he retorted, with more than a hint of sarcasm in his tone. "How about you? What's your tragic backstory ?"
You chuckled: "What makes you think I have one?"
"You'd have to be a little fucked up to follow some guy you barely know into a shady bar in the middle of an abandoned factory district," he replied, raising an eyebrow, a wicked smile on his lips.
You couldn't help but smile at that; he was right. "Well, I don't think you've unlocked that yet either, Shigaraki."
"Just call me Tomura," he offered, a touch of resignation in his voice. Was he finally warming up to you? "Might as well if I'm stuck with you for the rest of the semester."
Maybe not. But something felt oddly nice about this, about him, and no matter how weird it all was, you couldn't help but let yourself bask in the strange feeling.
The computer let out a familiar little tune as the game booted up on the screen. Shigaraki visibly hesitated between sitting on his own chair or the floor, ultimately selecting the floor while keeping a reasonable distance from you. You had a feeling he wasn't very comfortable with women. But what he may have lacked in social skills, he definitely made up in gaming: his eyes burnt with fiery passion as the title screen appeared on the monitor, his hands tight around the controller. The look he threw you was one of pure confidence:
"C'mon. Show me what you're made of."
He immediately selected All Might in the character selection, implicitly daring you to do the same. All Might was the most powerful character in all the game, but he was famously the hardest one to master, with his controls requiring intense speed and dexterity. You could tell Shigaraki hadn't been lying about being one of the greatest All Might players; his fingers were already lined up on the buttons for a noticeably hard deadly combo. But you weren't one to back down on a challenge.
"5 rounds. No bonus power-ups," you smiled right back at him, pressing the button to also select All Might. The screen flashed red as the game loaded the fighting arena.
"You're playing a pretty dangerous game, you know that, player two ?" he commented, a hint of warning in his tone.
"I don't intend on losing," you replied with a grin.
And if the wild spark in his eyes meant anything, neither did he.
