A/n: Hi, we're back! Sorry it took forever. Only two chapters left, I've got it all outlined :) I had fun writing, hope you enjoy reading!


Raindrops hit Mikey's nose as he stumbled out of the cider mill bakery/gift shop on trembling legs. The wind had been knocked out of him from being frozen in place by the little ghost boy just moments before, but he didn't have time to sit and ponder about that. His friend was in trouble!

"Fong!" Mikey tried to yell, but his voice was missing.

It was as cold as it could get without everything turning to ice — Peter's Cider Mill was still a few weeks away from closing down for the season, after all — so when Mikey saw Fong out of the water, he let out a sigh of relief.

As he shakily ran over, shouts pierced the air, mainly from Jennika and Sav. Jason and Woody stood nearby by the banks of the creek. The four of them created a diamond of confrontation.

At least, that's what it looked like to Mikey.

"You're a trash human being, you know that, Savanti?" Jennika's voice was hard.

"Oh wow, I'm so offended. You're so mean," Sav shouted right back, but wore a large smile on his face as if he found the entire situation very funny.

With a clenched jaw, Jennika looked ready to punch him. She turned on Woody standing next to Sav. "Dirkins, honestly. Why did you push Fong?"

The boy, however, was barely looking at any of them. He just awkwardly stood there, a scowl on his face.

Jason shoved him as if to get Woody further away from him. "Seriously, what's wrong with you?"

Woody stepped back a couple steps, his glare hardening on Jason. But his eyes flickered over to Fong, and he didn't say anything. The rain fell harder.

Just say it was an accident, Mikey found himself thinking. Not that you can hear my thoughts, but just say the words, dude!

But Woody didn't defend himself.

Which was weird. Because Mikey knew for a fact that it had been an accident.

Mikey came to a stop besides Fong, who was currently having his own conversation with a very worried-looking Xever and an extremely panicked Bradford. Mikey opened his mouth, but the semi-soaked Fong raised a hand to stop Mikey right away.

"Before you ask, I promise you I'm fine," he said. "I just lost my glasses when I fell. Can you help?"

Mikey didn't need to be prompted — carefully he knelt down and started to finger through the grass.

Over them, Bradford wailed, "You're going to get puh-no-mia, Fong! Puh-no-mia!"

Fong sniffed. "Bradford, total respect, but — uh, wait. I'm going to get what?"

"PUH-NO-MIA!"

Mikey paused at that and looked at the triad. Usually they were always in their own little world, but now Xever and Fong both stared at Bradford like he'd poured the milk before the cereal. (Which Mikey had actually seen Bradford doing before.)

"That's… that's not what it's called, right?" Mikey asked with a laugh, but his breath hitched and his voice came out severely strained, an unpleasant reminder of the ghost who'd so abruptly trapped him in the gift shop.

Nope! Come on, brain, one catastrophe at a time, okay?

"Yeah, no." Xever stared at Bradford. "It's pneumonia."

"It starts with a 'p'! I'm not stupid!"

"The 'p' is silent, my guy," Xever drawled out. "Like, let's say, a ninja. How do you say pterodactyl?"

Bradford clutched the sides of his head. "Who makes words that way?"

"Dunno. The ninja 'p' can be spooky."

Fong snorted. Nudging Mikey's elbow, he whispered, "Ninja pee."

They laughed for a minute, and finally Mikey was able to calm down some. Some. Not all the way. He was glad Fong was okay, but he was having a hard time keeping his fingers from trembling. He pressed them down onto the wet soil to get them to lie still. His stomach hurt, a cramp bothering him from the force of Peter's ghost.

Holy ravioli, and we're back to to thinking about it. Stop it, Mikey!

But of course, instructing himself to stop thinking about something that was freaking him out was causing him to think about it more. He needed to talk to someone. And there was only one person in their entire student body that Mikey knew he could tell.

"Where's Renet?" he asked, looking around.

"Hopefully back soon with a teacher who can shut them up," Xever muttered with a glance over his shoulder at Jennika, Jason, Sav, and Woody.

Mikey followed his gaze. The diamond of confrontation was still at it. They seemed to have gotten louder, mostly because they needed to speak over the sound of Sav laughing like a hyena.

"There's gotta be something actually wrong with you," Jason was still saying to Woody. "Why did you do it?"

"Yeah, why?" Jennika demanded. "What, you have issues at home or something? Does your dad push you into a creek, too?"

Woody's eyes darkened. Jason took his turn, another taunt at the ready.

"Does mommy not love you? I heard that she's usually out of town."

An uncomfortable feeling rose within Mikey at the sharp words. That wasn't very nice. Woody's expression flattened out to something else. He still looked angry, but he also looked hurt. And something else was off, something Mikey couldn't ignore: Jennika and Jason were being mean.

As that particular fact clicked for Mikey, his fingers stopped shaking.

As his friends continued to search for Fong's glasses, Mikey stood up and looked at Jennika and Jason — or rather, their backs, since they weren't facing in his direction.

"Can you guys please stop?" he asked loudly, and to his surprise, his voice held over the chilly wind.

Jennika and Jason turned to look at him. Sav smiled like Mikey's face was the punchline of a joke.

"Loser. Don't spoil the show."

"I don't think you're asking the right questions," Mikey said, tactfully ignoring Sav. He glanced at Woody, right into his angry, heterochromic eyes. Woody looked away, jaw fixed, like he was bracing himself for another passive-aggressive remark — but all Mikey said was, "Um, Woody? Did you mean to push Fong into the creek?"

Jennika's jaw dropped open. She wasn't looking at Woody or Fong, though. Her eyes drilled into Mikey. Woody looked surprised, too. And for the first time, he spoke.

"No." Woody visibly swallowed, and his eyes met Mikey's cautiously, before darting to Fong. "I didn't mean for that to happen."

"Okay! Cool!" Mikey enthused, as if he hadn't known that this entire time. To Jennika and Jason, he quipped, "So then you dudes are overreacting a bit, yeah?"

"No, we're not," Jason said back immediately. His face was impassive as he stared Mikey down. "That was clearly a lie, and we're defending our friend from this jerk."

Maybe Mikey didn't know everything, but simultaneously they were being jerks themselves, weren't they? Mikey had only heard a handful of the stuff they'd said at Woody, but not once had the boy said anything in return. How could he possibly defend himself? He didn't seem like much of a talker.

And actually, now that Mikey thought about it, this was just like that time when someone had stolen Raph's pre-calculus textbook a few years ago — a really weird thing for someone to steal, by the way — and because the teacher had seen that Raph didn't have his on his desk, he'd gotten a demerit for losing a class copy even though it wasn't his fault. The reason Raph hadn't defended himself had been because he'd been too sleepy and exhausted from a football practice the night before, and also that he didn't care all that much about "a stupid dorky math book", and that had gotten Leo so annoyed with him, but the point was… uh.

There's a point in there, somewhere, Mikey argued with his own brain. About fairness. And maybe Woody isn't the most vouched-for guy, but that doesn't make him guilty before proven innocent!

So Mikey looked at Jennika and Jason, wondering how to kindly tell them that their strategic decision to play bad-cop-bad-cop was terrible.

"Stop going ham on him, dudes," Mikey tried. "It was an accident, and Fong over here is freezing to an icicle, so can we all just focus on helping him?"

Turning back, Mikey could see Fong's teeth had indeed started to chatter together. Bradford pulled off his not-soaked jacket and pushed it at him to wear his instead. Xever was just watching everyone, his eyes flattening critically at Mikey. Mikey blinked back, a little surprised. Didn't Xever agree with him here?

Maybe not, Mikey realized. I guess Bradford and Xever were already fighting with Sav and Woody before Fong even ran out here.

"Wait, hold on," Jennika said, getting everyone's attention. "Fong, didn't Woody push you?"

Fong blinked. "Uh, I mean… yes?" He sounded doubtful. "He did, but I think I slipped on my own too, really."

"Woody said something mean to you, didn't he?"

Fong looked down. Bradford and Xever looked at each other before turning to glare at Woody.

"See?" Jennika almost yelled. "So wasn't the push on purpose?"

Mikey was surprised that Jennika was still doubting it until he saw her eyes. She looked angry, but it was a different kind of angry than Woody's — hers had an much stronger intent behind them. It was almost like she wanted to put the blame on Woody, no matter what.

"Jennika, stop being a bully," Mikey said.

He'd meant for it to come out gently, like a friendly reminder. But somehow it came out more like how Leo would say it. Like a no-nonsense order.

Oops.

He immediately wished he could take it back, to sound less bossy and more like his usual cheerful, silly self — but then it was too late. Jennika threw Mikey the most disgusted glare he'd ever received from anyone, much less a friend.

"Mikey, shut up before you say something even more stupid than anything you've said so far," Jason muttered.

That was the double stinger.

That hadn't been the reaction Mikey had been expecting. He felt his cheeks heat up as Jason's words settled in, and Jennika's glare at him pierced him through the chest. Distantly he could hear Sav wheezing, laughing hard.

I'm… I'm not stupid, Mikey thought.

He took a step backwards. Some kind of rock met his heel, and —

Snap.

"Aw, crap! Mikey!" Fong was batting at Mikey's leg with the back of his hand. "Off, off, off!"

Mikey raised his foot, stumbling forward, turning on his heel and looking down to where he'd been standing. Oh. It hadn't been a rock that he'd stepped on.

Fong let out a small groan at the glinting shards as he picked up his now broken glasses. One of the lenses was completely shattered and gone, and the other one had spiderweb cracks through it. Guilt flooded into Mikey's senses along with the shame. He knelt down by Fong in a rush.

"I-I'm so sorry," Mikey stammered.

"These were new," Fong muttered. His eyes flickered to Mikey. "Not what I had in mind when I asked you to help me find them."

"I'm so sorry, I'll, like, p-pay for a new pair," Mikey said pathetically, even though he knew that the money would be coming straight out of Leo's pockets. Ugh. What did I do? Guilt stabbed him.

Somewhere in the background, Mikey could hear a teacher shout, and he raised his head to see Renet and Lita, running towards them with their teacher in tow, finally.

"Fong? Did you fall in?" the teacher called out, jogging over. "I'm going to need to call your parents immediately and let them know. It's really cold."

Fong stood and walked towards the teacher — and Mikey didn't miss the way Fong completely ignored his offer to pay for his mistake.

"Everyone else, our trip is pretty much over, so we better get going! In the next ten minutes, I want everyone rounded up at the buses!" the teacher called out right after checking her watch.

To make matters worse, Mikey watched helplessly as Jennika, Jason, Bradford, and Xever walked by him, completely ignoring him as they made their way back. Face burning, Mikey stood up, only holding himself together in this completely humiliating situation by pretending he was being trapped by another ghost.

I shouldn't have said anything, Mikey thought, keeping his eyes down as he walked towards the bus. With every step, his heart sank lower and lower, his earlier justice-generated adrenaline fading away.

"Mikey, do you want to sit—oof!" Renet's question was cut off as Jennika yanked on her arm along with Lita's.

From the few feet away that he was walking, Mikey could hear Jennika say, "Don't talk to him, Renet. Sit with me."

"What happened?" Renet asked with a frown, only to be shushed by Jennika again.

Mikey looked down at his sneakers as he boarded the bus. Heck, being trapped by a ghost was preferable to this. Maybe he shouldn't have said anything, even if Jennika and Jason were in the wrong. He took his seat in the front.

But maybe Renet would think he was stupid, too. By now Jennika had filled her and Lita in — that much was obvious as Mikey saw Lita send him an obligatory stink-eye as she passed him down the aisle. Renet passed by, too, but Mikey didn't want to lift his head to see her face. So he kept it down, pretending he didn't hear her little "Mikey?" because he wasn't about to get a triple stinger in one field trip.

Even if he wanted to tell her about Peter the ghost and laugh about how freaky it had been together.

"Attendance!" the teacher shouted over the chatter, and they only somewhat quieted down as first names began being called out by alphabetical order. Mikey relaxed after his turn passed, and turned his head to gaze out the window.

There was little commotion ("It's Sav, not Romero! Yuck," Sav had corrected snippily) but then the teacher called out for Woody.

"Woody Dirkins?" But there was no responding 'here!' as everyone else had done. Their teacher sighed. "Woody Dirkins? Come on, no games. One of us is soaked and we need to get back ASAP."

"Yeah," Bradford said supportively from up front, where he and Xever were on either side of Fong. "We can't let him die!"

"I'm not dying!" Fong complained. "Just cold. And semi-blind."

Mikey winced as Fong pointedly didn't look in his direction. The 'because of Mikey' hung unsaid in the air.

Simon stood from where he sat with another parent chaperone, raising a hand. "I'll go get him," he said.

"Take your time, pops," Sav said with a snicker, earning threats of war from Bradford.

As the teacher read out and checked off the rest of the attendance, Mikey leaned his head against the window as the noise in the bus began to escalate as conversations took place. He looked at Peter's Cider Mill, letting his eyes scan the mill and the bakery/gift shop farther back, and the creek behind it all, wondering if he would spot the ghost of Peter again.

He didn't, but he did see Woody walking back to the bus with Simon. Simon's face had a pleasant smile on it, but Woody's face was, as usual, its angry self. Mikey looked away from the boy, not wanting to relive the embarrassment of how Jennika had glared and how Jason had snapped at him. His ears felt hot all over again as Woody boarded the bus, feeling how all his friends were boycotting him more than ever.

The bus engine started, and Mikey was glad that they were finally going home. So much for a fun field trip he'd been looking forward to.

I should have grabbed another donut on my way out for the emotional pain.


Some days, Mikey felt like he had two separate lives.

One was the normal one with really cool friends and brain-numbing homework and tests and skateboarding and everything that made him feel like a regular kid. The other was a bit more, well, mystical.

After all, Mikey could sense yokai.

They had plenty of other names: spirits, monsters, demons, supernaturals — but Mikey had grown up listening to his father's stories, and in Japanese folklore, yokai were creatures with strange forms and abilities. In real life, most humans couldn't see, hear, or feel them, and using a term straight from the stories that he'd never once imagined had any level of reality to them felt right. Yokai. A real thing that proved magic was real, and who knew what else.

Mikey had discovered yokai only last year. So had his friend Casey. Renet, however, had been able to see them all her life — and Mikey suspected that it was because he and Casey had lived most their lives in Eastman, while Renet had moved in from somewhere else.

There was something strange about their city. Something even Renet admitted was a little odd. For one thing, a mysterious invisible barrier surrounded Eastman, keeping yokai from coming in. Mikey didn't know for how long it had been up there, but he suspected years.

Another weird thing was the existence of the yokai-hunting clan.

The Miyamoto Clan.

The name made the hairs on the back of Mikey's neck rise, even when he was just thinking about them. Back in May, in a flurry of chaos, he, Casey, and Renet had been mistaken as yokai by the clan and chased with magic nets and spells. In the craziness, they'd almost turned into yokai for real. Almost. But ever since they'd cleaned up the mess and returned to their normal lives, no one from the clan had tried to chase them down again. Which was a massive relief.

There had even been a kid yokai hunter — someone Mikey's age! — who'd taken part in the hunt after them. He'd been a rude kid with some type of ineffective magic. His face had been totally masked, but Mikey would never forget how he, Casey, and Renet had escaped that weird kid and his henchmen just in the nick of time.

But all of that was neither here nor there — because the weirdest thing of all was that the Miyamoto Clan was led by the mayor of Eastman: Yuuki Miyamoto.

Because that was weird, right? That the mayor of the city could also sense yokai, like Mikey? And that he had a whole clan?

It was all super weird. Fascinating, too, if Mikey was being honest — but also very weird.

So really, with everything Mikey had been through in the past year, seeing a little ghost in the reflection of a dusty mirror somewhere other than Eastman should have been the most normal yokai encounter of them all. To be expected!

Mikey just hadn't done the whole expecting part.

"What are you thinking about?"

Mikey jumped so badly that his fork went spiraling across the table, dropping off the edge, never to be seen again — until it was caught by a slender hand.

Said slender hand was connected to Leo, Mikey's oldest brother.

Leo handed the fork back, an eyebrow raised. "Whoa, there. Keep your fork on a leash, huh kiddo?"

"Sorry. Thanks," Mikey said, not realizing how tired he sounded to his own ears until he'd taken the next bite of his beans and rice.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Leo exchanging glances with Raph. Uh-oh. Mikey pulled in air through his nose, straightening his back and hoping that it would be enough to not cause one of them to go—

"So, Mikey. How was your day?" Leo asked.

There it was. Mikey had already been asked this question earlier today, when he'd first come home. Leo had been in the kitchen, busily working on complicated-looking homework from college on his laptop, so he hadn't batted an eye when Mikey had chirped out that it had been fine. But now, being the overattentive brother that he was, Leo was asking him a second time. And expecting a more detailed answer.

But one second of flashing back to the cringefest that had been this afternoon, and Mikey didn't want to relive breaking Fong's glasses and getting burned by his friends' silent treatment back to school.

Even though the responsible thing to do would've been to tell Leo.

Instead he cleared his throat and faked a smile. "It was fine!"

Leo and Raph looked at each other again, eyebrows raised. Why were they so talented at picking up his feelings at a microscopic level?

"That's suspicious," Donnie supplied from behind his SAT book. He didn't look away from it as he added, "He should have a lot more to say, considering how excited he was for the cider mill trip today."

Raph raised an eyebrow. "Exposed."

"What? I'm not being suspicious. No way, bro. What's suspicious?" Mikey exclaimed — sounding very suspicious, even to himself.

"Did something happen today?" asked Leo casually, as if to mask the preemptive head-of-the-family concern he always seemed to have in extra supply.

Mikey felt himself burn as Fong's broken glasses under his foot flashed into his mind. Guiltily, Mikey looked down at his plate of rice and beans.

"Uh… the donuts were good," he said, trying to think of everything he could say that wasn't about how he'd been a huge klutz and a loser today. "It was cold, so the hot cider was really nice."

"Nice. I remember when I went on the mill trip," Leo reminisced, bringing a glass of water to his smiling lips. "The creek there is beautiful."

Mikey blinked. "Oh yeah. Someone fell in."

Leo choked on his water.

"Oh, and a yokai froze me in place!"

Leo choked again. Raph's eyes bugged out. Donnie even looked up from his book.

Mikey couldn't help be delighted, though. Wow, thinking about how embarrassing today was totally made me forget all the other stuff! I have plenty to talk about!

"What kind?" Donnie immediately inquired, closing his book to stare at Mikey. "When? How? Where?"

"And you just now remember?" Raph exclaimed, going over to Leo's side to smack his back as Leo gasped for air. "How were you just sitting on that?"

"I'm sorry, I really just forgot to mention it!"

Leo wave a hand as he caught his breath. "Not your fault."

"Tell us what happened," Raph demanded, looking over Mikey. "What do you mean, it 'froze you in place'?"

Mikey told them, not leaving any part out — the boy in the mirror, the way he'd whispered super creepily, the way Mikey had said no and the yokai had gone away. When he was done, his brothers' faces were pale with worry.

Here was the thing: although Mikey could sense yokai, his brothers couldn't. Mikey used to think that keeping them out of the yokai loop would be better if that meant they didn't have to worry, but worrying was just what family did. And if their situation was flipped, Mikey would want to know what type of invisible troubles his brothers were getting into.

Communication was pretty important, as it turned out.

Even if it meant Raph hitting the table with his fist out of pure rage.

"It touched you?" Raph asked, disgusted and angry.

"It was in the mirror the whole time, Raph," Donnie pointed out calmly. "How could it touch him?"

"It froze him in place! That's not normal."

"It's not," Leo agreed. He leaned over and felt Mikey's forehead with the back of his hand. "You're feeling okay now though, right, kiddo?"

"You think he might have gotten a fever from the exposure?" Donnie's eyes widened. "You don't suppose that's why he was a little quiet today?"

Mikey rolled his eyes and batted Leo's hand away. "I'm not sick or quiet!" he complained loudly, just for emphasis. "I really think he just wanted to ask me that weird question, and then went away when I wasn't interested."

"You did the right thing, saying no," Leo affirmed. "Maybe it was some kind of… I don't even know how to classify it."

"Ghost," Mikey said, only for Donnie to say it at the same time. They looked at each other. Mikey was surprised. "You think so, too?"

"You saw a little boy yokai at Peter's Cider Mill, which has its own rumors about being haunted. Just guessing, it sounds like the ghost of Peter," Donnie said with a shrug of his shoulders.

"That's what I thought!" Mikey gave his genius brother a fist-bump of victory, because being on the same page as Donnie was always a win.

"Wait, so is it a yokai, or a ghost? What's the difference here?" Raph asked, crossing his arms.

"Well, 'yokai' is like, the everything word. And 'ghost' is the smaller word," Mikey offered.

"'Ghost' is specific, given that we know the definition of 'ghost' to be some type of apparition that used to be alive. 'Yokai' is much more general," Donnie said.

"So basically what I said," Mikey noted, nodding in casual agreement. He grinned when he spotted Leo stifling laughter behind his hand.

Raph looked confused. "Aren't all yokai ghosts, then?"

Donnie adjusted his glasses and looked at Mikey to let him answer. Mikey perked up.

"Nope."

Raph squinted at the wall, deep in thought.

"While you let that marinate in your head, I have a few possible theories as to what this yokai could have possibly wanted."

Mikey, Leo, and Raph all looked at Donnie, who leaned forward, folding his hands together.

"Theory one," he started, "is that it wanted to be friends with you."

Deep breath from Raph. "I call bullsh—"

"Theory two," Donnie interrupted without batting an eye, "is that it just wanted to use your body as its flesh puppet to achieve its goals in the physical plane."

Mikey made a face. He wondered what type of goals a ghost even had. Revenge? TV had taught him that usually ghosts wanted revenge. But he decided he didn't want to ask Donnie for sub-theories.

So he just said, "Ew, flesh puppet", because ew. Flesh puppet.

Leo rose from his chair to drape his arms around Mikey.

"Not happening," he said protectively, and Mikey leaned into his brother's elbow. "I'm so glad you're back home. I can't believe how close you were to something so dangerous. That's not what I signed the permission slip for."

"For what it's worth, I would let you guys know if I got possessed by a yokai," Mikey said, and at that, Raph snorted.

"Anyway!" Leo said, leaning back and taking in Mikey's face. "It's a good thing that ghost is far away, outside of Eastman. Let's talk about something else now."

Mikey nodded. He hadn't been particularly terrified, but it had shaken him up, the ghost. But now that he was far away from the mill, safe and warm in his own home, plus with the added protection of the barrier around Eastman — it eased his mind, caressing any wrinkles of remaining shock away.

"You're so right, Leo, let's not talk about yokai," Donnie drawled lightly. "Instead, let's talk about the party tomorrow and how we're allowing Mikey to go to it."

The Friendsgiving Party! Mikey smiled. There was nothing like a party to cure one bad day. Then he caught onto Donnie's tone, and his smile fell away a little.

Leo gave Donnie a disparaging look. "Really? We're talking about this again?"

"We never really had a conversation to begin with."

"Donnie, it's just a party."

"With a murderer."

Alarm and confusion spiked through Mikey as he looked between Leo and Donnie.

"W-what are we talking about? I don't understand," he said, feeling like he was missing something. "I thought this was about the thing Usagi invited us to for Thanksgiving."

"It is," Leo and Donnie said in unison.

Oh, okay, then Mikey was definitely confused. He looked at Raph for help, but Raph was looking kind of bored, chewing and watching their brothers like it was the weather report.

"Does… does Donnie not want me to go?" Mikey asked quietly. He tried thinking about last week when Donnie had mentioned it to him. Had Donnie looked upset? Mikey had been excited, he hadn't noticed.

Leo sighed. "Donnie doesn't want any of us to go."

Donnie shrugged, looking evenly at his food. "You'd think the same thing, Leo, if you weren't infatuated."

"I am not." Leo drew himself up, his face red from irritation, not embarrassment. "Calling his dad a murderer is a bit much, don't you think?"

"No, actually. Don't you think brushing off what Mikey told us is a bit much?"

Oh. Ooooh. And just like that, Mikey knew what this was about. Man, he was a little slow today, wasn't he?

Usagi Miyamoto was the son of the mayor, after all. Mikey had never met Usagi or Yuuki Miyamoto properly in person, but he'd seen Yuuki Miyamoto a few months ago in May, back when all the craziness was happening. Mikey'd seen the man turn a live yokai into stone before crushing her to dust.

When Donnie had called Miyamoto a murderer, that's what he'd been talking about.

A sick feeling coiled up in Mikey's gut. It's not like Donnie's wrong.

"Fine. So this is how you're going to keep painting it, then," Leo said with a sigh. "Usagi's related to a murderer and you don't want us to go to the party."

Donnie pushed up his glasses by the bridge of his nose. "We don't know anything about Usagi, either."

"Usagi isn't —" but Leo cut himself off, and simply fixed a glare at Donnie.

Donnie blinked at him. "I'm not arguing with you. Just pointing out facts."

Leo rubbed his face and groaned — something that was uncharacteristic for him, since he was always put together. It was odd seeing Leo conflicted.

To be fair, Mikey hadn't thought of Usagi as the mayor's son in quite a while. Miyamoto was a scary dude, and this was coming from Mikey, who had only ever caught a glance of him once, while he was wearing some kind of fox mask.

But Usagi was just the guy Leo liked from college.

At least, that's what it was for now.

"I… so, what, are we just not gonna go? That's ridiculous, Donnie," Mikey said, earning everyone's attention. "It's not like Mayor Miyamoto knows that I know about his secret clan. And if we don't go, does that mean we start avoiding Usagi and his dad, like, forever? We live in the same city! That's way too hard."

"He could be dangerous, Mikey," Donnie said. "He's proven he can be dangerous. You know better than we do."

"Leo trusts Usagi as a friend, right?" Mikey looked up to receive Leo's slow, affirming nod. "This is a Friendsgiving party. Not a I'm-Avoiding-You-Because-You're-An-Evil-Yokai-Hunter-Clan-Leader party. We should go."

"Invite me to that party," Raph commented with a chuckle.

Mikey looked at Donnie, and felt his ears burning. Had he said something stupid again?

But then Donnie smiled. "Okay. You've convinced me. We can go."

Leo scoffed, but looked more relaxed. "That's all it took?"

"You weren't giving me a logical argument," Donnie replied with a smile. "You just got all flustered when you thought you would have to turn Usagi down."

"W-well, it's not like I'm going to go off and leave one of my brothers alone for Thanksgiving dinner," Leo protested, over Raph's cackles and hoots of calling him 'loverboy'.

They cleared up the table, and Mikey scampered off to hit the showers before bed. As the sound of his brothers taking care of the dishes floated down the hall, Mikey couldn't help but look into his reflection a bit more closely.

He let out a sigh of relief. It was just him. No ghost boy possessing him.

Just checking, Mikey assured himself.

But his heart still felt heavy, and it wasn't until he was in the shower that he remembered why — all the ways he'd messed up today.

The way Jason had told him to shut up, the way Jennika had glared like he was the dirt on her shoes, and the way Fong had looked at him glumly, broken glasses in hand. Mikey felt his heart pulse in shame. He could still hear Sav's laughter echoing in his mind. He'd just had to go out of his way, hadn't he?

Mikey let out a deep sigh and rubbed more soap on himself. At least tonight it felt like he'd done something right, winning over Donnie for Leo's sake — but tomorrow at the party would tell if he'd made the right call.


A/n: One day I shall align the mikey yokai fic I'm writing… with the corresponding holiday… and it'll be complete by the time of the holiday… not weeks later… *cries in self-sabotage*

Anyway, I was trying not to be too expositional with the bg info but it's relevant this fic — not sure if I overdid it, tho, lol

Let me know what you thought!