Chapter Text
“Since the 2011 disaster, the internet has teemed with eerie videos and tales of firsthand encounters: the lights clustering and dancing over Fukushima’s irradiated horizon may never be fully explained, but..."
Ken fiddled with the dial on the vintage TV, lowering the volume; he turned back to rifle through a stack of Super Mystery magazines. He had seen one of those new sightings himself on BooTube last night. That had aligned perfectly with the documentary on the Fukushima incident he’d already been planning to tune into before school this morning. All in all, the documentary had been disappointing, watered down to be palatable for casual viewers, but taken together, they had sparked a new focal point of obsession over the tenuous connection between nuclear sites and UAPs. It wasn’t just Fukushima that had experienced such phenomena, after all. He knew for a fact there was an article in one of these issues that dove deep into a conspiracy theory that the Cuban Missile Crisis had all been a cover-up for an alien invasion – and there was another issue, an older one, that delved into Chernobyl and while he remembered that article being more focused on the creepy irradiated animals and the possible supernatural consequences of the meltdown, there was a chance he might be able to read between the lines and -
Downstairs, the familiar sound of shattering glass cut across the quiet narration of the documentary’s outro.
Oh, this was good. An expose about the newly formed American All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office and their focus on monitoring areas of interest for national security, naturally including nuclear reactors and storage sites. He crisply folded the page and added it to the stack he’d take to school today. Three of these should be enough to fill the downtime, and he could always read the other articles if he ran out of things to do. Mom’s voice, shrill and crackling with malice, echoed up through the floor and he pulled on his uniform coat, buttoning it methodically. He clicked the TV off and cast a forlorn glance at the heavily modified radio balanced carefully on the window ledge. He’d given up on making contact with it years ago – if aliens were listening, they certainly weren’t getting his weak signal amidst all the chaos bouncing around the airwaves - but he still couldn’t bear the finality that would come with putting it away for good.
Ken opened his backpack, double checked that he had repacked all of his textbooks and homework last night. There wasn’t really any room for his magazines... he’d have to just carry those today. He wouldn’t mind leaving some of the books behind, but he didn’t want to give the teachers any reason to speak with him, either. It was time to go, but Mom’s voice flared and rose. Something thudded into the wall so hard that the pencils on his desk rattled, so he sat down on the edge of his bed.
Motionless, he waited, listening.
His fingers ground into his thighs until a dull, stiff pain worked into his knuckles. There was another thud and a sharp shriek of rage. He could hear Dad’s low pleas, now, too.
Wouldn’t it be interesting if aliens were focusing on nuclear sites in an effort to protect humanity from itself? Perhaps they really were friendly.
"KEN!”
He closed his eyes. Would aliens be interested in protecting humans as some sort of conservational charity, or would it be a self-serving interest? What did humanity have to offer that space-faring travelers didn’t already have?
“You’re going to be late again! This is why your grades are so horrible!”
Yes, both of those statements were true. He waited, bruising his own legs with the strength of his grip. He wondered if he’d be able to sneak any time in the computer lab during break today, to do a little extra research on whether there had ever been any significant UAP activity around Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
Keys jingled downstairs, an incongruously cheerful sound, and his mother said something cold and indistinguishable. Footsteps over the wooden foyer floor. Then, a minute later, the front door creaked open and slammed shut.
Time to go to school, then.
Ken got to his feet, shouldered his bag, and tucked the magazines under his arm. He glanced down into the combined kitchen-and-dining area as he shuffled down the stairs. Dad was kneeling, silent in his uniform, sweeping glittering dust into a pan. He looked around at the sound of Ken’s footsteps and gave a half-smile that read more like a grimace. Ken dropped his eyes, slipped his shoes on by the door, and headed out into the dim, colorless morning.
He trudged along the sidewalk, rote muscle memory pulling him along inch by inch. He was already late and he never rushed on his way to school anyways. It wasn’t like the teachers cared whether he showed; his grades were middling at best and he couldn’t speak to answer questions when they were aimed his way. After the fifth or so time he had clammed up under a teacher’s spotlight, they stopped trying. Ken was careful to make sure that he never did anything to draw attention to himself from the teachers’ points of view; he did his reading, completed his homework, behaved obediently and never failed or excelled. He was just one more number to tick off on their attendance sheet. The assholes in his class might miss him if he were to stop showing up, but they could find some other sport if they put their minds to it. School was just a reprieve from home, really. He couldn’t recall the last time he had actually learned anything or cared to try.
As he approached Kami High, he vaguely registered that there were two other truants blocking the gate, but that was none of his business. The only people who consistently showed up as anything more than shadowy figures in the swirling gray he waded through were his parents. Everything – everyone – outside of the tiny safe haven of his room was cloaked in that dense fog, so much meaningless noise. So why...
He raised his head, ever so slightly, distracted by a spark of pink. One of the people – a girl – she was wearing a pink sweater over her uniform. Completely out of dress code. He dropped his eyes again and clung tightly to the Super Mystery issues. Any time he looked in the direction of a girl, someone inevitably accused him of being some sort of pervert, the words slicing through the fog like knives. He didn’t mean to stare at them; he usually didn’t even realize they were there.
A harsh, carrying voice rung in his ears as he approached. Ken winced automatically, but it wasn’t aimed at him.
“C’mon, babe. You got the cash, right? And when we’re done... maybe we could go someplace special... Trust me, I can make ya feel real good.” He glanced in the direction of the figures, keeping his head down this time. They were standing close together, the girl with the pink sweater rigid under her boyfriend’s arm.
Ken frowned. Guys were always saying disgusting things... Why did they have to do this right in the middle of the school entrance? Why didn’t he bother keeping his voice down while he made such a foul offer?
“Watch your fucking mouth.” Ken's mouth twitched at the sound of her voice. It was low, guarded and measured. Her boyfriend muttered something and Ken was too far away to hear, but his arm swept much too low across her back, around her too-short skirt. She shifted and snarled, then stepped sharply back straight into Ken’s path. He froze mid-step, panicked, transfixed as her face swam into focus, all rage and disbelief and artfully executed makeup. She didn’t seem to even notice that she’d cut him off.
“Well... ungrateful bitch ... Like I said, if ya ain’t gonna lend me the money... then today’s date is off.” Her boyfriend’s shadowy hands suggestively gripped his belt. In his peripheral vision, Ken could tell he was a big guy, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the girl.
“Although... if you’re reasonable and put out instead, that’s cool too. Love hotel’s still on you though.”
Ken observed warily. The girl’s face contorted with unhinged fury. And then, with a shocking speed that made him stumble backwards, frightened and motion-sick, she swung her leg high and kicked him. What kind of – who - ?
How much courage did it take, to do something so insane?
The guy grabbed her roughly by the shoulders and forced her back; she nearly fell, struggling to regain her balance as they grappled and hurled insults at each other. That delinquent was so much bigger than her... Ken could see his knuckles now, whitening against the fuzzy pink of her shoulder, and she was going to get hurt if this went on. Ken’s feet moved of their own accord. And then that asshole gave the girl a hard shove – she stumbled backwards - and he raised his own leg -
And inexplicably, Ken was in the middle. The boyfriend’s foot crashed straight into his stomach with a THUD that vibrated through his whole body; his magazines flew away and he slammed hard onto the pavement, the wind knocked straight out of him. He just narrowly managed to catch himself and his palms seared painfully, but he’d at least kept his head from clocking into the brick gate. The girl rounded on him in a wave of pink and turquoise, her eyes wide with shock.
“Dude, you okay?!”
“Fuckin’ loser!” the boyfriend raged. “What the hell do you think you’re doin’? This dumb bitch deserves a good beatdown!”
“Oh, piss off!” She dropped to her knees beside Ken even as she yelled over her shoulder. “Moron! Squid!
“I’m done messin’ with you!”
Ken coughed, doubling up over his knees. Thankfully, his backpack had broken the fall some, or he suspected he’d be in much worse shape. He eyed his magazines, scattered out of reach behind the girl. The guy was still ranting.
“You’re broke, you talk too goddamn much, you won’t even put out! Like anyone’d give a shit about you!”
“Feelin’s mutual, octopus!” she shouted at the retreating figure.
Her hand swarmed up out of the fog and landed on Ken’s shoulder. He flinched automatically, and her hand fell away at once.
“You okay?” The girl’s voice was... soft, now. Gentle. “You didn’t have to go doin’ that. I had it under control.”
Ken swung his arm up protectively, shielding himself from her under the pretense of righting his glasses. He opened his mouth, but he didn’t know what to say. There was a quiet shuffling; his magazines slid into view, deposited in a neat stack beside his knee.
“Woah, your hand,” the girl said, and suddenly she was touching him again; an involuntary whimper slipped out of him that she probably thought was down to pain. Steady fingers turned his bloodied palm skyward and she hissed. “This is rough. You should see Queen Sensei, y’know.”
Ken swallowed, heart racing, every nerve alight with adrenaline and fear as he gave a jerky shake of his head. He wasn’t about to go to the nurse for a scrape. No way in hell was the school going to call his parents for something so trivial. And really... Why the hell did this girl even care? He wanted to yank his hand back and get going, settle back into the torpor of his usual routine and the comfortable fog of reality, but he’d seen that she could be vicious, too. He could only imagine the delight of the bullies in his class if he got his ass kicked by a girl in public. He ground his teeth together in frustration.
From the corner of his eye, he could tell she was staring straight at his face.
“Hey, earth-to-Occult-kun. Did he break some ribs or somethin’? I know he kicked ya hard, but can ya talk?”
Occult-kun? Why? His magazines? Great, so she knew for sure that he was a weirdo. Unbidden, he dug his bloody left hand into his hair and started pulling hard, desperate to ground himself somehow, even if it meant ripping out chunks of his own hair by the root -
“Woah, dude, cut that out!”
The girl shifted; she was in front of him now and she snatched at his left wrist too, wrenching it down. Purely by accident, because he was too slow to avoid it, his eyes snagged across hers, the uncanny dark magenta of raspberry wine, flecked with coral. “What’s up with you? Talk to me!”
Why wouldn’t she leave him alone?
Why was she so persistent?
He tore his eyes away, blinked hard at the ground. Everything about her was unbearably, disgustingly colorful. He thought he’d be sick if he had to look at her another second. If he spoke... maybe she would finally go away. His lips parted and he took a trembling breath. Raspy from disuse, he mumbled, “’M okay.”
Her grip relaxed at once, but she still didn’t release him.
“Good,” she said fervently. “You had me scared there, man. Shouldn’t go jumpin’ in front of big mean idiots like that.”
“Sorry,” he croaked.
Bizarrely, she laughed. Her turquoise earrings bounced and glittered with the force of it. How could she have just gone through that, and be able to cackle like she didn’t have a care in the world? Catching her breath, she relinquished her grasp on his right wrist to smooth back her bangs. “You don’t got a single thing to be sorry for, Occult-kun. I really owe ya one.” In a fluid movement, she scooped up his magazines and stood up, pulling his wrist with her. Stiffly, he got to his feet at the insistent tug of her hand, worried about inciting further reactions of surprise or indignation or maybe revulsion if he stayed seated.
At long last, she simultaneously released her hold on him and extended the hand holding the Super Mystery issues; he snatched them from her, half expecting some cruel game of keep away, and clutched them safely to his chest.
He could tell she was angling forward, trying to get a look at his face. The last thing he needed was more nauseating eye contact with her. He just wanted to head in, change shoes, and slip undetected into his classroom.
“C’mon, we’re late, y’know.”
Later than he would have been, because of her.
Like some pathetic ghost, he trailed after her, up the walkway, through the doors. Apparently, her locker was only a few feet away from his own. He’d never noticed her before and he couldn’t fathom how; she was a typhoon of color and noise. She babbled nonstop, complaining, he vaguely gathered, about her freshly minted ex. It was overwhelming. Nobody had ever spoken this many words directly to him all at once, not unless it was his mother lecturing him. Ken shuffled obediently behind her up the stairs; she exclaimed in amusement over the two of them being third years, but never having met. Of course they hadn’t. He barely even existed.
“You’re in 3-C, right?”
Her feet spun and stopped and he halted at once, nostrils flaring in surprise. After a beat, realizing there had been a question, he gave a stiff nod of acknowledgement.
“Kay, well... I’ll see ya around, Occult-kun.”
But she didn’t move. He waited patiently, still clutching his magazines with both arms. It felt like whole minutes crawled past and she still didn’t move, a brick wall of obstinate pink. Did she seriously need a verbal response to that? She was... demanding.
“See you,” he forced out.
The girl absolutely preened, apparently delighted to have gotten two more words out of him. She swept her hair back, fluffed her sweater, lightly hooked two fingers around the strap of her bag. Against his better judgement, he flicked his eyes up to her face.
She had already been smiling, but she seemed to soften when their eyes met, dark eyelashes dropping lower.
And then she was gone, sliding the door to 3-B open with quiet, cautious determination, but at once, her teacher’s voice rang out - “Momo Ayase! Late again?!”
“Jeeez, sorry teach, you ain’t gotta yell!”
The door clicked shut behind her. Ken stared through the frosted glass at the retreating pink smudge.
Momo Ayase.
The gray, cloying silence pressed in again in her absence, but that was fine. Preferable even. The bile that had been steadily rising as she took up space with her colors and exuberant chatter slunk back down his throat. Nobody noticed as he opened the door to his own classroom – his teacher scarcely even registered the interruption. It was comforting to be a phantom again.
But as he took out his English notes and stacked them side-by-side with his now-battered Super Mystery copies, he couldn’t help but think... it had been an interesting experience to be seen. To have someone demand that he speak. Bizarrely, despite the fear and confusion of the encounter... he was grateful to know that Momo Ayase existed.
As class wore on, Ken couldn’t help himself.
Usually he doodled aliens and cryptids along the edges of his notes, or thought through complex theories by listing down bullets of evidence. Today... inadequate sketches of her wide eyes littered the page of his English vocabulary notes. It wasn’t often that the “creep” and “pervert” allegations rang true, but he was disgusted with himself every time his hand started a new arching eyelid. He hadn’t enjoyed any of that encounter, right? So why couldn’t he stop thinking about it? And why, of the hundreds - probably thousands – of people he’d encountered in his life, why was she the first one he’d really noticed? He wasn’t totally clueless. He knew she was attractive by conventional standards, maybe even more than average, but that wasn’t something he cared about. There were plenty of “attractive” girls in his own class. He’d never taken notice outside of cataloguing their existence so he knew where not to direct his empty stare. There were other loud girls, too. They were just irritating noisemakers.
Momo Ayase had been kind of annoying too, he supposed, but...
He shaded in her pupils and looked blankly into them, wishing he owned a pen with wine-red ink.
By the time lunch came around, Momo Ayase stared back at him from every margin. Ashamed, he snapped the notebook shut and shoved it down into his bag, turning to his stack of magazines and trying to ignore the gnawing hunger building in him. He’d skipped breakfast, as he often did when Mom was home, and he didn’t think he had enough in his wallet to afford anything at the school store today. With a sigh, he opened to the article about the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office. As usual, the guys that sat near the front of the class started to snicker and he knew at once why. The best solution was just to sit here quietly and ignore them. They were usually satisfied with tossing trash at him or animatedly imagining what he was reading.
Apparently, today was different.
He heard it before he felt it; a sharp WHIR and a thud, then a flash of searing pain in his temple. Ken yelped and his hand shot to his forehead – the other boys were laughing riotously – he pulled his hand away to the sight of fresh blood and clenched his jaw. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Dealing with pain wasn’t usually an issue for him, but the spot their projectile had connected with was throbbing in a way that was particularly hard to ignore.
Stiffly, he unzipped his backpack, trying to ignore the hot drip of blood trailing down his face. He shoved his magazines haphazardly into his bag – he couldn’t leave them here unattended, and they were already roughed up from this morning anyways. Moving quickly, desperate to make it to a bathroom stall before he burst into tears, he staggered with his backpack loose around his elbows into the hallway.
“Occult-kun!”
No.
Hiking his bag up, he turned sharply away from the voice, holding his hand protectively over the cut, and started towards the restroom at the end of the hall. He could hear the pitter-patter of her feet, jogging after him. Go away!
“Occult-kun!” And then Momo Ayase was there in the corner of his eye, crystal-clear and grinning and carrying two little cartons. He didn’t look at her, determinedly hiding the cut. “I gotcha a Pompy... what’s...”
She stopped, and as though she radiated some magnetic forcefield he was trapped in, so did he.
“Are you bleeding?”
“No,” he lied stupidly. She’d gone away when he spoke before, so maybe it would happen again now. But instead, her hands were on his wrist again, pulling his arm down for the second time. She let out a hiss.
“The hell happened?”
This time, Ken did tear his wrist away from her. It was none of her business. He forced himself to move again, one torturous step after another. She was trotting beside him, like some insistent parasite he couldn’t shake.
“Hey - dude – wait!”
Ken slid gratefully around the partition into the restroom, mercifully empty and free of noisy, colorful Momo Ayases. He staggered to the sink, planting his hands down on either side of the basin. Forcing himself to breathe, slow and heavy, he met his own eyes in the mirror, assessing the cut and the trail of blood that blossomed out of his temple and along his cheek, then down his neck, under his collar. But unbelievably -
Reflected over his shoulder, there she was, doggedly approaching at an alarming speed. He spun around, spluttering.
“Y-you – you c-can't - !”
“It’s empty anyways!” she snapped, irritable. She dropped her cartons on the counter and to his absolute shock, framed his jaw with her hand. “Who did this?” she demanded. “You want me to kick their ass?”
He blinked back at her, totally lost, frozen under her persistent touch. This girl... Momo Ayase... why...?
“W-why do you keep... talking to me?”
Momo frowned at him, a little crease forming between her eyebrows. Her hand slid gently along his jaw and she turned away, gathering up paper towels, wetting them. She came back to dab at the drying blood, wiping up along his neck. Ken’s throat was tight; he fought to hold still, desperately trying not to flinch at every renewed contact.
“You did me a solid this morning,” she mumbled, at last. “I dunno, you seemed... kinda cool. I was just bringing you a Pompy as thanks or whatever, but I can’t ignore you running around lookin’ like you just got mugged.”
Ken stood rigid under her attention, completely incapable of pushing her back or fleeing or even trying to argue about it. He was absolutely terrified that someone would come in at any moment and catch her here, in this forbidden place, taking care of the otaku loser from 3-C. What would that do to her reputation? She’d be bullied as mercilessly as he was. And what about his bullies? If they thought he was a pervert for accidentally looking in the direction of random girls, what were they going to say if he was caught in the boys’ bathroom alone with one?
For her part, Momo Ayase didn’t seem to have a single care about any of that. She scarcely even blinked; she just kept steadily dabbing at him, her eyes half-lidded and focused, apparently not cognizant of the fact that she was in an out-of-bounds space with a total stranger.
“Stuff like this happen a lot?” she asked quietly, her eyes lifting to his as she changed out her paper towel. Suddenly conscious that he’d been staring, he dropped his gaze, shamefaced, and jerked his head in response. She prodded his chest, aggressive. “Yes or no. I dunno what kinda move that was s’posed to be.”
“N-no,” he mumbled. “Not... this.” His hand twitched towards his forehead. Momo hummed thoughtfully in response, gently wiping around the cut itself now. He squeezed his eyes shut and she hesitated.
“That hurt?”
He gritted his teeth and gave a terse nod.
“Sorry. I’m almost done, ‘kay?” He tensed and tried to ignore the searing pain rippling out from his temple as she dragged the paper towel back and forth across it. Momo seemed to be holding her breath, trying to move fast. She sighed in relief as she finally dropped her hand. “Okay, see, told ya. Finished.”
Relieved that she was no longer touching him, he turned to assess his reflection again. She’d done a good job, he had to admit; she had even chased away the bloodstain leading down into his collar. The cut itself was small, a red flap of shredded skin – he didn’t understand how it had bled so much. Momo hovered over his shoulder like an impatient child. Ken sighed, trying to ignore the curdling in his stomach that her vibrancy was bringing on again.
“Thanks,” Ken mumbled, turning on the tap and lathering up his hands. He hadn’t really thought about the scrapes from this morning, but they were still tender and raw; the cheap school soap burned. In the mirror, those pink eyes watched intently. After a moment, she sidled up to the counter too, washing her own hands beside him.
“Anyway,” she said, grabbing a wasteful fist of paper towels, “I gotcha a Pompy. Hope you like orange.” She pressed the carton into his clean hands and he stared down at it.
Ken didn’t think another student had ever given him anything before. At least, not anything intended as a gift or a kindness. Something about how earnestly she watched told him this wasn’t some cruel joke, either. He didn’t like Pompy at all, but...
He creased the carton and popped it open, took a sip of the foul sugary drink. Momo grinned, delighted. She tapped his arm – a playful hit – and he didn’t cower this time.
“Don’t drink that in the bathroom, dude, people poop in here. C’mon!”
Obedient, strangely alert to everything around him – was it the sugar? - he followed her again, back out into the hall, clutching the orange carton close to his chest. It was a relief that nobody was around here, either. Nobody would have to see her with him. He slunk to one side as he followed her – she walked down the center of the hall like she was the main character of the universe.
At the door to 3-C, he peeled away to go back in. She was several paces ahead, anyways. Whatever kindnesses she had shown in the bathroom, Ken couldn’t expect that they were going to continue in the real world. It was okay. He didn’t mind. He even understood, and he took another sip of the Pompy to give himself a distraction from something deeply melancholy nipping at his chest.
“Occult-kun, you’re goin’ back to class?”
He nearly sprayed juice all over her, shocked by how quickly she’d appeared at his side while he hesitated over the threshold. She laughed at him.
“Dude, how’d that scare you?” Wiping her eye, she gave him a lopsided grin. “See ya later then. And -” She held up a threatening finger. “Take better care of yourself!” She waved brightly. Once again, though, she was still standing there, staring at him expectantly. He swallowed and turned back to her, carefully focusing on her earrings.
“Have - have a good rest of your day, Ayase-san,” he eked out, scarcely more than a whisper.
Momo’s eyes widened and he couldn’t help that his own flitted back to them. She was glowing.
“Uh, you too! Bye!” Her voice seemed higher, somehow, and then she was dashing off towards her own class, chaotic and... mesmerizing. Ken could scarcely think straight. He made it back to his desk on autopilot and dropped into it, trying to ignore the pointed groans of disappointment from the front of the room. In stage whispers, they started up a new conversation as he pulled his magazine back out.
“Did you see – wasn't it that Ayase chick talkin' to him, just now?”
“Pff, yeah. I heard she’s down to do it with anyone.”
“The UFO loser, though? She’s way too hot, no way. You think maybe he’s paying her - ?”
“Makes sense. I always thought she seemed kinda desperate.”
“Shit, if he can get with her, bet I can too.” They all chuckled.
“You should definitely give it a shot, man!”
Ken didn’t often experience anger, much less fury. He had certainly never had a desire to fight, to hurt someone. He wanted to punch the words straight out of their stupid mouths and beat them into the ground and he didn’t much care if they killed him in the process.
Hands shaking with scarcely suppressed rage, he drank more of the disgusting orange Pompy and turned the page instead.