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Tomura is no longer sure who he is. Some days–when the pain is particularly bad and his head is all fuzzy–he cannot determine whether Tomura exists at all. It is a strange feeling of being nothing and everything all at once, and it’s incapacitating. No longer able to distinguish between himself and his Sensei, Tomura spends most of his free time floating.
If it hurts too much to think–to exist as he is, then Tomura prefers not to exist at all. That’s not to say he doesn’t fight against All For One’s control–it is his body first and foremost, and he refuses to forget that–but there are times where he wishes more than anything else to have a brief reprieve from it all. Just… a moment where he knows he is wholly himself.
Those times are few and far to come, and as a war approaches on the horizon, Tomura wonders if they will soon cease to exist. He wonders if he is dying, in a way, and whatever is being reborn as he lounges on the sofa is an even more twisted version of what he already is. A monster of monsters. An abomination to humanity.
Tomura has changed–has been changing since the USJ incident, really. But it wasn’t until recently when he began to feel like he was losing parts of himself integral to his personality, too. Tomura feels numb most of the time. Empty–merely a husk of who he once was. Who he’s supposed to be. And it’s impossible to hide.
He knows the League has seen the change in him. He hears the way Dabi pauses before sarcastically drawling his name, almost as if it’s some sort of joke. He sees Toga watching him silently–hesitantly, from the corner of his eyes, and the way that Compress places a comforting hand on her shoulders when she frowns.
But it’s Spinner’s reaction that gets stuck in his head constantly. It’s Spinner, who Tomura cannot help but think obsessively of in his mind. His gaze, sharp in their intensity–a deep sadness hidden behind the pink of his eyes; a sadness that didn’t exist before he became nothing and everything. A kind of sadness that Tomura never once saw when he was just Tomura.
He sees it now, as Spinner sits stiffly on the sofa opposite of his, fidgeting awkwardly as Tomura catches him staring for the fifth time that night. There is no one else in the room with them, for once. It’s just them, like it used to be when they’d play video games on the console in the base at ungodly hours of the night.
It’s been a while since they’ve had a proper conversation. Despite practically living together, Spinner has been particularly avoidant of him lately–when it is possible for him to turn around and ignore Tomura, that is exactly what he does.
Tomura eyes him warily now, half-expecting him to get up and leave without uttering a single word. One half of his mind is apathetic to that idea. The other half wants to do something stupid, like ask him to stay.
“It’s been a while since it’s just been us, alone,” Tomura remarks instead, the words falling off his lips unnaturally. The tension in the air is thick–thicker than it should be. Once upon a time, the person Tomura felt closest to in the League was Spinner. Now, it feels like they’re doomed to continue drifting apart.
“...Is it?” Spinner murmurs hesitantly in reply.
Tomura cocks his head to the side. “Is it… What?”
Spinner looks at him, eyes shining with a whirlwind of emotions. “Is it just us, Shigaraki? Are we actually alone?”
At first–stupidly, naively–Tomura doesn’t understand. And perhaps that is because despite everything, he still feels the most whole when he is with Spinner, even though something has undoubtedly changed between them. Something that makes Tomura’s throat tight and Spinner swallow nervously, clenching his hands into fists where they rest on his lap.
“...I’m not him,” Tomura replies quietly, because even he is unsure. Sometimes, he will hear the words that leave his lips or look down at something he is doing and think no, that is not me. This is wrong. Other times, he doesn’t even notice. The scariest of all is when he doesn’t remember.
Tomura looks into Spinner’s eyes once more, and realises that Spinner does. Spinner notices each and every moment that he is not himself–he grieves over it, even. Just like Tomura. If things were different, maybe they’d still be playing video games together, taking down the enemy and laughing about it, having those late night conversations over trivial things that they both love.
Talking about the things they left unsaid. The actions they left unexplained–the tentative touches, the desire that flooded through Tomura’s veins whenever it happened.
Spinner regards him with caution in his eyes. “...You’re not the guy I agreed to follow.”
Tomura isn’t sure what hurts more–those words, or the fact that it still doesn’t rid him of that horrible, apathetic feeling inside of him. That it brings those thoughts that Spinner is nothing to him–that Tomura never cared about him to the forefront of his mind. It clashes with the part of him that wants to scream his objection from the rooftops.
It clashes with the part of him that aches for Spinner’s touch. The part of him that dreams of kissing him, and of holding him and learning what it means to love in a world that taught him nothing but how to hate.
“I’m not,” Tomura agrees instead, because it’s true. He’s not, and he hates Sensei for it. More than anything though, he hates himself for putting his trust in him in the first place. “...Not fully.”
“I wish you were still just Tomura,” Spinner chokes out, voice trembling. “Maybe I’d have finally gotten up the courage to tell you everything on my mind if he hadn’t taken you and–” his voice cracks. “I didn’t think you’d like me like that, because I’m a mutant. A monster. I didn’t want to ruin our friendship. You mean– meant– the world to me.”
Part of Tomura sees his tears and screams as his heart twinges: I was just as much of a monster as you, Shuichi.
But the part of him that’s new–the part of him that grows in power as each day passes, the one that he loathes, says nothing. But Shuichi does not tend to be overly emotional, so the fact that he’s crying now speaks volumes to how upset he must be.
“Did you?” Shuichi manages to grit out. “Did you– was it nothing?”
The tears that fall from his eyes are enough incentive for Tomura to fight back–to embrace those final shreds of his humanity, his personality, for him. Just for him. He thinks back to all those times they hung around each other, and all those times they argued and even joked around, and he realises then that this is it.
He’s never going to experience those feelings for Shuichi again. Because that part of him is buried, and Tomura doesn’t know if it’ll ever see the light of day again. Just like Shimura Tenko, Shigaraki Tomura is no more.
“It wasn’t nothing,” he whispers stiltedly–a little awkwardly in response. “I used to… like you, too.”
When the meaning of those words hit, Spinner’s face contorts. The knowledge that they could’ve been something more if only they hadn’t left their confessions left unsaid until now noticeably weighs heavy on his shoulders. It must feel like the world caving in on him, needlessly cruel.
“But not anymore,” Spinner says monotonously.
“...Not anymore,” he confirms.
He can’t reciprocate those feelings, because Shigaraki Tomura cared for Shuichi.
But Shigaraki Tomura is gone now, leaving whatever he is now in his wake.
He doesn’t bother with trying to stop Spinner from storming off.