#I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about Reigen smoking - and how he likes plants (something notorious for cleaning the air etc etc) | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

shadowonwater · 3 months ago

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Mob Psycho 100 Fanfic Recs

Hyper fixating on Mob Psycho rn and have been reading a bunch of fanfic. So I thought I'd be nice to create a list of some of them.

All fics listed are completed unless I specify otherwise.

Also here's someone else's MP100 fanfic masterpost for more recs: here

Last updated: 9/20/24

Issho by ToastyToaster22

VERY long read. Main character is child Teru. An AU in which Teru met Mob and Ritsu before the incident where Ritsu got hurt. Story really gets across the evil of Claw with them kidnapping kids and harassing the few who keep getting away from them. Story also shows Teru's shitty neglectful parents and Dad!Reigen. Teru goes through the ringer in this fic. Fic takes place over the course of 2 - 3 years.

In general this writer has a lot of great Mob Psycho writing. They write a lot about Teru and TeruMob. Also I really like their take on the Kageyama parents. We may not see much of those parents in cannon but it's clear they do care about their kids. Toasty does a great job on using them as actual characters.

Immoral Support by c_c_cherry

Teru lives alone, and has been living alone for awhile. He's given money from his parents but that's it. He knows how to fake signatures but now the school is demanding to see a guardian in-person. Teru not knowing what to do, pretends that Reigen is his guardian, things go on from there.

The Ties were Black, The Lies were White by generally

There is some sex in this story, fyi. Basically Reigen is going to his sister's wedding and can bring a plus-one. Serizawa wants to go with him. They decide to go as "business partners". They do things such as sharing a bed and dancing as "business partners". Of course they realize their feelings for each other and confess. The sex scene is a bit after that.

Walking Mob Home by CryRan88

A short two chapter story about Reigen walking Mob home after work. First chapter: Mob feel asleep and Reigen gives him a piggy back ride to Mob's house. 2nd chapter: Reigen is asleep and Mob gets Dimple to posses him so he can still walk Mob home without actually waking him up.

Mother by Sunlolli

Reigen's got some mommy issues. His mom dies and starts haunting him. The espers in Reigen's life don't want to get rid of her without Reigen's permission but she's really messing him up and he just wants to get some approval from her. Story is a bit depressing but very good.

In Quicksand by SpiritusRex

Reigen gets possessed and gets sick. Unreliable narrator Reigen. Don't worry, the spirit gets caught pretty quickly, and Reigen ends up fine.

It Takes Time by CowardlyBean

A very short fic about Reigen quitting smoking for Mob's sake. Very cute.

you'll have to make due with a reasonable facsimile by SoliAvi

A short fic that takes place right after the end of the separation arc. Reigen and Mob eat ramen together again and Reigen apologizes. Very sweet.

When you need me by SpiritusRex

A 5 + 1 fic. 5 Times Mob hugged Reigen and 1 time Reigen hugged Mob. 1: Little Mob asking for advise about nightmares. 2: Mob being hurt after the Teru fight. 3: Mob holding onto Reigen to float them both back home after the first Claw arc. 4: After the Mogami arc. 5: After separation arc. +1: Reigen hugging Mob after digging him out of the broccoli after 2nd Claw arc.

Rainbow Veins and Life in Technicolor by BinaryDreams1010

As it turns out, Reigen actually IS an esper. He's an empath, and that comes with being able to read and manipulate others emotions. He did not know he was doing that. He just thought he was REALLY good at reading people and convincing them. Serizawa figures it out and tells him. The first story is about Serizawa figuring out Reigen is an empath, the 2nd story is about what Reigen does after knowing he's an empth, that is trying to figure out how to get rid of a spirit on his own.

Use Your Words by CowardlyBean

Reigen gets possessed by a spirit that hates espers. He's stuck in the backseat of his body while it pilots him around, pretending to be him. It's an ass towards Serizawa and Mob. Of course the other characters figure out something is wrong.

Area Hysteria by c_c_cherry

Reigen and Dimple visit a worn down building slated for demolition to get rid of a spirit. The building collapses with them in it. Dimple is fine, Reigen isn't. Dimple posses Reigen's body to help keep him alive and hope for rescue soon. Reigen gets rescued... eventually. But this isn't the end to the problems because Reigen ends up in sort of supernaturally-induced coma that Mob has to get into his head to get him out of. Long story. Marked as unfinished but ends at a really good stopping point. (Update: It started updating again)

Haunting My Own Skin by Kirii_Kitten

Reigen dies and then posses his own corpse to pretend that everything is normal. Dimple is concerned that Reigen's spirit is going to corrupt, his fears are well-founded. Reigen gets found out of course and things go to shit, but there is a happy ending.

symbiosis by ruthwrites

AU in which ???% is a separate entity from Mob and it's made of energy and jumps from esper to esper. When Mob gives Reigen his power during the 1st Claw arc, ???% goes with that energy. Problem is that it didn't go back to Mob, it got stuck in Reigen. I recommend the whole series, the series is kind of depressing though. Reigen really goes through it in this series. I don't want to give too much away but... Reigen isn't gonna come out of this very... human. Each entry in the series is completed, however I can't help but feel the series itself isn't completed, it seems to end on what would be the start of this AUs version of the Separation Arc. It's a bitter ending.

Yesterday by ch_am

Takes place during and after hot springs OVA. Shows Reigen's experience in the parallel dimension. On the train ride home, Reigen has a panic attack and runs off to the bathroom, Serizawa helps him and realizes that Reigen was in that dimension for awhile. Serizawa goes back home with Reigen to make sure that when he wakes up he won't be alone again. They eat breakfast together and talk about what happened.

Reflection by Silver_fox221

Turns out Reigen is a kitsune. He did not know he was a kitsune. He's in denial at first what with these traits only appearing now as a 30-ish year old. But even when he accepts the truth, he can't bring himself to tell the others besides Dimple (who he knows can keep a secret). His kitsune traits include being able to turn into a fox, having a silver orb that's a physical manifestation of his soul that he has to protect, and also a new found fear of dogs. Fic is unfinished but has a very unique idea. I only found a few other stories that had Kitsune!Reigen but in the other ones I saw he already knew he was a fox.

Also read on Ao3

Beware the read-more. It’s long.

“It started with a picture, and then it got worse from there.

Reigen wasn’t supposed to get so attached.”

Reigen meets the boy when he’s ten years old, and he’s pretty sure he feels nothing. Actually, the first feeling associated towards this kid is hostility, as this juvenile swaggers to his door and bemoans the destruction of his own powers. The prank is not elaborate, nor funny, but it wastes Reigen’s time, which is always the goal for these kids. He almost slams the door in the kid’s face — he never thought of himself as good with children, having neither the patience nor tolerance for these sorts of stunts — but then the child continues. His eyes are wide and bloodshot and full of terror, and it makes Reigen pause. Kids aren’t normally such good actors. The boy holds a white knuckled-grip on the straps of his backpack, his small body swallowed up by the expanse of the doorframe, and it takes another minute for Reigen to decide that he’s not lying. Then, there’s this twist in his gut that he knows won’t go away until he hears this bowl-haired kid out. He bites at the flesh inside his cheek and invites the boy inside.

It wasn’t supposed to go further than a cup of tea and a bid farewell. The kid shares his troubles with such vivid imagination that leaves Reigen impressed. A child conjuring the idea of spirits gnawing at the safety barriers in a neighbor’s home, with the boy able to exorcise all of them with a wave of his hand and, in a horrifying realization, harm the neighbors as well — perhaps there’s some psychological trauma Reigen has no business handling. But when Reigen presses for clues, the boy speaks of his parents fondly, without a hint of distress, and his life seems otherwise normal. It’s not much to go off on, but then Reigen remembers that this kid isn’t his problem, and he’s taking up time that could otherwise be used to be speaking with clients, so he chews on a quick speech to help soothe the child’s nerves enough to send him home, a reformed man.

“Be a good person.” That was fine enough. He couldn’t go wrong with that. Nothing to twist the child’s worldview into some killer. Whatever his complex — and confidence for this child to kill another human being was something new — if he was taught that his powers were not inherently evil, but rather a tool for him to use, then he would be alright. Especially after he broke out of his fantasy.

And then the child stares at him. It unnerves him, the open expression of awe on the child’s face, like a flower turning towards the sun. He looks as though Reigen’s led him to fresh waters and he’s been dying in the desert, and Reigen takes to flexing his fingers on his tea mug. The child asks if he can come again. This, Reigen did not sign up for. He runs his fingers around the back of his neck, concocting some excuse that the kid couldn’t possibly take as an insult. Then, Reigen burns his tongue on his tea.

The cup falls out of his hand. His stomach shoots up to his throat as he grabs vainly at the cup, but it’s already begun its descent towards the kid. He shouts for the kid to get out of the way, and then the cup, the bubbles of tea — they’re all floating. They bob in the air like they’re suspended in water, five feet over the ground, and Reigen’s mind goes completely, white-hot blank as the tea politely bubbles back into the cup and drops neatly into the kid’s outstretched hand. Reigen stares.

And stares.

He asks when the kid is available each week to meet.

—

Shigeo Kageyama is his name. Reigen calls him Mob. The boy is simple. It’s evident in his appearance; bowl cut hair that hides the top of his eyes, unexpressive in regards to anything, and he always wears his grade school uniform. Mob fits, and the boy doesn’t seem to mind the nickname.

Maybe it’s dangerous, Reigen giving him a nickname. He shouldn’t get attached. But on the other hand, the boy needs to feel attached to Reigen, otherwise this won’t work and he won’t visit clients with him. But it isn’t hard, with Mob returning to Reigen’s office each day, staring expectantly at the self-proclaimed psychic as though he’s going to perform a miracle. Reigen obliges when he can, and the boy is quite easy to trick. With a wag of his finger and a few choice words, he enrages the spirits before looking expectantly to Mob to “clean them up” for him. After their screams dissipate into a puff of smoke, he concocts a speech about self-restraint, and they leave, Mob satisfied with his brilliant master, and Reigen is satisfied with a thicker wallet. They return to the office and share the news with the client, an elderly woman whose judgment relies more on superstition than wisdom. She is his favorite kind. She signs the necessary paperwork, which Reigen slides neatly into a pile and wishes her well. Before the woman goes, she glances briefly at Mob, who is seated at a makeshift desk Reigen had clawed out of his closet to create, made out of two stacks of cardboard and a long wooden slab that’s covered by a tablecloth. Reigen doesn’t even remember where he got a tablecloth.

Her smile is fond. “Does your son come here often after school?”

Reigen chokes, which is unfortunate because he wasn’t even eating anything. Reigen disguises it as a cough and pounds a fist into his chest. Mob looks at him in alarm. Reigen is waving his hand in the air to belay any concern.

“No,” he chokes again, and there’s a disgusting amount of phlegm in his throat. “No, he’s not my son. He’s more of a, uh…” He almost says “employee.” He’s definitely not.

Realization dawns on the woman’s face. “Ah, he’s your apprentice. Excuse me for assuming. He’s just so young.”

Reigen is about to wave off her apology, but he notes the change of tone at the last sentence, and he closes his mouth. The woman is staring at him intently.

“Is he compensated well?”

Maybe her judgment is not so slanted toward superstition after all. Reigen likes her a lot less.

“He’s compensated just fine.” His tone is not necessarily snappish, but there’s a warning hidden there, at the back of his throat. The woman smiles, but it’s all thin lips and tight cheeks.

“That’s always good. A boy should learn early how to make a living for his family.”

Reigen matches her tight smile. “He’s a hard worker. He’ll be ahead of his peers in no time.”

“I’m sure he already is.” The woman shoulders her purse, smooths her blouse, and pats the base of her curls. She turns and winks at Mob.

“Perhaps I’ll see you boys in the future.”

“Oh,” says Mob, who enlaces his fingers together nervously. “I hope not. That means you’ll have more spirits. That’s... bad.”

The woman’s smile doesn’t waver, but it softens under Mob’s genuine concern. “Yes,” she says, “that’s bad.” She steers her gaze back to Reigen. “But who knows? After all, 98% reduction rate… well, it’s not 100%.”

Reigen bites his tongue. His smile is plastered on his face. “Well,” he says, voice smooth as silk, “you know who to call if it ever comes to that. Have a good day, ma’am.”

Her smile is more of a sneer, but she bows to them both and ushers herself out the door. The moment it closes, Mob looks to Reigen.

“What does ‘compensated’ mean?”

Reigen really doesn’t like that woman.

———

Weeks later, they arrive back at the office late. It’s nearly dark. Reigen had hoped to get back to the office earlier and close up in time to catch dinner before rush hour, but his call volume has gone up. Word was getting out that self-proclaimed psychic Reigen Arataka could exorcise spirits legitimately. It’s certainly not a back-to-back call operation, but it is more than he has ever gotten in the past. He has calls to return.

The office is stale and hot when Reigen swings open the door; he had shut off the air conditioner before they had left. It leaves the place feeling sticky, but Reigen merely adjusts his tie and flicks the lights on. The office is bathed in a tired yellow glow.

Mob ambles to his cardboard-wood desk and pulls his backpack from under it. The balanced cardboard sways precariously. “Shishou,” Mob begins, and it makes Reigen’s hand still over his laptop. Mob started calling him that the day after their client thumbed Kageyama as his apprentice. Sure, Reigen considered the term loosely the day Mob left his office for the first time with the assurance that he would be under Reigen’s tutelage, but the use of “shishou” left Reigen’s head spinning. It meant he couldn’t get out of this easily, if he ever wanted to. Pursue his next career goal of becoming a private investigator, for example. That was stuffed further in the wastebin the more Mob used that word.

Reigen still isn’t willing to throw the wastebin out just yet, though. He blinks and forces himself to take the name in stride. He begins typing idly against the keys of his laptop.

“Hm?”

“Um,” Mob says, playing with the zipper of his backpack. “Um, I’m going home now.”

“Hm.”

“Um,” he says again. The kid is clearly waiting for Reigen to acknowledge him further, so Reigen peels his eyes away from his laptop screen to stare at Mob.

“Right. Get home safe.”

It isn’t really his responsibility to walk the kid home anyway. If Shigeo’s parents are letting their ten-year-old son walk to and from school, with pockets of no communication between then and now, Reigen isn’t going to butt in. In a way, Reigen is grateful that Mob has such laid-back parents. The wary, clingy types always complicated things.

Mob nods. Reigen waits expectantly for a moment longer, eyebrows raised as the sun dips faster below the cityscape and his laptop begins to cast a blue hue over his face. Mob flushes the more he’s under Reigen’s steady gaze, and finally he stares back at his zippers, nodding again.

“Okay. See you tomorrow, Shishou.”

Reigen starts typing at his keys again, but the black text keeps fizzing in and out of his vision as he listens to the rattle of Mob’s zippers as he slips into his backpack straps, the loose pencils in his bag rattling their muffled tune. Reigen is gnawing at the inside of his cheek, a pitted twist forming at the base of his gut, and it grows with each clack of Mob’s shoes against the hardwood flooring. He sighs just before the office door squeals open.

“Oi. Mob.”

Mob turns, his hands still wrapped around the handle of the door. Reigen is getting up from his desk. He fishes out his wallet and begins to count. The twist in his gut loosens a little bit.

“Here,” Reigen says, holding a fist towards Mob. He waits for the boy to open his palm, and then he lets the coins fall with a faint metal ring, into the center of his palm.

Mob stares at the coins. “What’s this?”

“That’s compensation.”

Mob counts. “This is three hundred yen.”

Reigen raises an eyebrow. He almost takes it back. “And you’re ten years old.”

Mob counts the coins again. He rolls them around in his palm, then pinches each one between his fingers, staring at their thickness. “It’s three hundred yen,” Mob remarks again, but it’s not accusatory. He stares at the coins in wide-eyed wonder, as if he’s never seen three hundred yen in his life.

Reigen is starting to feel uncomfortable. He clears his throat. “ Well , as I said, you’re being compensated for working under me as my apprentice. Normally, I don’t fork out this sort of money, since you’re my apprentice, not my employee, but—” Reigen waves his hand upward, gesturing vaguely above him, as if the situation that he threw himself in with this kid is somehow resting in the middle space above him, watching with impish glee, “—I ought to compensate you for your, ah, training during my job.”

Mob looks at him, enraptured. His fingers close around the coins, and they don’t make a sound when Mob bows.

“Thank you, Master Reigen.” Reigen can only see the top of the boy’s head as he bows.

Reigen’s palm feels sticky when he rests it against his neck. He really needs to turn on the air conditioning. “Right. See you tomorrow.”

When Mob straightens, he’s smiling. It’s faint, and it could be a trick of the light, the way that the shadows curve over the boy’s face. Reigen doesn’t have time to check, because the boy twists the handle of the door and leaves Spirits and Such Consultation office without another sound.

The conman stares at the empty space, palm still pressed against the back of his neck. The air conditioner is ghostly quiet, dead against the window. When he removes his hand, it takes a moment to unstick from his skin. He sits there, the glow of his laptop beginning to dull his senses.

He’s just covering his ass. He gave him a threadbare amount — pocket change — to keep the elderly clients’ mouths shut. Hell, he doesn’t even have to pay the kid. He’s ten years old. They signed no documents. He’s doing Mob a favor, letting him come with him to his jobs. Now he’s paying Mob a modest wage that no other ten-year-old is making. Reigen’s neck is starting to feel moist.

He doesn’t turn on his air conditioning that night.

—

He’s trying not to care. But it’s hard — it’s so damn hard — when Mob looks at him with such open and baring trust, as though he’s placed his heart in Reigen’s hands and knows that he’ll squeeze it to keep it beating. He does it every day, nestling his backpack between the two cardboard stands of his makeshift desk, and watches Reigen with rapt attention, analyzing every move he makes.

“How do you do it, Shishou?”

Reigen glances up from his desk, seconds after he had bit into his burger, the paper crinkling noisily in his hand. “Do what?” he says eloquently around his wad of burger.

“How do you keep it inside instead of it going out?”

Reigen’s mouth feels like paste, and he swallows the burger with difficulty. He stares at the corner of his office, searching for something to say. (A small voice tells him that he’s way over his head — another argues that he’s just a kid, really; how bad can it be?) The bun of the burger had formed a thin layer of mush behind his teeth, and he buys time by cleaning it out with his tongue.

“Well,” Reigen says, and clears his throat when his voice cracks at the end syllable. “I’m doing it just like you are now. I stay calm. Remember the knife.” He forms his hand into a fist, wiggling around an invisible knife. “I’m in control. So are you. It’s not something to fear.” He offers a small smile. “I learn to trust myself, Mob. In time, you will, too.”

And there it is again, that look of raw hope. Reigen doesn’t have the heart to discourage it, so he smiles wider, encouragingly, before retreating to his laptop, burger forgotten beside him.

An hour later, with no show of new clients, he tells Mob to go home. But even after the door closes, Reigen can’t escape that wide-eyed stare, that desperate gaze, where the ten-year-old boy places his trust in a stranger, fastening a rope between them both and never letting go.

That old pit is forming again at the base of his gut. He disregards it at hunger, and he eats the rest of his burger.

———

It’s been three months since that day they met at the consultation office. Roughly. Reigen hasn’t kept count, with the volume of clients growing and his schedule growing in tandem each week. He’s noticed that the seasons have changed, though, because Reigen doesn’t have to turn his air conditioner on nearly as often, and that cuts back on costs, which Reigen always remembers. Mob comes in later in the afternoon, bundled in a scarf but otherwise as plain as the day Reigen met him. He says hello. Reigen replies with a wave of his hand, preoccupied with the emails left in his inbox. Regardless of the internet traffic, he’s made no new clients today, and he’s sporting a migraine. He barely notices Mob staring at him expectantly at his desk.

“Nothing today, Mob,” Reigen grunts. “Feel free to… do your homework or something. Or leave.” Without pay , Reigen adds. This migraine is making him particularly moody.

Minutes pass, he thinks, as Reigen is staring blearily at his computer screen, an ache settling at the back of his eyes, scrolling up and down his read and replied files. He might have spaced out, or completely forgotten where he was, because he jumps slightly at the sound of paper sliding across his desk. He looks past his computer screen to see Mob’s eyes peek over the desk, through his mop of black hair, as a tiny hand pushes a sheet filled with scribbles toward him. Reigen picks it up and squints at it.

It’s a drawing. There’s lots of swirls — greens and blues and pinks — and shapes and a form that, after a bit of deliberation, looks like a man in a black-grey shirt with a thin wispy line of pink on his chest, with bright orange hair that’s fringed at every turn and a crooked smile in thick black crayon. Reigen looks to Mob for answers.

Mob looks embarrassed. “For you. We drew it in class.”

And then there’s a light above his head. It’s an old, dusty light stolen from a hardware store, but it flickers to life over his head as Reigen stares at the page. The squiggly man is him, smiling in front of a crooked building with too many windows but with the sign — his sign — drawn squarely at the center of the building: Spirts n Such Consoltashun.

Something gets warm in his chest — something that replaces the black stewing pit — that makes him stare at the page for a moment longer. The warmth is not explosive — just a little ember, sitting at the center of his ribcage — but it’s enough for Reigen to know.

His do-not-care policy is quickly coming to an end.

He thanks Mob, of course, and tells him it looks great, even though, objectively, it doesn’t. Most ten-year-olds grow to draw more recognizable images, so if there was an art contest, Mob would most definitively be in last place. But he keeps it. He doesn’t know why, but when Mob leaves, Reigen searches for an empty manilla folder, digging through old cardboard boxes packed in the massage room, discarding less important paperwork — taxes, mostly — to find a somewhat fresh folder. Shaking off layers of dust from himself and his papers, he presses the drawing gently into the folder, repositioning the edges so it fits perfectly inside. It’s bright and colorful and so unlike the papers he’s read for years on end.

He stares at it for a long time.

—

It is not a one-time occurrence.

It happens infrequently, but Reigen knows when he’s about to get them. Mob walks into the office in a rush, both too slow and fast at the same time, shoulders hunched but eyes wide and clear, nibbling the bottom of his lip with nervous energy. He slips his backpack down, almost toppling his desk over, and then he opens it, the sound of paper crinkling as Mob ruins his homework but oh-so-carefully withdraws a new piece of art, this time with different colors, this time with different scenery. But the characters are always the same — him and Mob, sometimes lounging in the office, sometimes exorcising a spirit in a warehouse (he shouldn’t be concerned, but he hopes Mob’s teachers don’t talk amongst themselves about Mob’s new master and his continued encouragement of these macabre fantasies of spirits and demons).

Each day Reigen thanks him for them and places them in his manilla folder, each pressed carefully over the other. He’s not sure what to do with them, so he keeps them there where they can’t be damaged by stray crumbs or toppled coffee. They stay in a cabinet next to his desk when they’re not lying on display on his desk, nestled between his lease paperwork and old client contacts. Sometimes, Reigen forgets about them completely.

Until, of course, the next drawing comes.

——

It’s sometime in winter when Reigen finally invites Mob to get ramen after work for the first time ever. It’s cold and dark and, even though there is no forecast for snow, the air smells just like the beginning of snowfall in Seasoning City, where the acrid smoke of the city clears into this sort of musky, oak-like smell. Reigen is tired and hungry and, when he looks at the clock on his phone, deliberates how exhausting it would be for him to stick a cup of noodles in the microwave and let it bake until his eyes start watering. He sighs and stares up at the night sky.

“Let’s get ramen.”

Mob makes a noise beside him, something like cough or sneeze, and his eyebrows stretch skyward underneath his hair. “Really?” he asks. His tone reminds him of the first time Reigen gave him his pay. Reigen bites the inside of his cheek and finds it difficult to stare at Mob for longer than a second.

“Yeah. I don’t want to cook anything in this weather. S’gonna be a long night, so might as well take a break while I can. Come on.”

He leads the kid to a ramen stall, where they greet the cook and settle in their seats. He orders for them both, with a decidedly smaller bowl for Mob. Mob continues thanking Reigen even when he tells him to stop, and by the fourth time, Reigen is getting annoyed.

“Oi, don’t expect me to make a habit of this. This is a one-time thing. And this is coming out of your salary.”

Mob sobers after this and eats his ramen silently, but he still radiates this warmth that stays in Reigen’s chest for a long while, so faint and threadbare that he doesn’t even notice it until he opens the door to his apartment and is greeted by grey walls and papers strewn haphazardly over his couches, his year-old lights flickering their last sputters of light, and he realizes how good he felt in that ramen store, and how tired he feels in here.

Getting ramen does not stay a one-time thing.

——

It’s an off-day again. Reigen tells Mob to go home and then closes his office early, tucking old files below his armpit to take home with him. The weather is dark and gloomy that afternoon, which always raises people’s superstitions, which always lead to more clients, but apparently everyone is of clear mind today and hasn’t felt the need to call any psychics. Reigen can weather out the lax in calls, but he may be turning off his water for a while.

When he walks into his apartment, he scrubs the crust out of his eyes with the back of his palm, leaving his vision spotty, and he bumps into his kitchen counter. He stumbles and the files spill out from under his arm like a waterfall, and Reigen’s sigh echoes against the white tile. He bends down to pick up an unusually colorful paper.

He blinks. It’s a kid’s drawing, full of scribbles and squares, with a familiar man with orange hair and a pink tie grinning at him in thick black crayon. He looks to the rest of the spilled paperwork and sees those same familiar swirls of color. He must have accidentally added the manilla folder with his bills.

He gently extracts each one from the ground, regards his kitchen counter with a frown, and scrubs a corner of it clean to rest the papers on. His bills he’s less gentle with, crinkling in his grip, and these he throws onto his couch to pool over after his shower.

He doesn’t come up with his idea until after he’s out of the shower, towel over his shoulders, scrubbing at his still-wet hair and a toothbrush dangling in his mouth, and he walks back to the kitchen to stare at the blank surface of his refrigerator. The grey and orange and green is still bright at the corner of his eye. He huffs a breath of air out of his nose, a sort of “huh” noise that’s gargled by toothpaste, and realizes that he probably could have thought of this long ago.

He tosses his towel to the side and starts rummaging through his kitchen drawers in search of magnets.

The other papers lying on the couch are long forgotten.

“Shishou?”

Mob’s hand is still on the door handle when he stops in his tracks and stares at his master, who looks a little strange. He’s balancing at the top of his rolling chair, legs shakingly supporting the older man’s weight, as he’s pulling things from the wall and letting them fall onto the ground below. His suit jacket is discarded on his desk, and his tie is thrown over his shoulder. He looks especially sweaty up there. He also looks like he’s going to fall.

Reigen glances over his shoulder, and the chair wobbles below him. “Oh! Mob. Good.” Reigen’s voice is strained, like he’s out of breath, and the mere act of swiveling his head around is using up too much energy. There are beads of sweat on his face. He motions Mob inside with a jerk of his head. “Help me out over here. Grab those posters on the floor and put them in the trash. Then grab my chair for me so I can get down.”

Mob obediently enters, setting his backpack down next to his new desk — wooden and portable, something Reigen had bought at an online auction for less than a thousand yen, and so much better than the amalgamation of cardboard and wood and scratchy tablecloth — and goes to pick up the scraps of paper lying on the floor. They all look like posters of a younger Reigen, with his smile of too-many-teeth and flashy colors behind him. One looks out of place, of a man with black hair and a vacant gaze, with a name starting with “Mo” behind him. That one is torn.

“Shishou, don’t you need these--?”

“Bah.” Reigen waves a hand. The chair gets even shakier. “Outdated. Don’t need them. Now hurry up, Mob. I’m gonna fall.”

Mob rushes to throw the posters in the waste bin, which is too small and the paper scraps pool out around it. Then he rushes over to Reigen, who is huffing and puffing as though he ran several kilos, even though all he did was stand on a chair. Mob holds it steady as Reigen slowly crawls down. He radiates sweat, and when he tries to wipe his face, more sweat from his hand replaces it.

“Good job,” Reigen pants. Mob stares at the torn posters.

“Why didn’t you just use your powers to take them down, Shishou?”

Reigen coughs and then barks out a laugh. “Oh, Mob,” he tuts. “There’s no need to use my powers for such trivial things. I can’t be reliant solely on the one thing I’m good at. Sometimes it’s good to be dependent on your own physical strength. Plus,” he coughs, “I just took down a major spirit this morning. I have to, ah, save up my remaining energy for later.”

Mob stares at his wise master and nods sagely. “Okay.” They both elect to stare at the wall which, in this case, is still not empty. “What’s that?”

An empty cork board sits on the wall before them. It must have held the rest of Reigen’s old posters and advertisements, and now it’s completely bare. It makes the room feel a lot bigger.

Reigen clasps a sweaty hand on Mob’s shoulder. “A client-satisfaction board, my apprentice. Here, we’ll fill it with photos taken with clients after our jobs. It gives future clients a piece of mind. A bit of security, knowing we do our job well.”

“Oh,” says Mob. He looks to his shoes and thinks. “But we don’t have any client-satisfaction pictures.”

“Not yet, Mob.” Reigen rummages under his jacket, which still lies on the desk, and pulls out what even Mob can recognize as a cheap plastic camera. “But we soon will. Here.” He spins the camera around to point at them and leans over to Mob, who stares unblinkingly at the camera lens. The device clicks, and Reigen spins it around to see the finished picture. All they see is a brown blur.

“Ah,” Reigen grunts. “One more time.” They take another photo. They spin it around. This time, Mob can see both him and Reigen staring at the camera, Reigen with his hair stuck to his forehead and grin crooked, and Mob in midway blink.

“Perfect,” Reigen says. He sets the camera down. “And one more thing.”

He produces a folder from under his desk. It’s plain and tan and it looks like all the rest in Reigen’s office, but when he opens it, Mob can see some familiar scribbles. He cranes his head over the desk to see what Reigen’s doing with them, as the man pulls one, two, three from the pile and then rummages in a small box of thumbtacks. Reigen crosses the office and sticks the drawings crookedly on the corkboard, in a pattern that suggests he expects to put more photos around them, with wide space between each. They gleam in the afternoon sun, his drawings from school, that feature him and Reigen eating burgers in the office and exorcising spirits in the park.

“There,” Reigen says, arms folded over his chest, satisfied. He glances over to Mob. “Look good?”

The sun strikes the pictures just right, forcing Mob to squint at them as they make the office feel brighter. The little esper looks to his master, then to the corkboard, then to the folder that sits silently at the desk. After a long moment (and Reigen is starting to sweat again), he nods. He doesn’t even realize he’s smiling.

“Yeah,” Mob says, soft and quiet in the tiny Spirits and Such Consultation Office. “Looks good.”

In Reigen’s apartment, there are still papers strewn across the couch, the walls are grey, and the air is stale and smells like old ramen. There are dirty dishes in the sink and the counter could use a good wipe, and Reigen forgot to turn off the air conditioner when he left for work.

And in the kitchen, hanging on the refrigerator by half-faded blue and pink magnets, rustling in the still-running air conditioner, are five of Mob’s drawings, shining proudly in the dying sunlight.

#fanfiction #spiteful writings #fan fiction #fanfic #mp100 #mob psycho 100 #reigen arataka #shigeo kagayama #fluff #like an enormous amount of fluff #reigen arataka is bad at expressing his affection verbally

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katyatalks · 5 years ago

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Otomedia April 2019 - Character Designer Kameda, Eyecatch Team Kenja, Series Co-ordinator Seko & Director Tachikawa - Interview Translation

Here’s Character Designer Kameda, Eye-catch Team Kenja, Series Co-ordinator Seko & Director Tachikawa’s interviews from April 2019’s Otomedia! Semi-summary style as there’s a lot to get through - naturally, this is a long one, but there’s plenty of cool stuff in here that makes for a good read. Includes stuff like why certain scenes were cut from the anime (boxcutter Minori, the cat, etc.), Joseph’s original character design, where Reigen got some of his ‘wise sayings’ from, the reason behind the kaleidoscope imagery in the S2 intro and outro, and plenty more!

KAMEDA YOSHIMICHI Character Designer

Asked how the production environment was for season 2, he says that it was “strangely pretty hectic - lots of stuff going on (laughs)”. States that with season 2 they understood the direction that MP100 would take more than they did with season 1. Something he and Director Tachikawa struggled with in season 1 was what kind of anime style would be best for the manga.

For season 2 the majority of the staff working on it had seen season 1, so production was steady.

He says that before season 2 he’d been working on “Doraemon the Movie: Nobita's Treasure Island”, but work for season 2 began before he was finished with that film.

Just before working on season 1 of MP100 he’d worked on One Punch Man, “and it’s thanks to that that I was able to snap into work on Mob Psycho 100, but this time around it was a bit of a hard fight.” While drawing the designs for the new characters who’d appear in season 2 he eventually found himself readjusting to the proportions of MP100 (vs. Doraemon’s style)

Mentions how Tachikawa has been working on the MP100 OVA previously so getting back into work on Mob Psycho didn’t seem to be that strange for him, but for Kameda personally it took a bit of getting used to.

He’s asked if there’s anything regarding Mob’s character design that is essential to maintain a certain ‘Mob’-ness about him, to which Kameda replies; “The length of his fringe/bangs, ie. whether or not you can see his eyebrows.” Discusses how there’s only a certain amount of space between where his hair ends and his eyelids start to give an expression, and the depth of his expression varies greatly depending on if he has eyebrows or not.

“Mob is a character who isn’t really expressive, but regardless, it is important to be able to show his expressions. That’s something I told everyone to pay attention to.”

“In season 1 we avoided drawing Mob with eyebrows as much as possible, but in season 2 we see them again and again, and then we have the super handsome sparkly-eyed Mob that we see in S2E5! Since that episode, even in his normal state, it became fine to give him eyebrows (laughs).”

“This season, he’s had a lot of angry scenes. The start of episode 9 has him quite notably angry. For that, you’ve got to give him eyebrows.”

Q: “Would you say season 2 lifted the ban on eyebrows?” A: “Season 2 lifted the ban on eyebrows!” States he himself didn’t draw eyebrows much at all during season 1. “Right now, I’m doing work on the final episode, and I’m giving those eyebrows a certain plumpness (laughs).”

He is asked if there were any other changes made to the characters. “This is a very minute change, but for certain characters like Mob and Reigen I made a change to their silhouettes - beforehand, their hair had a rounder shape, but now their hair has become a little more playful.”

“I suppose rather than a choice I made on purpose, their hair ended up this way because it’s easier to draw. It’s probably the result of the great amount of advertisement art I drew after season 1 finished broadcasting.”

Asked what he thinks season 2’s “power-up” point is or where it’s changed compared to season 1, he says that they had a lot of young animators participate this season and the quality of their digital work was amazing.

Mentions how with digital animation the look of things like smoke and sparks, and spatial representation, improves.

“For example, in S2E3, when Reigen is looking through the window, the camera passes by him and while approaching the girl, the camera turns to the wall and enters it… the animator made the environment for that scene in 3D with a virtual camera.”

Q: ”A good amount of new characters show up this season - which of them is your favourite?” A: ”Shinra Banshoumaru! I made him chubbier than he is in the manga. His belly that sticks out, his short legs, his harem pants… I drew those, but Tachikawa-san told me I was going too far. But I persisted; ‘Tachikawa-san, we live in a time where there’s no chubby characters in anime! If there’s any anime that can challenge that it’s Mob Psycho 100!’ I was like a bulldozer with the things I said, and as a result I got him how I wanted him!... I say that, but Tachikawa-san also topped-up the amount of belly-sways Shinra has (laughs).”

He's asked about characters post S2E9, to which he mentions Joseph's clothes being different in the manga. "He wears a greyish suit in the manga, but I feel like Joseph has more of a white image. Plus, a grey suit would overlap with Reigen. At first I had Joseph wear a black leather jacket, but a few days later I reviewed that and went, 'nah, that's not right.' I had it changed to white."

He is asked about any scenes up until S2E9 that he particularly fussed over, or any that left an impression on him. “Episode 7. It’s a great Reigen story, and I had the privilege of being the animation director for it. I paid great attention to Reigen’s expressions. It’s an episode with a lot of good cuts, so I wanted to make sure they were all the best quality they could be.”

Q: “Of those cuts, which would you say is the best?” A: “It really leaves an impression on you in the manga - when Reigen says, ‘You’ve really grown up, haven’t you’, a message for beyond the camera. [...] Then, in the final part of the episode, when he talks to Mob on the bridge. Episode 7 truly has some great expressions; my favourite faces.”

He’s asked if there’s anything coming up that he’d like us to pay attention to & any highlights - mentions the battle between Shibata and Gouda. Says the anime brings action and originality that only anime can achieve.

His final message to readers is that if you haven’t read the manga yet, don’t go running to read it, wait for the anime first, so you can experience the tension of not knowing what happens next. “The quality of season 2 is insane, right up until the end.”

---

KENJA Eyecatches Kenja are described as a video production group, who have made promotional advertisements for MP100 (both for the manga and S1 of the anime), and were in charge of the eyecatches for season 2. The eyecatches were mainly made by koya, Takarai & 0gt. koya, their representative, has worked as ONE’s assistant, and Takarai participated as an animator this season.

Asked how they ended up doing the eyecatches for season 2, koya says that Satou Miyo (who was in charge of the season 1 ending) was a classmate of his when he was a graduate student. “We got back in touch and the message I got was, ‘I’m doing work on the ending of Mob Psycho 100, do you want to work on something too, koya-kun?’ (laughs).”

Takarai had his way in via already being an animator for the show, and koya discusses being ONE’s assistant. “ONE-san and I get along very well, so I’d tag along to anime events. I got talking to Director Tachikawa and now here we are.”

They were originally told that it’d be fine to have the same eyecatch for before and after the commercial pause, but they were worried that watching the same thing twice would be a bit unbearable, so they made two for each episode instead.

koya: “Ended up being tougher than I thought (laughs).”

Takarai: “Well, simply put, we doubled our work load (laughs).”

The eyecatch for episode 3 is brought up. Takarai; “Eyecatches have this image of being stand-alone things, but for this episode, it snuggles up to the plot. It was a choice that made me anxious, but looking at everyone’s reactions to it, I was relieved.”

Their final message to the readers comes from koya, who states that going on Twitter and seeing everyone react to mob psycho 100 stuff as it happens in real time is very encouraging. “Even just, ‘I wonder what the eyecatches will be today?’, makes me happy.”

---

SEKO HIROSHI Series Co-ordinator

Asked where he thinks season 2 has powered up compared to season 1, he says that season 1 had to introduce all the characters - season 2 starts off with the characters introduced, so the action kicks off full-throttle.

He’s asked what his thought process was in choosing what parts of the manga to leave out of the anime. “My process is, I first write with absolutely everything from the manga in the script, then choose what to cut from there. The flow of the story as a whole is important - I keep that in the forefront of my mind, and choose to keep things that are vital to the story. Other than that, I try to keep scenes that show off the personalities of the characters. There’s been moments where I’ve had to cut scenes, even though I really like them, just because they wouldn’t fit into the length of the episode…! Other than episode length, there’s also parts of Mob Psycho 100 that we wouldn’t have been able to include due to broadcasting code.”

He’s asked which character he thinks grew the most, to which he says Mob. “What stuck with me was episode 3. ‘Mob’s been thinking about this kind of stuff’... I was like, ‘oh’.

He’s asked if there’s any other character he feels has had a big change since season 1. “Naturally, Reigen. [...] I feel like Reigen has had a layer peeled back, after episodes 6 and 7. He’s an adult, and he does act that way sometimes, but there’s parts of him that haven’t matured… but I feel with the completion of that arc, he’s taken a step closer to becoming a fully-fledged adult.”

He’s asked if there’s been any part of the season up until episode 9 that’s particularly left an impression on him, to which he says episode 8. “The marathon. [...] That was a part that made me think, wow, this manga is amazing. You have a regular school marathon, and then come home to find your house on fire - not something you’d be quick to find anywhere else, huh. (Laughs)”

He discusses how originally season 2 was 12 episodes, and the house fire would’ve come at the end of Part A of the original episode 8, and Claw Arc would commence with the B part. It was with Warner Brother’s intervention that season 2 became 13 episodes, as an individual from Warner Bros. wanted to have the fire come at the end of episode 8.

He’s asked which of the new characters in season 2 has particularly been on his mind. “His entry is a little later on, but I love Serizawa from the Ultimate Five. How should I put it… it’s not surprising that he’s the way he is. He was a hikikomori, and he doesn’t know anything about society, so he believes in and follows his ‘boss’. I think this sort of situation can happen to anyone. He was brainwashed, so to say. But, what becomes of him? His story is one that I really love, so he’s definitely the character on my mind.”

He’s asked what it is about Mob Psycho 100 that makes it Mob-Psycho-100-ish, to which he says that the characters don’t feel like they’re just characters - they’re all a bit hopeless but that’s what makes them loveable.

“The Telepathy Club guys, for example… if they were real they probably wouldn’t be able to become proper members of society, but we still think of them fondly. Perhaps we’re too harsh to people who we deem hopeless in this world of ours.”

“No matter who you are, ONE-san will be warm to you. I think the goodness in Mob Psycho 100 comes from ONE-san’s personality.”

---

TACHIKAWA YUZURU Director

Says that the average age of people working on season 2 dropped slightly compared to season 1. “We had people who love the manga, people who had only seen season 1, and those who love both. So there was a harmonious atmosphere.”

States that there was a lot of creative freedom given to the staff. “We can play around. That’s a merit of a show of this calibre - you can do as you please.”

States that Season 2 powered up compared to season 1 when it comes to emotions. Says that even in fight scenes, the personalities of the characters and their relationships shine through, which is something he wanted to maintain when shifting the MP100 manga into anime form.

“There’s quite an oscillation when it comes to emotions in the first half of the season. Episode 1 is warm and fluffy; episode 2 has a mix of laughs and horror; episode 3 impacts you… as do 4 and 5 (laughs). Then, episodes 6 and 7 moved plenty of our staff to tears. They’re full of heart.”

States that within all this oscillation, “from the start to the end, something we paid attention to was making sure the theme of ‘Mob’s ongoing growth’ was present. That ‘he is able to change himself’.”

“He’s able to change because he has everyone, and everyone around him is able to change, too.”

Discussion of season 2’s ED. “The emotional intensity of season 2 shifts a lot, and when the show makes you feel down it makes you feel /down/. So, I asked for an ending that’s warm and fluffy - something that calms you when you watch it. The illustrations are incredibly cute, but actually, the ending is not just cute - there’s stuff depicted that holds a deeper meaning.”

He’s asked about the kaleidoscope imagery present in the intro. “Originally the S2 outro didn’t have any kaleidoscope imagery, but I wanted to add it in, so now there’s that link between the intro and the outro. Mob continuously changes as a result of the people he meets… that’s a theme of the outro, but it’s also a theme of Mob Psycho 100 in general. There’s several parts within a kaleidoscope, but put the parts together and they create something new and charming. Mob gains friends, and as a result of all these different friends, he’s able to grow… that’s the meaning behind the kaleidoscope, and why it’s present in both the intro and outro.”

Interviewer brings up that Tachikawa previously said that season 1 was written with Reigen & Mob’s shishou-deshi relationship at its core, and asks what is at the core of season 2. “Reigen is also a protagonist-type character in Mob Psycho 100, but this time around we focused on Mob… season 2 has ‘The people surrounding Mob and his relationships with them’ at its core. Episodes 6 and 7 are pretty firmly about Reigen in that ‘people surrounding Mob’ role. Then there’s Mogami, and Serizawa later on. But, even deeper at its core season 2 focuses on how Mob grows as a result of the people he meets.”

Interviewer brings up that Tachikawa previously said he wanted to animate Reigen’s press conference, and asks how it was having that wish become reality. “We have it in season 1, that scene where Mob meets Reigen for the first time. When we put that in season 1, we thought if we’d ever get to animate the press conference, we’d use that scene again but have Reigen’s monologue from the manga this time around. I’m glad we were able to do that.”

Reigen’s past not being in the manga is brought up. “With the anime, I wanted to show a bit of how Reigen ended up where he is now. We don’t see the company Reigen used to work for in the manga. Occasionally, Reigen will come out with some ‘wise sayings’, such as ‘the secret behind business success lies in your smile’, so we thought it would be good to have those words come from where he used to work. We struggled deciding whether Reigen’s past should be as a water filter salesman, or as an insurance salesman. Ultimately, we asked ONE-sensei, who decided for us: ‘I like the idea of him selling water.’”

Discussion of Tsubomi coming to S&S as not being in the manga. Tachikawa wanted a scene in which Reigen, Ritsu, Teru do something for Mob - “something that sets things back to normal, after Whitey Arc.” ONE gave the idea, then published it as an omake manga.

He is asked what he’d like us to pay attention to with the final episodes. “Each character has their own motivation, but at the end of the day those motivations all add up to ‘defeat claw’.” Mentions a bunch of new characters making their entrance.

His final message to readers is that a lot of work went into the final episodes and attention was paid to detail, so please enjoy.

---

Original twitter thread has a few more pictures in it, link to that is here.

Otomedia April 2019;

ONE’s special interview here.

Sakurai Takahiro [Reigen VA] & Itou Setsuo [Mob VA] joint interview here.

Kokuryuu Sachi [Shou VA] interview here.

Itou Setsuo [Mob VA] & Irino Miyu [Ritsu VA] interview here.

Character Designer Kameda, Eye-catch Team Kenja, Series Co-ordinator Seko & Director Tachikawa's interview here.

#mp100 #mob psycho 100 #otomedia april 2019 #interview #kameda yoshimichi #tachikawa yuzuru #kenja #seko hiroshi #my stuff

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turning-the-kaleidoscope · 5 years ago

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“Undefinable” - Part 1 / 2

They say psychic powers can manifest under extreme or traumatizing circumstances...

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Seri?”

Serizawa doesn't have the leisure of drinking in the scene. It's shoved down his throat like poison, burning all the way down and scorching a hole in his stomach.

The room is filled with spirits. Screaming, convulsing spirits, blasts of black and white and every type of gray in between. The floors are cracked. The ceiling is blown full of gaping, gnawing holes opening up to a dark, smoke-filled sky.

In the middle of it stands Reigen, twisted around to face Serizawa. He's standing in a thick pool of acidic green, up to his ankles. It's on his hands, splayed in his palms, dripping like dark ink from the tips of his fingers. His eyes are wide and unseeing.

"Reigen, what happened?" His head spins with the world around him, voice barely above the screaming din of writhing spirits. "What happened? What's going on?"

"I thought they killed you," Reigen says, staring through his eyes instead of into them. His voice is steady, but it isn't the Reigen that Serizawa has come to know and love. "I thought... I thought they killed you, I..."

And now is when Serizawa realizes the ring of acidic green in Reigen's irises.

It's when he realizes the green is spreading.

It's when he realizes it isn't acid. There's power behind it. Energy. Scared. Unfamiliar. Psychic.

It's when he realizes the green isn't on Reigen.

It's from Reigen.

~*~*~*~*~*~

It happened easily enough, but it wasn’t the kind of thing that should happen whatsoever, at any point, at any time, at any magnitude, to anyone.

Serizawa shouldn't have let Reigen go alone, but Reigen is more than capable of taking care of himself, and he'd proven that on more than one occasion, more times than Serizawa really wanted to think about. It isn’t as though he’s helpless. Not being a psychic doesn’t mean he isn't capable. And he’s probably the most capable person Serizawa had ever had the pleasure of knowing and the privilege of working under, not just as an employee, but as a friend.

But as a psychic, he shouldn't have let Reigen go on his own. He should have considered the bad outcomes, the things that could have gone wrong. The fact that being capable didn't necessarily translate to ‘capable of dealing with spirits.’

But of course, Serizawa hadn't thought about that. Neither of them had thought about that, until it was too late to think about anything at all.

Serizawa is in the middle of a long stretch of hallway, lined with lanterns and doors on all sides. It gives him an awful sense of claustrophobia, but also a sort of familiarity, like he's been here before. It reminds him of being alone in his room as a child, how constraining it'd been in comparison to the wonderful breath of freedom he has now that he's working under Reigen and is surrounded by so many wonderful, incredible people, who love him as much as he loves them.

It's another reason why he shouldn't have let Reigen go alone. Reigen would never leave Serizawa to go on his own if he thought there was anything dangerous afoot. At the very least, he'd offer to tag along, just in case the worst case scenario actually happened.

Serizawa guides the flashlight along the cracks in the ceiling, searching. A spider skitters across its web; a rat skurries across the floor and almost trips him in his start. He drops the flashlight, and when he picks it up, has to brush dust and dirt off of it. The place is a wreck; an old, abandoned, maze-like structure, but built entirely out of wood, with a ceiling to boot. Who designed this place, why it was designed this way, Serizawa can only guess. And his guesses don't amount to anything sensical.

He keeps walking. He isn't even thinking about Reigen now, as his footsteps leave soft echoes in the space behind him and the corridor gnaws ahead of him, gaping and dark. He clutches the flashlight tighter, just to have some sense of reassurance, but it doesn't help. There's spiritual activity here, he feels it. Not just in the thrum beneath his feet, but in the beat of his heart, in the marrow of his bones, in the blood of his veins. It's deep and leaves him with dread in his stomach, but at least he's sensing the spirit here. Now he thinks of Reigen, but only in the sense that he should call, that they should regroup, because now he knows where the spirit is.

He should have called a lot sooner.

He shouldn't have let them separate at all.

He's making his way down the hallway, shining the flashlight this way and that, when the entire building gives a lurch and a rattle. He staggers on uneven floorboards and his knees hit the ground, flashlight spiraling and whirling out of his grip and down the darkened hallway. He reaches for it, but can't get close before another shake rattles him to his bones, and he throws up his barrier just in time to block a panel of falling ceiling loosened in the tremble.

His first thought is earthquake. But that's only for a moment, in the space between being thrown to the ground and the dawning realization of a new presence, of a second spiritual something. Something he doesn't recognize. Something that hadn't been there before.

And he scrambles to his feet, hits the ground running, heart in his lungs. He doesn't bother with the flashlight; the faint, amethyst glow of his barrier gives him all the light he could ever hope for and then some. It lights the way ahead of him. Rats scurry in the opposite direction down the hallway from whence he'd come. The spiders are suddenly eerily still, right where they're at, as though frozen in time. Serizawa leaves common sense and reasoning behind him and lets his pounding heart take charge as he bursts down the hallway, footfall after footfall, unable to breathe.

It occurs to him now that he shouldn't have left Reigen to himself. Not when they didn't know what they were dealing with. It didn't matter how insistent Reigen had been, how hard he'd pushed it, he shouldn’t have let him go.

He runs faster.

"Reigen!" Shrill, loud, slamming into walls and bouncing back at him like a rebounding bullet. "Reigen! Reigen, where are you!? Answer me!"

Another shake, only this time, he realizes it isn't a rattle. It's an explosion.

He doesn't remember making it there. He doesn't remember the moment he made it to that room, slammed open the doors so hard that they banged the walls and snapped off their hinges, and came to a horrible standstill in the open air beneath a blown-out roof, before a scene that would embed itself a tattoo in his mind for whatever foreseeable future he has.

"Seri...?" Reigen's voice. It isn't his. That aura isn't his. It shouldn’t be. "I... I thought they killed you, Seri, I thought—"

His voice is so haunted, so shaky, so not him that it leaves Serizawa with a knife in his gut and another one twisted in between his ribs. And Reigen stumbles back, tripping in the entanglement of aura at his feet, twisted around his limbs like vipers. He doesn't try pulling away—Serizawa isn't sure he can—but his eyes stay wide, and he looks down at his green-splattered hands, wide-eyed, aghast. Trembling.

The spirits behind him are still screaming, still shrieking, and Serizawa is just about to exorcise them himself when they burst from the inside out in a firework of green. Remnants go flying, but vaporize before they make contact with anything or anyone. The smoke burns in the sky above them. Reigen's breaths come ragged, short, and rasped.

"Wh-What did I do?" Reigen chokes, and he shouldn't. He was never meant to sound like that, never meant to sound so scared, so unsure, so frightened. Least of all at himself. "S-Seri, I don't—y-you were dead, you were dead, I-I thought—you were dead, they killed you—"

He's babbling, as tears gather in the corners of his green-stained eyes, and Serizawa lets his heart lead once more. It carries him across the broken floorboards in long leaps and bounds, until he can capture Reigen in his arms and hold him tightly. His skin is hot to the touch. His forehead burns like a brand into Serizawa's collarbone. His aura—green, sickly, with the consistency of tree sap—clings to them, weak and frightened and desperate and Serizawa doesn't push it away. He doesn't try pulling Reigen off of him, or out of it. He knows it would do more hurt than good.

“It’s okay,” Serizawa promises, without knowing whether anything is, or will be again. "It's okay, Reigen, I'm okay. You're okay. We're okay.”

“B-But—what did I—”

“It's okay,” Serizawa reiterates, but can't quite keep the wreck out of his voice this time. “It's okay, I promise, I promise you, it's okay. We have to get you home, now, we can talk about it, we'll fix this, we can find a way to fix this—”

In his heart, he knows that there's no fixing this. There's nothing he can do now that will fix this present he's stumbled upon. This presence he had a hand in building.

Reigen's sob comes dryly, sounding more like a choked noise of a someone strangled than an actual cry. Serizawa squeezes him tighter, screwing his eyes shut and trying to keep his breathing steady. He doesn’t know how the spirit did it. How it tricked him, perceptive as he is. But Serizawa can’t trick Reigen. He has to be present. He can’t break down, not now.

“Seri, I…”

"Reigen?" Serizawa opens his eyes, and Reigen becomes a heavier weight against him, heavier and heavier. "Reigen!?"

He slumps completely, the last thread of his consciousness leaving him in a desperate exhale, and Serizawa drags him up and into his arms, mangled aura and all. Reigen's eyes are closed, chest barely rising and falling, and it's all Serizawa can do to swing himself around, and run like hell.

#cloud writes #mob psycho 100 #mp100 #serizawa katsuya #reigen arataka #fanfic #fanfiction #queerplatonic serirei #hurt/comfort #i wrote this in like a little under half an hour please forgive if it's rough sjkflsldf

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shoezuki · 5 years ago

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Shou didn’t kiss him, this time. Not during this night, filled with stars and the ache in under Ritsu’s ribs and the thoughts floating from his brain and out into the air. Not then, with the warmth of Shou’s body making something almost bittersweet bubble up from his stomach and into his throat, into his mind.

Sometimes, Shou slept in what was technically considered his home, in a room that was technically his room and a bed that was technically his. Sometimes he woke up to a mother that was there and looking at him like she was surprised to see him, other times waking up to the silence of someone that had left without even leaving a note.

Other times he slept at Reigen and Serizawa’s apartment, on a futon that was called his futon. Or maybe in Teruki’s spare bedroom, one that didn’t have his name on it officially but held Shou’s clothes in it’s closet.

It felt more often than it really was, the rare times Shou would crack open Ritsu’s window in the dead of night. Always when Ritsu was supposed to be asleep, always when his house was silent in the dead of night. And yet always, as Shou would crawl under the covers beside Ritsu, curling up like a cat just barely touching Ritsu, he always woke up.

They never mentioned it. Ritsu refused to bring it up, maybe thinking he’d scare Shou away or lay something bare they didn’t need to talk about. And they never got the opportunity; Ritsu’s bed was always empty save for him just after the sun rose.

Ritsu was going to destroy something secret, that night.

The window cracked open at a bit after 1 am, just like it had the night before, and the night before that, for about a week. He’d been showing up more and more, Ritsu noticed. he had decided not to think too deep into the why’s and what’s of Shou’s appearances, but he did anyways.

And it had been eating him away. Ritsu would lay there, in the dark, staying completely still as Shou hovered outside his window for a few minutes as if begging Ritsu to stir awake and meet him. Every time Shou would pad, bare foot across his room, every time Shou would pull at the covers so softly and would sigh at the warmth and Ritsu would have to fight every urge to lean into Shou’s warmth and it killed him. All of it.

He could still feel the burn of lips on his knuckles, his forehead, his cheek. The mental scars of it burned into his skin every silent night, every broad daylight smile sent his way, every jab to his shoulder and every hand clapping on his back and every laugh so bright and airy and suffocating all the same. Ritsu didn’t know what to call it, maybe love, but it was crushing him under the weight of it all.

Ritsu waited, and thought, and mulled as Shou’s feet padded across the floor. The dip of Shou’s weight in the bed made words burst out from his longs, so invasive in the air: “We should talk, Shou.”

The air turned to electricity. Ritsu’s eyes snapped open and his body moved without his say. Suddenly he was up, blankets pooling around him, his grip so tight around Shou’s wrist. Shou’s eyes were wide, body tense with that instinct to bolt.

His hair was down for once. Ritsu bit his lip to keep from cussing Shou out for throwing Ritsu’s heart up into his throat and messing up every planned out word in his head.

He gulped. Ritsu just watched. “You’re supposed to be asleep.”

“I was never asleep,” Ritsu says it curtly, lips a thin line. Shou tensed even more at that. “We need to talk.” Ritsu said, again, and that didn’t calm Shou in the slightest.

“You should lock your window at night.” Shou attempted at a laugh. Ritsu didn’t buy into it, looking at Shou through his lashes. “There’s a reason I never did.”

Even in the dark, even as Shou seemed to struggle to stay corporeal and was flickering in and out of view, Ritsu could see how his face flushed bright red. “O-oh.” He sounded choked.

Ritsu let go of him, his eyes never leaving Shou as he swayed on the spot, collapsed on the bed beside Ritsu, sitting a good foot away and hunched into himself. His eyes traced the curved line of Shou’s spine, over the bumps of tension in his shoulders, the dip of his neck as his head hung low. Every word he wanted to say was gone and all Ritsu wanted to do was move, suddenly. And that was terrifying.

“Do you remember the school,” Ritsu found himself saying, his head swirling with memories of a mock bow, laughter, a hand grabbing his, lips brushing against his knuckles as soft as a paintbrush. He saw Shou’s face and knew he remembered it even without the soft nod of his head.

“Or the time we ran from the cops?” Shou chuckled in that sort of nostalgic way before Ritsu could even finish, his laugh halting in his throat at the look on Ritsu’s face. “Uh,” he hums, rubbing the back of his neck, at least having the decency to look sheepish, “yeah, not my best moment, maybe. But...”

He kicked his feet to a rhythm Ritsu could hear or feel, eyes unblinking in their focus at the floor. “Yeah I... remember. What you’re talking about.”

Ritsu’s face burned and his heart burned and his ribs were burning against the heat of his heart, his lungs full of smoke. It was rising up his mouth and bringing stinging tears to his eyes. “My cheek,” Ritsu’s voice wobbled, his gaze steady on Shou, “you kissed me, right on my cheek, in front of my brother and Teruki and Tome--”

And then Shou was standing, tall over Ritsu yet looking so small. “I can leave if you want.” He wasn’t looking at Ritsu. “You can lock the door. I want show up at your school anymore.”

Ritsu was angry, then. Angry that he thought he could just run away and cut himself out of Ritsu’s life like that would be anything like what Ritsu would want. Angry that he was going to bolt away from this just like he did every other time.

“You didn’t let me finish.” He huffed low, suddenly between Shou and the open window. “You always do this, Shou. You never let me say anything, just like all those other times?”

“What even is there to say?”

“A whole damn lot, actually,” Ritsu laughed, it sounding almost bitter yet fond, strangled yet free. “Like, maybe, I could tell you how every damn time you’d grab my hand or throw your arm over my shoulder or anything, I’d tell myself that you were like that with everyone, because thinking that made it easier? Or how every time I’m near you you drive me crazy in the best way? Or how it took my brother, and Tome, Tome, of all people, to tell me that you aren’t like... that affectionate with anyone but me to even consider you liking me back?”

Shou was looking at him, now. His gaze was searing, eyes wide and full of something Ritsu would finally, finally admit to being hope. Ritsu didn’t feel like he was erupting into flames, boiling away into nothing from the inside out. He felt warm, so, so warm, just like he always did when Shou touched him.

“Can... what are you trying to say, Ritsu?” Shou said, and there was a slight tilt to his smile that made Ritsu narrow his eyes and his face flush. “I... sh-shut up, I don’t need to spell it out for you, do I?”

“Um actually...” Shou huffed. His voice sounded sweet in the cold night air. “Uh, yes. I think you do. but--wait! let me get my phone so I can record this.”

“Are you serious right now?”

“Uh, yes?” Shou scoffed, like Ritsu was the one being ridiculous. “I need digital evidence so I can listen to you saying what I think you’re saying, over and over and over, for the rest of my life.” Shou smiled, phone in his hand, Ritsu bunching his fist and stepping towards him. “And also to make it my ringtone. Obviously.”

Ritsu smacked his hand, phone falling to the ground with a thunk. Shou went to protest, something annoyed on his tongue, but he choked on whatever he was going to say as Ritsu grabbed the collar of his jacket and yanked him forward.

Ritsu kissed him, properly kissed him, not those half-way attempts and blood-boiling kisses Shou had given him. Ritsu kissed him, once. And it made Ritsu feel as light as a feather, floating in a world somewhere else, somewhere with no one but himself and Shou.

Shou was never, ever, going to let him forget it.

#ritshou #mp100 #mob psycho 100 #ritsu kageyama #shou suzuki #fanfiction #shous never gonna let ritsu forget the crack he put in his phone screen either #anyways here's the last bit to my lil mini tumblr series i guess #this was literally started as a warm up writing thing #but now its its own thing alfkhskjg #ill post it to ao3 sometime probably #in the bones

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creativenicocorner · 1 year ago

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Seeing your opinions on writing dialogue in other languages in fic was really neat. It seems like you put a lot of thought into how you handle dialogue and it made me curious about how you approach this in A Funny Old World. When Moist meets everyone, is he speaking Japanese? Do you have Morporkian and Japanese as being the same language in this fic or is there something else?

♡___〆(・∀・) What a wonderful question @verdigrispatina !! Thank you for asking!!

It's a little tricky in A Funny Old World because it is a bit of everything. Two things are happening that are true:

Moist is from the Discworld (a world as we know strongly powered by belief. Believe something hard enough and it might just manifest in strange and interesting ways.)

Teruki is hinted at actively reading and dreaming about Discworld books ( I said in my fic notes, I'm working under the assumption Japan was very lucky to have all 41 books translated.)

So what happens when these two very true things happen at the same time? And I've sort of built it off of that.

Moist is able to communicate with Reigen and Teruki not only because his book was translated and Teruki was having strong emotions about the series, but also right from the get go Reigen mistakes Moist as Just Some Guy™ -why wouldn't this average looking guy in Japan not know how to speak Japanese? Even if he looks a little foreign, his face is hard to pin down.

In a future chapter when Reigen and Teruki start questioning this a bit more, especially when the three of them grab ramen together, the pair of them can see how strong their influence on Moist can be with their belief.

In the scene not only has them wondering how it is that Moist can communicate with them, but other small things like a seasoned pro (using chopsticks for example), the more Reigen and Teruki start to agree that, maybe it isn't very realistic that Moist would know how to use chopsticks, the more Moist starts gradually not being able to use them and gets increasingly frustrated because: 'I was managing perfectly before!'

This leads to Moist having his own version of the famous Taako Adventure Zone quote: I have emotions! It’s not all abraca-fuck-you and what have you. I have a beating heart! I’m multi-dimensional! I’m a fully-realized creation! FUCK!

That is to say Moist ends up working over time trying to continuously explain that He's a REAL PERSON!! He has a WIFE WAITING FOR HIM!!!! Cue Moist having to believe in his own existence - it gets very existential haha

And YET that too is the power of belief, if Reigen and Teruki don't believe then Moist has to work EVEN HARDER to believe in himself, and his existence. (There's this really silly, but hopefully powerful scene I want to get to, where Moist and Reigen are out on Reigen's balcony while Reigen smokes, and Moist has a rendition of "I miss my wife, Reigen. I miss her a lot." and the scene slowly becomes more and more sobering. Full of complex emotions, leading Reigen to accept that, yes he might be a character from a book, but Moist is also right in front of him with flesh and able to bleed and cry. What's more real than that?)

After all that number 1 detail that is still very true!! Moist IS REAL, REALLY from the Disc. Specifically a post canon Disc, and paired with that, well, I very much like to head canon Fedecks (the pseudo Hermes of the Disc) never really left Moist after what he did in Going Postal. Moist as a character embodies so naturally all the things that Fedecks (Hermes) represents: thieves, messenger of the gods-and messages in general, psychopomp, watcher of travelers and cross roads.

I have a lot of feelings about Moist and his similarities to Hermes, which I hope to explore further in detail in other works (A Runaway's Gamble is for sure one of those works)

That is to say, I like to think Fedecks borrows in Moist, just in there along for the ride in his fancy silly avatar- delightfully curious as to what he'd do next. And because of that, Moist is, unknowingly, a trans-dimensional trickster god. Very human, can still bleed etc, but certain things will work or not work by, essentially, Bugs Bunny Logic (whether it would be funny, or hilariously not funny) and ye olde narrative convention.

Something Moist unknowingly taps into while trying very hard to believe he is real.

The only character who gets close to figuring the whole piggybacking trickster god thing out is Dimple who tries to possess Moist (multiple times). Only to get jettisoned (or self ejects) out after a harrowing encounters with Fedecks.

All this to say, the answer is Yes!

Morporkian is Japanese, because the Discworld books were translated in Japanese. But also, Morporkian is still Morporkian and Moist has a piggybacking trickster god inside that thinks it'd be boring if Moist couldn't use his words.

I hope this made sense, and that I articulated it well!

♡⸜(*ˊᗜˋ*)⸝♡Thank you so much again for asking!!♡

Best wishes, Nico

#Nico Responds #verdigrispatina #Reigen Arataka 🤝 Moist von Lipwig #mp100 #Discworld #Reigen Arataka #Hanazawa Teruki #Moist von Lipwig #mob psycho 100

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sir-muhead-blog · 5 years ago

Text

Closed Doors

Summary: Dimple is acting a bit spoiled. ( Based off a comic I remember reading but I can’t remember the name if anyone knows the title let me know).

Yo~ This is an unbeta fic, so I would love any and all feedback you have for me. Thank you and enjoy!

Dimple, fully suited in his favorite host, struts into Spirits and Such Consultation making sure to exude a certain level of arrogance as he strolls up to Arataka’s desk. With a cigarette in hand and after hours of practicing that devil may care smirk, Dimple plops himself on the desk knowing in his soul that he looks downright fuckable. For his part, however, Arataka looks wholly unamused barley sparing a half-second to appreciate the godly sight in front of him. Irritation swells up at the cruel dismissal. As revenge, Dimple makes a big show of snuffing out the cigarette in a nearby ashtray before exhaling a cloud of nicotine into Arataka’s face. The faker coughs but refuses to take his eyes off that dinosaur he calls a laptop, only taking a lazy moment to point to the filing cabinet to his right. Dimple clicks his teeth as he walks over to the cabinet, yanking the bottom drawer open to grab the small caddy full of cleaning supplies. After one too many customers thinking it's okay to smoke in front of a child, Arakata keeps it on hand. He can suffer this tedious task once in a while if it's to keep Shigeo-chan healthy.

He grabs the caddy and quietly gets to work spraying and airing out the smell that clung to the air, after his showboating. Honestly, this would have been more than worth it if Arataka looked even the slightest bit annoyed. Apparently, though, their recent adventures have either given Arakata a spine or some perspective on his life because the faker seemed so unbothered by Dimple's antics as of late. Admittedly, it bothered him. They developed a strange bond since their first introduction, going from annoyances to a tentative friend and then to occasional fuckbuddies. There was a rhythm in the way they interacted, a weird dance that only they seemed to know the steps to but after the whole Claw debacle somethings changed.

"Dimple, I've told you a thousand times that the air filter needs -"

"To be facing towards the desk but not directly against the wall." Dimple snapped harshly.

Dimple can feel Arakata giving him the side-eye. He’s snarky but doesn’t normally devolve into snapping. He pointedly doesn’t look back, training his irritation to the innocent filter at his feet leading Dimple to spend way too much time staring at the plastic box. It’s a dump pink air filter, that Arataka probably got on in a discount bin if even that. Dimple’s brain short circuits. Air filter. Dimple's gaze bores into it. Air filter. It was relatively new, cheap no doubt but definitely not something Aratka would buy. Especially now that Mob spends so little time in the office since he’s preparing for his high school entrance exams. Dimple glances up at the desk the filter is sat next to. He could almost visualize the empty desk with a stocky large man grimacing at him. A nasty little ache springs in his chest, that yea, there wasn’t a doubt in his mind, this air filter was to benefit the newest “employee” of Spirit and Such Consultations. That lump of barely functioning anxiety, Dimple restrains a bout of anger that floods through him, his hands tightening on the plastic as he thinks about the hikamore. Arataka practically adopted him, and it gives Dimple no end of grievances as he can feel how much the man practically worships the blond idiot. Just thinking about it leaves a nasty taste in his mouth. If confronted about this Dimple would say it was that he wanted that admiration directed it towards him, but he knew deep down what kind of little green monster he was.

Speaking of which, Dimple sweeps the room again, almost baffled that he couldn’t see the spineless oaf, the man is practically attached to Arataka’s hip after he quit working for Claw. There are a lot of things that recovering-hikikomori lacks but diligence was not one of them. He said as much to Arataka.

“Serizawa-san called earlier, said he overslept. He should be here around noon.”

Dimple smirk, he presses the on button on the filter before getting up and walking back to Arataka, “Oh my, Seri-chan~ had developed such poor work ethics. What can you expect I suppose, when the boss is just as lousy.”

Arataka rolled his eyes, still not bothering to look up from his laptop,” Leave me out of it and leave him alone, he has nightmares. Things like that happen and it’s his first time being late.”

“You’re being awfully considerate,” Dimple grumbled walking around the desk half leaning, half sitting to Reigen’s left.

“ I’m always considerate when it comes to people that deserve it,” Reigan said.

“Oh, I don’t deserve your consideration? Why’s that?” Dimple sneered.

“Cause you're a rotten spirit. Serizawa-san is trying his best to live up to his full potential, maybe you could understand if you cleansed your soul a little. Then maybe I’ll think about changing my mind.” Irritations swelled up in Dimple as Arataka praises Serizawa, tapping down the reaction as he redirected his thoughts to Arataka’s laptop.

“Good thing I’m here then, I don’t have to worry about being exorcised.” Arataka opened his mouth to respond but Dimple cut him off wanting to leave this suffocating office,” Why the hell did you even invite me over today?”

The blond huffed, no doubt upset at being cut off, before slumping down slightly. He scoots the laptop over a bit so Dimple could take a look at it. It was a job request from a new client, he skimmed the contents. He scowled.

“Don’t waste my time, this is training wheels shit. You could probably handle this with your stupid salt.”

“Correct, which is why it will be a perfect practice run for Serizawa-san.” Arataka said proudly. “He has been getting better at controlling his powers and I think it’s time to get him out on the field. Give him a boost of confidence you know.

Irritation bubbled up hotter, “Yea, great. He’s so well trained now where do I fit in here?”

“You're my backup,” Arataka says smugly as he closed his laptop. “I have absolute confidence Serizawa-can can control himself but I don’t want to take any chances. If he freaks out I’m going to need some extra muscle to contain whatever might happen. Mob would have been a better option but he has exams soon and I don’t want to bother him.”

“Pass.”Dimple bites out. He doesn’t need to see Arakata practically wetting himself at Serizawa’s show of power.

For the first time this morning, Arataka gave him his undivided attention,” You can’t just pass. This is an important step for Serizawa-san to transition into the real world.”

Serizawa this, Serizawa that, Dimple couldn’t top off the anger flooding his stomach any longer. He stood up and leaned into Arataka chair, effectively trapping the man in his chair and taking full advantage of his host’s height, easily towering over the fake.

“I said pass. I’m not your employee or your pet ghost on a leash. I’m not wasting my time for this baby shit, because you decided you want to mother him..” Dimple snaps. He stands up forcefully only to be grabbed by his shirt. He braces his hands against the arms chair once again, raising an eyebrow as he stares Reigen down.

“You're being more of an ass than usual, but fine you have a point, what do you want as compensation for doing me this favor?” Arataka asks

Dimple regards Arataka slowly, letting his eyes wander from the lips, to the neck and rest of his body. Possessiveness, that bitch, was telling him to mark up the fake. “You know exactly what I want.” Arataka huffed.

“Right now?” Arataka said incredulously, Serizawa will be here in like half an hour!”

“Then we better get started.” Dimple hoisted Reigen off his chair on to the table. Surprised by the sudden motion Arataka tipped backward with Dimple following him down. He swallows the yelp in a heated kiss. Dimple is going to make sure Serizawa is not in Reigen’s vocabulary if he has any say in it.

#mob psycho serizawa #mob psycho 100 #mob psycho reigen #mob psycho dimple #dimplexreigen #ekubo mp100 #ekuboxreigen #mp100 #mp100 fic #short fic #one shot

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kamvkoma · 5 years ago

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15 for serirei 🚬☂

this is late af!!!! i took liberties w the actual quote btw, but the basic sentiment is still there

15. “Why can you read me like no one else?”

Reigen is smoking when Serizawa comes into the office. It’s Serizawa’s first clue that something is different about today—Reigen hasn’t been smoking much at all lately, even when Tome and Mob aren’t around. He only does it now when he has something in particular on his mind.

That doesn’t always mean that he’ll tell Serizawa what it is, though. He knows better than to pry, so he just greets Reigen as usual with a polite “Good morning.”

“Ah, good morning, Serizawa.” Reigen looks almost surprised to see him, which would certainly be strange, since he knows Serizawa comes in for his shift at this time. But no, maybe surprised isn’t the right word—he’s sheepish, as he taps his cigarette against the ashtray, like he knows he’s doing something out of the ordinary.

Serizawa just smiles amiably and settles down at his desk to do some paperwork. Reigen’s attention shifts back to his laptop without any more words spoken, which is another clue that something is different. Normally, he’s much more talkative, even first thing in the morning.

Not that Serizawa minds either way. He likes talking to Reigen, even when he’s mostly listening, but he also likes the moments of comfortable silence that settle between them intermittently as they go about their work.

Today, that silence only lasts for another few minutes before Reigen breaks it, stubbing out his cigarette with a sigh as he says, “Serizawa, I want to talk to you about something.”

Even though Serizawa knew this might be coming, he can’t help but feel nervous at those words. Is it him? Has he done something wrong? Did Reigen find out that he—

“What is it, Reigen-san?” He cuts himself off before his mind takes him down that particular road.

Reigen doesn’t respond immediately. His fingers tap nervously on the desk; Serizawa doesn’t think he’s even aware of the action. “It’s been bothering me lately,” Reigen admits. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you, so...now’s as good a time as any, I guess.”

He sounds so uncharacteristically frank. Serizawa sits up straighter in his chair, attentive.

The fingers stop tapping. Reigen looks at him, his gaze more intense than Serizawa is used to. “I’m not an esper,” he says. “I don’t have any psychic powers at all. I’m sorry that I misled you, and I hope this doesn’t make you think of me differently…”

He trails off, uncertain. Serizawa just blinks for a moment, feeling a bit pleasantly surprised, but mostly relieved. “Oh,” he says. “Is that it? I was worried something was wrong.”

Reigen gapes at him. “What do you mean, is that it?”

“Well.” Serizawa scratches his neck, flashing Reigen an almost sheepish smile. “I sort of already knew that.”

“You…” Reigen pauses, then leans back in his chair, appraising him. “You knew.”

Serizawa just nods.

“How did you know?” Reigen nearly yells, gesticulating wildly. Serizawa feels a strange sense of comfort in witnessing him once again acting as eccentric as he normally does. Before he can answer, Reigen settles his hand on his chin, looking contemplative, and continues, “Oh, is it because I don’t have an aura? I think Dimple said something about that before…”

“Not exactly,” Serizawa admits. “I noticed you didn’t have one, but thought maybe you had some trick to hide it...I really did believe you at first, but over time, I just realized it wasn’t true.”

Reigen looks even more confused at that. “Then what gave it away?” He sounds like it’s painful for him to even ask.

Serizawa thinks about it. “I guess...when you were talking to clients about it, I could tell you weren’t really telling the truth. When you’re lying or not being completely honest, you have a certain expression on your face, and you sort of do this thing with your hands…”

He trails off before he can describe more in detail what Reigen’s habits are, because he’s suddenly realizing that he might just sound like a total creep. He can feel his face turning red, and he averts his gaze, coughing nervously.

It doesn’t help that Reigen just stares at him without responding for several moments. He’s never looked at Serizawa like that before—surprised and contemplative, like he can’t tell what to make of Serizawa in this moment.

“Huh,” Reigen says at last. “Well, that made this whole conversation easier, then. As long as you don’t have any hard feelings about me not telling you.”

Serizawa waves him off. “It’s alright, Reigen-san. I really don’t mind.”

And he doesn’t. The conversation ends there, and they both go back to their work for the day.

That is supposedly the end of it, except Reigen doesn’t stop appearing distracted and contemplative throughout the entire work day. He barely talks to Serizawa the entire time, and is even much less enthusiastic around their clients.

Serizawa doesn’t know what to do about this, but he knows he wants to do something. So when they close up for the day, he tells Reigen he would like to walk home with him, if that’s alright.

Reigen seems surprised by this, since they don’t normally walk home together. This is because Serizawa doesn’t live in the same direction even remotely, but Reigen doesn’t really need to know that.

As they walk out, Reigen takes out another cigarette and lights it in what appears to be a mostly subconscious act. They continue silently, and he looks to be about as lost-in-thought as he had been all day.

Serizawa really doesn’t mind companionable silence with Reigen—but at this point, it’s wholly unnatural, edging on awkward.

“Do you want to talk about earlier?” Serizawa decides to ask, because he can’t think of anything other than that exchange that would be making Reigen act strange.

“Huh?” Reigen is trying for indifferent curiosity, but sounds nervous.

“I can tell something’s on your mind,” Serizawa explains. “I guess it’s what we talked about earlier? I promise you I really don’t mind.”

There’s a few beats of silence. Then Reigen laughs, softly. It’s not a kind of laugh Serizawa has heard from him before; there’s a quiet, wry amusement in it. “It’s not that I think you mind. It’s just…”

Serizawa waits, anxiously.

“No one else can read me like you can.” Reigen looks at him, probably for the first time since they started walking together. Serizawa feels his face heating up, both from Reigen’s words and his gaze being turned on him.

“Usually it’s easy for me to...hide behind my words, so that people don’t know how I really am, or how I really feel. But you can see through all that, huh?” Reigen continues. “Why is that?”

Serizawa thinks about that. He doesn’t think he’s any good at reading people in general. If he’s good at reading Reigen, then it’s just him specifically. Probably because he spends so much time watching him, deciphering him, how he’s feeling and what he’s saying, what matches up and what doesn’t.

His face heats up more as he thinks about that. He knows why he spends as much time watching Reigen as he does. After so long working together, he can no longer deny that he’s developed....certain types of feelings. But he doesn’t know if he wants Reigen to know this.

Despite Reigen’s words, Serizawa finds it difficult to tell how Reigen is feeling right now. There’s a kind, open expression on his face, the sort that Serizawa only sees when he’s being sincere. But his hands are moving with a sort of nervous energy, and his voice is strained ever so slightly, betraying that he may not feel entirely happy about this development.

He probably doesn’t really like how Serizawa knows so much about him. He might not like hearing why Serizawa has taken the time to learn so much about him, either.

“Don’t tell me you have some telepathy powers or something.” Clearly Serizawa is taking way too long to answer, and Reigen has taken upon himself to fill in the silence. He sounds even more strained now, despite his attempt at a flippant tone. “Because you shouldn’t use them on people like that. Privacy needs to be respected, even by telepaths! No, especially by telepaths. My uncle always used to say to me, with great power—”

“It’s nothing like that,” Serizawa hastily cuts in, before a rambling Reigen can attempt to plagiarize from any popular superhero comic book series. “I just, um…”

He started speaking before he could even think about what it was he wanted to say. Reigen is watching him expectantly, and suddenly Serizawa really can’t find it in himself to lie to him.

Reigen has done so much for him, and sure, he may have pretended to be something he’s not, but he’s never done anything to Serizawa’s detriment; he’s only ever helped him be a better person. And Serizawa doesn’t feel indebted to him in the way he did to the President; he just thinks, maybe, he owes Reigen the truth.

“Well, I guess I notice a lot of things about you, because…” This is a lot harder to say than he thought. He scratches the back of his neck, glancing away and down at the sidewalk. He can feel his face heating up again, and as damning as that is, he’s powerless to stop it.

“Ah.” He looks up and sees that Reigen’s face has turned pink as well. “I think I understand.”

“You do?” He isn’t sure if he should feel relief or mortification that he didn’t even have to say it.

“You’re not the only one who can read people, you know.” Reigen wags a finger at him in an almost-admonishing fashion, but he still looks fairly embarrassed, himself.

It’s not a wholly negative reaction—something like abject horror or disgust would be much worse—and this makes Serizawa the slightest bit more confident. “Well. What do you think about that, then?”

Reigen’s face colors even more. It’s cute, but Serizawa probably shouldn’t mention that right now.

At this point, they’ve stopped walking and are standing outside of Reigen’s apartment building.

“God, I’m really out of practice with being straightforward like this.” Reigen says this in nearly a mumble, his gaze averted as he stubs out his cigarette on the ground. “I, um…I feel the same way.”

Even though he can tell saying so makes Reigen uncomfortable, Serizawa can’t help the overwhelming swell of happiness and relief at hearing those words. He also appreciates that even though it’s hard for Reigen to say, he made the effort to tell him the truth anyway.

And for someone so terrible at being straightforward, he’s clearly braver with saying his feelings out loud than Serizawa is.

Serizawa grins, suddenly filled with fondness and admiration for the wonderful, bizarre man in front of him. Reigen still looks nervous, like he might start rambling again, so he responds with a sincere “I’m glad,” and kisses Reigen on the cheek.

The simple, chaste act makes his heart race, and effectively stuns Reigen into silence.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Reigen-san,” Serizawa says before turning away. He has a long way to go now to get back to his own apartment.

Reigen mumbles out a goodbye in return, and when Serizawa looks over his shoulder, he’s still standing there, touching his fingers to his reddened cheek.

Serizawa can’t keep the smile off his face the whole way home.

#shishkips

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mp100journey · 6 years ago

Text

Season 1: Episode 1-7

I'm new and I haven't talked to anyone about Mob Psycho 100 yet, so hop on and join me in my suffering journey in watching Mob Psycho 100. Here are my genuine reactions throughout the episodes 1-7 of season 1.

To be honest, the first time I saw this is on Tumblr and my first reaction to it was "it's a bunch of Saitamas"

jesus don't ask the boy such an existential question that even I didn't know how to answer until just recently

Dude, he's in middle school.

Great, you caused him his first existential crisis.

Why do I relate to this on a spiritual level

Reigen: Well, every middle school boy wants to be popular so there's no need to be embarrassed. Even I want to be popular. Me: Did you just call yourself a middle school boy

I like both Mob and Reigen’s voices.

Mob: My dad said, "People who've never smoked before are missing out on half their lives." It made me realize that everyone has a different idea of "missing out". Me: Oh my god, little Mob. I applaud you.

And I love hi- I mean, that is fucking random.

Is that the same little Mob I've grown to love in merely 2 episodes? 😮

Mob, you can't just suddenly have red eyes when you feel rage. That's not fair.

HONEY NO DON'T THINK THAT THAT'S NOT TRUE

REIGEN YOU BASTARD, thank you for reassuring our little Mob and returning him to normal 💓

Nevermind! :D

I wanna continue watching AAAAAA

Aha, sorry but my dear Mob is the main character.

Oh my god, I love Mob.

It's gotta suck to have a middle school boy in his pjs say this to you.

Reigen: *enters the scene* Me: Ah, there's that piece of trash.

I HATE HIM HAHAHAHA

Can I join your religion? I'm looking for the same god.

Nevermind, I found him.

How the fuck is Mob the older brother.

I WOULD BE SO HAPPY FOR HIM IF THIS WASN'T A TRAP

NEVERMIND I'M ALREADY HAPPY FOR HIM IF HE'S HAPPY I'M HAPPY

HE DESERVES THE WORLD AND NOTHING LESS Although, we all know you're going because you're actually hoping that there IS a girl.

Hell yeah, little Mob. Show 'em what you've got.

It feels like I haven't seen Reigen in a while. Come out and do your job as a character, you lazy bum.

There he is, the bastard.

I KNOW RIGHT?! I agree with green Pikachu blob.

What are you, a not-as-cool Bakugou?

How are you that attached to him already Well, he does in fact have no friends so I guess that isn't as hard to believe.

Stop trying to hurt my child or I will end you.

jesus christ he's ugly

I love Mob's subtle reaction to everything that's happening HAHAHA

GAAAAAAAAAAAAASP YOU FUCKER YOU MADE HIM SAY OW H O W D A R E Y O U

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is my overprotective mother persona.

KNIVES ARE DANGEROUS 😭💕

pfffffffffftttt I love how I've only posted his ugly faces when he's supposed to be the "pretty" boy.

Oh my god I'm actually cackling out loud.

"Nice to meet you," he says to the guy who kept attempting to beat him up just now. Bless this child.

AHAHAHAHA BURN BABY BURN 🔥

Alright, man. Joke's over. Let him go.

I didn't include the highlight of the episode (other than the highlight on Teru's bald head), but I have the same reaction of what the shit just happened, little Mob.

THIS IS ME IN THIS EPISODE NOW

IMSOBBINGLSKJASKDJDFKDGN

THIS IS SO CUTE HE LITERALLY DOES NOT SHOW EMOTIONS AND YET HIS BROTHER HIS LITTLE DAMN BROTHER KNOWS HIM SO WELL

I want to hug little Mob T^T

Mob: *sneezes* Narrator: He caught a cold. Me: NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

I wanted to say that once again, Reigen was useless in this episode but... yeah, he was the one who told Mob not to use his powers against other people. You get an inch of respect from me, Reigen. Congrats.

One last episode before bed.

Whoever directs the voice actors; a fucking terrific job, man.

Reigen being useless as fuck again.

I applaud you, Reigen. But I don't know if working as a con artist is any better.

"If it's self-defense, is it okay to shave off someone's hair, rip off their clothes, destroy their pride, make them lose their friends, and destroy the school they go to?" Oh, Mob. ❤️

I'm sorry, lady. As Mob's mother, I do not approve of you.

That's adorable, but why did he easily get startled? I thought he was supposed to be the emotion-suppressing kid.

Bless these good souls for looking after little Mob.

I didn't actually think the story would be this good.

OH, I know who Reigen reminds me of! Another lazy bum! Sakata Gintoki. 😊

tbh, I don't know if I can call Reigen "lazy". He's a con artist yeah, but he works just about all the time.

Can you believe that I'm only in the 6th episode? And yet I'm already this invested in the characters.

I just wanna be honest with what I think about Reigen's character... I have this love-hate relationship with him. But people will see more of the hate side because (honestly there are more reasons to hate him and) every time I admit that I like the guy, such as now, I would feel as if I lost to that fucker. Somehow I have created this competitive relationship between me and the character.

I like the opening, it suits the anime.

Mob showing any kind of emotion is the best thing ever. Except when he's sad. The world might as well drown if he's sad.

They don't have to show me who's the fucker that's calling Mob at the most inconvenient time.

I will destroy these people scaring little Mob.

Reigen: *does what he does best* Me: Reigen... is so... fucking stupid... goddamnit...

Reigen, Mob said con artists are really terrible people. 🙃

Ritsu, no :(

Ignoring the obvious lack of hair under that bush, his character is actually pretty cute when tamed.

HOHOHOLY SHIT HAHA u ded now, Ritsu dear little bro.

Words cannot explain how happy I am with this encounter. Ritsu, as Mob's little bro, fix yourself before I'd want to burn you alive with that new attitude of yours.

I know he cares a lot about Mob, so I would be very disappointed in him if he laid a finger on him. Not because I'm worried about Mob getting hurt, Ritsu's got a long way to go. I'm just worried about their relationship as brothers.

But I'm proud of the once ugly Teru though haha! Good going, man.

#hope the fandom's filled with lovely people!#and I hope you had fun reading!#mp100 #mob psycho 100 #mob psycho #mob #kegayama shigeo #reigen arataka #ekubo #dimple #kageyama ritsu #hanazawa teruki #teru #Kurata Tome #Onigawara Tenga #body improvement club #mp100journey

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aranciafiamma · 6 years ago

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Thank You, Next (beta)

"I think... I think we should break up."

The unthinkable spills out of Teru's mouth. Mob blinks at him.

“... Yes. I think we should.”

(a bunch of disorganized snippets from my very ambitious TeruMob fic)

(that probably will never be written)

"I still love you. I don't think I can ever stop loving you. But... We weren't making each other happy. I mean, it was fairly obvious from the start. What did we have in common? Apart from being psychic. And you taught me that being psychic doesn’t mean much. I guess... I guess I didn't really learn even after all that..."

"Do you have something in common with Edano?"

"We have the same taste in bands. And we're both rough around the edges. He is unfailingly rude."

"Oh. You do have a lot in common then."

Teru snorts. "How are things with Emi?"

"She submitted a new short story in a magazine! ... I forgot which though..."

"That's okay. I can ask her. I'd love to read it later."

"I've learned a lot of cool new words. Like, pulchritude."

"Oh? What does that mean?"

"It's a fancy way of saying beautiful."

Teruki laughs. And it's like they're fifteen again. They're walking home from their first day of high school. Mob always liked that he could make him laugh like that.

But the laughter fades. Teruki's right, of course. They hadn't been happy. They can only smile easy now because they've reset. This new, post-boyfriend relationship brought them back to those first days of being friends, when there was no world to save and no identity crisis to solve. Mob loves Teruki the same way he loves Tsubomi, still and always. But he grew away from both, and that just happens.

"You're dating Edano? Seriously? Talk about a step down!"

"Excuse you, little brother! You did not just diss my boyfriend. I happen to like him very much. And yes, he's not Shigeo. But that was kind of the point? Your brother and I didn't work out! So I found someone different than him and we do match, quite a bit actually. He's a good boyfriend and I'd appreciate it if you didn't insult him. You were raised to be kinder than that!"

Reigen blows a smoke ring at Ritsu.

"Relationships are a trial and error sorta deal. Not everyone meets their one true love at the age of 13."

"Sho's not my one true love! Not that I don't love him, I do. I mean - You know what I meant!"

"You guys have been dating for six years and still going strong."

"Uh, no? We've been dating for three."

"Right, flirted for three then dated for three. My point is, you have the kind of relationship fairy tales are about."

"He knocked me the fuck out when we first met."

"Yeah. Like a fairy tale."

"Have you read a fairy tale in your entire life?"

"Whatever! I'm just saying! You're a lucky kid!"

"I don't - I have - I'm sorry!"

"What? No! Please. The last time I dated a girl, I was thirteen and a brat. I touched a boob like once. I hadn't been looking forward to being clueless down there. Not that vaginas are like super difficult to figure out or anything. I just, you know, I have more experiences with penises. I mean-"

"Oh gosh! I get it! Stop, you dork! Too much information!"

Teru laughs and flops down on the bed, taking her with him. "You are a stunningly beautiful woman, did you know that?"

Rei squeals, landing on his chest. She flicks him on the nose. "I did actually! But you're just saying that to make me blush!"

"I wanna see if I can get your face to match your hair."

Rei has to kiss him then or else he'd never shut up.

“I still can’t believe you’re dating Momo-chan.” “You know he hates it when you call him that.”

“Hence, why I persist in doing so.”

“Also, we broke up.”

“Oh. Shit. Sorry.”

“It was never serious. He was already half in love with someone else. I was just a stand in.”

“That’s... Okay, wow. What a dick.”

“I knew - or I was... aware. It was fun while it lasted. And besides... He was a stand in for me too.”

Mob goes silent. His gaze seems very intent on his coffee. Teru watches the tips of his ears redden. Understanding clicks like the lock of a door.

“... Is that what’s happening here? Is this... Is this a date?”

Mob shakes his head, still refusing to look at him. “No! This is coffee. Just coffee.”

“Good. Because I... The thing is... Why did you tell me that?” Teru leans back in his chair, fingers combing through his hair. He looks up at the ceiling. “I love you still. I do. But this - we can’t be happening. Not... Not right now.”

Mob lifts his head and looks at Teru. “Now?

"She might be open to me seeing you. But if she's not... I don't want to break up with Rei. Not even for you, Shigeo. I'm sorry... We can't... This isn't..."

Teru hastily gets up and leaves the table.

"Clairvoyant... I... I try not to look into the future. Especially not the futures of those close to me. All it's ever caused is grief. And I guess... This was no different. You love him - Ritsu-kun's brother."

"That doesn't make me love you any less!"

"... Oh, Teru... Maybe not now. But in the future."

"The future isn't here!"

"But it will be! You don't want to hurt me, I get that. Except staying with me out of pity? That's just as bad. Belt up, and just end this."

"I don't want to? I'm not going to leave you."

"... Then I will."

Teru swallows. His eyes blink rapidly. He breathes in deep. "You know... Shigeo once taught me that our powers aren't the end all, be all. That we can grow to be more and not have to rely on any of it. ... I just assumed you thought the same. But I guess I was wrong."

"My predictions always come true! And you know what, I'm glad I looked! So I wouldn't be blindsided when it finally happens! And you break my heart!"

"So you're not even going to fight for us? This is it? Rei... Goddamn, I really thought I knew you."

Teru leaves the apartment.

"I... am a homewrecker."

"Wow. Wooooow, big brother. Didn't know you had it in you! I'm so proud!"

"Sho. Go sit in the corner."

"That's fair. That's totally fair."

"This - You and Me - This! Ugh! I don't want to prove her right! Okay? So can you just - Could you like - Stop being so you! It's driving me crazy!"

Teruki grabs Mob's face and kisses him hard on the lips. He pulls back.

"Right. I just need to get that out of my system. I am now walking away. I know that's mixed signals but let me have this!"

"I want me and Mob to be my choice! And I feel like - fucking hell..."

Teru takes a swig of his beer. Reigen watches him.

"It's so weird that I can now drink with you boys."

"That's what happens when you get old, old man."

"Yeah, yeah..." Reigen takes a sip of his beer. A pause. "You know, you still can. It's still your choice. The reason you broke up isn't because you were predetermined at birth to end up with Mob. But because she made a decision and that was to give up on your relationship. Are you listening?"

Teru nods. A beat. Tears start running down his cheeks. "I love her... I really do... I chose her. Why didn't she - Why couldn't she -?"

Reigen drags Teru closer to him, letting Teru cry on his shoulder.

"I'm sorry, kiddo... I'm so sorry..."

"I think Ritsu's building a harem."

"... You wanna talk to him about it?"

"Hell no. I'm proud."

"All that drama! And here we are again! How can we be so stupid?"

"I don't think people are meant to be smart."

Teru laughs. He laughs until he cries. He brings Mob's hands to his lips, kissing the knuckles gently.

#mp100 #mob psycho 100 #terumob

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