' the stars will guide you home '

━━━━━

Kaede cannot fathom why she's smiling.

Maybe it's because this is something familiar. Tomoe in front of her, clad in his grey sweatshirt and his hand on hers. The scent of street food wafting in the air and moments like this are what reminds her how bright Tomoe was. How he is the lantern she desperately holds onto in the path of darkness and solitude, the only source of warmth and light and all the beautiful things.

"I want a candied apple," she says, tugging on his sleeve, attempting to satiate the hunger coursing through the cavern of her stomach and Tomoe sighs, lowers his head a little, runs a hand through his hair and she counts twenty two seconds before a candied apple is in her clutches.

Kaede doesn't say anything and she bites into the apple, unconsciously playing with the fabric of her clothes. It's sweet, satisfactory, but she thinks she doesn't like it very much. "It's not that bad," she comments.

"It'll be better if you had showered before we came here," Tomoe comments glowering at her, his tone chastising and sharp but Kaede merely lets the words roll over her like tinges of dust and she devours what remained of the apple and sashayed past him, throwing the popsicle stick at him in the process.

She hears a brief, "Gross," from him before the sounds blur again. The hush of the evening, the soles of shoes, sandals and the occasional boots clanking against the cobblestone pavements with the little jilts of laughter followed by the brief sound of cloth, metal chimes and the distant lake that ripples ever so slightly and disturbs the reflection of constellations as verdant leaves fall on it.

"I want dango next," Kaede says, when Tomoe reaches her side, wincing all the while at her lack of good hygiene.

"Won't you at least wash your hands?" Tomoe asks and hands the money to the stall owner. He accepts two sticks of dango easily and holds it above her as he awaited her response.

Kaede shakes her head, before getting the two sticks, standing on the balls of her feet to add a little height, finishing two dango balls with one chomp. Crumbs litter the edges of her lips and after she swallows down the last dango from the first stick, she uses her tongue and licks it off.

Tomoe almost fainted.

"I hate you Kai," he grumbles, as he clutches his hands on his sides. And she suppresses the urge to laugh at his vex. He was easily ethereal even in his states of frustration, but Kaede can't find it in her to feel happiness. "You're so unhygienic that I want to vomit."

Kaede shrugs again, that smirk present on her face. A smirk that doesn't really match the angelic face of Akihisa Yuko, but the people will have to make do, present on her face. "Spare me some slack, Clean Freak," she says while she chews on another dango ball. "I lived more than two years as a fucking pauper."

"Pauper is overexaggerating," Tomoe points out. "And that second stick was supposed to be mine."

"You can have it." She hands him the stick which only contains two dango. Originally, there are three dango balls on each stick, but Kaede is in the midst of chewing one.

"After you've splayed your saliva all over it?" His nose wrinkles in disgust. And even with a disgusted face, Tomoe easily looks beautiful. And what Kaede would do to have such a face. It was useless for most parts because Tomoe was anything but amiable around other people, but with the right lies and hollow promises, she'd be able to bend even the most obstinate people to her whims. "No thank you."

Wait. She did. Broke them even. Send their glass hearts splintering into tiny crystalline fragments that look like lucent stars on a cloudless summertime sky.

He puts his hands on his pockets again. "Besides," Tomoe says. "You had a part time job which was supposed to support you."

"Part time jobs," Kaede corrects, chewing on another dango ball. She thinks she'll have yakisoba next or maybe dashimaki. "With a fucking s. I swear it was so tiresome. That barely managed to support me. You should have used a body belonging to some rich kid. A fucking elite with a powerful quirk that didn't have stupid repercussions. I almost died from progressive emphysema thirty two times."

"Gust is a powerful quirk," Tomoe says as they turn on a corner. She almost laughs at how he manages to contain the shudder that threatens to run through his spine. Sweaty people bumping into Tomoe is something he can never be fond of. It's a miracle he hasn't gripped her shoulder already and drag her back to the base, all the while ranting about the importance of personal space. Or maybe he's already contemplating the idea, just unable to bear the thought of even holding Kaede's filthy clothes. "And Akihisa Yuko's status was already ambiguous as it was. She was ideal. Nobody suspected you for years."

"Whatever," Kaede says, heading to another stall. Something with a lot of meat and spices and smoke which effortlessly arouses her appetite. "I want three sticks of yakitori. This guy pays."

"Your boyfriend, miss?"

Kaede smiles at the stall owner. "None of your business."

"I apologize for the uncouth behavior she's displaying," Tomoe tells the stall owner and he flashes one of his charismatic smiles and Kaede knows that it's not meant for her, but damn she's affected too. "She's as uncivilized as an animal."

"O-Oh..." the stall owner says and blushes. "It's not that big of a deal. It's okay, young man."

Tomoe bows his head in respect. Something that Kaede will never do in a million years. "Thank you."

They receive the yakitori two minutes and three seconds later and Kaede is quick to take a bite. She relishes in the flavor and a soft mewl escapes her mouth at the ecstasy the food brought. Meat was definitely the best.

"That person was nice," Tomoe comments after he chews on a piece of yakitori. They split the sticks, with Kaede having two and Tomoe, the remaining one.

"Between his blatant pedophilia and poking his nose in other people's businesses, I guess I must have failed to notice that," Kaede says.

"You always think the worst of people," he says softly and tosses the stick directly into one of those garbage bins, into the one labeled biodegradable.

Kaede doesn't respond. It is true afterall and there is no point in affirming or refuting the statement. She's not Tomoe. Good Tomoe who always sees a silver lining in everything. Who sees the good in people and maybe Kaede saw it too in her once upon a time friends, but now, she forcefully shoves it into the back of her mind. People are the worst and she can't be bothered by searching for the good in them.

"Let's get okonomiyaki," Kaede suggests after she throws the stick in the garbage.

"I'm not feeling it," Tomoe responds, still looking like a model as he leans against one of the streetlamps and tucks his hands in his pockets. Earbuds are dangling on his shoulder and his snow white hair remains stylishly messy. Kaede wants to run her fingers across it, but Tomoe will probably throw her across the street. "I'm craving apples."

"Suit yourself," Kaede says, shrugs her shoulders. "I'm going back to the base after so I guess I'll see you there."

"Yeah," he says, straightens his frame. "And do take a shower."

Kaede grins, a non-Kaede grin that suits the face she has on and she inches closer to Tomoe, wiggles her slightly slimy fingers and runs it across his hair. "Now you're gross too."

"Kai."

Kaede sticks a tongue out at him and runs. Then she becomes slower, and slower until she's just jogging, until she's just walking, the soles of her shoes scratching on the concrete ground. Kaede looks down and she closes her eyes for one two three seconds, clenches her fist. After her return, only a day passed ( twenty four hours and seven hours to be exact ) before Tomoe strolled into her room and asked her if she wanted to leave. And they did, they occupied the busy streets of Kyoto and traipsed through food stalls. Living like children they never had a chance to become. And she wants to talk to Tomoe about his condition, and she knows Tomoe wants to talk to her about her condition, but their lips remain mum about both matters.

They chose to live in a facade today.

Fast forward five hours, 300 minutes, 18,000 seconds and that facade breaks. The thing about facades is when you break out of them, you only feel hollowness spilling on your tongue. Lacing every taste bud with a numb that reminds you of anesthesia and the pain after disappointment.

"Here you two are," a voice says and she sees All For One present at the corner, watching Tomura Shigaraki's actions through monitors. He looked impressed and when his other protégés arrived, he seemed ridiculously happy.

Kaede and Tomoe are back from their early excursion clad in different clothes (Kaede fresh out of the shower) and their usual placid expressions overtaking their faces.

"Finally, you are complete," All For One says and regards Kaede with a curt nod. "Great job, dear. The files have been handled meticulously. They will be of great use to Tomura. And the espionage was fantastic, might I add."

Kaede doesn't respond. Instead, she's led to the other side of the laboratory, asked to lie on the bed and next to it is a cryogenic chamber. Twelve tubes she counted in total and her heartbeats are rising in preparation to the denouement of her sojourn in this body.

Five six seven eight thunderous heartbeats and fingers clutched the hem of her shirt tightly. Toyed with the ravels she created and she's thankful for the smell of detergent. Kaede can no longer smell that scent. Of dirt and flames and ice and explosions and beams and forest greens. Of the heartache that trailed the ground she walked on.

"We used a special type of a preservation quirk to preserve your body, but at the same time, let your body grow, fed it using the tube and added medication so it's healthy," the doctor said and the tone he used made Kaede raise an eyebrow.

"Are you asking for a compliment?" she asked, counting one to one hundred in her mind, her glare sharp and steady. "It's your job, so stop asking."

All For One chuckled and turned to the doctor. "You did wonderfully doctor," he said and Kaede resisted the urge to roll her eyes again. Instead, she lied back on the bed and met Tomoe's eyes. The room was dark so there really wasn't much in it save for the cyrogenic chambers or whatever those things were called. Kaede really doesn't care about them.

"It won't hurt much," he said.

"Stop making promises," she replied, gave him a sad smile soon after. For a moment there, it was as if there were only the two of them in the world and it gave a much needed clarity to the chaos that is in her mind. Kaede was chaotic. In both senses and it was frightening.

His hand on hers, warm and full of comfort and promises of solace. Eyes crimson and molding and molding and she blinks because it reminds her of something else, of another boy and precious, perceptive Tomoe notices because why wouldn't he? Why would he not notice the cornflower blue eyes of a girl who bears the soul of his Kai looking at him as if he's a different person? Looking that look with different curves and angles and his grip on her hand tightens, as if she's leaving and he doesn't want to let her go.

One warm hand is placed over his. And one two three seconds of intense silence then she feels that pull again, something severing the things that tethered her to this body and in one moment she's looking at crimson eyes and the next, there's a thick curve of glass in front of her and water is seeping through her body.

Three pounds on the glass was what it took for it to shatter under the pressure and she hauls herself to a sitting position. Seventeen seconds and the world is tilting on its axis and the room is trembling, no, her vision is and she closes her eyes, falls back to the chamber.

━×━

Kaede opens her eyes and she's in the infirmary, lying on her bed, the plasma TV in front of her displaying the furry principal of U.A. giving a statement. There's something soft pressing on her forehead and she remembers fainting on the broken glass, probably scratching herself in the process hence the band-aid and gauze pad.

"It's strange," Tomoe tells her, his expression soft, propped on one of the monoblock chairs right of her bed. He is watching the television with half lidded, distrustful eyes. "Those eyes. They're definitely up to something."

"You think that everything out of your expectations is strange," she answers, tries to sit, but she can't. Moving in this body feels very strange. "Do I only get to speak today?"

He shakes his head, smiles that sad smile. So Tomoe. Powerful but fragile. Breakblade. "You can walk and fight today, but the doctor insisted that we... paralyze you. It's fading though. You've begun talking, so it won't take a couple of hours before you regain other senses again. You're unstable," the smile turned to amused, bright. "You've always been, but you weren't confused as to what side you were in. It's just procedure though, so don't try to kill someone the next second you can move."

"I won't make any promises," then she stopped and turned to him upon a sliver of realization. "You said procedure. Did you- did they paralyze you too? Everytime you hijacked?" Kaede was aware that it was a sensitive piece of information, but petty or not, it felt good to see him suffer after she splintered during the process.

"Yeah, yeah they did," he said. "It was better though. They wanted to kill me- the people I hijacked. They wanted to take revenge so when they- I see my face, I try to kill myself." He pulls down his collar, reveals a scar, red like a rope had been twisted there and she presses a palm to her lips in horror.

"First time I used it in a mission," she said. "First time he almost succeeded. His name was Omar. A transfer student from West Asia. I killed his entire family, because they were harboring knowledge in relation to our bases, our identities."

"I wouldn't feel guilty," she said, looked him straight in the eye.

"We're different," he said.

Pale lips quirked upwards in a smile, full of complex emotions. "We're the same, Tomoe. You and I, we are meant to fight."

"And be alone," Tomoe added and gave her a melancholic smile.

Fingers curled in the aquamarine bedsheets. Her body is regaining senses and first it's just one finger, then two three four five and the other palm with its crisscrossed red lines.

She can feel her toes again, they're curling at the edge of the bed in her behest. And she can feel them digging into the foam and heartbeats rising at the thrill of the movements. Control over her body.

"We're not alone Tomoe," Kaede whispered and she may have lost the past version of her, because there was no way in hell, viper Mizuki Kaede would smile so genuinely, so daintily. "We have each other."

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