“Minnie?”
“What?”

Max’s silhouette seemed to writhe as her arms twitched, hanging free from her backless T-shirt, which she only wore in their apartment. Blearily, Minnie rubbed at her eyes. “I said,” she repeated, irritably, “what?”

“I’ve been thinking. About Soujyuuro.”
“Gesundheit.”

A pincer darted forward and poked Minnie on the nose as the lights came on. “What’s his quirk?”

“He can read the minds of people whom he looks at with his third eye.”

“I don’t think that’s his actual quirk.” Minnie scooted back to give her more room as Max crossed the floor to sit, cross-legged, on her bed. “Like, do you think our match was…” She caught herself and started again, turning to stare at Minnie’s full-body mirror to refocus her thoughts. “It felt like they knew what we were going to do before we did. Everything that could go wrong did. I dunno about you, but I was seriously off-balance. I kept doubting myself, and you kept hesitating.”

Minnie shrugged, picking at her split ends. “Maybe we’re just not as good as we think we are,” she said bleakly.

“Or,” Max retorted, voice rising, “or, and bear with me here, maybe Soujyuuro was fucking with our heads.”

“Language,” Minnie interjected, but it was without heat.

“I told you, right?” Max continued. “I took one of Kyoda’s drugs to examine it. Just examine it. I wasn’t going to open it, but I did. It was like…” Her face scrunched up. “It was like I was moving on someone else’s orders. Like my will had been overridden.”

“Do you want to call up Mitsurugi and Son? To, like, corroborate?”

“Nah.” Max gave the matter some more thought. “Well, not yet.” The two of them leaned towards one another, their heads almost touching as they stared down at Max’s phone. “But, like, let’s brainstorm a bit…”

==========

“… and that’s why I think Soujyuuro’s quirk is way freakier than he’s letting on,” Max finished, red-faced but triumphant.

As her eyes moved from Edie’s blank face to Faith’s blanker face, she sighed and stepped out of the lift. There was only one door on this level, and an appendage snaked out from her back to rap against the wood smartly as she rolled her eyes. “Okay,” she grimaced. “Let’s try this again.”

“No,” Edie said. “No, like, I get it. But… what do you want to do?”

“He stayed back after the exercise,” Faith added. “I think he knows he did something wrong, and he wanted to own up to Majestic. Maybe there’s nothing to worry about! You’ll still get your marks.”

“That’s not the POINT,” Max groaned, throwing all of her arms in the air. “The point is that he was poking around in our heads without our consent! Would you want anyone, let alone Soujyuuro, walking around in YOUR heads? Through your memories, through your private thoughts and desires, through your… I dunno… most embarrassing moments?”

There was a long silence.

“You know,” Faith said thoughtfully, “that does sound pretty messed-up.”

“Now you get it,” Max scoffed, and turned to Minnie, who was ringing the doorbell. “What’s taking her?”

“Ten thousand yen says she invited Takeda over,” Edie said, eyes still fixed on her phone, and looked up with a smirk as the door opened. “Morning, H.”

Hailey yawned. “Morning,” she grumbled, withdrawing indoors as the four of them filed inside. Her penthouse was the same as it always was: an echoing living room with a sprawling kitchen to the left and an enormous patio up front, overlooking the Kyoto cityscape. “Hifumi’s coming with today,” she tossed over her shoulder, and flopped onto the couch.

“Max thinks Soujyuuro has a brainwashing quirk,” Minnie said, picking at the hem of her skirt as she trailed after Hailey. The rest of them slotted into their usual spots on the couch, positions almost unchanged from when they’d last been at Hailey’s two days ago.

“He what?”

“Not a brainwashing quirk,” Max corrected, “but he’s definitely not just a mind-reader. He was fucking with our heads during the exercise.”

Hailey sneered. “You’re just a sore loser.”

“No, Max and Minnie are usually more sensible than whatever the hell was going on during that match,” Faith countered, switching on her camera to examine her makeup. “You called Max a mouth-breathing retard for opening that flask.”

As Max turned, glaring, Hailey opened her mouth, then closed it. “Everyone does stupid shit sometimes,” she mumbled, looking away, and pulled the camera sitting on her dining table over with one crooked finger. “Anyway, we should go down. I sent my driver to pick Hifumi up. He should be reaching soon.”

“Why isn’t Samson coming along?” Edie asked slyly.

Minnie tossed her hair. “H is the one with the car. ‘Sides, she got together with Takeda first.” She shrugged. “He’ll come with next time.”

“Might as well make himself useful,” Faith said, as they trooped into the lift, Max going all the way to the back with Hailey as the two whispered. “Can’t he teleport? Imagine how much stuff we could buy this time.”

“We don’t actually need to physically carry our stuff,” Minnie pointed out. “They could just deliver it to our apartments. Takeda can’t use his quirk in public, either. Having a guy around would still be nice, though. Someone to hold the camera. Remember when H got reprimanded by a security guard for levitating her GoPro?” The two of them sniggered as they walked out into the foyer, past a panel of bowing, violet-neckerchiefed receptionists, and stopped on the steps. A pink convertible was waiting at the pick-up/drop-off point. Behind them, Hailey squinted as she stepped out into the sun, cool air billowing out from the foyer as the automatic doors slid home. “Huh,” she muttered. “Never saw him smiling before.”

The partition separating the front from the back rolled down as they piled into the vehicle, revealing Hailey’s boyfriend. “Hay, did you know your driver lives a few stations from my place?”
“What?”
“Okay, guess not. Anyway, his name’s Natsuo. Cool dude.” Hifumi blinked. “Oh, right. Where are we going, anyway?”
Hailey jerked her chin at the back of her driver’s head. “Daimaru. He knows.” A pause. “Are you really wearing that?”
“Why? What’s wrong with this?”
“I’ll tell you when we get there.” Hailey leaned forwards, and Max made a face as she gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “Now, roll up that partition for me, will you? We need to start the vlog.”

Hifumi complied. A few moments after the partition rolled up, Hailey tossed her camera in the air and left it hanging there as she buried her head in her hands. “God, are we really doing this?”
“Dedicating a vlog to giving your boyfriend a glow-up? I think it could be funny.”
“No. Well, yes. Wait, what?”
“Hey, I’m the one in charge of all the social media shit.”
“We should probably start the vlog soon before we hit Daimaru –”
“– thought we were going to discuss Soujyuuro? Are you sure Takeda can’t hear us?”

“Okay,” Minnie said, cutting through the din. “Let’s start the vlog. That’s the primary reason why we’re in this car. Let’s keep the agenda open, call it a surprise, whatever. One take?”

==========

It took three takes, and Hifumi had to wait outside until they were done. He was still talking to Hailey’s driver when they got out of the car, chattering as though they’d known one another for ages. “– brought her to his shop.”

“That’s impressive. I’ve been told to keep the vehicle utterly pristine, but old Hiroshi’s ramen joint is… whatever it is, pristine it most certainly is not. What –” 

Hailey cleared her throat. In the darkness of the carpark, her white sleeves glowed like the sun. “Okay, we’re done. Hifumi, come with.” She looked at her driver. “You’re free to, uh, do whatever you like.”

Hifumi leaned towards her as they trooped towards the entrance. “You didn’t know his name before today, did you?”
“Oh my god.”
“It’s an honest question!”
“If I’d known you were going to be this fucking anal about the help, I wouldn’t have asked you to come along.”
“These are real people, Hay.”

Hailey stopped and turned to him, the others keeping at a safe distance as Faith chattered into the camera, doing what she did best. “Look,” she said, softly. “I’m trying, okay? Like you said. I’m going to slip up from time to time, but I’m trying.”

Hifumi placed a warm hand on her cheekbone, and Hailey leaned into the touch. “That’s all I’m asking for.”

“And CUT,” Max said, a little too loudly, darting into the lift. “Okay, get in here, I’m not going to hold the doors open for more than fifteen seconds. Women’s or men’s?” She waggled her eyebrows at Hailey. “I know the second floor sells baby stuff.”

Hailey gave her the finger. Max cackled, then turned to Takeda. “Yo, Takeda. I’m going to give you a run-down on how to use the camera. Don’t – don’t drop it, okay?” She ignored his indignant response. “Okay, great. Anyway, you don’t have to record Hailey from the front, because you’ll have to keep walking backwards, and we can do that because we know this place, but you can’t. So, here’s how it works…”

==========

Minnie sifted critically through the camera roll. A five-second clip of Hailey using the lens as a mirror to fix her hair; a ten-second clip of Faith going on at length about something called an RFID tag; a seven-second clip of Edie running her hands covetously over a Louis Vuitton bag; eh, it was fine. She shrugged, handed it back to Faith, and glanced at Hailey.

Privately, she’d been a little worried about the possibility of Hailey going public about Hifumi, because that’d mean that she’d have to go public about Bobby. And while Hifumi was (in the privacy of her own mind) a relative nobody, Bobby’s father was Sun Man. And that still meant something. At least, she knew it’d mean something to her family. And while they all knew that Hailey’s family would be united in their disapproval, being open about her relationship with Bobby would be… complicated. And result in its own fair share of trouble –

“What about Imai?”

Edie turned to look dismissively over her shoulder at Hifumi from where she was standing with Max and Hailey at the counter as the latter riffled through her collection of credit cards. “What about him?” she said blandly.

Hifumi shrugged, the bags and bags of stuff dangling from his arms lifting with his shoulders. He’d been a little awkward when they’d first arrived, but he’d loosened up, and Minnie had even caught him chatting with a few of the sales staff. “I heard you mentioning his surname. It’s an uncommon surname, so… I don’t think I misheard.”

“Soujyuuro.” Faith giggled. “Gesundheit.”

Minnie raised her voice. “Yeah, I think we can, like, get some brunch?” She checked her phone. “We’ve got, like, three hours of footage, so… oh. More like lunch, I guess.”

Hifumi would not be deterred. When Hailey turned away from the counter, he fell into step beside her as they pulled to the back of the group, Max and Edie picking up the pace to chatter with Minnie and Faith. “I hear Imai’s name being mentioned,” he said quietly. “What’s going on?”

Hailey shrugged. “Max’s just a sore loser.” But she didn’t sound very sure of herself; and she didn’t sound dismissive. She’d always been a bad liar.

“Hay…”

“Okay, fine.” Hailey glanced away at the four girls in front of them, then looked back at Hifumi. “Max thinks Imai can read people’s minds at range, not just within line-of-sight. And she also thinks he can implant thoughts, not just read minds. She thinks that’s why their team lost so badly for the exercise.”

“You think he’s lying about his quirk.”

Hailey threw her hands up. “Hey, I don’t think that. Shit, I don’t know what to think. I’m just… giving her the benefit of the doubt. But Max doesn’t say this sort of stuff lightly. She takes quirks seriously, you know. And… I don’t know. Shouldn’t telepaths be more responsible? And if he’s lying about his quirk, like, what else could he be lying about?”

“Cat’s out of the bag,” Max said, a small, uneasy smile on her face, and Hifumi realized that the four girls had stopped walking, and were halfway into a restaurant. Minnie cocked her head at them, beckoning them inside. It was distinctly French-inspired, with foreign music drifting from the speakers and the Eiffel Tower gleaming from the wallpaper. A waitress led them to an unobtrusive but well-lit booth in the back. “I mean, yeah, we’ve sort of slowed down upload-wise,” Faith was saying, possibly in response to a remark by Edie, “but I think our followers, like, they get it? Not that we’re beholden to them or anything. But, like, school. It is what it is.”

“I’ll order for you,” Hailey said to Hifumi, and bulldozed on when he didn’t protest. Amidst the bustle of settling down into their booth and placing their order, it was a few minutes before the discussion could continue, but Max did her best to lay out the facts for him, even as the staff popped by from time to time to take their orders, drop off complimentary napkins, and fill their glasses with water.

When she was done, Hifumi folded his arms and only just seemed to realize that he was hemmed in, with Hailey to his left and only a wall to his right. “Imai’s a good guy,” he said, nonetheless. “I’ve sparred with him a few times. You were there too, Hay, weren’t you?”

“It’s possible to be a good guy,” Hailey paused to add scare-quotes, “while also being a creepy mind-raper.” She paused. “I’m not biased.”

“Hey,” Edie said, leaning across the table from where she was sitting opposite him, “can I switch seats with you? I’m sitting closest to Soujyuuro, and Hailey’ll have direct access to you. It’s a win-win.”

“His range is probably larger than that,” Max countered.

“I mean,” Hifumi said, somewhat out of his depth and acutely aware of how different these girls were from his own sisters, “I think – uh – that is – Bobby doesn’t mind him. They even went out last week! I set them up. Him, Imai, Chihiro, and Sandatsu.”

“Darn, right, I forgot about that,” Minnie exclaimed, smacking her forehead. “He even told me about it.”

“That’s Mitsurugi off the list,” Max said. “Could talk to Son if he’s ever down for fight club again.”

“The first rule of fight club is that you do not talk about fight club,” Faith sing-songed, sending the utensils marching down the table with a tap. Hifumi looked down at his napkin as his fork and knife plopped down onto its soft, white surface and wrapped themselves up in it like it was a blanket.

“What are you going to do about it, then?” he asked, instead.

“So you can run back to Soujyuuro and tell him all about it? No thanks.”

“Supposing you’re right,” Hifumi replied, steadily, “I’ll tell him to come clean about it. He stayed back after the exercise to talk to Majestic, so he might already be facing some consequences from the school for hiding the nature of his quirk. I’ll tell him to apologize, but I’m not going to stop being his friend. He’s trying.” He pointed at Hailey with a jerk of his thumb. “Like her.”

“Don’t drag me into this, babo.”

“I’m not – I mean, we’re not going to, like, stand up and accuse him,” Max said, twisting her lips. “God, that’d be so dramatic. Probably just have a word with Rosethorn or something. And try to figure out his range so we know exactly how far away we have to sit to avoid him rummaging through our heads.”

“I just want everyone in this class to get along,” Hifumi muttered.

Edie guffawed. “Good luck with that.”