Chapter Text
Yu sighed as he entered his home, tired after a long day of school, and he couldn’t even look forward to some TV world to decompress because he had agreed to give the team the week off to rest.
“Hey Nanako, I’m home.” He was slightly confused as a kid around Nanako’s age he hadn't seen before was sitting at the table, the two clearly having been working on something together. The kid before Nanako was a bit smaller than her, with pale skin and hair as black as night. Yu couldn’t quite tell the kid’s gender, especially with hair that reached a bit above their shoulders so there was no using hair length to guess it, but when they looked up he saw that their eyes were so dark they looked almost black, but there was still a hint of hazel in them. The kid was wearing a slightly oversized black shirt and black pants. From how they looked, black was most likely their favorite colour. Yu noticed a strange dark birth mark on the kid's wrist, which kind of looked like a fork or torch somehow. He also spotted a black backpack next to the table, which was absolutely covered in various pins, to the point it was a bit hard to see the bag underneath, and there were even two on the child's shirt. “Who’s your friend?”
“Oh! Hi big bro! This is my classmate, Hakura-kun! Though they like to be called Ghost-kun. We’re working on a group project together! Look!” She motioned towards the bunch of papers on the table. They were made up of drawings with a bunch of colours that he couldn’t really make out, since his mind was still sore from being lectured by a teacher to the point he came home late.
“That’s nice, it looks pretty good.” His mind took a second to finally catch up. “Wait, ‘they’?”
Nanako nodded with a cute “Mhm! They like it more when we say they. Some kids and teachers find it weird, but I like it! It kinda feels like a nickname that only their friends use, and since I’m their friend, I use it!”
Yu nodded. He didn’t get it at all, but it was a harmless thing and it made Nanako happy, so it doesn’t matter if it’s unusual to call someone ‘they’. “So, what’s your project about?”
“We’re learning how to draw maps, so the teacher asked us to find something we’d like to have a map of. It could be anything, but I wanted to do the neighborhood. I’m… Not that great at maps though, since I just remember the path to school and that’s about it. But Ghost-kun is great at maps! So I asked them if we could partner up, and since everyone else just wants to avoid them like big meanies, it was easy to make a group together.”
Hakura nodded at Yu to confirm her claim, and held up what they had been drawing. Yu sighed internally, already knowing that this would be weird to use at first, but with the whole TV world thing, he’s gotten used to a lot weirder than some pronouns, so he just focused on what Hakura was showing him.
The drawing was indeed a map, and it was surprisingly detailed. Hakura didn’t write many words, mostly the map’s legend and the names of the different coloured areas in big, shockingly well written letters, most likely for emphasis or dramatics, and he had to admit that it worked really well. Otherwise, Hakura’s map depended on the distinct colours, a couple simple drawings of landmarks and some colour coded dots spread around where something they judged important would be, like benches or street lights, and arrows next to names showed where each end of the street led.
Yu nodded approvingly. “This is really well done. I have some classmates that probably wouldn’t be able to do this good of a map.” He then turned to his cousin. “What about you Nanako? You better not have just let Hakura-kun do all the work.” He couldn’t help but smirk at his tease.
It’s not helping that the tease worked, as Nanako pouted indignantly. “Of course Ghost-kun didn’t do all the work! We’re both handing a map in anyway. But yeah, look!” She took a map off of the top of a pile of other ones, while Haruka’s side of the table was rather clean, having only one other paper in use with just a couple of colour trials on it. It seems Haruka was indeed a really gifted cartographer, while Nanako was struggling.
Even her current map, which she was oh so proudly showing to Yu, was kind of wonky, with uneven lines, colouring that was a bit out of said lines, poor proportions in places, and some bits of the map were clearly drawn off instinct rather than knowing where things are. As he took the map out of his little cousin’s hands, he read the legend and found the reason for why she has many more colours used for dots than her partner’s. While Hakura’s map showed physical, set points of interest, Nanako’s showed mostly where events happened, like where she fell and scraped her knee last week, or the last place she saw a toy of hers.
Just looking at it and Nanako’s bright smile made Yu’s face sprout the biggest smile he’s had this month. “It looks amazing Nanako, I’m sure your teacher will even put it on the wall.” He said as he pat her head with immense fondness.
Nanako gasped as her eyes sparkled. “You really think so!? Oh, oh, Ghost-kun, we have to ask the teacher if he could show off our maps!” She started jumping in place in excitement, and Hakura simply nodded mutely, not showing any emotions, though Yu thought he could see a hint of a smile on their lips. It was small enough that he thought he could just be seeing things in the face of Nanako’s infectious cheer.
Yu chuckled, but was cut off by a knock at the door. Nanako needed to work off her excitement so she scrambled up with a quick “I’ll get it!” and went to open the door. Yu didn’t want to risk anything happening to Nanako so he stayed a bit behind her, just past the kitchen counter.
On the other side was a girl Yu’s age. She had pale skin and dark hair too, her hair tied in a low ponytail that reached in between her shoulders, and her eyes were a vibrant green. Her body had a slim but clearly strong build to it, like Chie’s but more elegant, it reminded him of a predator hiding their claws instead of one showing off their talons. She was wearing a long, kind of faded dark red coat over a white shirt, black pants and black mid-calf-high reinforced work boots. He was a bit confused by that last choice of clothing, but he’s seen weirder on his friends, so he didn’t linger on it. Her neck had bits of birth marks peeking out, but he couldn't see much of them. As he looked back up at her face, thinking that she was probably Hakura’s sister, he couldn’t help but feel an itch that she looked familiar, though this might be from passing her in school.
“Oh! Hello Hornet-san! Are you here to pick up Ghost-kun?”
And as his eyes met hers, he realized that she was observing him too, seizing him up for some reason, and she was wound up in a strange way, but wasn’t quite tense. “Yes I am, Dojima-chan. And who might you be? Her older brother?” She looked up at Yu’s silver hair, she didn’t seem to quite believe that he was her brother but didn’t have a better explanation.
Nanako just giggled. “I told you to call me Nanako! Dojima makes me sound like a grandma.”
The girl smiled a bit. “Sorry about that Nanako-chan.” Even someone as tough looking as her wasn’t immune to Nanako’s bright cheer. “I am Shiori Miyashita. I believe you’re a regular at the blacksmith’s, no? I’ve seen you there a number of times.”
Yu nodded a bit as he extended a hand, which Shiori shook after only a moment. “I’m Yu Narukami. I’m Nanako’s cousin, not her brother, but I am staying with her for the year.” As they let go of each other's hands, he felt glad that he could now pin why she was familiar. “I do remember seeing you around the shop a couple of times, but we haven’t really talked much, have we?”
Shiori shook her head. “The old smith wouldn’t let me man the counter, I was only doing odd jobs for a while. But that will change after next week, at the very least that’s what he told me.” She then looked past Yu towards her sibling. “However, as pleasant as this is, I am here to pick up Ghost. If you don’t mind?”
“Of course.” Yu turned around to see Hakura was already carefully and diligently rolling up their map and putting it in their bag, while Nanako started to put her maps she wasn’t going to give to the teacher in the recycling bin. He nodded to himself, glad that the two wouldn’t need help, and turned back to Shiori, giving her some space in case she wanted to come inside, although she did no such thing. Still, he was curious as to how she found a job that he himself never even saw an advertisement for. “Say, how did you end up working at the blacksmith’s? If you don’t mind telling me.”
Shiori raised an unimpressed eyebrow at him but didn’t seem to judge his naked attempt at killing time past that. “He was impressed with my tinkering and metalworking. I also plan to apply to the Tatsumi shop, seeing as I can weave and sew thread quite well, but I have been holding off on it until I got more used to working at the metalsmith’s. Only then will I have enough energy left to undertake working at the threadsmith’s.”
Yu huffed out a small laugh. Shiori sure spoke in a strange way, but it was a respectful one, and threadsmith was certainly a fun wording he hadn’t heard before. However, he noticed that it had been a bit and Hakura was still not done packing, so wondering what was taking so long, he looked back and saw that they were taking a while because they were scribbling in a journal. “Is this normal for them?”
Yu turned to Shiori to see she was looking surprised for a bit, but quickly looked past him with a fond, but slightly exasperated look in her eyes. “Yes, it is. Ghost does not talk much, but they really like noting things and people they find important down in their journal. This is more of their portable notes, they have a bigger one at home.”
Yu nodded softly and couldn’t help but walk over to see what Hakura was writing. However, he looked back at Shiori and decided that she would probably be happier if he respected her sibling’s privacy. He idly wondered if sibling was what Hakura would prefer being referred to, he’d have to ask them later when their sister wasn’t waiting in the doorway to take them home. “Hey, Hakura-kun, do you mind if I see what you’re writing?”
Hakura looked up at Yu and nodded slowly, turning the journal to show a page they just finished writing. It was actually about him, with a rough sketch of himself. Apparently being good at cartography didn’t mean being good at art because the drawing was a bit rough, but Yu could still recognize himself despite not being drawn as a stickman, so that’s still within expectations for their age. Next to the drawing were some notes about him, mostly about his habits that Hakura noticed, and one saying that he respected their pronouns. This must mean that it’s actually quite important in their eyes, even if Yu didn’t fully get it, so he made a mental note to never use the wrong pronouns when talking about Nanako’s classmate.
“Ghost, are you done yet?” Shiori’s voice was stern, but still obviously caring. Hakura got up with a nod and put the journal in their bag before walking over to the doorway and putting their shoes on.
Right before they left, Nanako hurried over and gave Haruka a piece of paper with their house phone number on it, saying that she doesn’t know it by heart, only her dad’s number, so now that she could give it she should. Shiori was staying patient, eyeing Yu every now and then but mostly looking at Nanako and Hakura with clear fondness and pride. Yu could relate to the older sibling instincts.
Once the two left, Nanako spent some time telling Yu about Hakura.
The kid was definitely strange, if harmless. Nanako had never heard them speak a single word, even though she heard them use their voice before with grunting and other such small things. They could never be hit when they played dodgeball, and didn’t play with other kids most of the time. They would usually just sit somewhere and watch people go by, writing stuff down in their journal, or explore and make maps of where they went, which is how she found out that they were good at making maps. Nanako didn’t really get it, but sometimes when she was feeling overwhelmed, it helped her calm down to sit next to Haruka and watch the world play out for a bit. Things just got quieter around them.
However, by being strange, Hakura was attracting unwanted attention, which makes sense. The kid never spoke, used unusual pronouns, didn’t play sports and liked to sit in places just watching people pass by. It’s sad, but it’s obvious that Hakura would be bullied. Nanako said that they never seemed bothered by it though, and whenever a bully would try to be rough with them they would always dodge out of the way, and since they didn’t hit back they didn’t get in trouble. And whenever the other kids tried to bully Nanako for associating with them (which Yu was not happy to hear about), Haruka always protected her, either by scaring the bullies away with their blank stare or by dodging their strikes until they gave up or embarrassed themselves.
Between Hakura and Shiori, Yu didn’t really know what to think of the Miyashita family… But they definitely cared for each other, and they care for their friends, and that’s all Yu really needs to know right now.