"Gahh." This is hard. This kind of thing is why he never wanted to be a superhero, is having to make this kind of call.

"Let's... go back that way, for a bit, see how long it takes for the dowse to pick up on a different nearest witch."

"Okay." He'll follow.

Something in his gut tells him they won't find any, though.

It's a long hike, yeah.

But in their territory?

The dowsing direction does change while they're still in their stomping grounds. But it doesn't lead them to a witch before they're at a different one of their edges.

"Argh." He grabs a cigarette and a lighter from his bag of holding (he didn't want to need to detransform to be able to get a smoke) and takes a drag. "This is so stupid."

"Yeeeeep." He detransforms again. No text.

"If she's in costume she won't see her phone, probably." ...Kyūbey, just to check, Yamanaka didn't get into a fight with some magicals and get herself killed, right?

Not as far as I know!

Okay. Thank you. "Gah." Haru should just tell him what to do so he won't have to think about anything. That's what should happen.

"We've been out awhile. Let's just go home and we can try again tomorrow."

"Yeah. Okay."

Haru's place is closer and has the balcony so they can get in in costume. Ren's in watching a movie with a friend, though, so Haru kisses Yutaka goodbye and sneaks into his room to pretend he's been there the whole time.

No more makeouts for tonight, he guesses. But that's probably okay, he's kind of not in the mood for them either.

When he gets home, and detransforms, he has a text waiting for him on his phone.

Oh fucking amazing.

Daddy dearest wants to have a chat with me tomorrow after school. That's new, didn't happen last time.

Huh. What about?

Didn't say. My best guess is that he has opinions about how I'm now proudly displaying my faggotry for all to see, rather than just doing that in private and in rumour like I used to. ...pardon my French.

It's pardoned. Are you gonna be okay?

I survived eighteen years with this guy, I'll survive another day, probably.

Probably? How bad does it get??

Mental sigh. I'm just being dramatic, sorry. He hasn't hit me in years and if he tried now I'd hit him back.

...do you have to show up?

He's the one showing up at my apartment, apparently.