Work Text:
Let me be precise about the series of events that led to this.
It began with boredom. Specifically, the kind of boredom unique to someone who has read every book worth reading (in multiple languages), solved every mathematical problem of consequence, and who cannot, under any circumstances, simply enjoy a television program without the general populous spoiling exactly which cast members are concealing affairs, bankruptcies, or in one memorable case, a second family in Niigata.
It was a Sunday. I had already eaten two and a half bags of Mentaiko chips. My parents were out. Nendou was, mercifully, unaware of my address (he has learned it four times and forgotten it four times; I have assisted this process). Hairo was at a tennis training camp. And Kaidou has decided that nothing in my vicinity is a threat today (really he was too awkward to just come over without a reason, but I'm not complaining).
I was, by any reasonable measure, alone.
I had been watching a video online of a man posting short clips of himself appearing to transform into objects. A coat on a rack. A floating pair of shoes. A puddle. In each video, he stood in frame, the camera cut, and he was gone, replaced by something mundane and inanimate. He captioned them all "just a normal day" or "magic trick #47" or similar. The comment sections were full of people trying to reverse-engineer the VFX. Green screens. Motion tracking. Clever cuts. One very confident commenter had written a seven-paragraph breakdown of the compositing techniques involved.
The guy was simply a creative person with a camera, a sense of humor, and presumably a crew.
I watched twelve of these videos.
Then I thought something I should not have thought:
'I could do this better.'
Not as a boast. As a statement of fact; because he was simulating teleportation with clever camera work and a change of clothes left on the floor. I could actually teleport. I could actually turn invisible. I could actually levitate. The gap between his content and mine would not be a matter of skill, but physics.
The thought sat in my mind for approximately forty seconds before I did something catastrophically unlike me.
I acted on it.
I grabbed my Cyborg Ciderman No. 2 helmet. It covers my entire face. The visor is tinted. Nothing below the neck would identify me in any way.
I set my phone on my desk, facing the wall. Pressed record. Stood in frame, and then, between one frame and the next, I was no longer there. In my place: a single coffee mug, sitting on the floor where I had been standing.
I stopped the recording. Watched it back.
The helmet caught the light strangely at the edges. It looked, if anything, more like a VFX production choice than a plain mask would have.
It was perfect.
The only person on earth who might connect a Cyborg Ciderman helmet to me specifically is Yuuta, who is five years old and therefore not on the internet, and who, if he ever saw the account, would probably just be excited about the helmet.
This was an acceptable risk.
I should have deleted it.
I uploaded it instead.
I created the account in thirty seconds. Username: @ψ_tricks
Psi, for psychic, which no one would parse correctly; they would assume it was a Greek letter affectation, the kind of thing someone studying physics or mathematics might do for atmosphere.
Profile picture: the helmet. The overall impression was not Saiki Kusuo, psychic. It was: this person is a specific type of person, and that type is not me.
Caption: "magic trick #1. no VFX, just practice :)"
The smiley face was a calculated decision. It implied approachability. It implied a hobbyist, someone cheerful and slightly dorky, uploading for fun. It was, I should note, a complete lie. I am not cheerful. I am not a hobbyist. And "just practice" was doing an awful amount of heavy lifting that would have broken a lesser sentence.
Then I went to sleep.
By morning, the video had 340,000 views.
I stared at this number for a long time.
For sixteen(?) years, I have operated under a single, exhausting principle: no one can know.
The weight of this secret is not dramatic. I am not haunted, I do not lie awake agonizing, I am not the protagonist of a superhero film learning that great power entails great personal suffering. I simply find it tiring.
Every day is a performance of normalcy, and I am, despite everything, quite bad at it, which means I must also perform the appearance of being antisocial and strange so that my failures of normalcy read as personality rather than concealment.
It is, in short, a lot of work.
What the account gave me was something I hadn't anticipated: deniability at scale.
If someone films me teleporting and posts it online, it becomes evidence. An allegation. Something to investigate, but if I film myself doing it, label it as a trick, and caption it with a cheerful emoji, it becomes content.
The comments fill up with people explaining my powers to each other using terminology I don't fully understand. Nobody investigates. Nobody calls a research institution. The very act of publishing it makes it safe, because no one believes that someone with genuine psychic abilities would simply... post about it.
The genius of this approach, if I may say so, is that I'm not hiding my powers. I am displaying them. Brazenly. At 1080p. With decent lighting.
And no one suspects a thing.
@ψ_tricks, magic trick #3: I stand in my kitchen. I reach into an empty cabinet. I pull out a mango that I had retrieved, without moving, from a fruit stand in a different country. Caption: "found this in my cabinet?? wild"
Comments: bro the cut is so smooth / okay the mango was definitely already there off-camera / no look at the cabinet door it's the same take / i rewatched this 30 times there's literally nothing in there before he reaches in / stage magic. the cabinet has a false back. i explained this already
@ψ_tricks, magic trick #7: I'm sitting at my desk. Slowly, I rise. And rise. And rise. Until I'm pressing against the ceiling, where I stay for a moment, looking down at the camera with the exact expression a person might have while waiting for a bus. Then I return to my chair. Caption: "feeling a little floaty today"
Comments: HE'S ON THE CEILING. HE IS ON THE CEILING. / wire rig, look at the shirt, it drapes wrong / the shirt doesn't drape wrong i checked / shadow check: shadow is wrong at 0:04 / the shadow is correct actually / bro is LITERALLY on the ceiling and you're arguing about shadows
The video reached four million views in six days.
The shadow was, for the record, correct.
I should have known the account would find Kaidou before Kaidou found the account. The universe, in my experience, has a tendency to arrange itself for maximum inconvenience.
He appeared at my desk on a Monday morning approximately three weeks after I'd started posting. He was visibly agitated, which for Kaidou means his scarf was slightly askew and he had the expression of someone who has received important intelligence that may or may not be real.
He placed his phone on my desk.
On the screen: magic trick #7.
"Saiki," he said, in a low voice, "I need you to watch this."
I looked at the video. My own video. I said: "What is it."
"Just. Watch."
I watched myself, on the screen, floating toward the ceiling and then coming back down to sit.
"...He floated," I said.
"HE FLOATED TO THE CEILING." Kaidou snatched the phone back and held it to his own face, then seemed to remember he was supposed to be being cool about this. "I mean. I've been- I've been analyzing this. The account is called @ψ_tricks. ψ is the symbol for psychic phenomena, Saiki. It's literally right there."
"Or it's a Greek letter used for aesthetic purposes."
"He has antennae coming out of the helmet."
"A prop."
"They look real."
"People make very convincing props, Kaidou."
He stared at me. I have known Kaidou long enough to identify, by expression alone, when he is about to say something that is incorrect but emotionally sincere. This was that face.
"I think," he said, very seriously, "that this person has made a deal with a higher power. The ψ isn't ironic, Saiki. It's a declaration." He looked at his phone. Then back at me. "The Dark Reunion doesn't just give you powers for free. There's always a cost. And this guy just posts about it. Like it's nothing. Like he's completely at peace with what he's become."
"...Hm."
"I'm not scared of him." He put the phone away with decisive energy. "I'm intrigued."
"Of course."
"You should follow the account. For research."
"I'll consider it."
He nodded, satisfied, and returned to his seat.
I looked at my desk for a moment, then I took out my own phone and, under the desk, look to see a comment on magic trick #7:
@darkmaster_jetblackwings: this man has made a pact with dark forces.
I did not reply to this comment, but I noted it.
@ψ_tricks, magic trick #12: A bird lands on my windowsill. I reach out. The bird steps onto my finger. Then a second bird. Then a third. Then, unreasonably, eleven more, until my arm is covered from elbow to fingertip in sparrows who are extremely calm because I've asked them to be. I look at the camera. Caption: "they just kept coming"
Comments: Okay this one has to be fake / trained birds / this man is a disney princess / WHY ARE THEY SO CALM / he smells like seeds. that's the trick. he smells like seeds / i have trained birds for fifteen years and these birds are not trained these birds are simply extremely content
The following weeks contained a series of Kaidou updates delivered to me whether I wanted them or not, in the manner of someone who has appointed themselves lead researcher on a topic and believes the whole team shares their enthusiasm:
"He did a bird one. Saiki, there were eleven birds. They were completely calm. That's not training, that's communion."
"I left a comment and he liked it. He liked it. Do you know what that means."
"It means he saw your comment," I said.
"It means he acknowledged me."
I said "hm" in a tone I hoped communicated closure.
Nendou, who had been half-listening from across the aisle, leaned over. "Chibi, I SAW that video. The bird one. My mom says it's trained birds but I think he's actually got bird powers."
"He's not just an animal communicator, Nendou, it goes much-"
"Also his antennae are sick. Do you think they're real?"
"I know they're real."
"I want antennae," Nendou said, with the conviction of someone who has made a decision, "It reminds me of that beetle I found outside.
I physically gagged at my limiters being compared to bug body parts, but otherwise left them to their conversation.
I will admit I was enjoying myself.
This is, I recognize, unusual. I do not typically enjoy things that involve interacting with the world, but there was something specific about this arrangement: showing without explaining, revealing without confessing, that satisfied something I hadn't known needed satisfying. I was, in a limited and thoroughly deniable way, seen.
Just so Kaidou didn't make any connections to me, I uploaded another video right then and there.
Magic trick #19: I stood outside at night and looked up. Very slowly, I lifted off the ground, levitating just a few centimeters. Just enough to be undeniable, if anyone had been watching. I hung there for a moment, looking at nothing in particular with the Cyborg Ciderman helmet, and then I was on the ground again. Caption: "couldn't sleep"
Kaidou made a noise. "He posted another one." After watching: "This is not a trick this is an announcement!"
"WOAH he can fly," Nendou yelled as he looked at Kaidou's screen.
Even Hairo joined in: "INCREDIBLE CORE STRENGTH! THE DEDICATION! THIS IS GETTING ME FIRED UP!"
The account reached one million followers on a Tuesday. I bought a pack of coffee jelly and felt something adjacent to smug.
Chouno Uryoku found the account on a Thursday and I knew this because he sent a letter and then appeared at my front door on a Friday.
This is a thing Chouno does. He sends a letter and then he appears as if the mail being delivered is invitation for him to show up on my doorstep with the energy of someone who believes their arrival is always welcome, which is a form of confidence I find equal parts baffling and exhausting.
He was in his full ensemble: cape, vest, white gloves, the top hat he had recently added and which I had not yet worked out how to discourage. He was holding his phone, which I'm surprise he could even afford, in both hands like a priest with a sacred text.
"Apprentice business," he said, which is how he announces visits now.
My mother, behind me, was beaming. She finds Chouno charming. This is the deepest disagreement I have with her.
I stepped outside and closed the door.
"Chouno."
"Master," he said; he has been calling me this on the grounds that I once demonstrated a "technique" in front of him that he believes was an illusion. It was teleportation. He does not know this. He has spent years(?) trying to reverse-engineer it. "I've found something important."
He turned the phone toward me.
On the screen: @ψ_tricks. The ceiling video.
"Hm," I said.
"I've been studying this account for three days." He pulled the phone back and scrolled. "Look at the execution. The smoothness. No hesitation. No over-explaining. Just action, and then the result." He looked at me with something I can only describe as awe with a competitive undertone. "This is someone at your level, Master."
"I don't have a level."
"Someone at your level," he repeated, ignoring me, "posting as if it's nothing. Casually. Like a diary." He stopped on #19, the levitation. "He floated in a garden at night because he couldn't sleep. Master. He floated because he couldn't sleep."
"That's what the caption says."
"Do you know what this means?"
"That he has insomnia?"
"That the power has become natural to him." Chouno was, I realized, moved. Genuinely. His expression had the quality of someone who has just encountered proof of something they'd believed in alone for a long time. "He's past the point of tricks. He's past the point of performance. It's just part of who he is. He does it because why wouldn't he." A pause. "That's what I'm working toward, Master. That's the goal."
I looked at him.
"Chouno."
"Yes?"
"This person is probably just very good at VFX."
"The shadows are consistent."
"Kaidou also says that."
"Because we're right." He straightened his cape. "I've decided to model my new material on this account. Tricks that look impossible. No explanations. Maximum impact." He put his phone away. "But I'll need something to differentiate myself. You always say: find your specific voice."
"I've never said that."
"You said 'your tricks are fine, Chouno.'"
"That's not-"
"Which I interpreted as: pursue your specific voice." He nodded, apparently satisfied with this logic. "I'm going to post videos too. Parallel to @ψ_tricks. Let the public compare." He tilted his chin upward. "Friendly competition between equals."
"He has one million followers."
"Future equals."
I looked at my door. My mother was certainly standing just behind it, listening, because she believes Chouno is good for me socially so I can't say anything that would make her angry.
"Good luck," I said.
"You don't sound enthusiastic."
"That's accurate."
He pointed at me. "When @ψ_tricks finally reveals himself, and you see the level he's at, you'll understand what I'm building toward." He turned to leave, then stopped, cape swirling with more drama than necessary. "Unless you already follow the account?"
"No."
"You should. For professional development."
He left.
I went back inside. My mother asked if I'd invited him to stay for dinner. I said he had somewhere to be. This was a lie. I do not know where Chouno goes after these visits. I prefer not to think about it.
That night I uploaded magic trick #22: me standing at a table, and then falling, between frames, a soda bottle in my place falling over. Caption: "my true identity."
Comment from @darkmaster_jetblackwings: "HE BECAME THE THING HE LOVES MOST. this is enlightenment."
Comment from Chouno's newly-created account, @TCG_official_great_chouno: "notable technique. I'm watching, ψ."
I stared at this last comment for a moment.
Then, for the first time since creating the account, I replied.
"noted :)"
He came back four weeks after the first visit.
This time I met him at the door before he could ring the bell, because I had heard him coming from three streets away. Chouno has a distinctive walk that produces a specific combination of cape-swish, heel-strike and internal monologue about his ex-wife... Nendou Midori that I have involuntarily memorized.
He looked satisfied. This was concerning.
"I found something," he said.
"Chouno."
"Your hands." He held up his phone. A paused frame from magic trick #11, the one where I'd caught a falling object telekinetically, and my right hand was visible at the edge of the shot. "I have a photo of your hands. From the show we did together, two years ago." He's speaking about the time he invited me to his show when he made it big, only for me to end up doing all the tricks myself due to unforeseen events. "Same hands, Master."
I looked at the side-by-side on his phone. They were, in fact, the same hands. He was correct.
I ran a quick calculation. "Say you're right," I said.
He straightened. "You're @ψ_tricks."
"Hypothetically."
"You're @ψ_tricks." He stared at me. His expression was doing something complicated: vindication, betrayal, excitement, competitive recalibration, all at once. "You've been this whole time, the videos, the birds-"
"Hypothetically."
"Master." He gestured broadly at everything. "You have three million followers."
"The account has three million followers."
"You became a soda."
"The person in the video-"
"Why didn't you tell me?"
I considered this question. The honest answer was: because telling you would have prompted exactly this conversation, which I was hoping to avoid indefinitely. The diplomatic answer was something else.
"It seemed private," I said.
"You have three million followers," he repeated, apparently unable to move past this.
"Privately public."
He was quiet for a moment. Processing. I watched his expression travel through several interpretations of the information and land, finally, on the one I had been counting on.
Because here is the thing about Chouno: he wants me to be a master illusionist. He has invested years(?) in this belief. It is the organizing principle of his self-image. He is not the apprentice to some random teenager; he is the apprentice to a legend. A secretive, low-profile genius who has been quietly building an internet following while declining to be recognized.
That story is, for Chouno, much more satisfying than the true one.
"You've been practicing this whole time," he said slowly. "The videos, they're a training log. You're developing techniques, and you didn't tell me because-" He stopped. "Because you didn't want to share them before they were perfect!"
"...Hm," I said.
"That's exactly the kind of thing you'd do."
"Hm."
He pulled himself up to full height, which is not very tall but which he makes the most of. "Teach me. I'm your apprentice. If you've been developing new methods-"
"I don't teach," I said.
"Master-"
"You released a dove at a shopping center last month. It ate someone's crepe and a security guard had to be involved."
"That was a learning experience," he said, with dignity. "And I've moved past it. My new material is cleaner. If you'd watch even one of my videos-"
"I've seen them," I said.
He froze. "You've... you watch my videos?"
I had, in fact, watched all of them. They were, as I had told Nendou when he'd asked about Chouno's online presence, "technically proficient for the resources available." I had not told Nendou this was a compliment.
"You're improving," I said.
Chouno Uryoku, self-declared Great Magician, turned an interesting color. He opened his mouth. Closed it. Then, with great composure: "...I know."
"The card work in #4 is clean."
"I- yes. I practiced that for two weeks."
"It shows."
A pause that had, in it, the quality of something being renegotiated.
"Collaborate with me," he said, quieter than before. "One video. We don't even have to say who either of us is. Just two people, two sets of techniques. See what happens."
I looked at him.
The honest answer was: no, categorically, because one video would become two and two would become a regular thing and a regular thing would eventually produce a situation I couldn't manage.
But there was something about the request: two people, two sets of techniques, see what happens, that was harder to dismiss than I expected. Chouno was, at forty percent accuracy, the only person who knew. He had the wrong forty percent, but still.
"No," I said.
He nodded. He'd expected this. "When you're ready." He put his phone away and turned to leave. "The comment I left on #22, the soda one, you replied."
"I did."
"In two years, that's the first time you've acknowledged me in public."
"It seemed warranted." Though to be fair, my online persona is a charade.
He looked back at me over his shoulder, cape settling around him. "I'm going to figure out the floating one," he said. "Don't think I'm not."
"Good luck," I said.
"Thank you, Master," he said, and left.
The account stands at 3.4 million followers.
The helmet is now something of a symbol: people have made fanart, which is a development I did not anticipate and have chosen not to examine too closely. The antennae have their own discourse. There is a thread, seventeen pages long, debating whether they are real. The current consensus is: probably not, but the commitment to the bit is admirable.
For as many times as I've told Yuuta that I'm not Cyborg Ciderman No. 2, I may as well be at this point because @ψ_tricks not only has unfathomable "powers" but can turn into a soda beverage. I may have inadvertently contributed to the sales of the Ciderman franchise.
Kaidou monitors the account with the intensity of someone who believes he is tracking a metaphysical event. He keeps me updated whether I engage or not. Last week he told me that magic trick #24: walking through a wall, filmed from both sides simultaneously, was, in his view, "the clearest evidence yet of a genuine esoteric practice," and that he had "updated his notes accordingly." I said "hm." He seemed satisfied.
Nendou watched the wall video nine times and then told me that if he ever got powers, he'd want that one specifically because it would help him get to the convenience store faster. I said I thought that was a reasonable priority. He agreed enthusiastically.
Chouno has posted eleven videos. They are improving. In #8, he does a coin trick so clean that I watched it twice and noticed, with something I declined to name, that he'd been practicing. I left a comment: "clean." He replied with seventeen exclamation marks and a voice message I did not open but which I'm told went on for some time.
He has not figured out the floating one.
He will not figure out the floating one.
But he will, I think, keep trying. And there's something in that; the persistence, the complete refusal to stop, that I find, in small doses, and against my better judgment:
Fine.
Not appealing. Not touching. Not anything that would require me to adjust my position on human company as a general category.
Just.
Fine.
Hidden Notes:
Yuuta, if you're reading this in ten years... yes, that is your helmet. I'm sorry. You can have it back. Please don't tell anyone.
Sincerely,
Cyborg Ciderman No. 2