Gifted
Title: Gifted
Rating: PG-13 for violence, language
Characters/Pairings: Matsumoto Jun/Sakurai Sho; Arashi, other JE
Summary: They hate that all they are in here is what they can do. They’re just data and a medical mystery, not people. Not kids.
Notes/Warnings: An AU request from hiro_chan who asked for Arashi with super powers. And because chibi Sakumoto is like my kryptonite, they're teenagers here.
Sho is sixteen when they give him a roommate.
It’s not like they’re in their rooms that often anyhow, just for sleeping, but Sho has the sneaking suspicion that Jun might like him. When they’re at the study tables, Jun always asks for extra help with his literature assignments, always asks Sho to help him with the kanji he doesn’t understand.
Sho doesn’t mind, of course. Saying he’s helping one of the others with homework sometimes puts off a test or two. But he isn’t too happy having someone else in his room. When he’s falling asleep, he can pretend he’s somewhere else. He can pretend he’s still at his grandmother’s house in the mountains or buying CDs or on the soccer field.
Having someone else in the only space he has to himself reminds him that he’s here.
“Sakurai-kun,” Yoshimoto-sensei says, tapping his pen against the clipboard. “It’s time.”
Jun looks down at his history textbook and says nothing. The others scattered throughout the study room say nothing. What can anyone say? If it’s not Sho’s turn, it’s theirs. Day in, day out.
“I was helping Matsumoto-kun with his work,” he protests, fingers tightening around the starchy white of his slacks to keep them from shaking.
“And you can help him when you return,” Sensei assures him. It’s a lie, of course. Sho will be in no condition to help anyone when they bring him back to the room.
“Okay,” he says because he can’t say anything else.
--
He’s used to the set-up in here by now. For the past few weeks, they’ve been using the weights. Yoshimoto-sensei waves over the assistants. They put the restraints around his legs and strap him against the seat. Only his left arm is loose. They’re trying to test for his endurance in this arm. He’s a righty after all, but it doesn’t hurt to check apparently.
They leave him alone with the enormous weights and get into the room where they can watch him. He wonders how they managed to reinforce the floor or how many people it took to get the weights in here in the first place.
Sho sighs, tries to relax even with the electrodes plastered to his temples. They don’t know what impulses in his brain make it work. But neither does he, and he doesn’t really want to. Because if he doesn’t use the power, then he’s normal, isn’t he?
“Sakurai-kun,” Yoshimoto-sensei’s voice pipes in through the tinny speaker. “The weight on your far left is 2500 kilograms. We’ll start there please.”
“Okay,” he says. Because if he refuses, then he’s “uncooperative” and “uncooperative” means the collar around his neck will shock him so hard his vision will go black.
Last time, they started with 1000 kg. They’re not messing around today, he thinks bitterly. He holds out his left hand, trying not to lock his elbow. Keeping his limbs looser lets him keep control better. It’s one of the first things he discovered.
“2500 kilograms,” the disembodied voice says, and Sho knows the video’s going and the audio’s recording, and his brain waves are spiking around on whatever machine they’ve got in there.
He tilts his hand, palm up like he’s sliding his hand under a box. They always ask what he thinks about. They want to know where in his brain this is happening, but all Sho knows is that the weight has to lift so he can move to the next one and the next and the next until they let him go for the night.
Sho lifts his hand and up the weight goes ten meters away, a little shaky. It’s his left hand. He’s right handed, don’t they know he’s right handed?
“Maintain control please, Sakurai-kun.”
He exhales and tries to keep his hand from shaking.
“Can you move the weight on top of the one beside it?”
“Okay.” He moves his palm, eyes staring at his target. He lets it down on the next weight, and it falls with a heavy thunk. It’s a little crooked, and he wiggles his fingers to put it in place.
“Good. Nice job, Sakurai-kun.”
He hasn’t broken a sweat. Not yet anyhow.
5000 kilograms. He pretends he’s lifting an elephant. They make him lift it higher and hold it, make him hold his left arm in the air for fifteen minutes. His muscles are starting to ache now, and there’s a little buzzing in his head like the start of a headache. But this isn’t anything. They’re just getting started.
“We’ll move to 10,000 kilograms.”
He’s right handed, he wants to scream at them. He could do so much more if they just let his other arm free.
It’s heavy. They haven’t pushed 10,000 with his left arm before, and he can feel it in his shoulder, and he can feel it in the way it hurts to think about anything but lifting the weight so he doesn’t get the shock. There’s sweat on his upper lip, threatening to drop to his dry lips, and he can’t do anything about it.
“20,000 kilograms.”
“What?” he asks, seeing the weight. How the hell did they get that in here? 20,000 kilograms? With his weaker arm?
“20,000 please, Sakurai-kun.”
He blinks a few times, blinking away the tears that came from thirty minutes holding 10,000. They want him to lift 20,000 now.
“Can I...water?” His headache has been dull and throbbing, but now it starts to let him know he’s reaching his breaking point. It’s like a hammer beating a rhythm against his temples, behind his eyes, at the base of his skull.
“20,000 please, Sakurai-kun.”
He lifts the 10,000 kg weight again by accident, and the shock comes. There’s screaming, loud and pained, and he’s only starting to see again when he realizes that the sound came from his own mouth.
“20,000,” Yoshimoto-sensei says. The guy’s voice never changes. Sho wants to play soccer. He wants to play soccer so badly.
He can hardly speak. “Water? Can I please have water? I promise I’ll try if...”
His vision goes black again.
He can hear Yoshimoto-sensei’s voice in his ear when they’re lifting him into bed. “You can do so much better, Sakurai-kun. You can do so much better.”
--
The headache’s still there when he wakes, and Jun’s in the other bed watching him. He’s got big, honest eyes, and it makes Sho uncomfortable.
“Good morning,” Jun says quietly. Jun wasn’t always quiet. When he’d first arrived, he’d been chatty, always trying to tell jokes and be the center of attention. That changed.
Sho can move things with his mind. But Jun can make fire. They make Jun wear special gloves because all he has to do is snap to make a spark. Jun accidentally burnt his house down because he clapped his hands. He’s been here for six months now.
Sho realizes he must have been sweating the whole night because his pajamas and his sheets and his pillowcase smell like it, and his hair’s still soaked through. But bath time is at night. “Good morning.”
“Omurice today,” Jun says. “I waited until you woke up.”
“Thanks,” Sho says, sitting up. His left arm hangs limp at his side. At least he didn’t dislocate his shoulder this time. It feels like he dislocated his brain, though.
He’s not going to be able to change unless Jun helps him. Sho doesn’t want help. He doesn’t want a roommate. He doesn’t want to ask for help. He does his best with his right hand before he feels Jun behind him and the scratchy glove on his shoulder.
“Don’t be stubborn,” Jun says like he knows what Sho’s going through. He doesn’t. Jun’s the golden boy. Jun’s an elite. They don’t make him do the same kind of tests. They just want Jun to make a bigger and bigger fire. Jun doesn’t get zapped.
Sho sighs and lets Jun help him button a fresh shirt. Between Sho’s one good hand, and Jun’s gloved ones, it takes a long time.
“Nino was really loud last night,” Jun mutters as they leave the room for the dining room.
Nino is the reason that Jun rooms with Sho now. Nino sees things in his dreams. Nino sits alone in the corner of whichever room he plants himself in during the day, his fingers tapping out a rhythm to a song nobody knows. Nino doesn’t talk.
Sho doesn’t want to know what kind of tests they put Nino through.
The omurice is delicious. The food is always really good, as if feeding them well makes up for the tests and the shocks and the lack of windows. As if it makes up for making Masaki heal himself from even more painful injuries. As if it makes up for seeing how long Satoshi can stay underwater without breathing. As if it makes up for firing bullets at Toma to see if he’ll dodge them all this time.
Sho eats even though his headache is keeping him from being all that hungry. Six months on, and Jun still struggles to hold his chopsticks with the stupid gloves. Sometimes Satoshi will grin and feed Jun himself, and Masaki will tease and call Jun ‘hopeless’ until the little firestarter laughs.
Breakfast is ending when Yoshimoto-sensei enters with the clipboard. “Aiba-kun?”
Masaki sets down his chopsticks, and his eyes tear up. They all watch him go. When are they going to be satisfied? When are they going to have enough data to let Masaki leave this place? Who could he possibly hurt out there?
They all hate who they are, don’t they? They hate what they can do. They hate that all they are in here is what they can do. They’re just data and a medical mystery, not people. Not kids. Why not just let them go?
“We’re going to have geography and English today,” Tackey says, breaking the awkward silence that follows Masaki’s departure.
Sho goes to his room instead.
--
Masaki doesn’t come out of his room for a week, and Jun spends every night crying himself to sleep.
Sho doesn’t know what to do. He can’t tell Jun that it’s going to be okay because it probably won’t be. They can hear Nino screaming down the hall, and he doesn’t need to see in the dark like Kamenashi to know that Jun’s standing next to his bed.
“What?” Sho asks, irritated.
“I can’t sleep.”
With the way Nino’s howling, he’s not exactly surprised. Sho turns over to face the wall, and his arm’s tingling from the day before. He’s only getting the feeling back in his fingers from an hour levitating 20,000 kg.
“What do you want me to do about it? Just put your pillow over your head.”
“I’m worried about Aiba-chan.”
Sho sighs. “Well, so am I, okay? Come on, leave me alone.”
“Sho-kun?”
That’s it. It’s the little hitch in Jun’s voice, knowing those hopeful eyes are full of tears. They didn’t put Jun in here to get him away from Nino so much as they wanted Sho to look out for him. Fine.
He lifts the covers and scoots until his nose is nearly touching the wall. “You’re annoying,” he says as soon as Jun’s settled in behind him.
--
“New blood,” Satoshi says over pancakes the next morning. Aiba’s sitting in the corner with Nino, and none of them have the guts to go over and ask how he’s doing.
“Anybody who sees dead people?” Sho asks grumpily, cracking his knuckles. Jun was a bed hog, and even if the younger boy had slept better, Sho sure hadn’t.
“Fire,” Ohno says, and that gets Jun’s attention.
“We already have one,” Kame says. “That’s no fun.”
Taguchi grins. “I heard them talking.” It helps that Taguchi can hear anything and everything. Taguchi probably heard Jun get into Sho’s bed the night before, but he doesn’t say anything. He’s smart enough not to, most of the time.
“And?” Kame asks.
“He can do it with his brain,” Taguchi says, and Jun shrinks in his seat. What the hell does this mean? The new kid can make fire with his head?
Nobody gets to meet the new kid. Taguchi hears snippets. His name’s Akanishi, and he’s a real loose cannon. He burned down four foster homes in a row before Yoshimoto-sensei found him and realized that the kid wasn’t just a pissed off teenage arsonist. They’ve got him sedated and in solitary. Sho wishes they’d send him somewhere else.
“Makes you kind of useless, Matsumoto,” Kame teases, and the whole table laughs.
Jun doesn’t say a word for the rest of the day.
--
Tackey’s leading the lesson on Tale of Genji. He doesn’t need the book. He’s got it memorized. “Toma-kun, you want to read the next paragraph?”
Toma nods and looks down at the page. “With the birth of the son, it became yet clearer that she was the emperor’s favorite. The mother of the eldest son began to feel uneasy. If she did not manage...”
There’s a knock at the door. Yoshimoto-sensei. They all seize up, and Masaki’s already shaking in the seat beside him.
“Sakurai-kun?” Yoshimoto-sensei asks, face as much an impenetrable wall of indifference as ever.
Sho can see Jun exhale on the other side of the classroom, and Sho doesn’t know why, but he almost feels relieved.
--
“Wake up.”
Sho’s not too fond of the idea. He’s playing in the World Cup. He’s defending against Cristiano Ronaldo, damn it. He tries to go back into the dream, but there’s a hand smacking him on the forehead.
“Wake up.”
It’s a bare hand. When did Jun take off his gloves? There’s a tracker that’ll go off, and he can’t afford to get in trouble.
When Sho wakes for good, the lights are on and Nino’s standing over him ready to smack him again. He wants to sit up, but his entire body aches. They had a city bus parked in the lab today and decided to test the strength of Sho’s individual fingers. His thumb’s completely wrapped up. Broken.
Wait. Nino’s in here?
“Nino?”
Sho’s never seen him semi-coherent before, and his eyes are crazy. “Sho-chan, wake up. It’s Jun. It’s Jun. It’s Jun...”
The other bed is empty.
He nearly tumbles to the floor since his limbs feel like jelly, but he finds his slippers and hurries into the hall. Nobody else is up, and Nino’s nearly clinging to him.
“It’s Jun,” Nino repeats, voice scratchy as though he’s been screaming for hours and nobody cared. “It’s Jun, they’re hurting him. It’s Jun.”
The orderlies are going to find out that they’re out of their rooms. Someone will come by and catch them both, but Nino doesn’t care. His fingers are digging into Sho’s arm as they inch along the corridor, past the other rooms, past the dining room and the study room.
“They want to see,” Nino insists. “They want to see if they can make him dance. They want to make his brain do the dancing.”
Sho shudders. It’s because of Akanishi. It’s because Akanishi can make fire with his mind. Akanishi doesn’t need to use his hands. They want to see if Jun can do it too.
Jun, who came to this place with a nervous smile and a bunch of bad, trying-too-hard jokes. Jun, who needs Sho to make sure his math homework is right. Over six months, and they never touched the kid, and Sho is ready to wrench the doors off the hinges to make them stop.
“They’re hurting him, Sho-chan,” Nino says, pulling at his own hair. “I can hear it, I can hear them hurting him. They want him to dance, but he doesn’t know the steps. He doesn’t know, he doesn’t know!”
Every step Sho takes hurts, and he remembers the bus. It was so heavy. They cheated. They put extra weights on the bus, and they made him lift it. They put people in blindfolds underneath and made him hold it this time. If you don’t hold it, it’ll fall and they’ll die, Sakurai-kun, they’d said. Innocent people. Lab rats really...
“He wants to dance for them, but he can’t.”
He needs Nino to be quiet. Sho doesn’t have a plan. What the hell is he supposed to do? He’s at his weakest now. Maybe that’s why they brought him in yesterday. They brought him in and broke him so he couldn’t interfere with whatever they’re doing to Jun.
When they get to the door that leads to the labs, Nino stops and sits on the floor. He says nothing else, and Sho opens the door with his good hand. Yoshimoto-sensei and his clipboard are waiting on the other side of the door.
“Sakurai-kun, you shouldn’t be out of bed.”
He can stand there and say that? He can stand there and say that without blinking? Sho’s good hand becomes a fist.
“Are you hurting him?”
Yoshimoto-sensei cocks his head. “You should be in bed. You did well yesterday, and it’s best that you rest. We can’t all mend broken bones like Aiba-kun, can we?”
The guy’s maybe 60 kilograms. If Sho can lift a bus, he could just flick his pinky and send sensei through the ceiling, couldn’t he? But that doesn’t get Jun out of there. Because now he can hear it. He can hear what Nino probably heard in his dreams before it even started. Jun’s screaming. Jun’s apologizing for not being good enough, and it’s echoing all the way down the corridor.
“You shouldn’t force him, sensei,” Sho grits out.
“And you shouldn’t meddle in things that aren’t your business. Back to bed.”
He stands there another few seconds, wondering what the consequences of killing the man would mean for him and for the others. Sho backs down, trying not to listen to Jun’s screams for mercy as he leaves.
Nino’s gone when he gets back to the study room, and Sho shuffles painfully back to his bed.
--
He doesn’t sleep. He doesn’t move when he hears the door open around four A.M., and there are muffled whispers and the sound of another body being deposited on the mattress at the other end of the room.
The door closes, and they’re alone again. Sho clears his throat. “Jun?”
He remembers how hysterical Nino had been. He’s never going to be able to get the sound of Jun screaming out of his head. Sho thinks he’d rather lift twenty buses for twenty hours than have to hear it again.
He clambers out of bed, wincing as his bandaged hand bumps the end table. Clumsy, always so damn clumsy. “Jun?”
Jun’s curled up on himself on top of the blanket where they’ve left him, all skinny arms and skinny legs. His body’s trembling involuntarily. They probably shocked him. Probably did it more than once. Sho doesn’t know what to do. It’s not like telling Jun the right equation or showing him the correct kanji over and over. He can’t fix this.
Instead he lays down behind Jun and wraps an arm around him. He’s not sure it’s enough, but Jun relaxes a bit, gloved fingers picking at the bandaging around Sho’s hand until they both fall asleep.
--
Yoshimoto-sensei announces during dinner the next night that room assignments are changing so everyone can “get to know each other better.”
Sho knows it’s just to separate him and Jun. He knows because Yoshimoto-sensei looks right at him when he says it. Though the doctor’s face doesn’t show it, he clearly had no idea that Sho would try to stick up for the younger boy. It’s a small victory for Sho. He’s got the doctors scared of him now.
Jun’s sitting with Aiba tonight, and the two of them are huddling close. They’ll be roommates now, and when sensei leaves, Sho can see how terrified Jun is. Masaki looks as helpless as Sho feels.
Tackey pats his shoulder. “Be careful, okay? They’re watching you now.”
They’ll have Tackey watch him too. Sho lets the plate full of food sit uneaten until they clear it away.
--
It’s a few weeks later, and Sho’s thumb is finally starting to heal up. It’s only then that he decides to formulate an escape plan. The easiest way is to try and get into solitary to coerce the Akanishi kid to set the whole place on fire with his crazy brain, but there’s no getting in there.
Instead, Sho knows it’s all on him to get Jun out of here.
He ignores Jun. He tells Jun to go away when he comes up with his homework. He wants them to think he’s playing ball, that he knows interfering with Jun and whatever they’re trying to get him to do will end in trouble.
Of course, Jun has no idea, and it hurts Sho every time he treats the boy coldly. He has to watch Jun retreat to another study table to ask for help from Nakamaru, who can’t exactly fly indoors but is pretty handy with equations from time to time.
“What’s wrong with you?” Satoshi chides him after another class. “He needs you to be his friend now more than ever.”
“He got special treatment for months. Not my fault if he can’t take it,” Sho says bitterly, each lie like another thousand kilograms to hold up with his mind.
Satoshi just frowns and walks away. They all think he’s an asshole. They all avoid him now. Well, except for Nino.
Nino just watches him.
Sho studies the placement of the cameras outside the classroom and the study room and the dining room. He counts how many steps it is from the room he now shares with Tackey to Masaki’s room and how many it is from his room to the labs. How many steps it is to the elevator that brings their food and brings anything from the outside.
Lifting cars and buses come easy, but it’s the little things that give Sho the most trouble. Whenever Tackey’s out of the room, he practices. It takes him a week, but he can throw the lock in the door with a wiggle of his finger.
He does Taguchi’s homework for another week in exchange for the news he needs the kid to overhear - they’re taking Masaki for tests tomorrow night.
Tomorrow night, he’s taking Jun, and he’s leaving.
--
They never finish until 2:00 or 3:00. Sho says a silent prayer for Masaki to endure a little longer. He waits until Tackey’s breathing grows even at 1:30 before he pushes the covers off. He opens and shuts the door as quietly as he can, using his newest trick to lock it after him. Sorry Tackey, he thinks.
There’s a camera and a night guard between him and Masaki’s room. He smirks and closes his fist. The camera at the end of the hallway squeezes like something Darth Vader could have done, sparks flying as it breaks. They won’t notice for a few minutes.
He sends a mop and bucket flying down the other hallway, and the night guard goes chasing after it, wondering what kids are sneaking around after lights out. Sho gets into Masaki’s room, and Jun nearly bites through his hand when he reaches the occupied bed.
“Hey! Hey!” he hisses, trying to get Jun to calm down. “Come on, we have to go.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Jun says defiantly. Sho can’t exactly blame him.
“This is the only chance you’re going to get,” Sho tells him and pulls the blanket off of him. “Get up.”
“What about Aiba-chan?”
Sho pauses. “We can’t. Any more and...”
“I’m not leaving without him. Or Toma-kun and...”
“Jun,” Sho says, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him. “Let’s go.”
He feels the scratchy material of Jun’s glove in his hand, and he squeezes back.
--
Sho holds tight to Jun’s hand with his left and keeps his right outstretched in case he needs to move things (or people) out of his way. His right hand’s always been stronger, they should know that. They’ve made him stronger.
There are three orderlies running with the shock prods. Sho waves his hand like he’s swatting flies, and they go flying.
“Damn,” Jun says, completely in awe. Sho remembers - none of them have ever seen what he can do. He’s never told any of them.
“Shut up,” Sho replies, trying to keep from smiling as he tugs Jun along behind him.
Alarms are going off now, and when they reach the elevator, Nino’s standing there. The up button has already been pressed.
Their footsteps come to a halt. He lets go of Jun and holds up both hands. “Nino...Nino, you have to get out of the way. Please.” He can already hear shouts after them, can hear the prods sparking.
Nino doesn’t hurry when he approaches Jun.
“Nino,” Jun says, voice panicky, and Sho doesn’t want to send the kid through a wall. He doesn’t want to hurt Nino, but if they don’t get on the elevator right now...
Jun gasps as Nino’s nimble little fingers pull the gloves off of his hands. He goes running off holding them over his head, wailing and screaming. The orderlies keep moving, shoving the small boy out of their way.
“Dance, Jun!” Nino cries. “Dance! You know it now!”
Sho watches Jun’s hands. They don’t even move, but suddenly there’s heat and flame and smoke, and the elevator door opens behind them.
Jun stands there, staring ahead at the wall of fire that he’s conjured up with his mind. He raises his hands up like he’s conducting an orchestra, and the flames start to jump down the hall.
The flames are dancing.
Sho grabs Jun by the elbow to pull him back, and his skin’s so hot that it burns. He screams and falls back, and his hand is throbbing. This is the power Jun’s had all along.
The sprinklers come on, and Jun jumps back into the elevator with him just as the doors shut. Sho presses the topmost button, and it goes up. Jun leans against the wall, almost hyperventilating, staring at his hands in utter surprise.
“Don’t let anyone tell you you’re useless,” Sho says. “Ever.”
--
They’re in a regular office building when the elevator dings open again. The Kitagawa Corporation must be the front for the people who’ve kept him underground all this time. Sho can hear sirens, and he lets Jun set off a few more smoke alarms and sprinklers as they make a hasty retreat out one of the rear exits.
Tokyo. He hasn’t seen Tokyo in over a year.
“We’re coming back right?” Jun asks as they run through the streets in just the slippers and pajamas they’ve been forced to wear. “For the others?”
“I have another idea,” Sho says.
--
The newspaper they find outside the nearest department store says it’s October 14th, 1998. Sho’s never been a thief, but anyone seeing the clothes floating off of the discount racks would probably figure it was a ghost anyhow.
They see their faces on the video screens in major intersections. They have to lay low tonight and not get caught. They can’t help their friends if they’re caught.
The two of them find a spot in a park, collapsing together under a low-hanging tree. The leaves are going to turn soon, and Sho’s happy to be able to smell the grass. He figured he’d be underground the rest of his life.
He hesitates when Jun offers to wrap up his hand. “I’m not going to burn you. Not again, at least. I can control my hands now, alright?”
Sho still closes his eyes when he feels Jun start to wrap the bandaging, only peeking when the work’s almost done. Jun’s hands are warm, warmer than a normal person’s, but it almost feels nice. He’s never actually seen Jun’s hands. They’re smooth and the nails are a little long, but they’re soft.
“So you were planning this?” Jun asks quietly.
He nods. “Yeah. For a while. Sorry I was such a jerk to you.”
He leans back against the bark, exhausted, and he feels Jun’s head hit his shoulder. He wraps an arm around him, far more nervous than when it was the two of them sharing a room.
“I guess I can forgive you,” Jun says, resting his hand on Sho’s thigh. It doesn’t burn, but it’s like standing next to a space heater. “And if I don’t feel like forgiving you, I could probably make you a Sho-kun barbecue before you fling me into another prefecture.”
His heart’s beating fast, and Sho’s pretty sure it’s not the adrenaline from their escape, not now. He protected Jun. He’s kept Jun safe. He made other friends underground. But Jun’s the only one he absolutely had to get out.
“I’d like to see you try.”
He looks down, and Jun’s asleep.
“You’re still annoying,” Sho whispers before kissing the top of Jun’s head.
--
The reporter doesn’t believe them, Sho can see it in his eyes. He’s gone through half a pack of cigarettes since Sho and Jun came into his cramped little office. Jun’s stayed quiet, and Sho’s done all the talking. He’s the one who led the jail break after all. He’s taking responsibility for this.
“So you’re telling me,” Kokubun says, looking exhausted after writing down everything Sho had told him (which was more than Sho had expected), “that you and your friend here were incarcerated in a secret underground lab because you have quote unquote super powers?”
Maybe they’ve come to the wrong person.
“I know it sounds crazy,” Sho answers, “and I know you’re thinking, hey, these two idiots should be in school right now. But I swear, we’re telling the truth. There’s more kids like us getting hurt and exploited. You have to help. You have to stop it.”
“Yesterday, someone’s grandma comes in and says there’s a ghost in her attic. And a salaryman, completely normal guy, says that he’s actually a visitor from Neptune. If you can, you know, prove that you’re not completely full of shit...”
Kokubun grabs another cigarette from his pack, chuckling to himself. He stops laughing when there’s a sudden spark at the end of it. Kokubun’s eyes nearly bug out of his head.
Jun crosses his arms. “Sorry. I’m still trying to control it. But I’m getting better.”
Well, the cat’s out of the bag, so Sho makes sure Kokubun’s watching when he raises his hand to make the pack of cigarettes hover and then he lifts the chair, reporter in tow.
“Put me down. Seriously!” Kokubun squeaks. “Put me down!”
Sho and Jun exchange a pleased look, and Sho lets him down gently. Kokubun takes a long drag of his cigarette and shakes his head. “I should turn you over to the police,” the reporter says, big grin on his face, “but I’d rather become editor in chief of this crappy paper someday. Let’s go talk to my boss. You’ve just made me a very, very famous man.”
--
Going public gets everyone released, but it’s not the end, Sho knows. They’re marked, all of them. Yoshimoto-sensei, everyone at the so-called Kitagawa Corporation goes to jail, but nobody wants to let one of those “freaks” in at their school. Nobody wants to give a kid who can move things with his mind a part-time job.
It’s a different kind of torture, Sho supposes.
But at the same time, he’s home. Tests are voluntary and under strict medical controls now. Sho’s not being trained to be a weapon any longer. Life is bound to be hard, but at least he’s got a fighting chance now.
And no matter what, Jun is still a pretty crappy student, Sho thinks as he pushes open the library door.
He sits down at the table in the back and cracks open the textbook without using his hand. Sho pokes Jun in the cheek with the eraser end of his pencil. “Hey.”
Jun looks back with a grin and opens his own book.
“Hey.”
Rating: PG-13 for violence, language
Characters/Pairings: Matsumoto Jun/Sakurai Sho; Arashi, other JE
Summary: They hate that all they are in here is what they can do. They’re just data and a medical mystery, not people. Not kids.
Notes/Warnings: An AU request from hiro_chan who asked for Arashi with super powers. And because chibi Sakumoto is like my kryptonite, they're teenagers here.
Sho is sixteen when they give him a roommate.
It’s not like they’re in their rooms that often anyhow, just for sleeping, but Sho has the sneaking suspicion that Jun might like him. When they’re at the study tables, Jun always asks for extra help with his literature assignments, always asks Sho to help him with the kanji he doesn’t understand.
Sho doesn’t mind, of course. Saying he’s helping one of the others with homework sometimes puts off a test or two. But he isn’t too happy having someone else in his room. When he’s falling asleep, he can pretend he’s somewhere else. He can pretend he’s still at his grandmother’s house in the mountains or buying CDs or on the soccer field.
Having someone else in the only space he has to himself reminds him that he’s here.
“Sakurai-kun,” Yoshimoto-sensei says, tapping his pen against the clipboard. “It’s time.”
Jun looks down at his history textbook and says nothing. The others scattered throughout the study room say nothing. What can anyone say? If it’s not Sho’s turn, it’s theirs. Day in, day out.
“I was helping Matsumoto-kun with his work,” he protests, fingers tightening around the starchy white of his slacks to keep them from shaking.
“And you can help him when you return,” Sensei assures him. It’s a lie, of course. Sho will be in no condition to help anyone when they bring him back to the room.
“Okay,” he says because he can’t say anything else.
--
He’s used to the set-up in here by now. For the past few weeks, they’ve been using the weights. Yoshimoto-sensei waves over the assistants. They put the restraints around his legs and strap him against the seat. Only his left arm is loose. They’re trying to test for his endurance in this arm. He’s a righty after all, but it doesn’t hurt to check apparently.
They leave him alone with the enormous weights and get into the room where they can watch him. He wonders how they managed to reinforce the floor or how many people it took to get the weights in here in the first place.
Sho sighs, tries to relax even with the electrodes plastered to his temples. They don’t know what impulses in his brain make it work. But neither does he, and he doesn’t really want to. Because if he doesn’t use the power, then he’s normal, isn’t he?
“Sakurai-kun,” Yoshimoto-sensei’s voice pipes in through the tinny speaker. “The weight on your far left is 2500 kilograms. We’ll start there please.”
“Okay,” he says. Because if he refuses, then he’s “uncooperative” and “uncooperative” means the collar around his neck will shock him so hard his vision will go black.
Last time, they started with 1000 kg. They’re not messing around today, he thinks bitterly. He holds out his left hand, trying not to lock his elbow. Keeping his limbs looser lets him keep control better. It’s one of the first things he discovered.
“2500 kilograms,” the disembodied voice says, and Sho knows the video’s going and the audio’s recording, and his brain waves are spiking around on whatever machine they’ve got in there.
He tilts his hand, palm up like he’s sliding his hand under a box. They always ask what he thinks about. They want to know where in his brain this is happening, but all Sho knows is that the weight has to lift so he can move to the next one and the next and the next until they let him go for the night.
Sho lifts his hand and up the weight goes ten meters away, a little shaky. It’s his left hand. He’s right handed, don’t they know he’s right handed?
“Maintain control please, Sakurai-kun.”
He exhales and tries to keep his hand from shaking.
“Can you move the weight on top of the one beside it?”
“Okay.” He moves his palm, eyes staring at his target. He lets it down on the next weight, and it falls with a heavy thunk. It’s a little crooked, and he wiggles his fingers to put it in place.
“Good. Nice job, Sakurai-kun.”
He hasn’t broken a sweat. Not yet anyhow.
5000 kilograms. He pretends he’s lifting an elephant. They make him lift it higher and hold it, make him hold his left arm in the air for fifteen minutes. His muscles are starting to ache now, and there’s a little buzzing in his head like the start of a headache. But this isn’t anything. They’re just getting started.
“We’ll move to 10,000 kilograms.”
He’s right handed, he wants to scream at them. He could do so much more if they just let his other arm free.
It’s heavy. They haven’t pushed 10,000 with his left arm before, and he can feel it in his shoulder, and he can feel it in the way it hurts to think about anything but lifting the weight so he doesn’t get the shock. There’s sweat on his upper lip, threatening to drop to his dry lips, and he can’t do anything about it.
“20,000 kilograms.”
“What?” he asks, seeing the weight. How the hell did they get that in here? 20,000 kilograms? With his weaker arm?
“20,000 please, Sakurai-kun.”
He blinks a few times, blinking away the tears that came from thirty minutes holding 10,000. They want him to lift 20,000 now.
“Can I...water?” His headache has been dull and throbbing, but now it starts to let him know he’s reaching his breaking point. It’s like a hammer beating a rhythm against his temples, behind his eyes, at the base of his skull.
“20,000 please, Sakurai-kun.”
He lifts the 10,000 kg weight again by accident, and the shock comes. There’s screaming, loud and pained, and he’s only starting to see again when he realizes that the sound came from his own mouth.
“20,000,” Yoshimoto-sensei says. The guy’s voice never changes. Sho wants to play soccer. He wants to play soccer so badly.
He can hardly speak. “Water? Can I please have water? I promise I’ll try if...”
His vision goes black again.
He can hear Yoshimoto-sensei’s voice in his ear when they’re lifting him into bed. “You can do so much better, Sakurai-kun. You can do so much better.”
--
The headache’s still there when he wakes, and Jun’s in the other bed watching him. He’s got big, honest eyes, and it makes Sho uncomfortable.
“Good morning,” Jun says quietly. Jun wasn’t always quiet. When he’d first arrived, he’d been chatty, always trying to tell jokes and be the center of attention. That changed.
Sho can move things with his mind. But Jun can make fire. They make Jun wear special gloves because all he has to do is snap to make a spark. Jun accidentally burnt his house down because he clapped his hands. He’s been here for six months now.
Sho realizes he must have been sweating the whole night because his pajamas and his sheets and his pillowcase smell like it, and his hair’s still soaked through. But bath time is at night. “Good morning.”
“Omurice today,” Jun says. “I waited until you woke up.”
“Thanks,” Sho says, sitting up. His left arm hangs limp at his side. At least he didn’t dislocate his shoulder this time. It feels like he dislocated his brain, though.
He’s not going to be able to change unless Jun helps him. Sho doesn’t want help. He doesn’t want a roommate. He doesn’t want to ask for help. He does his best with his right hand before he feels Jun behind him and the scratchy glove on his shoulder.
“Don’t be stubborn,” Jun says like he knows what Sho’s going through. He doesn’t. Jun’s the golden boy. Jun’s an elite. They don’t make him do the same kind of tests. They just want Jun to make a bigger and bigger fire. Jun doesn’t get zapped.
Sho sighs and lets Jun help him button a fresh shirt. Between Sho’s one good hand, and Jun’s gloved ones, it takes a long time.
“Nino was really loud last night,” Jun mutters as they leave the room for the dining room.
Nino is the reason that Jun rooms with Sho now. Nino sees things in his dreams. Nino sits alone in the corner of whichever room he plants himself in during the day, his fingers tapping out a rhythm to a song nobody knows. Nino doesn’t talk.
Sho doesn’t want to know what kind of tests they put Nino through.
The omurice is delicious. The food is always really good, as if feeding them well makes up for the tests and the shocks and the lack of windows. As if it makes up for making Masaki heal himself from even more painful injuries. As if it makes up for seeing how long Satoshi can stay underwater without breathing. As if it makes up for firing bullets at Toma to see if he’ll dodge them all this time.
Sho eats even though his headache is keeping him from being all that hungry. Six months on, and Jun still struggles to hold his chopsticks with the stupid gloves. Sometimes Satoshi will grin and feed Jun himself, and Masaki will tease and call Jun ‘hopeless’ until the little firestarter laughs.
Breakfast is ending when Yoshimoto-sensei enters with the clipboard. “Aiba-kun?”
Masaki sets down his chopsticks, and his eyes tear up. They all watch him go. When are they going to be satisfied? When are they going to have enough data to let Masaki leave this place? Who could he possibly hurt out there?
They all hate who they are, don’t they? They hate what they can do. They hate that all they are in here is what they can do. They’re just data and a medical mystery, not people. Not kids. Why not just let them go?
“We’re going to have geography and English today,” Tackey says, breaking the awkward silence that follows Masaki’s departure.
Sho goes to his room instead.
--
Masaki doesn’t come out of his room for a week, and Jun spends every night crying himself to sleep.
Sho doesn’t know what to do. He can’t tell Jun that it’s going to be okay because it probably won’t be. They can hear Nino screaming down the hall, and he doesn’t need to see in the dark like Kamenashi to know that Jun’s standing next to his bed.
“What?” Sho asks, irritated.
“I can’t sleep.”
With the way Nino’s howling, he’s not exactly surprised. Sho turns over to face the wall, and his arm’s tingling from the day before. He’s only getting the feeling back in his fingers from an hour levitating 20,000 kg.
“What do you want me to do about it? Just put your pillow over your head.”
“I’m worried about Aiba-chan.”
Sho sighs. “Well, so am I, okay? Come on, leave me alone.”
“Sho-kun?”
That’s it. It’s the little hitch in Jun’s voice, knowing those hopeful eyes are full of tears. They didn’t put Jun in here to get him away from Nino so much as they wanted Sho to look out for him. Fine.
He lifts the covers and scoots until his nose is nearly touching the wall. “You’re annoying,” he says as soon as Jun’s settled in behind him.
--
“New blood,” Satoshi says over pancakes the next morning. Aiba’s sitting in the corner with Nino, and none of them have the guts to go over and ask how he’s doing.
“Anybody who sees dead people?” Sho asks grumpily, cracking his knuckles. Jun was a bed hog, and even if the younger boy had slept better, Sho sure hadn’t.
“Fire,” Ohno says, and that gets Jun’s attention.
“We already have one,” Kame says. “That’s no fun.”
Taguchi grins. “I heard them talking.” It helps that Taguchi can hear anything and everything. Taguchi probably heard Jun get into Sho’s bed the night before, but he doesn’t say anything. He’s smart enough not to, most of the time.
“And?” Kame asks.
“He can do it with his brain,” Taguchi says, and Jun shrinks in his seat. What the hell does this mean? The new kid can make fire with his head?
Nobody gets to meet the new kid. Taguchi hears snippets. His name’s Akanishi, and he’s a real loose cannon. He burned down four foster homes in a row before Yoshimoto-sensei found him and realized that the kid wasn’t just a pissed off teenage arsonist. They’ve got him sedated and in solitary. Sho wishes they’d send him somewhere else.
“Makes you kind of useless, Matsumoto,” Kame teases, and the whole table laughs.
Jun doesn’t say a word for the rest of the day.
--
Tackey’s leading the lesson on Tale of Genji. He doesn’t need the book. He’s got it memorized. “Toma-kun, you want to read the next paragraph?”
Toma nods and looks down at the page. “With the birth of the son, it became yet clearer that she was the emperor’s favorite. The mother of the eldest son began to feel uneasy. If she did not manage...”
There’s a knock at the door. Yoshimoto-sensei. They all seize up, and Masaki’s already shaking in the seat beside him.
“Sakurai-kun?” Yoshimoto-sensei asks, face as much an impenetrable wall of indifference as ever.
Sho can see Jun exhale on the other side of the classroom, and Sho doesn’t know why, but he almost feels relieved.
--
“Wake up.”
Sho’s not too fond of the idea. He’s playing in the World Cup. He’s defending against Cristiano Ronaldo, damn it. He tries to go back into the dream, but there’s a hand smacking him on the forehead.
“Wake up.”
It’s a bare hand. When did Jun take off his gloves? There’s a tracker that’ll go off, and he can’t afford to get in trouble.
When Sho wakes for good, the lights are on and Nino’s standing over him ready to smack him again. He wants to sit up, but his entire body aches. They had a city bus parked in the lab today and decided to test the strength of Sho’s individual fingers. His thumb’s completely wrapped up. Broken.
Wait. Nino’s in here?
“Nino?”
Sho’s never seen him semi-coherent before, and his eyes are crazy. “Sho-chan, wake up. It’s Jun. It’s Jun. It’s Jun...”
The other bed is empty.
He nearly tumbles to the floor since his limbs feel like jelly, but he finds his slippers and hurries into the hall. Nobody else is up, and Nino’s nearly clinging to him.
“It’s Jun,” Nino repeats, voice scratchy as though he’s been screaming for hours and nobody cared. “It’s Jun, they’re hurting him. It’s Jun.”
The orderlies are going to find out that they’re out of their rooms. Someone will come by and catch them both, but Nino doesn’t care. His fingers are digging into Sho’s arm as they inch along the corridor, past the other rooms, past the dining room and the study room.
“They want to see,” Nino insists. “They want to see if they can make him dance. They want to make his brain do the dancing.”
Sho shudders. It’s because of Akanishi. It’s because Akanishi can make fire with his mind. Akanishi doesn’t need to use his hands. They want to see if Jun can do it too.
Jun, who came to this place with a nervous smile and a bunch of bad, trying-too-hard jokes. Jun, who needs Sho to make sure his math homework is right. Over six months, and they never touched the kid, and Sho is ready to wrench the doors off the hinges to make them stop.
“They’re hurting him, Sho-chan,” Nino says, pulling at his own hair. “I can hear it, I can hear them hurting him. They want him to dance, but he doesn’t know the steps. He doesn’t know, he doesn’t know!”
Every step Sho takes hurts, and he remembers the bus. It was so heavy. They cheated. They put extra weights on the bus, and they made him lift it. They put people in blindfolds underneath and made him hold it this time. If you don’t hold it, it’ll fall and they’ll die, Sakurai-kun, they’d said. Innocent people. Lab rats really...
“He wants to dance for them, but he can’t.”
He needs Nino to be quiet. Sho doesn’t have a plan. What the hell is he supposed to do? He’s at his weakest now. Maybe that’s why they brought him in yesterday. They brought him in and broke him so he couldn’t interfere with whatever they’re doing to Jun.
When they get to the door that leads to the labs, Nino stops and sits on the floor. He says nothing else, and Sho opens the door with his good hand. Yoshimoto-sensei and his clipboard are waiting on the other side of the door.
“Sakurai-kun, you shouldn’t be out of bed.”
He can stand there and say that? He can stand there and say that without blinking? Sho’s good hand becomes a fist.
“Are you hurting him?”
Yoshimoto-sensei cocks his head. “You should be in bed. You did well yesterday, and it’s best that you rest. We can’t all mend broken bones like Aiba-kun, can we?”
The guy’s maybe 60 kilograms. If Sho can lift a bus, he could just flick his pinky and send sensei through the ceiling, couldn’t he? But that doesn’t get Jun out of there. Because now he can hear it. He can hear what Nino probably heard in his dreams before it even started. Jun’s screaming. Jun’s apologizing for not being good enough, and it’s echoing all the way down the corridor.
“You shouldn’t force him, sensei,” Sho grits out.
“And you shouldn’t meddle in things that aren’t your business. Back to bed.”
He stands there another few seconds, wondering what the consequences of killing the man would mean for him and for the others. Sho backs down, trying not to listen to Jun’s screams for mercy as he leaves.
Nino’s gone when he gets back to the study room, and Sho shuffles painfully back to his bed.
--
He doesn’t sleep. He doesn’t move when he hears the door open around four A.M., and there are muffled whispers and the sound of another body being deposited on the mattress at the other end of the room.
The door closes, and they’re alone again. Sho clears his throat. “Jun?”
He remembers how hysterical Nino had been. He’s never going to be able to get the sound of Jun screaming out of his head. Sho thinks he’d rather lift twenty buses for twenty hours than have to hear it again.
He clambers out of bed, wincing as his bandaged hand bumps the end table. Clumsy, always so damn clumsy. “Jun?”
Jun’s curled up on himself on top of the blanket where they’ve left him, all skinny arms and skinny legs. His body’s trembling involuntarily. They probably shocked him. Probably did it more than once. Sho doesn’t know what to do. It’s not like telling Jun the right equation or showing him the correct kanji over and over. He can’t fix this.
Instead he lays down behind Jun and wraps an arm around him. He’s not sure it’s enough, but Jun relaxes a bit, gloved fingers picking at the bandaging around Sho’s hand until they both fall asleep.
--
Yoshimoto-sensei announces during dinner the next night that room assignments are changing so everyone can “get to know each other better.”
Sho knows it’s just to separate him and Jun. He knows because Yoshimoto-sensei looks right at him when he says it. Though the doctor’s face doesn’t show it, he clearly had no idea that Sho would try to stick up for the younger boy. It’s a small victory for Sho. He’s got the doctors scared of him now.
Jun’s sitting with Aiba tonight, and the two of them are huddling close. They’ll be roommates now, and when sensei leaves, Sho can see how terrified Jun is. Masaki looks as helpless as Sho feels.
Tackey pats his shoulder. “Be careful, okay? They’re watching you now.”
They’ll have Tackey watch him too. Sho lets the plate full of food sit uneaten until they clear it away.
--
It’s a few weeks later, and Sho’s thumb is finally starting to heal up. It’s only then that he decides to formulate an escape plan. The easiest way is to try and get into solitary to coerce the Akanishi kid to set the whole place on fire with his crazy brain, but there’s no getting in there.
Instead, Sho knows it’s all on him to get Jun out of here.
He ignores Jun. He tells Jun to go away when he comes up with his homework. He wants them to think he’s playing ball, that he knows interfering with Jun and whatever they’re trying to get him to do will end in trouble.
Of course, Jun has no idea, and it hurts Sho every time he treats the boy coldly. He has to watch Jun retreat to another study table to ask for help from Nakamaru, who can’t exactly fly indoors but is pretty handy with equations from time to time.
“What’s wrong with you?” Satoshi chides him after another class. “He needs you to be his friend now more than ever.”
“He got special treatment for months. Not my fault if he can’t take it,” Sho says bitterly, each lie like another thousand kilograms to hold up with his mind.
Satoshi just frowns and walks away. They all think he’s an asshole. They all avoid him now. Well, except for Nino.
Nino just watches him.
Sho studies the placement of the cameras outside the classroom and the study room and the dining room. He counts how many steps it is from the room he now shares with Tackey to Masaki’s room and how many it is from his room to the labs. How many steps it is to the elevator that brings their food and brings anything from the outside.
Lifting cars and buses come easy, but it’s the little things that give Sho the most trouble. Whenever Tackey’s out of the room, he practices. It takes him a week, but he can throw the lock in the door with a wiggle of his finger.
He does Taguchi’s homework for another week in exchange for the news he needs the kid to overhear - they’re taking Masaki for tests tomorrow night.
Tomorrow night, he’s taking Jun, and he’s leaving.
--
They never finish until 2:00 or 3:00. Sho says a silent prayer for Masaki to endure a little longer. He waits until Tackey’s breathing grows even at 1:30 before he pushes the covers off. He opens and shuts the door as quietly as he can, using his newest trick to lock it after him. Sorry Tackey, he thinks.
There’s a camera and a night guard between him and Masaki’s room. He smirks and closes his fist. The camera at the end of the hallway squeezes like something Darth Vader could have done, sparks flying as it breaks. They won’t notice for a few minutes.
He sends a mop and bucket flying down the other hallway, and the night guard goes chasing after it, wondering what kids are sneaking around after lights out. Sho gets into Masaki’s room, and Jun nearly bites through his hand when he reaches the occupied bed.
“Hey! Hey!” he hisses, trying to get Jun to calm down. “Come on, we have to go.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Jun says defiantly. Sho can’t exactly blame him.
“This is the only chance you’re going to get,” Sho tells him and pulls the blanket off of him. “Get up.”
“What about Aiba-chan?”
Sho pauses. “We can’t. Any more and...”
“I’m not leaving without him. Or Toma-kun and...”
“Jun,” Sho says, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him. “Let’s go.”
He feels the scratchy material of Jun’s glove in his hand, and he squeezes back.
--
Sho holds tight to Jun’s hand with his left and keeps his right outstretched in case he needs to move things (or people) out of his way. His right hand’s always been stronger, they should know that. They’ve made him stronger.
There are three orderlies running with the shock prods. Sho waves his hand like he’s swatting flies, and they go flying.
“Damn,” Jun says, completely in awe. Sho remembers - none of them have ever seen what he can do. He’s never told any of them.
“Shut up,” Sho replies, trying to keep from smiling as he tugs Jun along behind him.
Alarms are going off now, and when they reach the elevator, Nino’s standing there. The up button has already been pressed.
Their footsteps come to a halt. He lets go of Jun and holds up both hands. “Nino...Nino, you have to get out of the way. Please.” He can already hear shouts after them, can hear the prods sparking.
Nino doesn’t hurry when he approaches Jun.
“Nino,” Jun says, voice panicky, and Sho doesn’t want to send the kid through a wall. He doesn’t want to hurt Nino, but if they don’t get on the elevator right now...
Jun gasps as Nino’s nimble little fingers pull the gloves off of his hands. He goes running off holding them over his head, wailing and screaming. The orderlies keep moving, shoving the small boy out of their way.
“Dance, Jun!” Nino cries. “Dance! You know it now!”
Sho watches Jun’s hands. They don’t even move, but suddenly there’s heat and flame and smoke, and the elevator door opens behind them.
Jun stands there, staring ahead at the wall of fire that he’s conjured up with his mind. He raises his hands up like he’s conducting an orchestra, and the flames start to jump down the hall.
The flames are dancing.
Sho grabs Jun by the elbow to pull him back, and his skin’s so hot that it burns. He screams and falls back, and his hand is throbbing. This is the power Jun’s had all along.
The sprinklers come on, and Jun jumps back into the elevator with him just as the doors shut. Sho presses the topmost button, and it goes up. Jun leans against the wall, almost hyperventilating, staring at his hands in utter surprise.
“Don’t let anyone tell you you’re useless,” Sho says. “Ever.”
--
They’re in a regular office building when the elevator dings open again. The Kitagawa Corporation must be the front for the people who’ve kept him underground all this time. Sho can hear sirens, and he lets Jun set off a few more smoke alarms and sprinklers as they make a hasty retreat out one of the rear exits.
Tokyo. He hasn’t seen Tokyo in over a year.
“We’re coming back right?” Jun asks as they run through the streets in just the slippers and pajamas they’ve been forced to wear. “For the others?”
“I have another idea,” Sho says.
--
The newspaper they find outside the nearest department store says it’s October 14th, 1998. Sho’s never been a thief, but anyone seeing the clothes floating off of the discount racks would probably figure it was a ghost anyhow.
They see their faces on the video screens in major intersections. They have to lay low tonight and not get caught. They can’t help their friends if they’re caught.
The two of them find a spot in a park, collapsing together under a low-hanging tree. The leaves are going to turn soon, and Sho’s happy to be able to smell the grass. He figured he’d be underground the rest of his life.
He hesitates when Jun offers to wrap up his hand. “I’m not going to burn you. Not again, at least. I can control my hands now, alright?”
Sho still closes his eyes when he feels Jun start to wrap the bandaging, only peeking when the work’s almost done. Jun’s hands are warm, warmer than a normal person’s, but it almost feels nice. He’s never actually seen Jun’s hands. They’re smooth and the nails are a little long, but they’re soft.
“So you were planning this?” Jun asks quietly.
He nods. “Yeah. For a while. Sorry I was such a jerk to you.”
He leans back against the bark, exhausted, and he feels Jun’s head hit his shoulder. He wraps an arm around him, far more nervous than when it was the two of them sharing a room.
“I guess I can forgive you,” Jun says, resting his hand on Sho’s thigh. It doesn’t burn, but it’s like standing next to a space heater. “And if I don’t feel like forgiving you, I could probably make you a Sho-kun barbecue before you fling me into another prefecture.”
His heart’s beating fast, and Sho’s pretty sure it’s not the adrenaline from their escape, not now. He protected Jun. He’s kept Jun safe. He made other friends underground. But Jun’s the only one he absolutely had to get out.
“I’d like to see you try.”
He looks down, and Jun’s asleep.
“You’re still annoying,” Sho whispers before kissing the top of Jun’s head.
--
The reporter doesn’t believe them, Sho can see it in his eyes. He’s gone through half a pack of cigarettes since Sho and Jun came into his cramped little office. Jun’s stayed quiet, and Sho’s done all the talking. He’s the one who led the jail break after all. He’s taking responsibility for this.
“So you’re telling me,” Kokubun says, looking exhausted after writing down everything Sho had told him (which was more than Sho had expected), “that you and your friend here were incarcerated in a secret underground lab because you have quote unquote super powers?”
Maybe they’ve come to the wrong person.
“I know it sounds crazy,” Sho answers, “and I know you’re thinking, hey, these two idiots should be in school right now. But I swear, we’re telling the truth. There’s more kids like us getting hurt and exploited. You have to help. You have to stop it.”
“Yesterday, someone’s grandma comes in and says there’s a ghost in her attic. And a salaryman, completely normal guy, says that he’s actually a visitor from Neptune. If you can, you know, prove that you’re not completely full of shit...”
Kokubun grabs another cigarette from his pack, chuckling to himself. He stops laughing when there’s a sudden spark at the end of it. Kokubun’s eyes nearly bug out of his head.
Jun crosses his arms. “Sorry. I’m still trying to control it. But I’m getting better.”
Well, the cat’s out of the bag, so Sho makes sure Kokubun’s watching when he raises his hand to make the pack of cigarettes hover and then he lifts the chair, reporter in tow.
“Put me down. Seriously!” Kokubun squeaks. “Put me down!”
Sho and Jun exchange a pleased look, and Sho lets him down gently. Kokubun takes a long drag of his cigarette and shakes his head. “I should turn you over to the police,” the reporter says, big grin on his face, “but I’d rather become editor in chief of this crappy paper someday. Let’s go talk to my boss. You’ve just made me a very, very famous man.”
--
Going public gets everyone released, but it’s not the end, Sho knows. They’re marked, all of them. Yoshimoto-sensei, everyone at the so-called Kitagawa Corporation goes to jail, but nobody wants to let one of those “freaks” in at their school. Nobody wants to give a kid who can move things with his mind a part-time job.
It’s a different kind of torture, Sho supposes.
But at the same time, he’s home. Tests are voluntary and under strict medical controls now. Sho’s not being trained to be a weapon any longer. Life is bound to be hard, but at least he’s got a fighting chance now.
And no matter what, Jun is still a pretty crappy student, Sho thinks as he pushes open the library door.
He sits down at the table in the back and cracks open the textbook without using his hand. Sho pokes Jun in the cheek with the eraser end of his pencil. “Hey.”
Jun looks back with a grin and opens his own book.
“Hey.”