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Oboro’s mother liked to sew. He had always been fascinated by the process, sitting in her arms to watch her skilled hands feed fabric through her machine or pull the stitches through by hand. Most of his favorite clothes were made by her.
She liked to save old fabrics, too, old shirts that Oboro couldn’t fit into anymore, blankets that had been used in his nursery when he was smaller. She saved up every bit of scrap to make it into something new.
Like a blanket. It was one of her favorite projects to do, making patchwork blankets out of Oboro’s old clothes. Sometimes she kept them for herself— like the one she made out of his baby onsies and bibs— but as Oboro got older she started to give them back to him, a collage of his life up to that point. They really were the coolest things he owned.
He’d picked up a small amount of sewing knowledge from her, little tips and tricks, but his hands never were as skilled as hers. That didn’t stop him from trying to make his own clothes or make little gifts for his friends. He designed and made the patch on the jacket of his hero costume himself— with his mother’s help. Oboro even made Hizashi cry when he brought his friend’s hero logo to life as well.
His friends and classmates were always shocked when they found out he liked to sew. He didn’t know why; it was just something he could do. He never thought much of it.
Oboro never knew that his mother took the patchwork blanket made from his shirts off his bed after he died. She couldn’t bear to part with it, keeping him as close to herself as she could. It was one of the only tangible things she had left of him.
Shigaraki Tomura has little care for material things, Kurogiri has come to understand. There’s a certain apathy that the eight-year-old boy carries with him when it comes to his own belongings. Why would he care, when Sensei replaces anything that the child decays the very next day?
“Ugh,” the young boy groans as he struggles to get a simple white t-shirt over his head.
“Are you sure that you do not require my help?” Kurogiri asks.
He glares up at Kurogiri, those big round eyes of his all fury and fire. “I can put on my clothes by myself. I’m not a baby.”
“I am aware of that.”
“Tch!” he clicks his teeth.
“You know, this process would be easier if you were to wear your gloves—”
“I don’t need them!” he insists, “I can do it! I won’t decay anything!”
Kurogiri pulls away with his hands held out at his sides. “As you wish,” he replies, enamored with the child’s flair for the dramatic. It seems he always has to do things the hard way.
As he somehow manages to get both his head and his arm through the same hole, Shigaraki Tomura growls in frustration like a distressed kitten that has tied itself up in a blanket. “Stupid shirt! Stupid—!”
With one slip of his pinky finger as he tries to free himself, the whole shirt crumbles to dust around him.
“—Augh!” Tomura throws a fit, destroying more things as he grabs whatever his little hands can reach and throws them around the room. “Stupid hands! Stupid quirk! Stupid shirt!”
Letting the child work out his frustration, Kurogiri sighs as he gets to work cleaning up the mess. Some pieces of the shirt have survived; they are ashen at the edges but otherwise they are perfectly fine fabric scraps.
When Shigaraki Tomura turns away to grab a black shirt out of his wardrobe, something possesses Kurogiri to safely stow the scraps away in his pocket before the child can see.
“Sewing materials?” Sensei hums with amusement in his otherwise empty gaze. With his cheeks and nose flushed a rather bright shade of red, he leans to one side and takes a sip of the red wine that Kurogiri had poured him only moments before— his seventh glass, to be precise— as he sits at the bar that he graciously allows Kurogiri to run. “ ‘S that what you said?” He pulls himself back upright.
“Yes,” Kurogiri replies, trying to hold back his anxiousness about asking Sensei for anything at all. Sensei is usually more agreeable to suggestion when he has partaken in his favorite vice but it is not a guarantee.
Sensei barks out a laugh as Kurogiri turns away to stow the bottle back in its place under the counter. “What d’you need sewing materials for?”
“To mend things.”
“Mend things.” Sensei snorts into his glass, watching Kurogiri over the rim. “What d’you possibly want to mend when I could jus’ buy a replacement? You can’t be asking for Shigaraki Tomura’s sake. He’s a walking disaster.”
Kurogiri catches his eye twitching in his reflection on the glass bottles at his master’s wording regarding the child. Hopefully Sensei is too befuddled to have noticed. “It is not.”
Drops of wine splash out onto the perfectly polished counter as Sensei roughly sets down the glass. His fingers tap, tap, tap against its base as he observes Kurogiri with an obvious scrutiny behind a tight smile. “You know better than to ask me for pointless things, Kurogiri,” he says finally. He does not say so out loud, but they both know that ‘pointless things’ includes anything that Kurogiri simply wants instead of needs.
“I wish to have the materials to mend my vest readily available at a moment’s notice,” he replies.
Listing to one side of his stool again, Sensei mumbles, “…Hav’a tailor for that.”
“Yes,” Kurogiri inclines his head, “But sometimes they are unavailable when disaster strikes. There have been incidents when an enemy or one of your compatriots has done damage to the uniform you gifted me and I was unable to do anything about it. I do not wish to reflect badly on you by being unable to keep myself put-together at all times.”
The wineglass slides forward as Sensei leans across the counter until he’s mere centimeters away from Kurogiri’s face. The alcohol on his breath reeks of sour fruit.
Kurogiri does not dare to twitch his fog as he holds his master’s intense gaze.
“Liar,” Sensei says.
Kurogiri gulps.
Reaching out to clumsily try to fix the knot of Kurogiri’s tie— and splashing some red droplets onto his vest in the process— Sensei says, “Your audacity amuses me, Kurogiri.” He pulls back to put space between them once more. “You can have your sewing supplies.”
With a deep bow of relief, Kurogiri replies, “Thank you for your kindness, Sens—”
“Don’t let whatever you’re up to interfere with your duties,” the sharp warning feels like a needle in Kurogiri’s nerves. “Shigaraki Tomura always comes first.”
With trembling hands glued to his sides in perfect posture, Kurogiri closes his eyes in submission. “Yes, Sensei.”
Kurogiri does not know what the end result will be when he stitches the first few precious scraps of material together by hand. Sensei would never waste money on getting Kurogiri a sewing machine, but he was able to acquire some needles and thread, and that is enough. Unpracticed hands quickly grow sore as the needle slips between the fabrics to bind them together. Still, the process comes easier to him than he expects.
It starts out small. Those first few uneven pieces spiral out from the center, their edges not quite in alignment since Shigaraki Tomura’s decay travels in cracking fractures instead of forming straight lines. But Kurogiri feels that imperfection is part of its charm.
He manages to add at least one new panel every few weeks or so as Shigaraki Tomura grows out of his things, leaving a trail of decay behind him. It becomes composed of so many different materials; panels from his shirts and shorts, the ears and legs of stuffed animals laid flat, old pillowcases, hoodies that ceased to fit, blankets too small for his new bed, and parts of the old cover for Shigaraki Tomura’s gaming chair.
The cloth fragments decrease in size as they spiral out towards the edges. As Shigaraki Tomura has aged, the strength of his quirk has grown with him; by the time he enters his teens he rarely leaves behind any pieces for Kurogiri to collect.
But that is fine. Over the years Kurogiri has transformed the scraps into an odd sort of circular patchwork quilt. It is ugly, he cannot deny, with no regard for weave nor weft. But what it represents is infinitely more important than the way it looks.
As Kurogiri ties the last knot in the thread to complete it, a strange feeling washes over him. It’s a certain kind of sadness laced with undeniable contentment.
Kurogiri’s charge is no longer a child. But he will always be Kurogiri’s.
He folds up the quilt and puts it neatly into a box before tucking it away inside his wardrobe. It is somewhere that no one but Kurogiri ever looks, after all. The precious project shall be safe there.
Tomura didn’t want to move. Not only will he be living far away from Sensei— happy fourteenth birthday to Tomura, All Might smashed Sensei’s face in and now the Doctor has to piece him back together again— but they’re downsizing, too. Who wants to move into a tiny apartment after having a whole skyscraper to themself? But nooo, Kurogiri said they’re doing this for Tomura’s safety, to keep him as far out of reach of their enemies’ eyes as possible.
It still fucking sucks.
And Kurogiri’s not even here! He’s been warping around like it was his head that got cut off, unable to keep still for more than a few seconds as he works to help the Doctor clean up the whole damn disaster. He keeps leaving Tomura alone to set up the new apartment all by himself. How is Tomura supposed to do that?
Kurogiri hasn’t even gotten the wifi hooked up yet. Jerk. How’s Tomura supposed to entertain himself without access to any of his favorite games?
Itch itch, scratch scratch, Tomura’s boredom is driving him nuts. Maybe he’ll decay the couch. That’ll show Kurogiri. It’s a stupid ugly couch anyway. Maybe if he does destroy it then Kurogiri will find them a better one.
But no, Kurogiri said something about money being tight now that Sensei has temporarily left the party. Kurogiri gets an automated allowance from Sensei every month, but he can’t get any more than that in an emergency because he doesn’t have access to Sensei’s accounts.
Kurogiri’s looked so exhausted lately as it is. Tomura won’t cause too much trouble. He doesn’t… he doesn’t want to be just another problem for Kurogiri to have to deal with when he finally gets a break.
Whenever he finally comes back to their new apartment.
But what is Tomura supposed to do until Kurogiri does come back? The piles of boxes Kurogiri left in Tomura’s room sat unopened where he left them. Decorating his new— again, did he mention smaller?— room, doesn’t sound fun at all. He can’t even begin to guess which box has his dart board in it, or his playing cards, or—!
Ugh.
The barely ajar door to Kurogiri’s room taunts him from across the hall.
Tomura really shouldn’t go inside it when Kurogiri’s not here.
But then again. It’s not like Kurogiri can stop him.
Tomura can’t be blamed for opening the door to take a peek inside. It’s Kurogiri’s fault for leaving Tomura alone with nothing to entertain himself.
But the unfortunate reality is that Kurogiri’s room is mind-numbingly uninteresting as the rest of the stupid apartment. He’s got his bed all set up— and perfectly made like it hasn’t been slept in since they moved. It probably hasn’t. He’s got two or three boxes tucked into an otherwise empty corner but it’s nowhere near the size of the towering piles in Tomura’s room.
Maybe there’ll be something cool in the wardrobe?
Nah, probably not. Kurogiri’s the most boring guy Tomura knows. It probably just has Kurogiri’s collection of identical white dress shirts inside. But it wouldn’t hurt to look, right?
Checking over his shoulder to make sure that Kurogiri hasn’t come back yet, Tomura opens the wardrobe and finds…! Exactly what he expected. A bunch of stupid shirts.
But there are two boxes tucked into the back corner, too. Maybe Kurogiri’s hiding something interesting from him after all. Pulling out the bigger of the two and setting it on the floor, Tomura sits down to take off the lid of his discovery.
It’s… a blanket?
“Tch,” Tomura clicks his teeth. It’s just some random quilt that Kurogiri must have stored away for winter. Tomura’d never seen it before, though. Maybe Kurogiri just bought it?
As he pulls it out and lets it fall out of its folds, something about it just feels… strange. It’s not like he spends a lot of time staring at blankets or anything but there’s something different about it. The whole thing seems chaotically thrown together, with shades of red, blue, black, grey, and white textures that don’t quite match, sewn with multiple different colors of thread with disjointed stitches. It’s not like the perfectly machine-printed designs he’s gotten in the past when Sensei got him new bedsheets.
Somebody made this.
Tomura finds himself weirdly enamored by the quilt. He doesn’t know how long he sits there with it, tracing his fingertips over the bumpy stitches and feeling the shifts in texture from patch to patch in the fabric spiral. Something about them feels familiar.
He glances over towards the smaller box in the wardrobe. Stray threads are sticking to the outside of it, with a little patch of fabric smushed between the box and the lid. Could it be hiding sewing supplies inside?
But before he can get up to inspect the second box—
“Please don’t.”
—An anxious voice calls out to him from behind.
Tomura turns around with a sharp gasp. When had Kurogiri come back?
With his hands tightly gripping the edge of the doorway, tremors wriggle their way through Kurogiri’s fog as he looks down at Tomura.
Turning back towards the blanket, Tomura says, “Don’t what?”
“I-I…” Kurogiri’s voice trails off.
“You made this?” he asks, even though Tomura’s pretty sure he already knows the answer.
Kurogiri doesn’t reply.
“I didn’t know you could sew.”
When Tomura looks up at Kurogiri again, his stomach hardens at the sight. Watery blue eyes are peeking out through yellow fog as Kurogiri watches Tomura in clear distress. What’s got him so worked up? Clearing his throat, Kurogiri finally says, “I suppose it simply never came up in conversation.”
Why is Kurogiri so—?
Ah. Following his guardian’s gaze, Tomura identifies the problem with a shard in his throat. Kurogiri is staring at Tomura’s hands resting against the quilt. He’s scared that Tomura is going to decay something so clearly irreplaceable.
Tomura gulps. Making a show of curling down his pinky and third fingers against his palms, he folds the quilt up, tucking it back into its box with the reverence it deserves.
Relief washes over Kurogiri, smoothing out the sharp edges in his mist. He doesn’t ask what Tomura was doing in his room, doesn’t get mad nor raise his voice. All he does is gently herd Tomura out the door with tired movements as he asks, “Do you require assistance setting up your new space, Shigaraki Tomura?”
Staring at his shoes in a mix of embarrassment and shame, Tomura itches at his cheek. “You just got back. Don’t you want to rest?”
“I could stay up for a little while more.”
“If you say so,” he replies. “I… yeah, I don’t even know where to start.”
“I see,” Kurogiri hums softly. “Why don’t we begin with your desk…?”
A few months after they have settled into their place, Tomura notices something on his bed that he didn’t put there. One of his pillows has been wrapped in a cover made of those funny jagged mismatched patches he’d discovered in Kurogiri’s room.
Tomura smiles as he runs his hands along the bumpy hand-sewn threads. It quickly becomes his favorite.