Play Nice (Tomura Shigaraki x Reader)

Chapter 24: At Last

Door-slamming was not particularly common in the Shigaraki household. It was a fact that would be surprising to many, considering how much anger and resentment was harbored just under the surface of this "perfect" luxury, penthouse apartment. Nonetheless, it was a rarity. Perhaps due to the very fact that they were under this roof, that any weakness that led to such an outburst was kept so under wraps. The head of the household was too poised and the young successor too self-destructive to ever show the hand of their emotions like that.

So, it went without saying that when Kurogiri heard the front door slam open, hours after Tomura Shigaraki was due home, it gave him enough concern to pause his dish washing.

"Tomura Shigaraki?" he called out to the entrance.

A thunk responded. And then a twin thunk soon after. They were his shoes, hitting whatever wall or plank of floor was unlucky enough to be in Shigaraki's way, Kurogiri realized as he left the kitchen and saw the young ward storming through the living room in bare feet.

"Is everything alright?"

He didn't respond. Just continued to storm straight for the staircase.

Ignoring Kurogiri when he was pissed off was practically the norm for Shigaraki. That wasn't enough to worry his ever-attentive and unphased carer. It was the dazed sway and stumble in his step. The way that he walked straight into the decorative end table, clearly hitting his foot hard enough to hurt, but not slowing down. Only throwing the offending furniture aside hard enough to splinter. Violently, but wordlessly.

Now, that behavior worried Kurogiri.

"Tomura Shigaraki, what's wrong?"

The clear, unsettling mix of numbness and pain practically frothing at the surface, just waiting to bubble over and tear him apart.

"Tenko."

A forbidden word in this house, but one that was serious enough to finally stop Shigaraki in his tracks. But not for long. He tried to climb up the stairs just a second later, but it gave Kurogiri enough time to actually catch him by the shoulders and turn him around to look at him.

His expression was ragged, broken. Not unlike the way he looked when he first came into the Boss's care. But there was a burning hatred in his eyes as well, one much more raging and self-loathing than Kurogiri had ever seen. And that was saying something.

There were no polite words Kurogiri could use to describe this expression. Frankly, it worried the shit out of him.

"Tomura, son," Kurogiri breathed, letting himself show a sentimentality and worry that his boss would certainly fire him for if he knew of it, "What's happened?"

Everything about him — his body movement, tense posture, the fresh blood on his neck — it all conveyed a furiousness that Kurogiri was quite used to, a tantrum-like anger that was no cause for concern. But his face read something different. A blankness, a sickness, an exhaustion.

Devastation.

Tomura Shigaraki was breaking before his very eyes.

"Nothing," he lied through grit teeth.

Kurogiri reached into his vest pocket, pulling out a spare handkerchief he kept exactly for these purposes. He reached it forward, padding Shigaraki's neck gently, "This is not nothing, Tomura."

"It's nothing I can't handle," he spat, looking away and tilting his head back so that Kurogiri could get a better angle at his neck.

Now that had to be the greatest lie he'd ever heard the boy spout.