A/N: I love fem!Mob stories and we are bereft of them. That's where I come in. This is, for once, not in the same continuity as my main story Shigeko Kageyama AKA Mob. Check it out if you like coming of age, romance, exploration of how gender influences the way a person is seen, and existential conundrums. This is mostly just pure Mob cuteness. Enjoy!

Mob is a sweet, kindhearted, nice, adorable, and clueless girl. It's a recipe for disaster.

The first of such disasters occurred between her and the former shadow leader of Salt Middle School, Onigawara Tenga. Though, if you were to ask Mob she'd just say it was a simple misunderstanding.

It all started in the body improvement club of all places. Mob was, as usual, trying to keep pace with the rest of the club. She was keeping up…sort of….she could at least still see them as they made their circuit around the school. She was at least not about to pass out, which was a plus in her book. She ran along on her own, deep in her own thoughts, and didn't notice someone slowing down to match her pace.

It was a real shame that cats had no idea how fluffy they were. Like, one cat would never know the joy of petting another cat. That was very sad. Cats would never know how soft their own noses were, either. Did cats know that they were adorable? Or did they just think that they were normal and boring? What did cats see humans as? Did cats think of humans as humans or just super weird cats? She's have to see what Master Reigen said, he knew everything.

"Magical Girl!" a harsh whisper broke her from her thoughts.

"Yes, Onigawara?" asked Mob responding to a nickname she never asked for and didn't care for. She wasn't a magical girl, she was an esper and ESP wasn't magic. Master Reigen had said so.

"Are you doing anything after school today?" he asked after what seemed to Mob like a while. Maybe he was having trouble catching his breath. They had been running for a while. Cardio was good for the heart.

"No, nothing. My master could always call me into work but I was just going to go home and watch TV. Maybe I could read, too, but I already read the weekly Shoujo. I should do my homework, too. But aside from all of that I don't have anything going on." Said Mob as she ran

"Oh. You're busy. Sorry to bother you." Said Onigawara. His voice sounded weird, there, but Mob had trouble reading tones.

"No, I'm not busy at all. Not unless Master Reigen calls me." Said Mob. That didn't count as busy. That was just waiting for tomorrow to happen, or for Ritsu to get home. Whichever came first. Probably Ritsu coming home. He could always just live at school, though. He liked school a lot. He was really good at it.

"So…do you…do you want to hang out with me?" asked Onigawara. Once again Mob thought that it was a long pause. Master Reigen said that you always had to respond quickly when you were in a conversation. He knew everything about talking to people.

"Ok." Said Mob. They ran along in silence for a moment before he sped up and joined the others. Mob watched him. It was nice, she liked hanging out with people, especially her friends, even if her friends gave her jobs she never asked for and nicknames that weren't accurate. She was a girl but she wasn't magical. Not that she would be mean and say anything.

Maybe she would have fun, too. She hoped that it wasn't anything having to do with shadow leader stuff. If it was she'd try to worm her way out of it somehow. The ability to worm our way out of things was what separated us from the animals, Master Reigen had said, aside from the worms. Did worms every have things that they needed to worm their way out of? Did worms have tiny underground cities? Did they have schools and friends and clubs? She felt the ground with her powers. Lots of worms, but they weren't really doing anything. They didn't seem to be hanging out.

What did people do when they hung out? Worms didn't but people did. People had lives and stuff that they lived. She was trying to make the most of her youth, now, which meant doing things that she didn't usually do, like hanging out outside of school and clubs with people. Well, people who weren't Ritsu. But what did people do when they hung out? She liked to know what was going to happen before it happened, that way she could go over the rules for whatever social interaction it was. She didn't know all the rules, just the ones she had been taught. She knew she was weird and clueless so she tried to be, well, not weird and clueless. She wished she knew what they would be doing. What did hanging out consist of?

Hanging out turned out to be drinking soda in Ankle Park.

Mob liked milk better. But she said nothing. She needed to be polite.

Onigawara was telling her a story about the time he totally defended Salt's territory from Mayo Middle School and beat their shadow leader into a pulp. Mob didn't like that. She hated violence. It was so mean. People should be nice to each other. She said so.

"Sorry! I didn't know that you didn't like…sorry." Said Onigawara. He looked down at his shoes for a while. Mob looked down at hers. He pulled out his phone.

"My mom says that I have to go home now. Later." Said Onigawara as he got up and left. Mob nodded and waved to him. It was neat how he could tell that his mom had texted him without his phone ringing or vibrating. Mob sat in the park for a little while longer. It was really nice out. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and bees were trying to reproduce with them. Well, that was Mob's understanding, anyway.

She sat there for a few more minutes before deciding to head home. Master Reigen still hadn't called her in. She didn't like it when he called her in on short notice but she also didn't like it when he didn't call her in…she missed him. She wondered if it would be ok for them to hang out. He was her master and her boss but she also thought of him like a friend, sometimes. Friends could hang out. She had just finished hanging out with her friends, though they hadn't done much. Not that Mob was complaining.

She didn't complain, or have cause to complain, the next day.

Or the next.

Or the next.

Or the next.

Onigawara had wanted to hang out with her every single day after school. Sometimes she couldn't. Sometimes she had work, but he still hung out with her during body improvement club. He told her things about his life, but not violent things because she didn't like it. He told her about his older brother, about how his parents had split up, about how school was hard for him sometimes. Mob agreed. School was hard for her sometimes, too. There was a lot to pay attention to and a lot to take in and sometimes it was hard to tell what you were supposed to pay attention to and what you were supposed to ignore. The lights were hard to ignore, sometimes. He agreed, the humming could be annoying. Music class was something else they could agree on, recorders sounded terrible.

Then he assured her that he had nothing to do with all of those girl's recorders going missing.

Mob agreed. It was obvious that he didn't. Why would anyone want to steal recorder pieces? Stealing was wrong and used recorder tops were germy and gross.

He got quiet when she agreed with him. Then he reached over to her before he pulled his hand back. Mob asked him of something was stuck to her uniform. Sometimes gum got stuck to her, or rather people stuck gum to her. She didn't know why they did that, just that it happened.

When she told him about the gum he made a fist and said that he would make sure that nobody ever did that to her again. Mob told him that he didn't have to do anything but he said that he wanted to.

For the next few school days nobody stuck gum to her uniform again. They even stopped tugging on her braids as she walked by.

Also in those days Onigawara kept on walking with her. She told him things about herself, but not too many because people didn't like it when you sounded conceited like that. She told him about how she liked cats a lot, and pink. She told him about how she liked Evangelion, too, even though her mom told her not to like it because it wasn't for girls. She told him about how she liked milk, too, because it was delicious and made you strong.

The next day he stopped by her classroom during lunch, gave her an extra milk carton, and then left the room as quickly as he came in.

He did that the next couple of days.

Then she found a capsule toy in her shoebox. It was a cat.

The next one was also a cat.

The next one was a sheet of Evangelion stickers. She put them on her phone and school bag. Ritsu asked where she got them from. She told him that someone was leaving her things in her shoebox. He got weird look and told her that he'd make sure nobody was playing a trick on her.

The last thing she found in her shoebox was a note. It just asked her to meet him behind the school. He didn't sign his name but Mob knew that it was Onigawara's handwriting. She took out a pencil and corrected the spelling for him. She knew that he had trouble writing things down.

She met him behind the school. He was kicking the ground a lot. She handed him the corrected letter.

"I did this to help, not be mean. Please don't think that I'm mean." Said Mob. She handed him the note he took it after a moment.

"So you knew that it was me?" asked Onigawara. Mob nodded.

"Yes. I recognized your handwriting." Said Mob

"Did you know that it was me putting all of that stuff in your shoe locker?" asked Onigawara. He didn't seem to want to look at her. Maybe the sun was in his eyes.

"No." said Mob. She didn't know that it was him. She hadn't given much thought to who it could have been, honestly. Either the person would come out and say it was them or they wouldn't. One of the two.

"Do you care?" asked Onigawara after a while.

"Yes. if I know who it is then I can thank them and give them something in return." Said Mob. Onigawara took a deep breath and took a step towards her. Then another.

"Kageyama-" said Onigawara

"You can call me Mob, everyone else does. Or Shigeko. My brother calls me that." Said Mob

"Mob, then. Listen….it's me. I'm the one who's been putting stuff in your shoe locker." Said Onigawara. His voice sounded kind of scratchy. Mob wanted to offer him some water but remembered that she had already drank from the bottle. That would have been too germy.

"Oh. Thank you so much for the gifts. But why? It's not my birthday or Christmas or Girl's Day." Said Mob

"Because I wanted to. Because I….yeah. I wanted to." Said Onigawara. He took another step closer to her.

"Why did you want to? Also, what do you want in return? When someone gives you a gift you're supposed to give them something in return. That's manners." Said Mob

"I just did! Ok! I wanted to get you stuff because I-I like-" said Onigawara before he was so unceremoniously interrupted.

"Sister, what are you doing back here?" asked Ritsu. Mob smiled. Ritsu was done with student council already. This was great! Now they could hang out together!

"Onigawara left a note in my shoebox asking me to meet him here. He's the one who's been giving me stuff, too. Do you want to hang out with us?" asked Mob. She didn't see the wounded look that Onigawata wore, or the glare Ritsu gave him.

"Sister, I forgot my notebook in the student council room. Would you run up and get it for me?" asked Ritsu. Mob nodded. Of course she would help out her favorite and only little brother.

Mob wasn't there for what happened next but, after that day, Onigawara never offered to hang out with her again. The little presents in her shoebox stopped, too. When she asked him what he was going to say he just brushed her off.

Mob wondered what she had done wrong. She asked Ritsu if she had done anything wrong and all he said was that she was fine and that she needed to tell him if any guys started bothering her again.

When she talked to Master Reigen about it he just tugged her braid and told her that she was growing up.

This whole thing was so confusing.