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> written for the Nightscape Zine; Pre-Canon.
The thing about the black dog was that it didn't have to be real to feel real. Of course, if you asked Megumi, he'd argue that they were real. And they were, in the loosest sense of the word, because shikigami were real and fine-tuned to their user, an embodiment of their cursed energy manifested into something more tangible, and users, people—they were real. Still, Satoru knew Megumi knew what he was referring to when he mentioned the difference.
Megumi wasn't around right now, and Satoru was alone in the night, hence the dog. Satoru was strong and he'd been doing this shaman schtick longer than Megumi's been alive, so he caught on, even from the start, that there had been something following him every night.
He didn't worry because it was just a dog and he was the strongest. It was ironic because he knew that the dog followed him for those very reasons—because of concern, and because he was the strongest.
It didn't really make much sense to Satoru, but he didn't question it. How could he, when there was no one else to ask?
The dog's presence became more evident with the first fall of snow. Just to be difficult, Satoru went down the road covered in blanketed frost rather than the clearer path. His Infinity meant he could defy gravity if he really wanted to, but he purposely pushed through the thickness and let the cold seep into his pants and skin. He mused at how hard he tried to make his life sometimes, simply because he couldn't handle how easy it all was. If only things being easy meant things would be done quicker, and if only things being easy meant he could do it all the time.
The tragedy of being the strongest was that he was the strongest alone though, and being alone contradicted the idea of being strongest—the ability to do anything—because even if he could do anything, he couldn't do everything.
The dog had a mass to it that let it slog through the snow too. His Six Eyes let him see how its paws pressed against the thick slush and left prints behind, the soft crunch of a weight pressing down the water vapor and ice crystals. The movement was easy and thoughtless; the dog made trotting steps that made its presence loud even when it was supposed to be cautious due to its small stature. This had been going on for hours already, and Satoru had just finished exorcising a 1st-grade curse that was terrorizing a small town. They were in the Yamanashi Prefecture, which wasn't that far from Tokyo, but Satoru still found it impressive how the dog was able to stay tangible for this long and despite this distance. If he was in Hokkaido, the shikigami wouldn't have lasted past an hour.
As it was, it was there from the moment Satoru stepped off the train. It watched Satoru find the curse he was instructed to exorcise, the fight that ensued, and now, it remained in the aftermath. It was late and Satoru couldn’t catch the last train, so he had to wait until morning. He wondered if the dog would stay until he saw its owner again.
It had been two months since this first began, every night Satoru was alone on a mission, and the answer wasn't so much of a yes or no so much as it was dependent on how long Megumi could keep it going. If Satoru was feeling proactive and playful, he’d teleport away and leave the dog lost, unable to find any method of catching up. On the rare occasions that he wasn’t in a good mood, he’d do it too.
Tonight, he felt none of those. This winter season was nothing unfamiliar to him, but it was the first he was spending alone.
His feet took him to a corner store, the only shop still open along the block he stumbled onto after escaping the snow trail. The employee behind the counter glanced at him for a brief second before turning back to the cash box, counting today’s earnings as if he’d already lost interest in Satoru. He’d usually bristle at the lack of attention, but there was a tinge of exhaustion and a large bout of laziness that stopped him from making a comment about it, and he instead made his way to the aisles, searching for something to buy.
He wanted candy, but at the last minute, he grabbed a packet of what looked like beef jerky for animals.
The dog hid by the shadows of the corner store. Satoru didn’t spare a second glance, knowing it was there and that it would follow him everywhere he went, as far as it could. There was likely something poetic to be said about the boundless leaps this dog would take for him, even if it provided no actual assistance. It might have said something about Megumi too, the wielder—protective but not quite. Not yet.
Satoru didn’t know if he wanted it anyway; the idea of someone younger—weaker than him, trying to protect him curved his mouth downwards, and he thought of long black hair and a sly smile that was chained to his memory alone.
There was a park in front of the corner store. Satoru found an empty bench and brushed the slush away out of principle more than necessity in order for him to sit. As if in reminder, the flecks of snow falling from the sky landed on the back of his palm, unable to touch his skin.
The dog was now hiding behind a tree, watching as Satoru ripped the plastic bag of the candies open to pop a small one in. When their eyes met, pseudo-creature and pseudo-human, Satoru grinned, beckoning it to come closer.
It did, two long pauses later. Satoru tossed the beef jerky to it, too impatient to wait for it to come close to him. The shikigami took the form of a dog and nothing more complicated than that, but when Satoru really looked at the creature, he saw Megumi’s eyes in them. Until now, Satoru didn’t understand the specific mechanics behind the technique, whether Megumi was hyper-aware of everything the dog interacted with at every given moment, or if he’d only know in the aftermath, after the shikigami would fade.
“Don’t suppose you’d tell me, right?” Satoru asked the dog as it inched closer to him, curious for more treats.
There was only silence. Satoru picked up another piece and held it out. When the dog approached him, it brushed its nose against Satoru’s palm before grasping the meat with its teeth. Its snout was damp from the weather and its teeth were layered with saliva, and the details made Satoru feel strange. Before he realized it, his hand twisted, reaching out to comb through the fur of the shikigami. It was rough and thick and the feeling of strangeness persisted, because it was all too real.
The dog was receptive to his touch, even more so when Satoru’s hand creeped to scratch the back of its ear. Its tail began to wag slightly, clearly keen on the attention, and its beady black eyes blinked at him. Megumi’s reflection reflected back even if he wasn’t actually here.
“I don’t get why you’re here, you know,” Satoru began. “Is it because Megumi doesn’t trust me, or is it because he’s worried about me?”
The shikigami didn’t answer, but the eyes that stared at Satoru still gleamed with the memory of its user, tiny and pitiful and headstrong all at once.
“If he was here, I think he’d know what he’d say to me if I told him that.”
Megumi was snarky and feisty, right from the moment they met. Two months was a notable stretch of time but not enough to melt down any frost of tension and hesitation between people who intimately know what it’s like to be left behind. The reality of the situation though was that the reasons differed, the people were not the same, and Satoru was an adult while Megumi was a child.
If he was here, he would admit to neither. If he didn’t trust Satoru, then there was no way he would admit the truth, and if he was actually worried about Satoru, nothing would change, because that would mean confessing to a weakness he wasn’t even ready to acknowledge himself. And Megumi would never allow himself the chance to be weak. The shikigami’s existence and its activity for the past two months was a testament of that—that the kid was strong and determined to get stronger.
But the shikigami was disarming in this form, and even if Satoru had no personal love for dogs, the way it looked at him was something that could almost be mistaken as warmth, as faith, as loyalty—all things that Megumi did not have for Satoru.
Satoru wondered how much of that would change if Megumi had been the one here instead. If Satoru thought to show an ounce of clear affection, notable in offering food, ruffling hair, speaking gently in any single instance they’ve interacted. It only hit him now that he hadn’t, and though a few gestures here and there didn’t always mean as much as people claimed and Megumi wasn’t raised naively enough to easily buy into it, Satoru couldn’t help but wonder if it would at least help. Maybe the ice would melt, even by a little. It took time for things to thaw, took even more for them to warm up. The things that mattered most didn’t have to be dealt with immediately.
No one had ever given Satoru a lesson on parenting. He didn’t even know anyone who was good with kids. Suguru, maybe, and he ran off with two of them too, but it wasn’t like Satoru could ask him, and he didn’t want to think about him anyway.
“Tsumiki’s much easier than you,” Satoru murmured. “But it’s not her I need, it’s you.”
His response was the howling of the wind, but the dog remained quiet. It merely blinked at Satoru before pulling its head back to lick his fingers, as if asking for another treat. Satoru offered it to the shikigami without any fanfare, and wondered, as its teeth lightly scraped his skin, why he hadn’t thought to use Infinity to repel its touch when the wetness wasn’t even pleasant.
But he knew the answer, even without saying a word. He couldn’t get the image of Megumi out of his mind even if the shikigami wasn’t looking at him with its beady dog eyes. Things like these took small steps, done in the most subtle of gestures, so every little act mattered, every movement was noticed. And it was important to Satoru, for Megumi to notice, if his control over his ability was that refined, because—
“And I,” Satoru paused, contemplating on the fragility of the statement, because he was the strongest and was never the best at handling things with such precise, careful care. “I guess I need you.”
There was still no response, though Satoru didn’t know why he expected anything else. He felt silly too, anticipating something in the first place. But the shikigami nudged his head against Satoru’s hand once more, different from the last time, requesting for something else. When Satoru ran his hand through its hair again and then stayed put, it didn’t hesitate to nuzzle into his touch.
Something simmered in Satoru, a kind of warmth that could melt even the coldest things. He couldn’t tell if what he had was real company or the illusion of one, because the shikigami didn’t have to be real to feel real, but he also realized that it didn’t matter.
It didn’t, because he didn’t feel so alone anymore.
==
Nothing changed the next day, when the shikigami dispersed by morning and Satoru only stumbled onto the Fushiguro abode later that night. He brought a souvenir, a habit he long quit but considered resuming because it wasn’t as meaningless as he thought it’d be. Megumi was unimpressed even if Tsumiki was grateful, but when Satoru remarked that Megumi was growing stronger, his cheeks flushed pink.
“You haven’t even seen anything yet,” Megumi pointed out.
Satoru smiled. Trying to fool one another was pointless. He already interacted with Megumi’s shikigami and Megumi knew Satoru was many things, but foolish wasn’t one of them. Still, Satoru tried to indulge him anyway. “Then why don’t you show me?” That was the real reason as to why he visited, after all.
An hour later, they found themselves in the backyard despite the heaping piles of snow that Tsumuki said she’d clear out tomorrow. When Megumi summoned his shikigami, there was not one, but two dogs instead—one black and one white. The black one didn’t blink twice at Satoru, as if it had no recollection of their time spent together the night before, but Satoru didn’t care, much more focused on how the only sign of exhaustion on Megumi from pulling the move was a deep, measured exhale.
“You have a new one.”
“Not that new,” said Megumi. “I had him yesterday.”
“For how long?”
Megumi shifted. “The whole night.”
Satoru hummed. Megumi sideglanced him, body coiled in wariness, but Satoru was only thinking about what would happen if he reached out his hand and coaxed the dogs to approach him, wondering if one dog would recognize his touch and if the other would come to appreciate it, the way he openly lowered his guard and tried to show that he cared.
In the end, he didn’t do that. Instead, his hand came to rest on Megumi’s head. The gesture startled Megumi, but Satoru didn’t tease him for his reaction. All he said was, “You’re just what I need, kid.”
Megumi only stared at him, as if he didn’t plan on responding. This time, Satoru expected nothing. But he ruffled the kid’s hair slightly and Megumi leaned into his touch, an unconscious response. When Satoru looked down at him, he saw the dog and its eyes and how they reflected its owner, the very boy standing beside him.
The ice began to thaw. Something warm began to bloom, and there was no need to think twice about those distinctions between being real and feeling real, because it just was.