#reigen arataka forces me to practice hands

[absolutefooling]

heard there was a serirei drought

[stsganemoia]

i wrote this on fathers day, but it was also juneteenth, so i didn't want to take attention away from black creators! (also i completely forgot about it yesterday oops) so today, suzu presents to you!

five times reigen arataka was mistaken for a father, plus once when he accepted his fate.

1.

arataka was twenty four years old. twenty four, and if you asked him, he looked great for his age, he probably wouldn't even guess himself to be that old if he were someone else. that was much, much too young to have a kid as old as his employee, who was currently ten. (though to be fair, mob looked pretty young for his age too)

"sir? sir, i asked if you would like the happy meal for your boy, instead of the nuggets and fries separately. it comes with the milk at the same price, so it's cheaper," the woman working behind the counter of mobdonald's repeated. she looked like she didn't get paid nearly enough to deal with whatever crisis arataka was having right now. to be fair, she probably didn't.

"oh, of course, uhm," reigen took a moment to compose himself. "he's not my boy," he clarified first. the woman working behind the counter couldn't seem to care any less. "but yes, please, the happy meal is fine," he said, pulling out his wallet as she told him his total. he pulled out the correct bills (throwing an extra one on for holding up the line) and shuffled over to the side to wait for their food, scooting mob along with him.

"thank you, shishou, for getting the happy meal," mob spoke for the first time since they'd gotten into the restaurant.

"don't worry about it." arataka waved his hand dismissively. "you like milk, don't you? and the nuggets and fries were right?" he asked. mob nodded quickly.

"yes, that's my favorite," mob replied, looking at his shishou with a look that arataka couldn't quite place. he couldn't tell if the feeling in his chest was a sense of pride in himself for getting mob's order right, or a signal from his heart telling him that maybe mobdonald's wasn't the best choice.

maybe they should stop getting fast food.

—

2.

"your boy is so cute," the old woman gushed, squishing ritsu's cheeks together in a way that made him kinda resemble a fish. "he must be, what? eight?" she asked.

"eleven," ritsu corrected in a muffled way. his cheeks were sore. this old woman had some sort of power grip on him.

he didn’t often come in to spirit’s and such, mainly because he hated he hated reigen with all of his guts. he couldn’t quite tell why, but he suspected that it was because he had never really shown him or his brother his alleged powers. ritsu was beginning to think the man didn’t even have any.

the only reason ritsu was here at all was because his parents were working late, and they’d preferred ritsu didn’t stay home all by himself, even though he was eleven years old and totally capable and responsible enough to stay by himself. he’d prefer it to being stuck at his dumb old office, with some dumb old lady pinching his cheeks. reigen must have sensed that ritsu was about ten seconds away from losing him a customer, because he intervened quickly.

“actually, he’s my very honorary employee, and he’d in the midst of doing his job, so i’m going to ask that you don’t disturb him, please,” the man said, stepping over to the two. the lady gave ritu’s face a little shake before finally letting go.

“oh, well, excuse me. i didn’t realize that you COULD employ an eleven year old,” the woman said with a somewhat rude tone.

“alas, i said honorary, remember? he doesn’t actually get paid, or forced to work. he mostly just sits here,” reigen explained.

“that sounds like child labor,” the woman replied blandly.

“did you come here so i can break a curse for you, or so that you could criticize my business practices?” reigen’s tone became a lot less ‘customer service-y’ and a lot more ‘you’re not going to pay me enough to deal with your questions-y’. the lady caught on, and decided that her curse was more important than the questionable business choice of this psychic.

whilst the grownups began talking, ritsu looked down at his ‘job’. it was actually just his math homework. he didn’t really work, and honestly the only reason he was up front in the first place was because it was the only place with a desk so he could do his homework.

ritsu scrunched up his nose. maybe he should be compensated for being here, people loved kids, after all.

—

3.

the spirit laughed. right in his face. the audacity.

"what the-" it scoffed. "what is this? you brought your kid? this is worse than bringing a knife to a gun fight- it's like bringing a pencil!" it sneered, hovering above arataka. he scowled.

"i'll have you know that my protege," he made sure to emphasize the word "is far, far greater than a pencil. she's a canon," arataka scowled. tome stood, looking less than amused. this was a powerful spirit- powerful enough that she could see it, at least, which had to mean something. she knew her psychic friends were always talking to a ‘dimple’, but she couldn’t see him, so there must be some sort of power system that she didn’t really know about. that was fine.

“yeah, i’m a canon,” she pointed her thumb to her chest proudly. she’d never exorcised a spirit before, but she had basically begged to tag along. this was fine, arataka had mob on the way as they spoke. the spirit burst out laughing at tome’s confidence, and while, to be fair, she wasn’t an ESPer and couldn’t actually exorcise the thing, it pissed arataka off nonetheless.

“what is this? you trying to get me to laugh to death? at this rate it’ll be a hell of a lot easier than one of you two exorcising me,” it cackled.

“i’ll have you know, that I am reigen arataka, the greatest psychic of the-” arataka began, but before he could continue, tome stepped forward, flinging her hand out.

“wait, what the fu-” the spirit barely had time to stop laughing, and process what exactly was happening, before it disappeared. arataka blinked. he looked at tome, then where the spirit had been, then back at tome. for good measure, he looked at the door to see if mob had shown up. he wasn’t there. it was just him, and tome.

“the fuck did you do??” arataka asked. this would admittedly be a great time for her to have awakened her psychic powers, since mob was taking forever, but he already babysat four psychic kids, he didn’t know if he could emotionally handle a fifth.

“salt,” tome explained, showing off her hand, which was indeed, covered in salt.

“but salt doesn’t do anything against spirits,” arataka said, though it was admittedly more of a question than a statement.

“table salt does not, you’re right. purified salt, however, does,” she said with a smug grin on her face. if reigen wasn’t so impressed (and also against child abuse) he would wanna smack it off.

“where exactly did you get purified salt anyways?”

“mobazon,” tome replied with a shrug.

“what should i have expected from a student of the greatest psychic of the twenty-first century,” reigen spoke quite dramatically, his hand flipping about with each word. “why don’t we go and get some ramen to celebrate your first successful exorcism?” he offered.

“oh, hell yeah!” tome cheered, thrusting her fist in the air gleefully. reigen couldn’t help but smile as they left the warehouse.

he’d have to check mobazon for purified salt soon.

—

4.

"awe, no shou-kun today?" the cashier asked, ringing up a bottle of water, and a pack of candy cigarettes. arataka hated the damn things, they were like chalk that someone added a little bit of sugar to, but they helped him stop the real thing, so he bought them every time.

"no, not today," arataka replied, whipping out his wallet. the clerk didn't need to tell him the total, he already knew. he came here every thursday with shou, (the only time that the kid would bother coming around the office) and he always got the same thing. sometimes shou would throw on a pack of gum, or a bento, or something, but without that, reigen always had the same total.

"how come? he join a club or something?" the man across the counter asked as he took arataka's bills and started to count his change.

"not quite. he had a recital of sorts, so he couldn't make it today," he said. he didn't quite remember, but he was decently sure it was something that shou was kinda forced into despite not having any real part in it. participation grade more than anything else. he hadn’t even really wanted to go to it, but had for the sole reason of ritsu agreeing to come watch.

"shouldn't you go to that sort of thing?" the clerk asked- haruto, arataka didn't really know the guy's name, despite the fact that he wore it on a nametag. he kinda felt bad.

"uhm, no, not really?" arataka raised an eyebrow. what business did he really have at a middle school recital. "why would i?" he asked.

"well, he's your kid isn't he? aren't parents supposed to go to that sort of thing?" haruto asked. reigen felt his eye twitch.

"actually, shou isn't my kid. he's my employee,," he informed, shoving the candy cigarettes into his pocket. he'd need to open them up once he got outside.

"wait, seriously?" haruto asked, dropping change into arataka's extended hand. he nodded. "holy shit, i totally just assumed, my bad, dude," he apologized, giving an awkward laugh. reigen shot a smile as he stuffed his change in his pocket and grabbed the water.

"no worries," he said through gritted teeth. "i'll see you later," he waved and turned to head out. the worst part was that he'd totally planned on going to the recital too, but a customer had asked to see him, and it seemed urgent, so he'd taken it.

wasn't even worth it either, it took ten seconds to figure out her cell phone wasn't haunted, it was just in the wrong language.

—

5.

“are you here picking up your son?” a woman interrupted arataka’s thoughts. well, to be fair, he wasn’t really thinking, he was kinda just staring blankly at his phone as he waited for the time to pass.

“i’m sorry?” he looked at the woman. she was pretty. she was also older than him. he wasn’t the best at estimating, but he would guess by at least ten years. he stood up straighter.

“oh, i just asked if you were here to pick up your son. it’s so rare to see a man picking his kid up, they always say it’s a womans job,” the lady said, stepping uncomfortably closer. arataka took a small step back.

“oh, well, no, i’m not here to pick up my son,” he replied. he probably would���ve left it there, if he hadn’t been a twenty six year old man standing outside of a middle school. “i’m picking up my,” reigen paused. what exactly was teruki to him? he settled on employee, after a moment of thought. “my employee. his parents are off on business, but he has a dentist appointment, so i’m taking him,” he explained. he decided against bringing up the fact that HE was the one who scheduled the appointment, and he doubted the kids parents even knew that there was a dentist appointments anyways.

“ohh, i see,” the woman replied. in reigen’s opinion, it did not look like she saw, but he wasn’t gonna explain himself any further. this was starting to get ridiculous, he wasn’t old enough to have a middle schooler yet, was he??? “it’s so nice of you to do that for them. do you like kids?” the lady closed the distance once again. arataka wondered briefly if he’d ever been this uncomfortable in his entire life.

“oh, kageyama’s shishou, what are you doing here?” teruki interrupted, and arataka made a note to pray and thank whatever god there was, once he got home.

“here for you, kiddo. you have that dentist appointment, remember?” he reminded the boy. teru scowled. arataka knew the kid preferred to do things on his own, but he also just didn’t care.

“oh, right.” teru agreed with a huff, and turned towards the woman that was standing very VERY close to his kageyama’s shishou, but arataka took the opportunity to turn the kid away before he could ask about her.

“it was lovely meeting you, but we have an appointment to get to now.” arataka gave a curt bow of his head before turning and following teru away from the lady. it took two streets for him to finally talk.

“you can call me reigen, you know, you don’t have to just call me ‘kageyama’s shishou’,” he said. teru seemed to think this over for a moment before shrugging.

“i think it’s funnier to call you kageyama’s shishou,” was what the kid came up with. reigen made a face at him, and teru stuck his tongue out in response. after a moment, arataka spoke up again.

“i don’t really look old enough to have a fourteen year old son, do i?” he asked.

in response, teruki burst out laughing, and for the most part all arataka could hear were ‘holy shit’ and ‘old man’. maybe he should take on a less stressful job.

—-

+1

“hey, shishou?” mob spoke for the first time since he’d come into the office, which was kind of impressive, considering he’d been in for upwards of two hours, but also kind of wasn’t, because he was mob.

arataka wouldn’t usually be concerned at this, but today, he could quite literally feel the energy radiating off of mob. the kid wasn’t usually an anxious person, but today there were pens and staplers hovering off of his desk. this was grounds for concern. still, he could read mob. he knew that the boy had been thinking hard about something, and that he would talk when he was ready to do it. arataka was in no rush anyways.

“what’s up, mob?” he asked, not looking up from his laptop. he didn’t want to make a big deal out of whatever was stressing the kid out, so he kept as nonchalant as possible.

“i, uhm,” there was shuffling, what arataka assumed was mob looking through his bag, and then walking up. he chose this time to look up from the blank word document he’d been staring at. in front of him stood mob, who was holding something (maybe a card?) in his right hand, using his right hand to scratch at his left.

“go on, mob, you can tell me what you need,” arataka gave a grin.

“well, i just wanted to give you this,” mob held out the ��something’ that was in his hand. it was a card, as arataka had assumed. what he hadn’t seen coming, however, was the content of said card. it was a store bought one (which was expected, mob hated making handmade cards, because he could never fold them perfectly in half, and he didn’t know how to decorate them properly anyways) and it read in a very plane text ‘Happy Father’s Day!’. on the cover were two dogs, one of which had a mustache, and the other one of those hats with the spinny thing on top. arataka felt his lower lip quiver.

“what, uh,” he paused and cleared his throat. “what’s this, kid? want me to check if it’s good for your dad or something?” he asked, standing up. he was going to have a stroke or something from this kid, he was sure of it.

“well, no, it’s just for you,” mob nervously explained. clearly having two nervous people here wasn’t going to help anyone, so arataka decided he’d take one for the team and accepted the card. “obviously i know you aren’t my dad, but i just thought i’d give it to you since you always help me out, and stuff,” his voice kinda died out.

arataka opened the card. inside was a simple ‘you’re PAWesome’ in the same font from the front of the card. below that was mob’s handwriting, that could really only be described as sloppy. it read ‘thank you, shihsou. :) -Mob’ one one side. on the other read what arataka was decently sure read ritsu’s name, but it could also just be a mistake with a sharpie. below that, was the unmistakable glitter pen of teruki hanazawa. it was his name, as well as a star. and a little heart, then a smiley face. below that one was a very plain and sime ‘Shou’. at the very bottom was ‘TOME’ with a very interesting drawing of a… u.f.o.? he looked up with a raised eyebrow.

“ritsu wanted to sign too,” mob supplied. it looked less like ritsu had wanted to sign, and more like he’d been forced to do so, but reigen felt a pang in his heart nonetheless. “and shou, and teru, and tome, but uh, they couldn’t make it today,” mob explained. this wasn’t surprising. ritsu probably didn’t want to come at all, and shou and tome had an actual dad to deal with. he didn’t quite know what exactly teru would be doing, but it wasn’t his business anyways.

“it’s, uh, it’s okay if you don’t want it. i think they made me do it because i’m the most likely to-” mob cut himself off when arataka wrapped his arms tightly around the boy.

“thank you, mob. i appreciate it. i really do,” arataka said. he wanted to keep this kid in a hug forever, but after a few seconds, he let go. “you should go home now. tell your little friends they’re all in for a hug like that the next time i see them,” he threatened.

“i’m not too sure ritsu will be okay with that,” mob replied, going over to get his things.

“well, he shouldn’t have signed the card then,” arataka said as if it were obvious. mob seemed to think about this for a moment, before agreeing with a nod.

“okay then. well, i’ll see you tomorrow, shishou. happy father’s day,” mob waved as he headed out of the office. arataka stared at the card once the kid was gone, then placed it on his desk, where it would stay.

arataka was twenty eight years old, which was way too young to have a fourteen year old child, but here he sat with five of them. (well technically, two fourteen year olds, a fifteen year old, and two thirteen year olds)

(ritsu was quite literally kicking and screaming when reigen gave him a hug, shou seemed more confused than anything else, teru was surprised for a moment, but hugged back happily, and tome squeezed reigen so hard that he wondered if it’d be sad if his cause of death was squeezed too tight by a fifteen year old)

[ruthiswriting]

heart line

mp100 | serirei, reigen arataka, serizawa katsuya, kageyama ‘mob’ shigeo, AU, 6k | on ao3

It doesn’t really matter, he reminds himself. He’s making a change, just like all of Reigen’s clients. What’s on his hands isn’t set in stone. He just has to make sure Reigen doesn’t see it— even if it might feel nice to have that steady attention, Reigen’s hands that are so much nicer than Serizawa’s folding around his. 

(or: Reigen starts offering palm readings as a service, leading to Serizawa having to confront his feelings for his boss.)

this is pretty fluffy, only real tw is some self deprecating depression thoughts from seri.

-

One day, when he comes into work, Serizawa sees Reigen industriously spreading a new poster on the wall, next to the monthly specials.

“Oi, Serizawa,” Reigen says, head half turning, first in acknowledgment, then in focused interest. “Come help me finish putting up this poster— I can’t get the last corner. Or well, I could,” he allows, stepping away from the wall as Serizawa approaches, “but I don’t want to get the step ladder out of the storage closet, it’s always such a damn pain to dig it out. You had really good timing, you know…”

Serizawa comes in at the same time every day, so he hardly thinks it counts as good timing, but he doesn’t say anything. Reigen passes over a thumbtack that he’s been holding between his teeth— a terrible habit, one that always makes Serizawa’s stomach start doing awful twists when he sees him doing it— and Serizawa takes it, stepping to the wall.

The poster’s half up already, it’s really just this one corner that’s a bit awkward to get to behind one of Reigen’s potted plants. He smooths the corner out, hesitant, and carefully pushes the tack in.

“A little up,” Reigen directs from behind him, and even though Serizawa can’t see him he can feel the way Reigen’s head tilts to look under Serizawa’s stretched arm. “It needs to be straightened out— ah, the other side’s falling out, can you get that too? Serizawa! The bookshelf, watch it.”

After a few more tweaks, Serizawa finally manages to pin it to the wall in a way that satisfies Reigen. Serizawa runs two fingers over the slightly wrinkled corner— he can’t remember if it was already slightly bent, and he swallows nervously. But if Reigen notices, he doesn’t say anything, humming appreciatively. “Right. This’ll be good, people will walk in and see it with the monthly specials.” He stops, hands drumming on his hips. “Unless it should go on the far wall, while they’re sitting during the consultation? It works well as an add on, so maybe if they see it there it’ll drive more sales…”

Serizawa’s slowly processing the actual contents of the poster as Reigen hems and haws to himself. The center of the poster’s occupied with a giant stock photo hand, with arrows helpfully pointing to different creases and hills in the flat palm. A nauseating array of colors pinwheel around it, making it difficult to look away from once your gaze has drifted to it. PALM READINGS, the banner across the top screams out. LEARN ABOUT YOUR LIFE, LOVE, AND FORTUNE. Then, explosions of price points decorate the bottom.

Belatedly, he realizes he saw Reigen working on the poster yesterday during a slow hour in the office— slowly dragging together clip art in a way that he found appealing. Serizawa had avoided asking questions, since Reigen would then want his opinion on the poster, and Serizawa didn’t have the slightest clue about anything to do with design. Now, he could actually understand the poster for what it was.

“No, better to leave it here,” Reigen decides, bringing Serizawa out of his reverie. “Now, I’ve just got to add it to the website.” He sighs, scratching his cheek. “Damn builder’s always so tedious to fiddle with.”

“I didn’t know you could read palms, Reigen-san,” Serizawa says, still staring at the poster.

“Hm? Oh, yeah, I read a couple articles about it over the weekend,” Reigen says, starting back to his desk. Then he half turns back, adding, “when you get to my level, it’s easy to pick up this kind of stuff, you know— it’s good to buff out your skills, too. Sort of…” He spins a hand in the air as he thinks. “Expanding your resume.”

Serizawa nods. This makes sense to him. To Serizawa, Reigen’s never had much of a recognizable aura— or really, he thinks privately, any recognizable ability at all. But he has a very long list of clients, successful exorcisms, and the attention of the most powerful psychic that Serizawa knows, besides maybe the president. Not to mention the entirety of CLAW’s former 7th Division’s admiration and respect. All of those people can’t be wrong, Serizawa reasons, so it must just be something that he’s missing. Serizawa misses a lot of things. And as Reigen’s repeatedly told him, his powers are just more spiritual, so him picking up a new ability with some light reading seems perfectly reasonable. “One of my classmates talk about learning coding a lot, since that’s good to have on a resume,” he says. “So it’s kind of like that, maybe.”

“Well,” Reigen pulls a face as he drops into his desk chair. “That’s a different kind of resume.” He swivels to his computer. “While I’m updating the website, Serizawa, can you look at the client list for the day?”

Serizawa hastens to look at the digital calendar that Reigen’s set up on his phone. “There’s a consultation in the morning, at ten,” he says. “Two massages in the afternoon… An exorcism at four.” Serizawa will be gone by then. Kageyama will be assisting with that exorcism— Reigen’s marked that on the calendar too, although Serizawa’s not sure Mob’s once looked at the calendar Reigen constantly refers to.

Reigen’s practically rattling the keyboard with the force of his typing. “Plenty of down time today, then,” he said. “I’ll be able to get this set up no problem.”

“Reigen-san,” Serizawa begins, awkward. “Should I…” Reigen’s stopped his punitive typing to stare at him, which always makes Serizawa’s words begin to stutter. He clears his throat and tries again. “To better assist the clients. Should I learn about palmistry, too?”

He doesn’t know why he asks. Most of the questions he asks feel pointless as soon as he says them, and this one’s ridiculousness is heightened by the way Reigen frowns. “If you want to,” he says, tone implying he’s not sure why Serizawa would. “I was planning on handling it, since it’s mostly interfacing with the clients, and you’re still getting comfortable there, but I wouldn’t stop you.”

Serizawa can’t stop the way his shoulders sink, and hurriedly, Reigen adds, “you’re doing fine, Serizawa— I’m glad you’ve got the initiative to ask about it. But I know you’re busy with your studies, so I didn’t want to take up your time unnecessarily. You’re already a great asset to the business.”

Again, Serizawa wants to protest, to say that really he should be doing so much more for Reigen than brewing tea and exorcising stray ghosts. But he shouldn’t argue with his boss, so he just nods, swallowing all of his words.

It only takes a few days for someone to take Reigen up on new special— a jittery looking college student with spectacles twice the size of her eyes. She comes about a necklace that she inherited from her recently deceased grandmother. Serizawa can’t see anything on it, and Reigen smoothly steps in to handle it. As he shreds rock salt over it and kept up a stream of gentle questions about her grandmother, the girl’s eyes roams over the wall, and she asks about the palm reading. Within seconds, Reigen has the lights dimmed, incense candles in Serizawa’s hands that are apparently his responsibility to light.

Reigen sits on the edge of his seat, face serious as he looks down into her upturned palm. She watches him with wide eyes. “It’s not so much that your palms determine your fate,” he explains to her, voice taking on a knowing, mystic quality. “It’s more that they’re a microcosm of reality… The big’s encapsulated in the small.” He draws one of his fingers along a crease in her fingers, barely a ghosting pressure.

As Serizawa struggles with the candles, the match in his hand finally catches, and the light blooms across her face. The beginning of a blush is striping across her nose.

“This is your head line,” Reigen says. Then his finger moves across another web. “Your heart line. Your fate line. And your life line.” For this last designation, his finger curves across the base of her thumb and comes to rest against her wrist.

“The life line,” she says, eyes wide. “I heard once that if you have a short life line, that means that you’ll die young.”

Discreetly, Serizawa peeks at his own palm, but he can’t track what any of the mess of creases are supposed to be when transposed onto his own hand. “Not necessarily,” Reigen says, shaking his head. “Your life line has more to do with your vitality. If it’s short or shallow, that’s not necessarily bad, but it might mean you need to make a change.” Reigen’s mouth draws into a frown. “…Have you been feeling disconnected from the people around you?”

“That’s exactly it,” she says, voice a relieved rush. “It’s been so hard, ever my grandmother died…”

The conversation streams on past Serizawa. He watches as Reigen gives her advice, her hand still resting comfortably between Reigen’s long fingers.

The palm readings only happen occasionally, but Reigen seems satisfied enough with their performance— like he said, it’s a nice add on. But on days when someone asks for one, they cling to Serizawa’s mind the entire train ride to his night classes.

Regardless of Serizawa’s perception of Reigen’s aura, he proves himself as a natural when he sits down with a client for a palm reading. No matter what he says, they always gasp in shock at how accurately Reigen’s pinned down their life with just a few sentences. Then, he’s immediately pinwheeling into advice on how best to fix their relationships, their jobs, their life.

He doesn’t like it. The idea that, just by looking at his hands, someone can accurately judge everything inside of him. Reigen never says anything bad about the clients, of course, but he’s sure that he has to see it. All of Serizawa’s mistakes are surely reflected in the creases of his hand— and he’s made a lot of mistakes.

Serizawa spends a lot of time staring at his hands on the train. They’re square in shape, with short, blocked off fingers, and a tangled mess of lines and mounds— what Reigen calls the bumps of flesh on the client’s hands. He doesn’t know what any of it means. He doesn’t think it could be anything good.

It doesn’t really matter, he reminds himself. He’s making a change, just like all of Reigen’s clients. What’s on his hands isn’t set in stone. He just has to make sure Reigen doesn’t see it— even if it might feel nice to have that steady attention, Reigen’s hands that are so much nicer than Serizawa’s folding around his.

The train rumbles under his feet, and hurriedly Serizawa tucks his free hand under his armpit. Like if it hand is out of his sight, the obsessive thought might be too. It doesn’t stop his eyes from ghosting over everyone else’s hands, that all surely say much better things about them than Serizawa’s.

He’s not doing a good job of not thinking about the hands.

Mainly, he keeps thinking about Reigen’s, which doesn’t bode well for Serizawa’s attempts at professionalism.

Serizawa realized fairly early on that his feelings for Reigen exceeded the typical respect one should have for an employer. It even went past the gratitude that one should have for someone who saved Serizawa’s life— because genuinely, Serizawa thinks that Reigen saved his life by giving him this job, when Serizawa didn’t even have a high school education or any practical experience beyond being a reformed terrorist. Even if Serizawa’s managed to stop referring to every manual of business practice as inarguable law, enough of them reiterated the extreme inappropriateness of workplace relationships that Serizawa figured it was a rule he should stick with. Their cautions at power imbalances, lack of professionalism, and the inevitability of messy breakups bang around in Serizawa’s mind every time he looks at Reigen.

Of course, it’s not like Reigen would want anything to do with Serizawa even without these restrictions. Reigen’s a good, helpful person, and he saw that Serizawa was in a bad spot, and wanted to do something about it. That was all. So, it’s up to Serizawa to draw a professional boundary. If he maintains a distance, that’s better for both of them— Reigen won’t have to deal with Serizawa’s messy, inappropriate feelings, and Serizawa won’t get hurt.

But the palm readings make that so much harder than necessary.

Reigen has nice hands, and he takes full advantage of them in every moment. They accent every word that Reigen ever speaks, making his case for him before he’s even begun a sentence. And when Reigen’s hands are making an energetic arc across the room, Serizawa keeps finding his mind going back to the dim office— the candles flickering in the dark, the sweet heady scent of incense. Reigen’s hands comfortably enveloping his hands.

Not his hands, really. It’s only Serizawa’s hands in his flushed, distracted imagination. He wishes, very desperately, that Reigen wasn’t so dedicated to the atmosphere of his services, but if he’s being honest with himself, Serizawa probably would have the same problem if Reigen conducted palmistry under the boring office lights.

It’s just Serizawa’s embarrassing personal problem. It’s something he has to deal with on his own. Another misguided crush on his employer— except he’s so sure that Reigen would let him down gently it burns.

It’s a slow day in the office when Reigen says, tone casual, “Serizawa, let me read your palm.”

Serizawa’s pen jags across the paper. He’s doing homework, which he always feels guilty for, even though Reigen’s repeatedly told him it’s fine, even offering to help him with any assignments he’s having trouble with. Now, he’s punished for slacking on the job by way of an unfortunate ink splatter obscuring a section of his notes. Serizawa feels a static charge draw up around his ears, and he takes a deep breath as he settles the pen against the page. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Serizawa says.

“Why not?” Reigen’s half out of his chair before he’s distracted by a loose set of papers about to escape his desk. He pins them down with a half full mug of tea, then continues his circuit around the desk. “We don’t have a client until later this afternoon, and it’ll be fun— enlightening, even. It’s a good team building exercise.”

He’s pretty sure Reigen just wants to put off the paperwork that he’s been complaining about the whole morning. It’s given him too much time to let his eyes drift across the room and watch Serizawa, probably monitoring any possible mistakes in his work. The palmistry poster’s right behind Serizawa’s head at his desk, so maybe that’s what made him think of it. Regardless, Serizawa does not want Reigen to be enlightened by anything about Serizawa. He clenches his hands into fists and sticks them under the desk, like maybe Reigen will forget about it if he can’t see them.

All the excuses collecting in his brain don’t make it to his mouth in time, and Reigen’s leaning against Serizawa’s desk. “Come on, Serizawa,” he entreats him, voice wheedling. “Don’t you ever unwind? It’s not bad to have a little fun when it’s slow.”

Serizawa can’t think of something less fun than his crush learning all of his secret and not-so-secret inadequacies while holding his hand. Plus, he’s sure that there’s something better both of them could be doing— that’s another thing the self help books harp on, that you can always find something to do to improve your workplace. But he’s not good at telling Reigen no. And so, in a matter of seconds, Reigen’s setting up the office as Serizawa watches, arms locked at his side.

“You don’t have to waste the incense candles,” Serizawa mumbles as Reigen energetically lights a match.

“It’s not a waste,” Reigen says firmly. “Anyway, I do my best readings when there’s a proper atmosphere.”

Since there’s no way to get out of this, besides maybe running straight out of the office and never coming back, Serizawa sits down at the table where Reigen always ushers their clients and waits. Reigen draws the blinds shut and then sits across from him, wiggling forward in his chair.

Reigen’s thighs sandwich the low table between them, pressing close enough for their knees to touch. Even though he’d dreaded the low lighting before, Serizawa’s abruptly grateful for the fact that Reigen can’t see the way his face heats in the dark.

And then, Reigen’s hands are taking his.

His hands are cool, maybe even a little clammy. They rest calmly against Serizawa’s over-hot skin, and Serizawa’s sure Reigen can feel the way that his pulse is rampaging in his wrist. Even before the palm reading’s begun, Serizawa’s hands apparently have the ability to betray him. He tries to swallow his nerves, again, force it all down. He can control himself, even if he’s feeling scared and lovesick. He’s not the person that he used to be.

Serizawa’s reminding himself of all of this, when Reigen says, very seriously, voice a low murmur, “you’ve got nice hands, you know.”

“What?” Serizawa blurts. “No, I don’t.” And then he flinches, immediately berating himself for contradicting Reigen.

Reigen’s eyebrows rise up, vanishing under his bangs. “Sure you do,” he says, insistent. And then, he turns Serizawa’s palm flat, running one electric finger around the circumference. “Square palm— short fingers. You’ve got earth hands. Means you’re reliable, Serizawa.”

Even though his brain is buzzing with this much prolonged contact— Serizawa’s not exactly had a lot of people spend extended time touching his hands, much less Reigen touching his hands— this sentence manages to drag him a little closer to reality again. Reigen just meant that comment in the context of palmistry, of course. He’s probably said similar things to his clients, even if Serizawa can’t exactly remember him saying them in this moment. He breathes.

After waiting long enough to realize that Serizawa’s not going to say anything in response, Reigen returns to tracing the lines of his hands. “Look here,” he murmurs, moving one finger down the center of his palm. “You’ve got a pretty pronounced fate line.”

And Serizawa knows, immediately, that that can’t be right. He’s heard enough of Reigen’s explanations to his clients to have learned that a deep fate line means you have control over your life— that outside actors don’t control your fate. Serizawa can’t think of something less likely to be applied to him. He feels his face sink, watching Reigen’s hand move, back and forth, over his own.

Reigen’s lying to him. He probably doesn’t mean it in a bad way. He probably wants to boost Serizawa’s abysmal self image, because Reigen’s good hearted like that. But it stings that he’d tell Serizawa falsehoods just to make him feel better, against something that demonstrably isn’t true. It calls into question every other good thing Reigen’s said about him.

“Aren’t you going to ask what that means?” Reigen’s eyes move up to look at Serizawa, burning holes in him.

Serizawa sucks in a breath that ghosts over his teeth. “Reigen-san…” He swallows, throat clicking. Every noise he makes suddenly feels so loud and over important when they sitting this close, without even the hum of fluorescent lights to drown it out. “I don’t really know if that makes sense, from what I’ve heard you say to the clients.”

Reigen’s eyebrows work together. “Your fate line can change over the course of your life, you know,” he says slowly. “Just like how you can change. It’s just a reflection of you.”

Serizawa lets his hand drop— it’s only Reigen’s interlaced fingers against the back of his hand that keeps his hand from knocking against the table. “I don’t know,” he mumbles. “I don’t know, if I’ve changed enough to justify that.”

“You’ve made a lot of changes,” Reigen says, still insistently not letting go of his hand. His fingers interlace into a cradle, and Serizawa can feel the press of Reigen’s index finger on one knuckle. “You’re taking classes. You chose to leave a harmful situation, when it would’ve been easier to stay. You’re working here. Serizawa, you’re the one that’s taking charge of your life now.”

But even that’s a falsehood. Serizawa knows, deep in his bones, that he never would have left CLAW on his own. He never would have been able to see past the circumference of his umbrella and his own starry infatuation. The only reason he was able to leave at all was because of Kageyama, forcing him out of the fantasy he was living in, and Reigen, offering him a lifeline when Serizawa was sitting in the absolute rubble of his fake life.

“Serizawa.” Reigen’s voice is suddenly sharp. “Are you really going to doubt an expert spiritualist such as myself?”

“N— no, I didn’t mean—“

“Then accept it. You’re the only one in charge of your life. Let’s look at something else more interesting,” Reigen says, immediately shifting gears and ending the conversational thread. “Your heart line, it looks like it’s pretty—“

And this is something that Serizawa absolutely cannot handle. He yanks his hand out of Reigen’s before he can stop himself. “Reigen-san,” he said, voice climbing an octave. “I don’t know if that’s— appropriate.”

“Eh?” Reigen’s blinking at him.

“I mean,” he pulls his arms back, keeping whatever incriminating information is inscribed on his hands safely hidden. “Isn’t it bad to discuss… Relationships, in the workplace?”

Reigen tilts his head like Serizawa’s said something foreign. “It’s perfectly normal,” he says. “I help Mob with his relationships all the time.”

That’s obviously completely different, Serizawa wants to say, but the words won’t come. Suddenly, he’s seized with the idea— Reigen already knows exactly what he’s thinking and feeling. There’s probably a specific triangle of flesh on Serizawa’s hand that communicates, this person is in love with their superior, and Reigen’s seen it and knows. Serizawa feels the redness climbing all over his face. He can’t stop himself from looking down, palm turning up as he tries to find whatever betrayed him.

And immediately, Reigen’s grabbed his hand again. Serizawa feels his brain misfiring as Reigen yanks it closer. “Look,” Reigen says, eager. “Yours begins below your index finger, from the edge of your palm.” He indicates it, and Serizawa desperately wishes his heart would stop jackhammering in response. His pulse is loud enough to hurt his head, so surely Reigen can feel it pounding in his grip. “Means you’ve got a giving heart, Serizawa. It’s pretty short, so you’re introverted… But deep, so relationships are definitely important to you.”

“Aren’t they important to everyone?” Serizawa asks, floundering for any type of purchase in this conversation.

“Not necessarily,” Reigen says. “I mean, think about it— you’ve definitely met people who’ve put more work into relationships than others, haven’t you? But you value the people around you, so your hands reflect that. Maybe even…” His hand traces a crease, and he wiggles an eyebrow at Serizawa. “Value of a specific person? Someone you have in mind?”

Bone deep shame makes itself known from within Serizawa’s marrow. His fingers automatically curl inward, in an attempt to hide, and suddenly, without realizing, he’s holding the tips of Reigen’s fingers under his.

He expects Reigen to pull back, automatic, but Reigen doesn’t move at all. All Reigen does is go still, not meeting Serizawa’s eyes all of the sudden. His nose dips forward to look down at their hands, hovering above the table. It’s like he’s shy. Reigen is never shy.

“It’s a good thing, you know,” he says. “You’d be a good partner.”

He’s staring down at their hands, resting against the table, still not moving to pull his fingers away, or even to spread open Serizawa’s hand to continue his relentless assault of kind words. It’s like he’s perfectly content to rest there, long fingers trapped in Serizawa’s grip, which is probably too tight and not at all pleasant. Serizawa keeps waiting and waiting for Reigen to pull away, but he doesn’t.

Then, suddenly, the door to the office buzzes, signifying a walk in client. Reigen pinwheels away so dramatically he almost falls off his chair. A little pop of psychic energy spreads out from Serizawa’s feet, lifting everything in the office just an inch off the ground before it drops again. Serizawa stands, frantic, looking for something to do as Reigen hurriedly draws open the blinds.

It’s too late, though. The unexpected customer’s standing in the entrance, staring at both of them. “Um,” he begins, phone held lamely up. “I saw the sign outside, and I was wondering if I could ask about getting some spirit tags…”

Reigen recovers admirably, immediately pivoting into welcoming the customer and acting like it’s perfectly normal for both of them to sit around in the dark with only candles to see by. Serizawa guesses it’s not totally unreasonable— it is a psychic business, after all. You’d only know it was strange if you were a regular customer, and this man isn’t.

The only thing that betrays it as odd is the red blush that’s spread all over Reigen’s face, even staining his ears. It couldn’t be because of Serizawa, of course— it’s just that a customer caught him off guard. It has to be that.

Serizawa stares at the back of Reigen’s flushed neck, and wonders.

The rest of the day is tense.

It’s not exactly like Serizawa and Reigen sit side by side all day, but Reigen normally will get up and come see what Serizawa’s doing. He’ll hang over him as he supervises his work, or offer suggestions on whatever homework assignment he’s working on. In general, Reigen seems to dislike sitting still for long hours. He tends to pace about as he verbally puzzles through work problems to Serizawa, or Mob, or, probably, to an empty room. But after the palm reading, Reigen stays firmly confined to his desk, not saying anything at all as he still fidgets. Even when a client comes for an exorcism and he has to get up, Reigen maintains an exaggeratedly respectful distance between him and Serizawa.

The palm reading plays on repeat in Serizawa’s head, offering new mistakes for Serizawa to fixate on each time. The more they sit in silence, the more Serizawa’s completely sure that Reigen knows exactly how he feels. Why else would he suddenly become so shy? He wishes, fervently, that he’d just managed to keep it to act normally. Maybe if he hadn’t made such a fuss about the whole thing he wouldn’t have made Reigen uncomfortable. Now it’s even more obvious to Reigen where his feelings lie. It must disgust him, to have to deal with Serizawa’s sad, misaimed emotions— pathetically clinging to any basic kindness shown to him.

The whole afternoon, Reigen’s ears stay red as he works at his computer, only stealing glances at Serizawa when he thinks Serizawa can’t see.

He has to say something. He has to to apologize to Reigen for making everything so awkward. Maybe if he promises that he can control his feelings, that it won’t get in the way, things could go back to normal. Serizawa wishes the earth would swallow him whole. But it won’t— not without Serizawa splitting the earth open himself, at least. But if Serizawa wants to have any chance of reintegrating into normal society he has to deal with his feelings in an adult way.

Of course, Reigen beats him to bringing it up, as Serizawa’s dragging up the nerve to say something at the end of the day. He’s just stood, closing his laptop as he says, “Serizawa,” and pauses immediately, scratching the back of his neck. “You know, when you mentioned inappropriate workplace relationships—“

“I promise it won’t get in the way of anything,” Serizawa says in an explosive rush. “Please don’t fire me.”

Reigen stares at him, one hand still resting on the back of his neck. This is a look that Serizawa’s unfortunately gotten to know quite well. It’s the look that Reigen gives him when he’s said something unexpected. Serizawa’s begun to mentally mark it as a sign as conversational failure. “Pardon?”

Serizawa was really desperately hoping that Reigen wouldn’t make him actually say it, but that was looking less and less likely. “When you read my palm,” he stammers out, clutching onto the edge of his desk for dear life. “I know maybe not everything you saw was— appropriate, or maybe it showed something it shouldn’t, but I promise I won’t let it get in the way of working here. I can maintain professional boundaries, and… And…”

His voice trails as he dares to look back into Reigen’s face. It’s completely red again, naked surprise totally dominating his features. His hand’s gripping the back of his chair, like it’s stuck there. Reigen very rarely holds still, but in this moment, he’s completely frozen in place. By shock.

Abruptly, Serizawa realizes he was wrong. Reigen hadn’t seen his feelings in the surface of his fingers. But if he didn’t know about it before, he definitely, definitely knows about it now.

For a split second, Serizawa’s certain the office will collapse around them— his powers going rampant one last time to spare him this complete embarrassment. But all that happens is the furniture trembles, once. Serizawa supposes, under the part of his brain that’s screaming for death, that it shows he’s made good progress on controlling his powers.

He stands robotically. “I should go,” he says.

“No— no,” Reigen suddenly blurts, and he unsticks himself from behind the desk, racing across the office after Serizawa. “Serizawa, wait—”

Serizawa trips over his chair in his rush to leave, which gives Reigen the time to grab his arm before he reaches the door. It would be very easy to pull free and continue his frantic path onto the street and into the horizon, but the feeling of Reigen’s fingers digging into the side of his arm totally arrests Serizawa. He freezes, staring down into Reigen’s still beet-red face.

Reigen’s face is twitching in some kind of worrisome motion— he really looks like he’s about to have some kind of seizure, especially when his complexion is still so totally red. But finally, he manages to speak. “Our heart lines might not be so different, you know,” he says, voice wobbling just a little from— nerves? That can’t be right. Unless Reigen’s so totally disgusted by him that he’s nervous to be around him, now. But he’s holding on so tightly. Like he doesn’t want Serizawa to go.

Serizawa’s eyes slide away, not wanting to look at Reigen dead on, but then Reigen tugs his arm, insistent, trying to get his attention again. “Obviously, the qualities that we have, and the ways that we love— hypothetically— are very different,” Reigen says, voice gaining volume. “But, maybe similar things are revealed if you look closely. Just… A little closer.”

And then he doesn’t say anything, staring wide eyed at Serizawa. He’s clearly waiting for something, as Serizawa’s brain shudders to put the pieces together past every instinct that’s screaming at him to escape. Serizawa can’t conceive of a person being more different from him than Reigen. Any kind of similarity seems like too much to imagine. A similarity of the heart line? Maybe, Reigen has some of the good qualities he’s superimposed onto Serizawa, and that’s what he means. Or maybe— maybe—

Before he can stop himself, Serizawa’s hand slides up to grab the one that Reigen’s got on his arms. This time Reigen’s hand is damp with sweat. So is Serizawa’s, and he can’t imagine that it’s a pleasant experience for Reigen. Still, Reigen spreads his fingers, interlacing Serizawa’s fingers with his as they fall to the side.

“Just a little closer,” Reigen says again, voice almost a whisper as he steps into Serizawa’s personal space. The gap between their bodies narrows, and then vanishes, Reigen’s torso pressing against Serizawa’s.

It seems, impossibly, to be what Reigen wants. So before he can stop himself, Serizawa dips his head and kisses Reigen.

Reigen’s body leans up and into Serizawa, his free hand reaching up to touch his face. Underneath the fireworks happening behind Serizawa’s eyelids, there’s a moment of terror at Reigen touching his face— like he’ll find some patchy place where Serizawa missed shaving, or the pockmarked memory of an acne scar, and abruptly snap out of whatever insanity’s fallen over him. But Reigen touches his cheek gently, so, so, gently, and the fingers encircling Serizawa’s only tighten.

He’s sure, from any objective standpoint, it’s not a very good kiss— Serizawa’s never kissed anyone before, so his skills are probably awful. But it also means it’s the best he’s ever had. He never wants to come up for air.

Eventually, though, their faces break apart. Reigen’s face is still twitching a little, but now it’s up into an almost manic smile. Serizawa’s starting to wonder if the blush across Reigen’s face will ever subside. “This is,” Reigen begins, and then stops.

Reigen’s words rarely stop, and the silence stretches on for a few uninterrupted seconds until Serizawa realizes that genuinely, Reigen’s lost for words. A laugh threatens to break loose from Serizawa’s chest, but he doesn’t want it to seem like he’s laughing at Reigen. He only wants to express that whatever Reigen’s feeling, Serizawa understands. Completely and totally. It’s something he feels confident of when typically, Serizawa feels confident of nothing. So he just smiles, hoping that maybe, Reigen will understand too.

“I should have gotten into palmistry earlier,” Reigen says finally, and at that Serizawa can’t suppress his laugh. “Clearly I should screw around reading articles on the weekend more.”

“This wasn’t the reason you learned about palmistry,” Serizawa says, laugh still making his voice shake.

“Hell no,” Reigen snorts. “I just wanted to find another way to make a quick buck.” Then, immediately, he adds, “and also help our clients find out important truths about themselves, and the universe, of course—”

“While making a quick buck,” Serizawa says. It feels too joking, too disrespectful, but then, Serizawa’s just kissed Reigen. Reigen’s kissed him back. Worrying about professionalism seems suddenly pointless.

Reigen raises an eyebrow at him. “Sassy. Just don’t say that to the clients, Serizawa.”

His hand’s still clinging to Serizawa, gently swinging between them. Impulsively, Serizawa brings the hand up to his mouth, kissing the knuckles. Reigen’s breath pulls in, and Serizawa feels his face heat. He suddenly realizes that really, he has no idea what Reigen expects from this. They could be on completely different pages, Serizawa could be moving too fast, he could be doing everything all wrong.

But Reigen’s smiling at him. It’s a smile that he hasn’t seen before— totally unlike the dazzling grins that he gives his clients, and everyone he’s trying to convince to believe him. It feels different. The other smiles, Serizawa realizes, are something that Reigen puts on, in the same way that he puts on his tie in the morning. This one is real. This one is for Serizawa.

There’s a part of his stomach that’s still telling him this whole thing is a bad idea. Every chapter on workplace relationships he’s taken careful notes on is flashing on the back of his eyelids when he blinks. But, more and more, Serizawa’s realized that Spirits and Such is far from a typical office environment. Serizawa’s not a typical employee, and Reigen— wonderful, strange, perfect, Reigen— is not a typical boss.

When they walk out of the office, Reigen’s still holding his hand. Serizawa hopes, impossibly, that he never stops.

[turning-the-kaleidoscope]

For the Caretaker Prompts - 7. “Hold still.”

This one took me forever to decide on bc it’s such a broad prompt and there are so many characters to choose from so i’m using it as a bit of practice for writing Seri’s character! i need to write him more anyway askdjksljdlad

Thanks for the prompt!! Hope I did it justice! :> (this also turned out to be a lot longer than I thought it would which is steadily becoming more and more of a norm for me and I’m not nearly as happy with this as I wanna be so jkjkfjgkljdflgdfgdfg)

It’s been a little while since Reigen took a job on his own. 

He used to do it all the time, he told Serizawa on his way out the door. And he did. It was never a big deal. He was more than capable of taking on jobs by himself, depending on the nature of the work. His sense of being would lead most to think he’s unqualified for it, but honestly, Serizawa has yet to meet a man more capable than him when it comes to dealing with difficult people and insufferable clients. 

But something had been off, today. Serizawa can’t read people in the impeccable way that Reigen can, but he’s at least known him long enough to tell that something wasn’t what it should’ve been. Something was out of place. In Reigen’s tone of voice, in the way he shrugged off Serizawa’s help, even in the way he swung his coat around him. There was a nervous something accompanying the movements that wasn’t Reigen. A sour note in a familiar melody. 

He let him go, though, because Reigen is capable. Because he’s more than able to do whatever it is he’s set out to do. 

Fingers filing through papers, clicking through emails, sorting messages on their website, Serizawa sifts through the paperwork in Reigen’s stead, making sure everything is kept in proper order and sort. Reigen is much faster at this than he is, but only because Serizawa triple-checks every order to make sure everything is as it should be. And he may or may not be intentionally dragging himself through it so he has an excuse to be here when Reigen returns.  

On a normal day, he’d be finished with paperwork by around seven in the evening. Tonight, he finishes at nine. The office closes at six. He’d gotten up to flip the sign and make himself a cup of tea (more out of nervous energy than anything), and since then has been seated at the desk. 

He sits and fiddles, his prepared but untouched cup of tea placed by the closed laptop. Reigen left at four. The clock ticks onwards until nine becomes ten. It’s been too long. He should’ve been back by now. 

Ten thirty. Serizawa texts him, because he’s worried and desperately grasping for reasons why he shouldn’t be. Each time he reaches out, there’s less and less to grasp. Reigen hasn’t responded to the text. He sends another one, and Reigen doesn’t reply to that, either. 

He wonders if he should go looking for him. Reigen is capable, yes, but he’s human, too. And he never really seems to realize just how human he is. 

He’s still debating, and is just about to cast reason to the wind and go after him, when there’s a sound knock at the office door. 

It doesn’t make sense for it to be Reigen, not unless he’d forgotten his keys (and his phone, because Serizawa has been texting him fruitlessly for a good long while now). But he hadn’t forgotten his phone. It isn’t him. 

Serizawa swallows hard and tries to ignore it, too worried and frazzled to deal with a customer at the moment, even if all he has to do is politely remind them that they’re closed for the night and they’d have to try again tomorrow. He’s already restless enough as it is, bouncing his leg and wringing his hands together on the desktop. He’s not in the right mindset for it. 

But there’s a knock at the door, somewhat more forceful this time, and Serizawa scolds himself for being so unprofessional and gets his legs underneath him. They ache from so much time spent sitting doing nothing, but he ignores that and crosses the room. All he has to do is ask them to come back tomorrow; and then, once they’re gone, he’ll grab his coat and look for Reigen. 

He makes his way over to the door. The blinds are shut, and it’s so dark outside that he probably wouldn’t be able to see much of anything anyway, and he takes a moment to mentally prepare his speech before sliding back the locks and pulling it open. 

“I-I’m sorry, we’re closed right now, you-you’ll have to come back tomor–” 

It isn’t a client. 

Reigen smiles wanly at him, an expression tight and drawn enough to snap, and something is wrong. There’s a bruise on the side of his head, dark and splotchy in the porch light over the office door, and he’s holding himself oddly, favoring one leg over the other and keeping his arms tight around his chest. His coat is gone. His hair is a mess.

“Sorry,” he says in a hoarse voice, “but I’m not sure I’ll be able to wait until then.” 

Serizawa blinks.

“Arataka, what…”   

Reigen drags in a breath through his teeth. “I swear it’s not as bad as it looks.”

It catches up with him. 

“What happened?” Serizawa stammers, heart in his throat. He feels sick. He wants to do something with his hands, but all they manage is hovering by Reigen’s shoulders. Should he touch him? How bad is it? “Should I call someone? Do you need a hospital? What–” 

“Katsuya, I know you’re worried, I’ll explain in a sec, but I really need to sit down right now.” 

“R–Right.” Right? “R-Right! Here, I’ll–” 

He beats down his panic and replaces it with purpose, and he takes Reigen by the shoulders and leads him inside. With a flick of his aura, the door shuts and locks in their wake. 

“Mugged?” 

Reigen sighs longly and twirls a finger by his head. “S’mthing like that. They weren’t very good at it, though.” 

“They were good enough.” Serizawa ties off the bandage at Reigen’s wrist, and when Reigen lets it down to his side, Serizawa takes his opposite arm and studies it carefully. It isn’t broken, but there are bruises, and a cut of concerning length stretches from the back of his hand to his shoulder in a messy, twisted fashion. 

Reigen catches him staring and laughs hoarsely. It sounds like it hurts. “One of them had a knife.” 

Serizawa clenches his teeth and swallows back the acid in his throat. He takes a fresh cotton swab from the first aid kit, douses it generously in disinfectant, and drags it along the length of the gash. Reigen stays quiet, but his face is a shade paler than it should be, and his jaw is set tight. 

Blood turns the cotton swab red, and the gnawing pit in Serizawa’s stomach grows. “I should’ve been there,” he says quietly, hardly able to get the words out. 

Reigen hears him, though, and shakes his head. “No, you shouldn’t have been. There was a reason why I didn’t let you go.” 

“I would have been able to protect you, they could have killed you–” 

“They weren’t murderers,” Reigen says. Serizawa can’t pin down exactly why his voice wavers. “I didn’t let you go because it wasn’t worth it.”

Serizawa tosses the swab off to the side and grabs a roll of gauze instead. “What wasn’t worth it?” 

“I know you don’t like using your psychic powers against actual people,” Reigen answers shortly. “I didn’t want to put you through that again.” 

That… makes sense. It makes sense, but still– 

“You at least wouldn’t have been alone,” Serizawa says finally, and hopes it’s the right thing to say. “I know you’re my boss, but you can rely on me, too. You don’t have to put yourself in danger like that, or at least not when you’re on your own. We would’ve figured something out.” 

Reigen turns and stares into the back of the couch, just to avoid meeting his gaze. He sighs. “You’re right, you’re right. Sorry. I’ll… work on that.” 

He’s brushing it off, they both kind of are, but only because there are more pressing things to deal with right now. They’ll talk about it later, and Serizawa will make sure there is a “later,” but first things first. 

“You should see a doctor,” Serizawa says once he’s done bandaging Reigen’s arm. He lets it down at his side, and Reigen doesn’t move. “I don’t know how serious any of this actually is.” 

“I don’t feel up to it right now.” 

“Then I’ll take you.” 

“Take me tomorrow,” he says, still without looking at him–only now, it’s because he’s closed his eyes. “Waiting a few hours isn’t going to kill me, and it’s not like I have a concussion.” 

Serizawa wants to push it, but the fact he’s admitting to needing a hospital anyway is huge. It’s enough to worry him. But he does trust Reigen’s judgment in this. 

“First thing tomorrow, then,” Serizawa says, grabbing one final roll of gauze from the medical kit. “And no getting out of it.” 

“No getting out of it,” Reigen repeats, nodding to himself, and Serizawa takes a breath, holds it for a second, before he goes on; 

“I’m just gonna put something around your ankle to keep it stable until then,” he murmurs, already dreading it. His ankle doesn’t particularly look broken, but he hadn’t put weight on it earlier, and he’d bit his lip and clutched the edge of the couch while Serizawa pulled off his shoe and sock. Those weren’t great signs. 

Reigen doesn’t look very happy with it, either, but he nods and lets Serizawa pull his leg onto the couch between them. It’s definitely bruised and swollen, he can see that now. He’s afraid to touch it, but it’s just to keep it stabilized until tomorrow. 

“Alright,” Serizawa holds his breath a moment, “alright, hold still…” 

Reigen does hold still. Perfectly still, actually, while Serizawa wraps it. He keeps it loose, unsure of how tight it should be, and tells himself that it’s alright, they’ll get it looked at tomorrow, this is fine. 

He makes quick work of it, and as soon as he’s tied it off, he lifts his head. Reigen has an arm draped over his eyes, teeth clenched behind closed lips, skin even paler than before. He doesn’t move. 

Serizawa’s heart skips a beat. “Arataka?” 

“M’fine, sorry,” he says, and Serizawa releases a sigh of relief. “Just–g-gimme a second.” 

“Yeah, right, of course.” Serizawa uses one of the couch pillows to elevate his ankle, not missing the slight hitch of Reigen’s breath when he’s jostled again. Serizawa apologizes quietly, Reigen waves him off with a flop of his hand.

It takes a while for Reigen to catch his breath after that, but he does indeed catch it, and Serizawa dumps his cold cup of tea in favor of making two fresh one. It’s well past midnight now, but neither of them care and sit together on the couch as best they can with Reigen’s leg elevated. 

They sleep in the office that night on the couch, without really intending to, and don’t realize they’d done so until the sunrise of the following day.

[My original tags:

because they’re worth sharing]

[gurguliare]

Dumb ageswap preview since today is a no self-restraint day

There was a stray cat who frequented the convenience store. Actually there were several, but this one came very regularly at or around dawn, because the cashier who worked nights put out milk near the end of his shift. The first time Keiji saw it happen, he was fascinated, not by the cashier with his oversized T-shirt and apron but by the cat, who was dead. He wanted to know more.

Regular breakfasts of milk and attention soon gave the stray a bit of solidity. Not enough grow back flesh and bone, but enough that—on the darkest winter days, when the sun stayed down and simmered through the morning—the cat just looked like a cat, though a cat with holes for eyes. It got to the point where even an ordinary person would be able to tell that it was there, if only they knew what to look for. Keiji lost interest, not wanting to be caught squinting at a ghost when he should have been on his way to campus. But he thought about it. Somehow it always came before the living strays arrived, and drank without lowering the level of the milk… but the milk grew duller, more blue-white, and lost its smell. The other strays, when they came, were getting the dregs.

Most food, spirits couldn’t enjoy. In their dead mouths it turned to ashes. Offerings were an exception, but could a bowl of milk be an offering? If set out with the correct intent, perhaps. Or prayed over beforehand. It was hard to imagine the night manager praying.

Who was the night manager? He looked boring. He had a sloping bowl-cut, so long it covered his eyebrows and the tips of his ears. The grooves under his eyes shrank his eyes until his face was mostly frown and nostril. Not really a frown—a nonexpression gravity had sagged. He knelt like someone with bad knees, but he couldn’t be old, with that unwashed baby face. If Keiji closed his eyes and concentrated briefly, the cashier appeared as a person-shaped gap in a thick field of color. Most things, viewed in this way, bulged with pockets of spiritual energy, like food that looked delicious but could be halved to show the spotty mold. Even a powerless person had their life, that grew through their body in veins. The cashier was alive, but his life-force gave off neither energy nor colored light—Keiji had to hold open his mind’s senses to detect it, a dark river of “something” concealed in nothing, a life-river spilling downward so slowly it was easy to suppose that he had made some mistake: that the nothing flowed upward, instead.

It would have been too conspicuous to stand in front of the convenient store with his eyes shut, especially after the cashier went back inside. So he pretended to pace. After a couple of passes he walked into a stop sign.

“Oi, Mogami,” said a voice right behind him. “Are you sick?”

He turned slowly, in part because turning made his head swim. At the last minute he also remembered to open his eyes. Vice President Reigen Arataka, terror of blowoff clubs, stood with arms folded and so close behind that Keiji almost clotheslined him. Or would have done, if Keiji had been more like Reigen—waving his hands around at the start of every speech.

Arataka took a prim step back and didn’t relax his hold on his own elbows. “You look sick,” he accused.

“I’m not,” said Keiji pleasantly. “I’m just late. I’m afraid I’m letting down you and the president.”

“Not much to let down. You’re always late.”

“I’m sorry,” said Keiji, staring at his smeary storefront reflection with what he hoped was a sincerely mournful air. Behind the glass, the cashier was putting out new stock. “I didn’t think my student council duties would interfere this much with my preferred sleep habits.”

“That’s a real shame.” No one ever sounded less threatening than Arataka imitating a gangster, or perhaps the rough-cut hero of the movie who drove off the gangsters at the end. He was the sort of person who did it to put people at ease, raising his eyebrows and sneering to shake a laugh out of his victims. “Let’s walk together. I’ll make your excuses, if you like. ‘Mr. President, a thousand apologies. I got lost between the convenience store and the convenience store—’”

“That’s right”—Keiji mimed surprise—“you’re late too, aren’t you?”

Arataka gave him the uneven smile that Keiji often saw in friendly upperclassmen. Something about his sense of humor soured them after a while, though they liked his sarcastic deference. After all, it was still deference.

The president didn’t show up. Keiji enjoyed listening to Arataka fudge the agenda, though.

In homeroom, Ms. Kurata showed an unusual appetite for combat, striding jerkily to and fro and barking questions at the dozers in the front. The bands of dim light from the blinds made their way floating up her jacket, higher but less sharp every time she passed the windows, like she was being batted between a pair of ghostly claws. It was hard to say what had her so worked up. Kurata was an inconsistent teacher; funny and harsh when the subject didn’t interest her, but barely comprehensible when it did. Keiji didn’t mind either way. He took diligent notes and made copies in the time left over, which could sometimes be sold, and he watched the clock for sudden movements. Sometimes he lost time, but when that happened his hand usually had the decency to go on writing without him.

At lunch, he happened to see her outside, talking on the phone. “Eh, Mob, you’ll never guess… I woke you up? Sorry, sorry, forgot you’re back on the graveyard shift. Well, but you’re up now, right?”

“I saw ‘that’ spirit again. Oh, come on, you know what I’m talking about. That spirit! The one I can see! With the blushy face?”

“What do you mean, I should call your brother? You’re the esper, aren’t you? OK, OK, but I don’t even know the name of his agency—”

She dropped her phone in her bag and shook out her fingers as if it had burned her. “‘Spirits and Such’?” she said to herself, and gave a low chuckle. “Straight-laced as ever, Ricchan.”

“Hello,” said Keiji politely.

Kurata jumped and dipped forward like a drawbridge, arms akimbo. He had been standing in front of her for almost a minute; it wasn’t his fault she didn’t pay attention. “Mogami?” She straightened again and tightened her scarf self-importantly. “You weren’t eavesdropping, were you?”

“No, but I couldn’t help but overhear you discussing something that might impact the safety of the school. As a student council member…”

“Hey, that’s too bold, isn’t it? Could it be you’re going to blackmail me? We’ve got another two years together, sonny. I heard what your president did to Mr. Koga.” But she was smiling, cheek twitching a little, like she couldn’t select between amusement and real happiness that someone had heard her. Clearly she had seen something. She sat on a low ceramic wall and patted for him to join her. “Do you believe in the existence of the paranormal?” She had a deep voice which deepened especially for heartfelt performances—in the classroom, almost always heartfelt disappointment.

“Maybe,” said Keiji. “It depends. I can’t rule it out, since I’m not old enough to have really experienced such things. Does teacher believe?”

“You suckup.” She propped her chin on her interlaced fingers and sighed so hard it made her hair flip up. “I used to. I really used to, it was practically all I thought about at your age. I thought I was going to find aliens.”

“….UFO?”

“You don’t have to say it like that. Extraterrestrials are still a statistical near-certainty, you know. Fermi’s paradox, the Drake equation… Humanity’s brightest minds see beyond this low horizon!”

“I might have to finish eating lunch now, Ms. Kurata.”

“No, wait. I’m aware that you’re not interested in aliens. You heard me mention a spirit, right? Well, it’s true. Aliens might still give our species the cold shoulder, but evil spirits certainly don’t. This one—” She lowered her voice. “I first saw him over fifteen years ago. He’s green and he glistens, like snot. I don’t remember his name, but… Mogami, is it true you sold curses to other students in elementary school? Are you a spiritualist?”

“Not true at all,” Keiji said. “I sold charms. They weren’t effective, though. If I have any spiritual powers, I’m below average.”

“I didn’t see the spirit on campus,” she mused, leaning her face to one side in its cradle of fingers, which was slightly disturbing. “So it’s no concern of the student council.” Suddenly her hands sprang apart to wriggle in mid-air. “I tell you what. I give you details, and you make me a protection charm.”

“No, but you can have it for ¥1000.”

Tome whistled and put her hands away. “Cheap!”

[fireflysummers]

Momentary Resurrection

An Attic AU One-Shot

In honor of the borths of @phantomrose96​ and @sandflakedraws​!

TW: mentions of kidnapping, suicidal ideation, mentions of past violence

ABOT Attic AU Masterpost

He thinks he is losing words.

The thought is scarier than the thought of losing his memory—because most of that has already been shot to hell, after being forced to unwillingly share his mortal vessel. It’s like tiptoeing a gaping chasm in the darkness. He can feel rather than see the lack of something, where his memories ought to be. The feeling of vast space sucking at him was terrifying, at first, but now he has simply learned how not to fall into it.

(Except on bad nights, when he awakes from the throes of a nightmare, uncertain where his dreams have bled into lost memories.)

No, losing words is so much worse, because without words he is less than helpless.

He’s useless.

Thinking about it makes Reigen’s throat burn, the phantom pains running up and down the lacerated scars of his neck.

Mogami had tried to tear the words out of him by force. To shred them in his throat before they could alert his other captive to his presence.

Reigen hated to think that it had worked.

He remembers his first time begging.

That’s inaccurate. He can’t recall what he had begged for, or how he’d approached the topic, or why he’d picked that specific individual. All he can remember is the gnawing hunger that had finally forced his hand…and the look of disgust on the stranger’s face as he’d taken in Reigen’s disheveled appearance.

And he can remember the emptiness, where the words used to be.

There had been no attempted explanation then, no charismatic sparkle to put the stranger at ease and a little more free with his pocket change. Nothing but shame.

It was then that he realized that Reigen Arataka had died in that attic, along with the words that had been ripped out of him.

The one nice thing about living under a bridge, was that nobody expected him to speak. To anybody aware of his existence, Reigen was expected to do nothing but rot away in darkness, but at least he’d been allowed to do so quietly.

The nice thing about the Kageyamas is that they expect him not to do that. But this new existence, this second chance at life, leaves him aching for what used to be.

There are times that he feels himself instinctively reaching out for the words, to fill in an uncomfortable silence or attempt to explain something in detail. On good days, they come—albeit unwillingly—rusty and tasting like blood. On bad days…well. On bad days he has worse things to worry about, than the sinking, plunging feeling that comes when the words fail him.

Like mourning, he thinks, like grieving for somebody who’s died.

Somebody knocks on the door.

There is an oily-looking man waiting on the other side of the knock—greasy hair, purple suit, and smile just a little too wide to be genuine. It grows wider still when Hisao opens the door.

“Can I help you?” Hisao asks, eyes narrowing as he takes in this stranger.

“Not at all, my dear fellow,” the stranger replies, hands flying up and around, “In fact, I am here to help you!”

“We’re not interested in buying anything,” Hisao responds automatically, beginning to close the door. But the oily man is too close, has a foot wedged firmly in its path. The smile doesn’t waver.

“Just hear me out!” the man pleads, as though he’s given Hisao any kind of choice.

“What’s going on?” Akane joins her husband at the door, taking note of her husband’s posture and the stranger who has made it his business to invade their home.

“Salesman again,” Hisao tells her, voice forced to be calm, “He was just leaving.”

“I swear to you both, I am no salesman!” The man looks scandalized, perhaps the most genuine emotion he’s displayed so far. “I am a psychic—an esper. And I come offering aid to your family in this time of need.”

“We don’t need your help,” Akane says, cold wariness setting in, “Leave.”

For a moment it looks like the man is going to do as he’s told. Both Kageyama parents hope for a second that he will, that that will be the end of things, but there’s that gleam in his eye…something nasty is on its way.

“I see, I see,” the man says, somehow taking a half-step back without relinquishing any of his foothold. “Perhaps you would not like to hear the plans your boy’s shishou still has for him.”

The reaction to his words is almost immediate, the color draining from the faces of the two Kageyama parents. The oily man smiles and shrugs, as though he is prepared to leave.

“Ah, but, perhaps you already knew,” the man says, “Or you no longer care. You think you’re safe, when you are not. After all, evil spirits tend to linger around, like a bad fart.”

“Indeed. You and evil spirits have that much in common.”

The stranger and the Kageyamas both start at the voice, coming from behind them.

Reigen stands with arms folded, head held high, and eyes pinned on the stranger at the door. For once, his eyes are sharp, calculating, as though doing mental arithmetic with this strange weasel of a man in mind. And then Reigen grins, his face transforming into something self-assured and confident.

He strides forward, the Kageyamas parting to let him through, and the stranger actually taking a step back as Reigen comes near.

“A psychic, you say?” Reigen says, tone light, one hand stroking his chin thoughtfully. “What a relief, we certainly could use your assistance.”

“As you can tell, this entire household is horribly haunted. I’ve tried time and again to tell these good people, but they do not quite believe me. I am only a minor psychic myself, and can’t quite…describe, the dangerous aura that surrounds this house, but I believe it to be massive, and malicious.”

“Oh,” the stranger says, trying not to look too relieved, “It is. Enormous! That spirit’s grudge has come to haunt this household. It wanders about, searching for a way in.”

“Indeed,” Reigen agrees, waving a hand animatedly at the Kageyama home behind him. “I thought I had seen it wandering about. Would you say it has the face of a deer or the face of a boar? I cannot tell.”

“A boar most definitely, when I saw it skulking about earlier.”

“Oh, it is not here right now?” Reigen asks, “I swear that I felt its presence just moments before.”

“It was, but it has gone. I have frightened it off with my presence, and will need to perform a proper exorcism—for a price, of course.”

“Of course, of course. You are not afraid of the ghost,” Reigen says. “You are too powerful. Or. Perhaps because there is no spirit at all.”

The temperature of Reigen’s voice drops then, but several degrees. The confidence, however, does not leave, nor does the grin. The stranger’s grin, however, fades away instantly, something akin to fear creeping into his eyes.

“I…” he tries to find the words, but Reigen has already snatched them away from him.

“Perhaps you would like to tell us how you got ahold of the police report on Kageyama Shigeo’s disappearance and recovery?” Reigen asks, leaning in and placing a hand on the stranger’s shoulder. “Or perhaps, we could just call them over now? I’m sure they would love to find out how a dirty little con artist accessed information only they should have.”

“I…I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the stranger replies, eyes darting from side to side. He’s attempted to back away several times now, each time Reigen following with measured steps. “It came to me as part of my divine gifts.”

“Bullshit,” Reigen replies, practically walking him backwards, off the property, “I never want to see your weasly little face again, you half-baked con artist. If you do, I will ensure that the police know.” He snaps his hand back with a flourish, revealing the little white business card he’d slipped from the breast pocket of the man’s odd purple suit. “I have your name and contact information here, after all. I’m sure they would be happy to speak with you.”

“Now leave.”

The stranger trips, falling heavily on his behind, and for a moment, Reigen looms over him like a dark angel. He scrambles backwards, almost tripping over himself again in his attempt to flee.

As the man vanishes around the corner, the spell breaks.

Reigen doesn’t talk to anybody for several hours. He retreats to the couch, the old blanket pulled over his shoulders, unable to hide the shivers wracking his entire frame.

Eventually, he seems to calm, instead sagging against the arm rest, exhausted.

He can hear the Kageyama family talking in the other room. Can feel the looks that Ritsu is giving him where he thinks Reigen won’t notice.

“What was that?” He hears one of them ask. Reigen doesn’t know who, his mind is too frayed to try to keep the pieces of the puzzle from melting together.

He wishes he could explain, but once again the words have abandoned him, leaving him trapped in his own spiraling thoughts.

It was a ghost, he thinks, the ghost of Reigen Arataka.

[mustdang-100]

Shifting Perspectives - Ch. 3

Reigen wakes. The plot thickens. 

Summary: How many espers does it take to rescue one abducted conman?

Months after the events of the World Domination arc, Reigen disappears sometime between leaving the office and after-work plans. Serizawa finds himself the unwilling leader of a bunch of former Claw members and a couple of stubborn teenagers, determined to get Reigen back.

Read on AO3 Ch.1|Ch.2|Ch.3|Ch.4 Tumblr Ch.1|Ch.2|Ch.3 - below|Ch.4

Reigen crawled back to consciousness in fits and starts.

The indistinct murmur of unfamiliar voices was the first thing that registered in his bleary brain. He lived alone; waking to voices that weren’t the muffled yelling from the people above him or the screaming baby from two apartments down set his warning bells blaring. He forced his eyes open in confused alarm and clumsily tried to sit up.

One of the voices rose in agitation. Before he could focus on either the words or the blurred face coming towards him, he felt another needle prick. Unconsciousness rose again in a shadowy wave, smothering him back into silence and darkness.

The next time Reigen woke, it was to silence.

This time, half-memories and leftover sensations of warning prompted him to keep still as he slowly shook off the lingering haziness of the sedative. He kept his eyes closed and listened, ears straining, but everything remained silent; he could hear neither the urban murmur of traffic and people nor the calls of birds and insects he might expect from somewhere outside the city. After concentrating for a minute, he realized he was hearing what could be the hum of an air conditioner – or it could be just a ringing in his ears.

He lay still in the quiet space. No, that wasn’t right… he sat still; he’d been propped up on a chair, head thrown back to rest on top of the backrest. His mouth was open in what was probably a very unflattering expression. He was pretty sure he was drooling.

It was a hard chair. His hip and shoulder were sore, presumably from where he’d struck the ground falling on the concrete. His back hurt as well, crooked in an uncomfortable position. There was something hard and cold around both his wrists – handcuffs? What, were kidnappers using actual handcuffs now?

He considered continuing to play ‘unconscious victim’ – who knew what he might hear, what valuable pieces of information he might glean? He focused on staying in the exact same position, loose and relaxed.

The ache in his back intensified. He had to concentrate hard to keep his hands from moving even a centimeter. He noticed suddenly just how dry his throat was, and had to fight not to swallow to ease the raspy feeling. His nose itched.  

Eh, fuck it.

Reigen opened his eyes and groaned as obnoxiously as he could.

“Ugh, damn, you couldn’t even have put me on a table or something?” He stretched his back as much as possible from his seated position. Metal clinked – yep, there were indeed handcuffs, a chain attached to each cuff and looped through a cleat on the table in front of him. The table, in turn, was fixed to the floor.

Hmm. Interesting. How many kidnappers had access to legit handcuffs?

“And did you really have to use a taser? And the sedative? You couldn’t have just asked me to ‘come along quietly, and no one needs to get hurt?’” Reigen continued his indignant rant, mind whirring as he took in the rest of the room.

Sadly, it seemed that he’d been putting on a show for nothing. The beige-colored room was empty of other people, and, except for the table and chair, was bare of furniture. A metal door was set into the wall at his left. He faced a large window, through which he could see a smaller, unlit room, though he thought he could vaguely discern the shapes of a second table and two chairs. There was something sitting on the other table that Reigen couldn’t quite make out, but the whole set-up presented a very distinctive vibe.

Some kind of… interrogation room? What the…

He examined his own room again, more carefully, and noticed something he hadn’t before: the pattern of darker shapes on the floor were actually large, sinuous symbols. He studied them carefully, something about the characters striking a chord in his memory that he couldn’t quite place. He followed the shapes, almost but not quite recognizable as letters, up from the floor to where they’d been carved, smaller, into the walls, up and up–

He blinked. A camera was mounted high up just under the ceiling, turned towards him, red light blinking steadily.

So maybe his waking up hadn’t gone unnoticed after all.

As if on cue, a light switched on in the adjacent room and two people moved into view on the other side of the window, presumably from a door out of Reigen’s line of sight.

The man who appeared first was short and weedy-looking, wearing a dark suit and tie and carrying a thick folder of papers. He surveyed Reigen with all the smug confidence of a cat with a mouse before sitting down in one of the chairs. He opened the folder and sifted through its contents, fastidiously arranging and re-arranging the stack. The delay was an obvious power-play, and Reigen decided to ignore him for now, turning his attention to the person who had entered second.

She met Reigen’s gaze through the window, dark features impassive, and gave him a once-over that took his measure and, apparently, found it wanting. Ignoring the second chair, she instead leaned back against the wall to one side of the table, loosely crossed her arms, and half-closed her eyes, seeming to focus on everything and nothing.

Dressed all in dark clothing whose sharp cut gave the impression of military fatigues, and with her black hair cut practically short to just below her ears, Reigen would have guessed ‘bodyguard’ were it not for her casual posture and lack of any obvious weapon. That, and the twitchy side-glance the man gave her when she stayed behind him instead of sitting down in the chair clearly meant for her. But she ignored him, and the man said nothing to her, instead finally placing the neatly organized papers on the table.

The man looked up at Reigen for a moment, then pressed something on the device sitting on his table. A low crackle of static filled the air, over which Reigen could hear the man’s voice.

“Hello, Mr. Reigen. I must apologize for the inconvenience of those restraints, but we don’t want any accidents now, hmm? Allow me to introduce myself; I am Agent Nagata.”

Agent. Agent.

The word resounded through Reigen’s mind, wiping it of the questions he’d been preparing to fling at his kidnappers.

Agent. He’d been abducted by the fucking government.

Reigen stared through the window at the man – agent – for a bit longer, trying to regroup. He didn’t bother to try and hide his shock at the revelation; it supported the picture he decided he wanted to present. It was the guilty people who always acted cool, calm, and collected, right? Being outraged was a sign of innocence. He thought he’d heard that on a crime show or something. Or, maybe it was the other way around?

Wait, why shouldn’t he be outraged? He hadn’t done anything wrong. Recently. He was pretty sure.

He mentally shook himself, and took a deep indignant breath.

“So, the government has resorted to kidnapping citizens off the streets now? Well now, that certainly seems like something I’d be interested in taking to a court of law. I mean, I wasn’t read my rights or anything!”

Nagata smiled blandly, absentmindedly riffling the stack of papers.

“We of the Paranormal Monitoring Division are authorized to take certain… precautions in the case of psychic subjects. Special authorizations, you know.”

Reigen blinked.

“You are Arataka Reigen, the self-proclaimed 21st century’s greatest psychic?

“Uh… yes? Yes! So… so you’ve heard of me! Well, of course you have, I have been growing in the public eye lately and-”

“Owner and manager of the agency ‘Spirits & Such’ for more than six years now? Vanquisher of a number of dangerous spirits, including the notorious Kuchisake-onna? I should mention, by the way, your television appearance might have been just a little too public a display of your powers.”

Reigen adopted an affronted expression.

“And just how would you know about all of that? Just how long have you been following me? Special authorizations or not, this is starting to sound like quite the invasion of my rights as a Japanese citizen-”

“It is our duty to identify potential paranormal threats to our nation, and entirely within our sanctions to learn as much as we can about those threats. But also,” Nagata looked at him with something like disgust. “Most of that info is from your website.”

…oh.

The agent continued, “You may have noticed that you are currently completely unable to use your psychic abilities? With the assistance of espers employed by our division to infiltrate Claw’s ranks, we were able to locate someone with the ability to curse objects, even an entire room, in order to restrict an esper’s use of their powers.”

Ah – that was why the symbols on the floor and walls looked so familiar. Reigen had seen something like them before, in the room at the Seventh Branch where he’d finally tracked down Mob. He realized in hindsight that must have been Sakurai’s work – and that apparently, Sakurai was not the only one with that specialty.

Nagata shuffled his papers again, looking so self-satisfied that Reigen wanted to deck him just on principle.

“Let me get to the point of the matter. We are continuing our investigation into the most egregious psychic attack on Japanese soil to date, and we believe you might have some highly pertinent information regarding both the events that transpired and the culprit behind the attack.

Reigen had recovered from his surprise. He gave Nagata a bored look. “I seem to recall that the government has the person responsible for that attack already in custody. And it seems to me both that that should be enough for you to close that case, and that he should be a perfectly sufficient source for any further details you might need.”

Nagata gave him a thin smile.

“Ah, you are referring to the second most concerning psychic attack that has occurred in our country – the terror attack led by Touichirou Suzuki.” Nagata registered Reigen’s surprise and confusion with a lift of his brows.

“No, between our spies, surveillance, and interrogations of Suzuki himself, we have plenty of information on the development and engagement of that assault on Spice City. However,” the agent shifted in his chair.

“Suzuki… hasn’t been as forthcoming as we might have hoped as to the precise circumstances of why and how his plan was derailed, despite the highly… persuasive techniques our superiors have permitted our division to use on dangerous esper convicts.”

The agent’s grin turned sharp, the insinuation perfectly clear that he was ready and willing to continue the use of those methods.

Reigen tried not to gulp. He considered mentioning some statistics on the effectiveness of torture – or rather, its lack – but he hadn’t quite lost hope that he might be able to talk his way out of the situation, and cheek wouldn’t help him with that. However, he was mentally tallying the disadvantages of his situation, and coming to an unpleasant conclusion: the time had finally come for him to abandon some pretenses. He cleared his still-dry throat.

“I’m afraid, Agent Nagata, that you’ve been barking up entirely the wrong tree. The truth is, I’m not… I’m not actually psychic.”

Reigen’s tongue tripped over the words, too unused to the phrasing. The part of his brain not occupied with utter hysteria was bemused – he’d somehow landed in the oddest position of a fraud persuading someone of the absolute truth.

And, incredibly, terrifyingly, failing.

Nagata gave a high-pitched, quavering laugh. “Nice try, Mr. Reigen. I see you have grasped the situation at hand – don’t bother to try and wriggle out of it, there’s far too much evidence against you.”

Reigen frowned, annoyance building despite his fear. He was beginning to think that this pompous idiot wouldn’t be ready to listen to anything he had to say until he’d finished his spiel. He crossed his arms, found that the handcuffs got in the way, and tried to ignore how the metal pressed uncomfortably into his arms and chest.

“Now, as I was saying – the lack of details on the specifics of the conclusion to Claw’s attack is particularly troublesome, given that we believe those events precipitated the afore-mentioned even greater threat.” The agent pulled a full-page photograph from his stack and held it up, brandishing it in accusation. A familiar image loomed from the photo, taken from a great enough distance that almost the entire monolith was included in the frame.

“I believe you are aware of the giant broccoli that became known across the city as ‘the Divine Tree?’”

Reigen grinned, despite himself. It looked like it physically pained the man to say the words ‘giant broccoli.’ Nagata scowled at him.

“Naturally, the Tree drew our immediate attention in the aftermath of the Claw attack. We monitored it for weeks via electronic methods and field agents, in addition to all subjects of interest who might have been responsible for its appearance – namely, yourself and many of the former Claw members reported to be associated with you. However, one by one, our agents stopped reporting back in. Or when they did, it was just with nonsense about the Tree and someone called ‘Lord Psycho Helmet.’ And some of those agents were espers themselves. Eventually, the morning that the Tree up and disappeared, most of them just stopped responding.”

Reigen grinned wider. “Too enamored with the giant broccoli?”

“No one knows what happened,” Nagata continued, teeth gritted. “No one. Do you understand the level of threat that represents? Our agents showed up to work with no clear memory of much of the day before. The only reason we know anything is the footage they’d already gathered. The psychic behind the Divine Tree,” he placed careful emphasis on the title. “-this Lord Psycho Helmet, brainwashed the entirety of Spice City, including some of our most powerful esper employees.”

A tiny scoffing sound came through over the static of the speakers. It could only have come from the woman, still leaning against the wall behind the agent’s table. Nagata’s already clenched jaw flexed, but he didn’t acknowledge the sound in any other way.

“Given the statements of Joseph Harnick, one of our esper agents, and from the Prime Minister himself, we thought at first the culprit responsible for the Tree’s appearance and then disappearance might be one of your employees – Katsuya Serizawa, secretly continuing Claw into a new phase of existence under the title of Lord Psycho Helmet. We know, of course, that he’s remained in contact with other former Claw members.” Nagata tapped his papers against the desk, visibly calming himself back down as he eased back into his speech.

In contrast, Reigen’s temper flared, and he found he had to physically restrain himself from saying something that might get him in trouble. Someone tailing him was one thing, but following Serizawa? That crossed a line; Reigen didn’t like to contemplate what kind of damage that invasion of privacy could do to Serizawa’s healing process.

The agent didn’t seem to notice Reigen’s rising anger. “However, our surveillance showed that he went nowhere other than the school he attends, your office, and his apartment for that entire day. You, on the other hand, were last sighted walking directly towards the Tree. You, and your other employee, the middle-schooler.”

A burst of understanding wiped the anger from Reigen’s mind. Instead, horror began to creep slowly up his spine.

“Feigning ignorance is an exercise in futility. We know, Mr. Reigen, that is was a single civilian esper who opposed Suzuki. We know that the Tree appeared during the conclusion of that confrontation. And we know you were there. So, I will ask you outright. Were you the esper responsible for confronting the terrorist Suzuki, and for the subsequent appearance and disappearance of the tree?”

It was Mob. They were looking for Mob.

Reigen recognized with dread that only two things were keeping Mob off their radar. The first was that it was completely beyond their understanding that a fifteen-year-old kid could have the type of power they were looking for.

And the second, was that they thought they’d already found their culprit. If they’d already found the one responsible, why would they need to look elsewhere?

Reigen stared the agent dead in the eye, and made a decision.

He chuckled, the sound harsh and not amused in the slightest. He let the smile fall from his face. Now, they were back in his ballpark.

“It seems you’ve caught me, Nagata. Yes, I’m the esper responsible.”

Nagata grinned, pleased but not surprised. “Of course you are. And now that we’ve established that, you will tell me everything about-”

The woman behind the table sighed, heavily, as though interceding was the greatest inconvenience on earth, and straightened from her slouch.

“You’re an idiot, Nagata. This man is no esper.”

Nagata flinched, almost imperceptibly, and then stood abruptly as though to hide it, spluttering noises of protest. But Reigen could see that his hands were trembling – his interrogator was very afraid of this woman.

He wondered if that meant he should be afraid too.

“I told you when we brought him back,” she said, arms still crossed, expression bored. “I could have told you even before that, the instant I saw him.”

“We, we must get to the bottom of all this!”

“And as usual for a… non-esper… you are going about it all wrong.” Reigen could practically taste the disdain rolling off her tongue with the words. She did not need to use the phrase ‘commoner;’ it was imbedded in her very body language as she addressed the man, who was beginning to redden in anger.

“This is why your superiors hired me, and why they wanted me present for the interrogation.”

Well – this wouldn't do. She was messing up Reigen’s plans. He thought fast.

“Ah, I do beg your pardon,” Reigen broke in, “-but I’m afraid you’re incorrect. You see, one of my specialties is hiding my own aura from the gazes of other espers. It’s how I stay hidden, keeping my identity a secret.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You mean the identity plastered all over your website, voicemail, and place of work?”

“It’s all part of running a business,” Reigen said smoothly. “I actually rarely end up needing my powers in my day to day services. It’s much more about gathering insight into how people work, listening to each client, solving their real problems whether they understand what it is or not-”

“Shut up.”

She looked him up and down, expression doubtful but eyes appraising. “The room you are in prevents you from using any of your powers, including any aura-dampening abilities. And yet you still have no psychic aura right now.”

Reigen shrugged. “These symbols probably work by suppressing everything, down to a psychic’s aura,” he said, almost apologetically. He sighed. “It’s just too bad the awesomeness of my power means that you have to keep me shut up in here, for your own safety. With full access to my powers, I could easily take you both on and escape.”

As soon as he’d spoken, Reigen knew he’d miscalculated.

The woman’s hand came up in a gesture he’d seen from Mob and Serizawa dozens of times, palm flat and facing out towards him. The glass in the window between them cracked, then shattered, pieces falling to the floor in a glittering rain. The chain between his handcuffs snapped and he was hauled up from his seat. He let out an involuntary yelp and flailed in midair, limbs instinctively seeking a gravity that no longer applied to him.

He floated through the air, through the now-empty window frame, and found himself standing directly in front of the esper woman.

“You say your specialty is hiding your aura.” Her lip curled. “I sincerely doubt that, but now I need to test exactly what other powers you might be hiding. Allow me to demonstrate mine.”

Reigen’s body went ramrod straight. He suddenly could not move his limbs even an inch, not a toe, not a finger; his hands sat unnaturally stiff against his sides, fingers splayed. He tried to say something, anything, and found that even his jaw wouldn’t move. All he could do was stare straight at the esper who held him captive.

She stared back, dark eyes cool.

“I was always a gifted telekinetic.” A statement, not a brag. “Manipulating balls of water was an amusing, simple childhood game. But as I honed my skills to an even greater precision, controlling pressure and temperature down to the molecular level, I discovered it was possible to alter water’s very substance.” She smiled, razor thin. “You can imagine my sister’s surprise the first time a puddle she played in froze her feet into place.”

Her smile disappeared.

“Did you know that the human body is more than fifty percent water?”

Reigen went cold.

At first, he thought it was merely a mental reaction to her words and the overwhelming hysteria that had fogged his brain and numbed his limbs when he’d realized he’d lost all control over his own body. Until he began to shiver.

Not in nervousness or fear, but an involuntary reaction that grew slowly to full body spasms. He might have fallen, had his body not still been held stiffly upright by the force he did not understand. Or rather, that he did not want to understand, because he was alone, and was increasingly aware it was something he could not fight.

“Don’t worry,” the esper said evenly, as if this was an everyday occurrence. “My skills are such that I can control your body temperature down to the degree. I’ve had a lot of practice. These days, all the deaths I cause are intentional.”

She dropped her hand, as if suddenly bored, and Reigen was finally allowed to crumple to the ground for the second time in two days. He curled into a fetal position, pulling his hands into his body in an automatic, futile gesture, seeking warmth.

The esper turned on her heel, pulling open the door and calling over her shoulder, “Nagata, let my people know when your plans next require our skills.” The door slammed shut behind her.

Reigen gathered the strength to lift his head, looking over to see what had become of Nagata. The agent had abandoned his seat and flung himself into a corner, back to the wall, breathing heavily. His wide, panicked eyes met Reigen’s, before he straightened and hurried out of the room himself, leaving his papers behind. The door locked with an audible clunk.

Reigen struggled to push himself upright, keeping his hands and feet pulled in, and gazed dumbly around at the destruction left behind. He had somehow managed to avoid most but not all of the glass in his fall; the little nicks to his exposed skin made themselves known as his body began to warm to the ambient temperature. He did not move from the huddled position.

He was still shivering.

[minusram]

4/? bonny and blithe, good and gay

actually yelly anon reminded me that i forgot to crosspost the penultimate chap of bbgg. not sure i actually have any tumblr-only readers, but hey; better safe etc etc

[ch 1 / ch 2 / ch 3] [do make tomorrow a sunny day series here]

They emerge into a carpeted receiving room thronged with what must be at least half a hundred psychics—even if a significant percentage of them weren’t palpably genuine practitioners Ritsu would recognize their trade from the terrible way they all dress.

‘Significant’, of course, is relative, but considering the concentration of spiritually gifted individuals in the general population, meeting even one other esper is noteworthy.

Ritsu and his employer remain mostly unnoticed by the mass of people clustered away from the door, but a few turn to peer at them suspiciously, to size up potential competition. Reigen's taken aback for less than a second—and Ritsu only knows because of the particular way he rolls his shoulder—then he gets started, working the room with his usual oily flair and carving a space for himself where he doesn’t belong with just fast talk and the force of his repugnant but bafflingly effective personality.

He wades into the crowd, a cloud of jovial introductions left in his wake, handing out business cards and subtly enforcing his social superiority in a way that is confident, but not overly so; avoiding alienation by the sprinkling of a few specks of modesty amongst the uptalk. Ritsu trails silently behind.

Reigen cuts a swathe through the room, speaking the way he does to clients and moving with purpose in the face of his skeptical marks. It’s difficult for Ritsu to tell which of them have powers; a staticky aura hangs in the air, but his impression of the energy’s source remains indistinct. He’s unused to sensing others of his kind—every psychic he’s ever met has found him first.

Reactions to the rapid-fire establishment of their standing vary from baffled to condescending. Psychics are either good with people, intimidatingly bizarre, or just extremely lucky, but even in all the strangeness of this past year Ritsu has never met anyone quite like the man he follows now. His employer, energetic, manic with possibility, reaches a new target, and begins again. Ritsu can feel his mood souring, the longer they’re here with nothing happening. He didn’t come to network, he came to help people. And, yes, to serve himself; in hope of personal gain.

Judging by how many people are here, the lure of money or fame had a similar effect on his fellow exorcists.

He’s spared half an ear for Reigen’s spiel, the prattling stream of words a ceaseless rhythm that's grown familiar over time, but tunes right back in, affronted, when he hears the direction it’s taking.

“Oh, yes, I’m Reigen Arataka, and this is my assis—”

“I’m not—”

“My assistant, Kageyama Ritsu. Bright kid, but a little uppity, if you know what I mean. Won’t you excuse us for a moment, please?”

Reigen ushers him away and they reach the edge of the crowd. His employer bends for a harshly whispered exchange, unaware or uncaring of the fact that whispers in public tend to draw more attention than they deflect.

“Hey, Ritsu, pipe down, alright? I liked the silent act, that was good. Keep it up, and follow my lead unless for some incomprehensible teenage reason you are actively trying to blow this. If you ruin our reputation, then where are you gonna find your little exercises, huh?”

“You mean your reputation. I have nothing at stake here, I just work with you.”

“You work for me, kid, and if you don’t want to be cut off, you’ll stop trying to screw up my moves.”

“Your moves, Reigen-san, are the pathetic graspings of a man past his prime and lost in a world on which he has no bearing, a con artist who can only survive by leeching off society and the gullibility of desperate fools.”

His employer’s lips part, then twitch up into a smirk.

“Tell me how you really feel,” Reigen says, raising arch eyebrows at him, “And, by the way— I’m twenty-seven!” he hisses, before turning to greet another psychic who’s just walked up.

Ritsu fades back subtly, uninterested in ingratiating himself to strangers or to Reigen Arataka, and disappears to lean against the wall. No one notices him there, so it leaves him free to watch.

The people move, swirling together and apart in patterns Ritsu’s sure would be easier to track from above, but he does his best—his habitual level of effort; customarily more than adequate for his purposes. He compares what he sees to the display the day before, and finds substantial differences. The cultists were constrained, stuck together in a static train despite their wild laughing. Their grouping was starkly different from the one he observes now. Unnatural, even, though he has yet to devote the matter much thought.

The psychics here are stiff but organic, clustered in clannish clumps that remain cohesive with and within the greater group. Ritsu can’t deny that there seems to be a hub, some sort of slimy nucleus around where the century’s self-proclaimed shining star is making his way through the crowd, interrupting the previous order like sediment irritating a mollusc. Noise rises in the room, low conversations springing up like weeds in his employer’s wake.

A few more people show up, on the verge of being late as the start time on the invitation grows nigh, and receive the same scrutiny that greeted his own delegation of two. The crowd murmurs, louder now, energized by impatience and anticipation, his employer’s voice and bright hair lost in the thrum.

He catches sight of the eccentric uniform—black with pale wooden beads—of the Psychic Moon System, which may or may not be the organization’s real name, but he can’t tell from his limited glimpse whether there are any bandages on the person’s face. Guilt twinges regardless, and it occurs to him that he has no idea how long a Glasgow smile takes to heal. What happened to Shouda Katsukaru is tragic, and no little part of the blame falls at Ritsu’s feet; both because his association with Reigen was what got the man involved with such a dangerous spirit in the first place, and because Ritsu was unable to subdue it when the time came for him to step up.

They were all lucky that the thing was so indivisibly linked with the myth it was based on. Ambiguous answers and tossing anything they could find in their pockets confused it long enough for all three of them to get away—but not unscathed. Another one of his failures; something he can use now, and does, when he needs a little extra boost from his powers.

He wonders if every psychic’s abilities fuction this way. If this negative existence, life spent relying on a capacity powered by murk and suffering, is how it’s meant to work.

A clock strikes the hour from somewhere out of sight, across the room and the mass of people that despite their numbers don’t come close to filling it. Ritsu steps away from the wall to find Reigen, in order to present an arguably united front in the face of their competitors and the expectation that suffuses the room.

The leather doors open, swung by suited security personnel, and a man enters, clad in a pinstripe suit.

Ritsu finds Reigen, finally, or is found, and they stand together in the midst of the crowd as their client, mustached and desperate, steps forward to introduce himself.

Asagiri Masashi has, apparently, put stringent effort towards only inviting bonafide psychics to this event. Ritsu and Reigen trade a silent, speaking look while they can still see each other, before the room darkens and they turn their attention back to the presentation.

Through a slideshow, Ritsu learns about their client’s spoiled daughter; a year older than him but miles further from mature, the product of wealth and an upbringing unfettered by empathic concerns. The kind of girl his mother would call a minx and his father would call a hellraiser.

“Something is inside her,” Asagiri intones ponderously, lit by spilled light from the image of his locked up daughter, ten feet tall. Minori is tied to a bed, ropes snug on her wrists and snaking under the blankets, watched by spirit tags and a sleuth of toy bears; a disturbing picture.

Ritsu reserves judgement on the possibility of possession; he’s experienced enough of the evils of his peers to wait on a verdict until he sees for himself, and can decide on his own what’s been happening. Familiar too are the evils of adults—intimately, a hole in his family only half-healed—whether parent or child is in the wrong here, it’s inarguable that something must be done.

The crowd shifts uneasily, an atmosphere of apprehension gathering at the revelation of their task, but Ritsu is ready to understand, to learn if it’s delusion or premonitive intuition that’s thrown Asagiri Minori to the dark.

Asagiri opens a panel in the wall, a hidden spiral staircase, and leads them down to find out.

The stairwell is narrow, and it takes minutes for every one of them to make it down the story and a half to the small anteroom at basement level. Ritsu ends up next to Reigen somewhere in the middle of the relocation, which means queuing at the top of the stairs and loitering at the bottom until Asagiri shuffles to the front of the herd to open the plain wooden door that is the room’s only other feature, leading the ragged lump of them behind him when he’s the first one through.

It’s an observation room, made of depressing concrete, dominated by the enormous pane of one-way glass that practically composes one wall. Their side, filling in tighter all the time as people jostle to get a view of the occupant, is dimmed; the inside, lit up bright enough that the mirror must be opaque to the girl staring blankly across her coverlet, is fishbowl-like, leaving Ritsu with the uncomfortably voyeuristic impression of being at a zoo.

Reigen, behind him, speaks right into his ear and Ritsu twitches away from the feel of warm breath against the side of his face.

He turns to talk over his shoulder, meeting Reigen’s eyes level with his own since the man is partially bent over to invade his personal space.

“What?” Ritsu hisses, irate.

Reigen flicks his eyes reprovingly from side to side, hands in his pockets, indicating the people that surround them and how little he wants every one of them to be party to this conversation. Ritsu turns back around and mutters out the side of his mouth.

“What? And don’t breathe on my neck this time.”

“I was just asking, what do you think?”

Ritsu concentrates, and senses... nothing. Just a person, kept and unkempt; a girl his age stifled by her father and pinned behind glass for people to peer at, offered up to a parade of probing eyes that seek to find her flaws.

Minori’s head rolls on her neck until she’s looking at the mirror, giving the illusion of eye contact. She looks weary; deep bags dug in under her eyes, blonde hair lank on her forehead.

“Nothing,” Ritsu says quietly, “I don’t sense a thing.”

He stares, rude but comfortable with his lack of etiquette since he knows he won’t be caught, tracing her searchingly with his eyes for signs of possession while Asagiri answers questions, going into a narrative explanation of the smeared blood on his daughter’s whitewashed ceiling.

Ritsu looks and pretends she’s looking back at him, like this whole farce isn’t a gross violation of her privacy. Her head tilts a little as she looks at herself in the mirror, a wry smile fleetingly upon her face, and Ritsu wonders what she sees in her reflection, how differently she thinks of herself compared to his picture of her, built only on what he can presume to discern from the outside.

The psychics grow loud around him, each asserting their experience and suitability; Reigen rises to the top of the pack with glib presumption and loud aplomb, claiming the case in their name about as sophisticatedly as a dog marking territory.

The room devolves, adults barking at each other like animals as they yell and argue, except animals aren’t driven by avarice and pride. Ritsu considers whether the glass is soundproof; concludes it must be since Minori has no reaction to the disagreements being bellowed just beyond her walls.

It resolves in a rock-paper-scissors tournament, a juvenile solution; fitting considering the behaviour of people that are ostensibly—according to society, though he has massive trouble believing it right now—his betters. His employer employs mind games and Ritsu uses strategy. Either age or experience declares Reigen the winner, leaving him triumphant in first place while Ritsu languishes in seventeenth.

Reigen gloats his way through the door, drawing the ire of everyone in the room as he disappears down the hallway that curves around to open on the far wall of Minori’s upsettingly ursine bedroom. He enters as all of them watch, closing the door gently behind him, and goes into one of his usual routines.

Ritsu recognizes his manner, courteous and comforting, as the way he deals with the more delicate clients, fragile people with ghostly problems that seek remedy at the agency. For the first time, Ritsu wonders how many of them he never sees; how many clients’ issues are solved with just kind hands and words, and the attention of someone willing to simply listen. He feels the violation all over again, watching the work, like an intruder to the private rapport Reigen is building with Minori.

The observation room is silent, ogling with bated breath as Reigen massages and chats, drawing a chilling, sordid account of her time here out of Minori’s waifish throat. The psychics turn again, inconstant as a weathervane, to stare mistrustfully at their client when she pleads to be let go.

Reigen emerges, subdued, and Ritsu tries to get a hint of what he’s thinking. Reigen notices him and subtly waves a hand, wait, with an enigmatic cant to his head. Ritsu waits, for now, with silent and watchful eyes, as their client is berated by the mass of people he’s hired for what is seeming increasingly likely to be no reason at all.

It’s looking like a consensus, the room united against a common enemy and piling on Asagiri with the easy conviction of a mob. Majority rule, maybe, but it’s one against many until his employer steps out to speak in their client’s defense.

Ritsu, attuned to Reigen’s theatrics, is not surprised the man chose the most dramatic moment possible to proclaim their client’s innocence.

Well, almost. Reigen’s moment is blown out of the water when a psychic—someone who slipped away into the room while Ritsu’s attention was elsewhere—is blown like an explosive cannonball through the glass, instantly transforming the wall into an expanding burst of shrapnel.

A piece of whizzing glass cracks to splinters on Ritsu’s barrier; his employer is gashed across the face, a shallow cut that in defiance of its depth weeps heavy blood in a curtain down Reigen’s cheek.

Ritsu glares, first at the minefield of glass shattered across the room, then at the psychic who was so destructive an instrument in spreading it, before he’s drawn inevitably to look at the source of the power that caused the victim’s unfortunately violent exit.

Minori laughs at them, lively and spiteful at the chaos she has wrought. Ritsu berates himself for feeling betrayed.

She challenges them with chuckles and mocking words, reveling in the panic that’s starting to poison the room, and Asagiri, reactive, shouts at them to save her. If anyone were to consult Ritsu, he would say that she’s not the one who’ll need saving, an opinion borne out by the maniacal cackling that throws back her body’s puppeted head.

A psychic with long straight hair and a ruched shirt—third in line of fifty-eight—steps forward to try his hand; his incomprehensible but intensely delivered chants prove extraordinarily ineffective. The next is also unsuccessful, and they all blur together into a useless chain until it’s almost Ritsu’s turn, attempt seventeen.

Reigen guides him off to one side for yet another private tête-a-tête and hovers a hand above his shoulder, a pseudo-touch that’s just on the edge of what he’ll tolerate.

“Are you okay with this?” Reigen asks, “You don’t have to do it, we can leave it to someone else.”

The condescension burns, and Ritsu knows they’re both remembering his failure at that apartment building, and in the face of the Kuchisake-onna. He thinks the second man, the ballistic psychic, was also a member of the same group—another tally, two of them now he hasn’t managed to save.

“I’m fine,” he snaps out, crisp, and turns away to end the subject.

“If you’re sure,” Reigen says dubiously, just to twist the knife.

“Positive,” he says, quellingly frosty.

“Okay, pricklepuss, just checking.”

“Well, don’t. I know what I’m doing.”

“Right,” a brief pause, and then:

“If you say so,” Reigen says with a mocking grin.

“You know what—”

“Fine, fine, sorry. I get it. You’ve got this,” Reigen flashes him a confident smile, another expression Ritsu recognizes from work. “Knock ‘em dead, Ritsu, let’s show them how it’s done.”

Ritsu shrugs off the hand that bracingly pats his shoulder as they rejoin the group.

There’s no ‘let’s’ about it when his employer stays behind, one of many watching Ritsu step gingerly through the broken glass. Ritsu makes it through without cutting himself and looks up again to find himself closer than he expected to end up; in arm's reach of the comforter, practically the foot of the bed.

“Asagiri-san,” he says, wary and lacking anything else to call it, whatever’s wearing the body in front of him like a human marionette.

“Ritsu-kun,” she—it—replies.

And smiles.

for added verisimilitude, wait three months before reading the next chapter on ao3! although life willing it won’t take that long for the next chapter

[technicolorheart9801]

All It Does Is Take: Chapter 4

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6

Ritsu had been oddly subdued thus far, gazing at the complicated transmutation circle with a furrowed brow.

“Do you see something wrong with it?” Mob asked. “I’ve triple checked all of my calculations, but I could have missed something.”

Ritsu stayed silent for a moment, seeming to hesitate, before saying, “N-no. I was… just wondering about her soul. What do we have to offer that could possibly be equivalent?”

To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. And on that day, they lost more than their fair share. Now the Kageyama Brothers are on a mission. A mission that might cost them everything they have left.

Sorry for the short wait, but here's the new chapter! Enjoy!

When Mob slowly blinked awake from sleep, he felt dazed for a few moments, before slowly accounting for all his senses. He was on a soft bed, the covers pulled up to his shoulders, and he assumed that it was around mid-day, judging by the sunlight currently streaming through his window. Mob lay there for a moment more, debating whether or not getting up was worth the effort. Ritsu and Mom had always been early risers, but a Mob in bed tended to stay in bed until a great enough force acted upon him. Like the need for food. And the fact that he usually helped Mom out with lunch (Ritsu helped with breakfast, it was better for everyone that way). He also couldn’t wait to reveal to Mom what he and Ritsu had made for her with alchemy. Mob couldn’t quite remember what it was… but he knew he was ecstatic to show her.

So Mob rolled over, sitting on the edge of the bedside… and suddenly lost his balance, falling to the floor. His body spazzed frantically and he went to catch himself… but nothing responded to stop his momentum towards the ground. Mob ended up landing hard on his right side and a searing pain ripped through his shoulder from where it had impacted with the ground. Just his shoulder. Nothing else.

The thump his body had made when it had hit the wooden floor seemed to have attracted the attention of someone in the house, judging by the footsteps he could hear stomping up the stairs, heading to the room he was in. But that was about as far to the back of Mob’s mind as he could get it.

“Wh-what just…?” Mob panicked, using his left arm to prop himself up and try to get to his feet, but he didn’t have the strength to go all the way. He only managed to flip himself onto his back and sit up enough to look at the lower part of his body. He blinked once. Then again. But he still only saw half the number of legs that he should have. He slowly shifted his eyes to look at his right arm, but only saw a bandage, red now slowly spreading from the center of it. No arm to be seen.

… His mother was not waiting for him downstairs to start lunch. His brother would not be looking at him with an excited smile, ready to start their alchemy for the day. Because she was gone and Ritsu was… was…

“Oh,” Mob’s heartbeat echoed in his ears and there was a brief spark of an aura outlining his form, like a computer glitching out. Then all of what was left of his body drooped like a wilted flower, and he felt nothing at all.

~0%~

There was a knock at the door and Tome went to open it, muttering about stupid do-gooders who were unwanted and unneeded and obviously wanted nothing more than to ruin her day. Good ol’ Tome. Tsubomi was the one who generally handled the well-meaning neighbors who wanted to try and help by talking about how sorry they were this happened, and if they needed anything they could come to them. Mob didn’t understand why they were sorry for him. This was his fault after all.

But at the moment, Tsubomi was banging around in the kitchen, making lunch. Mob couldn’t help but think about how amazing she was, a great cook and a prodigious automail mechanic (and so beautiful). But also so happy, and optimistic. She had lost her parents when she was little, but she was okay, because Tome took her in, and cared for her, and now they run the automail shop Tsubomi’s parents left behind. Mob wished he could move on like she did. He wished he could be strong and resilient, and oh so very kind, like she was.

...But he lost his chance. He was forever marked, Ritsu was forever marked, all because of the irreversible sin he had committed. There was no redeeming himself. There was just this. Sitting, regretful and sad and oh so very b r o k e n until-

BANG!

Then the door was then slammed the rest of the way open from the outside while Tome gave the highest pitched shriek he had ever heard from her and a loud crashing sound came from the kitchen, a man with reddish-orange hair and dark eyes shoving his way through and giving the room a quick once over before focusing on Mob in his wheelchair.

Mob might have had a chance to feel a bit more uncomfortable (Mob had felt a bit uncomfortable with the fact that Ritsu had to be hurt-no, now is not the time) with that if in the next second the man wasn’t crossing the room in four quick strides and grabbing the front of his shirt to lift him to eye level.

“I went your house. I saw the floor. What was that? What did you do?!” There was a fire burning in the man’s livid eyes and Mob quickly looked away. Those eyes reminded him too much of Ritsu’s when he was feeling particularly passionate about something. Speaking of, Mob could hear Ritsu rattling from behind him. Mob wondered if there was a malfunction in the armor that his little brother hadn’t told him about.

Mob’s shirt was abruptly released, plopping him back into his wheelchair. “Wait a second, are you…?” The man’s fire seemed to have been temporarily put out, judging by the decidedly cool stare that was directed at them for a good ten seconds before the guy seemed to make a decision with a decisive nod of his head.

The man’s right hand suddenly starting making erratic circling motions before jabbing a dramatic thumb back towards his chest. “I am Lieutenant Colonel Reigen Arataka! But you can call me Reigen. I’m here to give you a proposition. But first, I need to know why exactly there was a human transmutation circle in the basement of your house.”

“Ohhhh… this is a… surprise to say the least. Don’t worry, it’s a good surprise.”

Mob was (already) a bit lost. Since when was hearing a story about two kids losing their mom, then committing a taboo to try and get her back and losing some very important things in the process a good surprise.

“I came to check out a report that said there was a brilliant alchemist living in this town.” Brilliant, huh? That’s weird. When Mob thought of something “brilliant” be thought of something big and bright. A light that could eliminate the gloom from the blackest of nights and give people something to hope (a clap, a colorful aura, the feeling of being completely alone-no, not now) for even in the darkest of times. Mob wasn’t brilliant. He was lackluster. Boring. Flat. His light had faded, and now all that was left for him was-

Ritsu slammed a huge metal hand onto the table in front of them, cutting off Mob’s thoughts. “I can’t believe this. Don’t you get it? Alchemy did this to my brother and I, alchemy created that-that thing in our basement, alchemy nearly killed us. And you want us to throw ourselves back into it? You want us to see hell again?”

Oh. It seemed Mob had missed something. Probably important things, because Ritsu didn’t usually get so worked up. He turned his mind pointedly back to the conversation at hand.

“I’m not going to force you, I'm merely offering you the possibility. The possibility of change, to better yourself and help other people, including each other. But the only way to do this is to stand up and seize the chance the military can give you,” Oh. So Lieutenant Colonel Reigen was offering them a place in the military. That explained a few things. The man had also stood, and was now facing them with a hand on his hip and finger pointed towards Mob. “Keep moving forward, seek out the answers you need. Become a better person and keep your eyes on your goal, whatever it takes,” The sunlight was streaming in through the windows, shimmering around Reigen’s form and casting his shadow over Mob, and Mob suddenly couldn’t help but think that even though his own light was dim, Reigen’s could probably illuminate an entire city with it’s intensity. He was brilliant.

Because Reigen said that there was a chance that Mob could fix this. There was a chance that he could get Ritsu his body back. There was a chance that he could right the wrongs he had done. There was a chance he could become a better person. And Mob decided that a chance was all he needed.

~25%~

“Are you sure you won’t regret this, Mob?” Tome asked him. “The surgery alone can take days, not to mention the rehabilitation, which will take around three years.” She crossed her arms and looked to be studying his expression before stating frustratingly, “Are you getting all this?! It won’t be easy, so quit acting so… indifferent!”

The nineteen year old girl seemed nervous enough for the both of them, though she was trying to hide it behind gruff words and vague expressions. Even Mob could see that much from the sweat lining her brow and the fact that he had known her practically his entire life.

“I’m sorry, Tome. I know this will be difficult… but this is for Ritsu. We have… things we need to do. And I need your automail to help me do it. Please,” Tome seemed exasperated, but also resigned by the end of his statement (he seemed to have that effect on people a lot of the time). Ritsu, who had been looming at his bedside, was shaking again, rattling his armor.

Tsubomi’s melodious voice joined in, sounding determined. “Well, since you’re sure, I will do everything in my power to help you,” Her voice then took on a teasing tone. “While you wear my automail, you’re stuck with me.”

Mob quickly shifted his eyes away from her, not answering. The last thing he wanted was for her to be stuck with him. He had already hurt her. He saw the way she gazed sadly out the window and had a frown on her face more often than not these days. He heard the nights she spent up and about in the room beside his. And now he was asking her to make him automail, and because she was a good and responsible mechanic and wanted to make sure that all automail she made was the best she could, she would waste her time on him. Mob decided the best course of action was for him to be sure that he gave her space. So, he just nodded to her before turning to his brother.

“Don’t worry, Ritsu. Just a little longer. I’ll get your body back.” Yes. Just a little while. And three years was too long. One year, then. Mob didn’t voice his thoughts aloud. It might make everyone upset.

Ritsu nodded. “Right, and yours too, Nii-san."

Mob didn’t notice the slight slumping of Tsubomi’s shoulders as she and Tome shared a mutually confused look.

~31%~

One year later, Mob was sparring Ritsu on the riverside, and losing, but that was okay. Ritsu always was the better fighter. And while Mob also put everything he had into learning everything his teacher taught him, hand-to-hand combat just didn’t come very naturally. His hand-eye coordination was lacking and he tended to be pretty clumsy more often than not. His fighting prowess was just generally very inconsistent.

Mob was doing better this time around, blocking Ritsu’s punch with an automail arm and kicking out an automail foot in an arc towards his little brother’s steel head. It didn’t work, of course, all Ritsu had to do was jump back a bit to dodge it. And as Mob went to step after him to continue the fight, he tripped over a rock and face planted into the dirt. A pretty typical ending to a Kageyama sparring match.

“Well done, Nii-san! You did a lot better that time.” Mob could almost see Ritsu’s encouraging smile. But only almost. “Seems like your automail is in good shape.”

The last sentence was said in an incredulous tone. Mob wondered why. He didn’t ask. He just nodded and said, “Mm. I think I’m ready to try for the state alchemist exam.”

Ritsu’s armor stood stark still for a moment, looking just like it used to before, in the corner of their basement when it had no soul in it and was only known as their mother’s spy and not his little brother. “I suppose… you should try some alchemy really quick.” Ritsu did not sound happy at the idea. “Just to make sure you’re completely ready. It’s been awhile since the last time you used it.”

A good point, as usual. Mob simply nodded and instinctively brought his hands - one flesh and one metal - together into a clap. The familiar blue lightning of alchemy fizzled through the air and Mob placed both of his hands on the ground, transmuting some of the dirt into a little cat figurine.

Mob gave a satisfied nod as he took the model from the ground and placed the it into Ritsu’s unmoving (disbelieving) hand. “Here. You can have it.”

“Nii-san!”

“Yes? Sorry… do you want something else instead?”

Ritsu was holding the tiny cat up to his face to get a better look. “What? No, Nii-san, that’s amazing. You did alchemy without using a transmutation circle!”

“Well, yes. You can do it too, right?”

“Me? No.”

Mob gave Ritsu a searching look. So… Ritsu hadn’t seen it. The Truth. That was odd, because it was obvious to Mob that Ritsu a paid the heavier price than he did. I’ve already shown you all that I can with the toll you paid… this seemed a bit unfair. Mob would have to look into it more.

But for now, Mob only said, “Well… I think I’m ready.”

Mob knew that even though he and Ritsu were trying to restore their own bodies, it was still human transmutation they were after, a forbidden science. If they failed the next time, there would probably be nothing left of them. But they knew there was no turning back. So, on the day they left, they burned down the family home, and all the familiar things inside. Because some memories aren't meant to leave traces.

~36%~

[fluffystring-blog]

collateral damage

Character(s): Reigen Arataka, Serizawa Katsuya

Characters mentioned: Kageyama Shigeo, Kageyama family, Takane Tsubomi, Hanazawa Teruki

Notes: Spoilers for the recent chapter (99.4) and mentions of other major arcs in the manga. Special thanks to my friend Eliot for being the beta reader to my fic!

“It’s my fault, isn’t it?”

The echo of brisk strides gliding along linoleum flooring barely nicked the worries crowding and scrambling about in the interior of Reigen’s mind as he sat stone-faced amid a line of empty chairs, chairs that seemed to await the restless souls of the living to gravitate toward their secure embrace. They flanked the long and narrow halls of the hospital in an almost human eagerness, as if expecting to bare the weight of grief and fear from weak-minded people at a moment’s notice.

The coffee placed in the vacant seat beside him had long since lost its warmth. In spite of his best efforts to drink the coffee he’d so humbly accepted to control the tremors taking hold of his hands, Reigen had failed to give the styrofoam cup so much as a single glance the second he’d placed it to the side. The minutes continued to tick by, but by the time memory of his coffee left on standby tantalized his tongue he realized with an air of disappointment that he’d left it untouched for far too long, and that the heavenly-scented stream of steam once dancing merrily to the ceiling above from within the cup’s sealed confinements was now but a distant memory.

Not that he’d have the stomach for it anyways.

A rather inappropriate amount of thudding against the floor drew Reigen’s attention upward. He’d nearly forgotten that Serizawa had tagged along with him until the air around him tingled with an odd sensation and the towering, wide figure of his slightly hunched coworker came into view.

He’d nearly forgotten Serizawa wasn’t highly acquainted with larger bulks of people yet either.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Reigen-san.”

The sound of crinkling alerted Reigen to the bags of chips gripped in Serizawa’s hands.

Reigen forced a smile, a smile not so unlike the one he used to fool people into believing his questionable business practice.

“It’s fine, really,” Reigen replied. “Wasn’t planning on going anywhere anyways.”

Reigen snapped a finger in the direction of the chips. “What kind did they have?”

As if having forgotten himself, Serizawa fumbled for the bags and settled when his gaze found the flavors of each, his shoulders sagging almost dejectedly. “Uh… sorry. They didn’t really have much except potato and shrimp. I wasn’t sure which one you liked, so I… kind of guessed.”

Neither option sounded particularly appetizing at the moment. Nevertheless, Reigen said, “Okay. Which bag do you want?”

“Oh!” Surprise flashed in Serizawa’s eyes. “Well, I don’t really have a favorite out of the two, so whatever’s fine by me. What about you?”

“Doesn’t really matter. I can settle for either.”

That didn’t seem to subdue Serizawa’s hesitance in the slightest.

Heavily, Reigen sighed. “Okay, okay. Guess I’ll pick first.”

Reigen hovered his hand close to the shrimp bag, watching closely from his sitting position as Serizawa’s face shifted visibly upon seeing his employer’s intended path. Feigning a contemplative hum, Reigen moved his hand toward the potato chips. Serizawa’s features relaxed.

Deciding to put an end to the (amusing) shirade, Reigen dragged the potato chips free from Serizawa’s hands before leaning back against the hospital chair. He proceeded to rip them open, leaving them exposed to the clean air swirling about.

Serizawa took up the empty seat next to him and proceeded to tear open his own bag with haste, digging into the strange-smelling contents as if he hadn’t eaten in weeks.

After what seemed like a year’s worth of silence, Serizawa stole a glimpse of Reigen’s untouched chips and the far off look in his employer’s eyes before swallowing down the remnants of shrimp-flavored chips scratching his tongue, clearing away stray crumbs from the corners of his lips with the back of his hand.

Leaning forward ever so slightly, Serizawa peered curiously at his employer and asked, “Is everything okay, Reigen-san?”

The mere question was enough to break down the wall of defenses Reigen had tried so hard to keep up, though he refused to admit to it as he gave a half-hearted chuckle and raced fingers through his bangs.

“I don’t know. Is everything okay, Serizawa? Is it? Because it sure as hell doesn’t seem that way.”

Thoughts of stumbling down the bustling streets with Serizawa in tow filled his mind. The thundering stride of their steps colliding and pounding and mercilessly stampeding across hard, gravel-covered cement in unison deafened his ears. It took every ounce of energy he had left in him from the laborious run not to recall the sights of buildings and cars and people whirling past him in a blur, the sounds of vehicles roaring down the street and people speaking amongst themselves or shouting above the noise, the taste of bitterly cold air against his tongue, the feeling of the early spring wind whipping across his face as sweat trickled down in a torrential downpour over his skin, as he sank further and further into the hole that should have dented his chair from the weight of it all.

He couldn’t believe what was happening until Mob’s contact lit up his phone, and the voice of someone he’d known only in passing answered instead of the quiet, monotone voice of the boy he’d known for what felt like ages.

“Kageyama-kun’s in trouble! He’s just been hit by a car!”

“It’s my fault, isn’t it?” Reigen didn’t wait to hear Serizawa’s answer. “None of this would have happened if I’d just...“

When Reigen and Serizawa arrived, the Kageyamas had long since gone back to see their son before the doctor pulled them aside to fill them in on what had happened. A generic-looking girl came rushing in not too long after, asking to see Mob as soon as possible --could this have been the girl Mob was talking about?-- and with permission granted by the family, she managed to see her way through to the room without complication.

Reigen and Serizawa, on the other hand, were neither immediate family nor familiar to the Kageyamas enough to grant them access to Mob’s room. And so, with much reluctance and frustrated grumbling slithering between clenched teeth, Reigen decided to sit back and wait for the doctor to make an appearance, pulling Serizawa along for the ride, lest he be stuck by himself with no company to keep his anxiety at bay.

Only, the doctor hadn’t made a comeback for quite some time, and deep in the back of his mind Reigen began fearing the worst.

It was enough to drive him mad.

Reigen bit down on the inside of his cheek until the taste of copper coated his tongue. “What kind of dumbass hits a kid crossing the street...? What kind of dumbass gives the worst advice to a kid and lets him leave with just that?” He snorted, disgruntled, and dug dulled nails into the cuffs of his shirt. “I should have done something. Why the fuck didn’t I do anything?!”

“Reigen-san,” Serizawa said, holding Reigen’s arms tight as he tried to meet his gaze, “It isn’t your fault… You- you couldn’t have known what would happen. Nobody could!”

Reigen closed his eyes tight and turned away, blatantly refusing to look Serizawa in the face, refusing to succumb to the fact that he felt vulnerable and defenseless and completely and utterly useless in a situation he’d never asked to be part of.

“That’s easier to say when you haven’t known the kid as long as I have,” Reigen spat under his breath, feeling his every word stab into the pit of his stomach as he spoke. “You don’t know how many times I’ve let him down, how many times I’ve lied to him, how many times he’s still had confidence in me despite everything…

“You have no idea what kind of shit I’ve put him through, and how much of that shit he never deserved to deal with on his own when I’m the one who’s supposed to be the adult!”

For a moment, silence choked the halls surrounding them. A few stray passersby stared in puzzlement before quickly skittering away to allow them some privacy. Serizawa’s hands remained firmly placed around Reigen’s arms, only now they seemed to squeeze tighter as a sort of hard rigidness surfaced from the man lowering to kneel in front of him.

The tightness forced Reigen’s eyes to snap open, but before he could protest Serizawa started speaking, low and stern.

“You’re right. I don’t know what the two of you have gone through together. I don’t know the kinds of things you two have gone through on the job and after. I don’t know any of what happened before I came to work for you, but I do know one thing--

“-- it’s not your fault what happened to him today, and it’s never been your fault.”

“But--”

“You might be an adult compared to him, but you still think and act like a child! You made some mistakes, you did things you shouldn’t have done, you said some things you probably still regret, but that doesn’t make you a bad person.

“If there’s anything you’ve taught me so far, it’s that anyone can change if they really try! It’s not too late to be the kind of person you want to be! And if you think you’re still to blame for all this, then I might as well be to blame for it too, because I was there with you when he talked to us about the girl he liked and I told him he should go after her.”

“But…” Reigen had long since tuned out his brain to listen to his employee’s tirade, but never did he expect to hear something he might say to Mob from someone like Serizawa, especially not two days in a row. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Then why do you think you did?”

If Reigen could open his mouth, if he could think of anything to say back, he was sure that no words would leave his lips.

Had the doctor not suddenly appeared from behind closed doors, Reigen would have sat there in shock for eternity, gawking at Serizawa as if his coworker had sprouted a second head.

In an instant, Reigen motioned to the doctor making his way through the hall and shot to his feet, Serizawa following suit. Racing down the hallway unison, Reigen called out, “E- excuse me! Oi, you’re Mo-- Shigeo’s doctor, right? Kageyama Shigeo?”

The doctor came to an immediate halt, swiveling around on the heel of his shoe. His eyebrows furrowed, suspicious. Though he didn’t appear an unkindly man by any regard, Reigen still felt the air around them go tense upon catching sight of the doctor’s serious gaze.

“Yes?” the doctor replied. “Are you friends of Kageyama-san by any chance? Relatives?”

“Uh, well, we’re more… business acquaintances than anything,” Reigen hesitated, after a moment’s thought. “We came as soon as we heard about… what happened. I just want to make sure he’s okay.”

After a quick once over of either of their persons, the doctor smiled politely. “I’m afraid we’re still trying to figure that out ourselves. But, from the looks of it, he should be fine. He’s asleep right now, but we’re keeping an eye on him in case he wakes up so we can run further tests.”

“He’s… going to be fine?”

“Reigen-san?”

Silence.

“Alright then. Thanks for letting us know. We’ll be on our way.”

“Reigen-san?!”

“Then, if you’ll excuse me…” With that, the doctor vanished from sight, swallowed whole by a group of newcomers speed-walking frantically down the hall.

“Reigen-san? Are you okay?”

It had been an hour since they left the hospital, though Reigen hadn’t spoken since. It was enough to leave Serizawa feeling worried, all things considered; it wasn’t everyday Reigen wasn’t wildly flapping his hands around and prattling on about everything and nothing all at once.

A moment of silence.

Nothing.

He tried again. “Reigen-san--”

“You know, I think you’re hanging around me a little bit too much.”

“E-eh?” What’s that supposed to mean…?

Reigen stopped dead in his tracks, and without missing a beat threw an index finger in Serizawa’s line of sight, nearly jamming it straight up his nose if he hadn’t been startled to an immediate halt. “Reigen--”

“AH-TUT-TUT-TUT! LISTEN! Didn’t you hear it?!”

“Uh, h- hear what...?”

“THAT! You did it again!”

“EH?!”

“We seriously need to consider getting you some time off, Serizawa. You’re starting to sound like me by the day. Do you know how creepy that is?! In this world, there’s only to be one greatest psychic! The universe can’t possibly handle two of me!”

“What are you talking about?!” Serizawa nearly yelled, incredulously.

“OI! IT’S GETTING WORSE ALREADY! We’ve gotta do something about this, fast!”

If Serizawa wasn’t practically melting from the sweat pouring down his face and pooling underneath his armpits, he would have stammered out another quick remark before the inevitability of his cries would arise, never being truly heard. Swallowing thick, hard lumps of panic down his throat, Serizawa tightened his fists at his sides--

--and let out a cry at the hand that slammed good-naturedly against his back.

“I’m just kidding!” Reigen exclaimed, his body shaking from head to toe with unbridled laughter. “Well, kind of… Geez, you’ve really got to lighten up!”

Serizawa blinked rapidly, trying his hardest to process the events that had taken place, but failing to play catch up with everything that had happened. “...Then, why are you--”

“What? Can’t a boss thank his employee for going above and beyond to do something, even though he had about as much context to go on as his boss?”

“I’m not sure I follow, Reigen-san.”

Laughter gradually subsiding, Reigen released a puff of air before turning away, rubbing the back of his head in a rapidfire, awkward motion. “Geez, I really gotta be more straightforward with you and Mob, don’t I?” Reigen said, though judging by his tone Serizawa could tell he meant no real harm in the question. “I just-- I wanted to say thanks. For everything back there in the waiting room. You didn’t have to come with me, you didn’t have to say anything to assure me that it wasn’t my fault, but you did, and I guess I appreciate that.”

Serizawa suppressed a smile as Reigen continued their stroll back to the office, the sun hovering just over the horizon as the sky became doused in various hues of reds and oranges.

“So, about that, ‘kind of kidding’--”

“Oi, don’t make me change my mind about giving you a few days off!”