Scent of Devotion

The first time I used my quirk on purpose, I made my mother forget she owned a coffee maker.

She was standing there with the kettle in her hand, frowning at the counter. “I could have sworn,” she said. “Did I leave mine at work again?” She shrugged and boiled water for tea instead. I watched her from the kitchen doorway, my heart hammering so hard I thought she’d hear it. She never bought another coffee maker. She didn’t miss it. That was the thing. The mind fills in the gaps so cleanly you’d never know a gap existed.

My quirk isn’t flashy. It’s not a giant fist or a wall of fire or a speed that breaks the sound barrier. It’s a whisper. A gentle nudge. A rearrangement of furniture in a room no one else can see. I call it Common Sense because that’s what it edits. The stuff you don’t think about. The stuff that just *is*. That the sky is blue. That you put socks on before shoes. That your friend Izuku is a good listener, a reliable guy, someone whose presence feels safe.

I can’t make someone believe the moon is made of cheese. That’s too big. Too obvious. The brain rejects it like a bad organ transplant. But I can make them believe that standing next to me feels a little warmer than standing anywhere else. That my laugh is pleasant. That my hand on their shoulder is grounding instead of awkward.

Small changes. Tiny edits. Over time, they add up.

I discovered the quirk the same week All Might chose me. One for All woke something up inside me, something that had been sleeping since birth. A secondary quirk, the doctors said later. Dormant. Latent. Triggered by the sudden influx of power. They used a lot of words. None of them explained why I could look at my mother and feel the shape of her thoughts like wet clay in my hands.

I didn’t tell All Might. I didn’t tell anyone. Some things are better kept close.

Now I’m seventeen and I’ve been editing Denki Kaminari for fourteen months.

It started small. A single edit. I was sitting next to him in class, watching him doodle lightning bolts in the margin of his notebook, and I thought: *I want him to look at me.* Not the way he looks at everyone else. The way he looks at a video game he’s excited about. The way he looks at a new hero costume in a magazine. I wanted to be something he *wanted* to see.

So I pushed.

The first edit was barely anything. I made him think my shampoo smelled nice. That was it. A single association: Izuku’s scent equals pleasant. Harmless. Deniable. He leaned over during lunch the next day and said, “Dude, what do you wash your hair with? It’s like, really good.” I shrugged and said something about a gift from my mom. Inside, I was shaking.

It worked.

It kept working.

I made him think my voice was calming. Just a notch. A tiny adjustment so that when I spoke, his shoulders relaxed a fraction of an inch. I made him associate my presence with safety. With comfort. With the feeling of coming home after a long day. Each edit was so small he’d never notice. So small there was nothing to notice. The brain doesn’t question why it feels good to be near someone. It just feels good. That’s the nature of feelings.

By month three, he was seeking me out. Sitting next to me in the common room. Walking beside me to training. Finding excuses to touch my shoulder, my arm, my hand. “Static,” he’d say when a spark jumped between us. “Sorry, bro.” But he wasn’t sorry. I could feel it in the way his fingers lingered.

Month six, I made him think my cock was something he wanted to see.

That one took more work. I couldn’t just flip a switch. I had to build it slowly, layer by layer. First, I made him curious. A vague sense of wonder about what I looked like under my clothes. Then I made the curiosity pleasant instead of awkward. Then I made it *specific*. I edited his common sense until the thought of my body didn’t register as strange or gay or anything other than natural. Just a fact. Denki wants to see Izuku naked. That’s just how things are.

I told myself it was harmless. He’d never know the difference. He’d think he came to these feelings on his own. And in a way, he did. I didn’t create the attraction. I just cleared the path for it. Removed the rocks. Paved the road. The destination was always there, buried under years of social programming and fear and the noise of being a teenage boy in a world that tells you who to want.

Month nine, he kissed me.

We were in his dorm room, studying for the math final. Or pretending to study. His knee was touching mine under the desk. His hand kept finding excuses to brush against my wrist. The air between us felt thick, charged with something that wasn’t quite electricity. He looked at me and his pupils were blown wide and he said, “Izuku, can I try something?”

I said yes.

The kiss was clumsy. Sweet. His lips were chapped and he didn’t know where to put his nose and he laughed afterward with his forehead pressed against mine. “Been wanting to do that for a while,” he said. “Don’t know why I didn’t.”

I knew why. I’d been careful. I’d been patient. I’d made sure he wanted it badly enough to act on his own.

That was eight months ago.

Now we’re in his bed and his head is on my chest and his fingers are tracing lazy patterns on my stomach. His breathing is slow, even. Post-coital haze. I can feel the shape of his thoughts without trying, soft and pliable, like dough that’s been kneaded too long.

“Hey,” he says. His voice is muffled against my skin. “You ever think about how weird it is that we ended up together?”

My hand stops mid-stroke through his hair. “What do you mean?”

He shrugs against me. “I don’t know. Just feels like it was always supposed to happen. Like I was always gonna end up here. With you.” He laughs, a quiet, breathy sound. “That’s dumb.”

“It’s not dumb.”

“It’s kind of dumb. But it feels true.” He tilts his head up to look at me. His eyes are gold in the dim light. Soft. Trusting. “Do you ever feel that way?”

I feel the edit sitting in the back of my mind. The one I’m about to make. The one I’ve been saving for the right moment.

“Yeah,” I say. “I feel it.”

I push.

The edit is simple. Small. I make him think he’s never been this happy in his life. That this moment, right here, is the best he’s ever felt. I don’t change his memory. I don’t erase his past. I just adjust the scale so that everything else looks smaller by comparison. So that he measures all future happiness against this single point.

His smile widens. His eyes go soft. “I love you,” he says.

“I know.”

He doesn’t hear the weight in my voice. He’s too busy being happy. Too busy feeling the warmth I’ve planted in his chest. He curls closer and closes his eyes and within minutes he’s asleep, his breath warm against my collarbone.

I stare at the ceiling.

I could stop now. I’ve got what I wanted. He loves me. He wants me. He thinks about me when I’m not there, misses me when I’m gone, feels incomplete without my presence. I’ve built a perfect cage out of his own common sense and he doesn’t even know the bars are there.

But I don’t want to stop.

There’s more I want. More I need. I want him to need me the way I need him. I want the dependency to run so deep that he can’t imagine a version of himself that doesn’t orbit around me. I want to be the gravity that holds his world together.

I roll over and look at his sleeping face. His mouth is slightly open. His hair is a mess. He looks young. Vulnerable. Mine.

I reach out and touch his cheek. He murmurs something in his sleep and leans into my hand.

The next edit is already forming in my mind. I’ll make him associate my scent with safety so strongly that he can’t sleep without it. I’ll make my voice the thing that calms his anxiety, that grounds him when his quirk short-circuits his brain. I’ll make him need me the way you need air. Not consciously. Not obviously. Just a quiet, constant pull toward me that he can’t explain and doesn’t question.

It’s not love. Not the real kind. Not the kind in the movies where two people meet by chance and fall naturally, beautifully, without manipulation. This is something else. Something I built with my own hands.

But it feels real when he looks at me. It feels real when he says my name. And maybe that’s enough. Maybe the difference between real love and constructed love is just a matter of who’s doing the construction.

I press a kiss to his forehead.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

He doesn’t hear me. He’s dreaming of something I put there.

I close my eyes and let myself pretend that this is real. That he chose me. That I didn’t nudge him, edit him, reshape him into someone who could want me. I let myself believe the lie for a few hours.

In the morning, I’ll make another edit.

I always do.