Reigen hadn't spoken to either Mob or Serizawa in ten years.
Over ten years, actually, but he wasn't counting. The first couple of years had been the hardest, losing his best friend and the love of his life, but he had gotten….to something approximating better. He got a stable job, that he hated, and he cut back on his drinking, not totally of course because he was still only human, and he even had a girlfriend for a short amount of time.
Things had gotten a little better.
It was better, that way, not seeing Mob. The pain had faded, dulled, but not vanished. It couldn't ever vanish completely. Nothing would ever get rid of the pain he felt when he thought of her, and he couldn't help but think of her. She was in everything. A girl with long black hair. Warm ramen after a long day's work. A cool glass of milk. Incense. Green tea. Long socks. Smiles.
A smile, a little smile but one with all the feeling in the world behind…he hadn't seen that smile in years.
Over a decade.
He had spent more time away from her than with her but still she held her heart in his hands. That was what it was, what it had always been about, love. What had led to their ruin, what had destroyed their relationship, that word. Love. He didn't even know what it meant, anymore. Love was…it was the thing that made you…
Beat up your best friend.
Sleep with a girl half your age.
Send your best friend into a depressive spiral.
Make it worse by continuing to aid in said best friend's teenage girl's infidelity.
He was a terrible human being and he had spent the past ten or so years trying to make a better life for himself. He apologized and left it at that…Serizawa didn't need him in his life. That was why he never contacted Mob again, either, despite the fact that he would have given anything to hear her voice again. He couldn't. He knew how it would have ended if he and Mob had been together again, alone, even for a moment. What he wanted from her. What she wanted from him. They could have had…they could have had everything…
But she had pushed him away.
But he had pushed her away.
He had seen her, briefly, years ago. She had been sitting on a train. By some cruel stroke of fate they had ended up in the same train car. He had been heading out of town to pay his mother a much overdue visit. He had no idea why she had also been taking a train out of town. He hadn't asked her. All he could do was stare at her as she sat down and read her manga. He couldn't remember what she had been reading or wearing or anything beyond the fact that she had been there, just sitting, like this was all normal. Like she was just going about her normal life like nothing had happened….like she hadn't even…
Like she hadn't even known him. Like he was just another face in the crowd. Like he had just been…nobody. Nobody and nothing to her when he had once been her everything. When she had once called him her everything. When she had told him that she loved him, that she had always loved him and always would, that nothing mattered but her love for him. She had been ready to give herself to him, had given herself to him, and then everything went to shit…
She didn't care.
She hadn't noticed him.
Her nose was buried in a manga book. She wasn't paying attention to anyone, not Reigen and not even Serizawa. He had been there, too, standing in front of her. The train was packed. If there had been a fire or a derailing then they all would have surely died. Then she would have had to exorcise him. He wanted her to exorcise him from existence. From this world and whatever world came after. He didn't know which hurt more, seeing her or seeing who she had been travelling with.
Serizawa.
The train had been packed and he had been standing in front of her protectively. Reigen had no idea what he had been protecting her from, maybe he had seen Reigen, maybe he had been protecting his girlfriend from the guy she had been fucking on the side. His ex best friend. The man he had risked his life for, betrayed the organization that he had given everything to for, the man who had fucked his girlfriend…twice.
He likes that word, fuck.
Fuck is something base, something sordid, something that is lightyears away from what he and Mob had. For over a decade he's been trying to rewrite history in his mind. Trying to take the most beautiful thing he had ever had in his life and reducing it to what it, objectively, was. A grown man fucking the teenage girl he had known since she had been in elementary school. If he had can make himself feel bad about what he had done, feel disgusted with himself for what he had allowed to happen, what he had made happen, then some of the pain in his heart may have settled elsewhere.
But it didn't.
It increased a thousand fold that day. It had been weeks, months, since he had seen her last and there she had been. He thought about talking to her, texting her, going up to her and asking her…asking her if she was ok. Asking her why she had chosen Serizawa of all people. Asking her if he had ever entered her thoughts in the time they had been apart. As she sat there, the longer she sat there, and the longer she sat there without paying him any mind he began to feel more and more personally rejected.
Because she had rejected him.
But he still wanted to talk to her. To be with her. To hear her say something to him, anything, But she hadn't said a single word, hadn't even noticed him. Neither of them had. What would Serizawa have done? Nothing good if he knew exactly what he and Mob had gotten up to. The first time had not been on him. He had been truthful, for once in his life, when he said that he'd had no idea that Serizawa and Mob were a thing. There was no excuse for the second time. None. Serizawa probably didn't know about the second time. There was no way that he would have taken Mob back had he known the extent of her…of their infidelity. There was no way he would have been able to be out and about in the world if he knew just how badly Mob had hurt him. If he knew how badly Reigen had hurt him…or maybe not.
Serizawa forgave Mob the first time, after all.
And he hadn't said anything beyond their initial apology. Nothing. Not that Reigen had tried to reach out, either, because he couldn't. Not after what happened. Not after he had…not after what happened. So they just stopped talking and Reigen wanted them to talk, to exchange any words at all, but he couldn't. Not over the phone and certainly not on the slow train out of town where they'd be trapped together in the awkward mess that he and Mob had made for hours and hours and hours…
At the first stop Reigen got off as fast as he could and jumped on another, even more crowded, car.
And that was the last time he had seen either of them. It had been a decade and then some since he had last seen either of them, Mob or Serizawa, even from a distance. He had been avoiding them, maybe, or maybe they had been avoiding each other. He moved to the other side of town, he never did end up going back to that office, and he found another job that kept him on the other side of town where he belonged. He stayed away from any place at all that he had even the slightest chance of running into them…and it mostly worked…
Mostly.
He hadn't run into Mob, or Serizawa, but instead into two other people on his list of people to avoid. Mob's little brother and his boyfriend. He hadn't set out to run into them, he had just stopped in a random convenience store on his way home from work, and there they were. Words, once again, were not exchanged. For once in his life he didn't have any. He knew that the Kageyama's knew about him and Mob, her mother had given him a nice big scar through one of his eyebrows with her ring hand one day while she screamed at him about messing around with Mob, and he did not want to get beaten up or worse by her brother. Maybe not his boyfriend, Sho was a nice kid, but Mob's little brother definitely would have beaten him up.
So he high tailed it out of there before they noticed him. They hadn't, thank God, because they had been otherwise occupied. It had taken Reigen two blocks of fast walking before it dawned on him. He had seen those two in the baby and toddle aisle…and they had been pushing a strolled. The thought, the fear, exploded like a thunderbolt in his mind. Mob's little brother and her boyfriend had been pushing a STROLLER….
So unless Reigen was really confused about human reproduction…
Mob had said that she wasn't pregnant the last time he had seen her…but she had gone back to Serizawa…but she was just fifteen…so Reigen was thinking crazy people thoughts. Those were the thoughts of a man being driven mad from heartache. Obviously Mob hadn't had a baby, she was smarter than that, so that was obviously….Mrs. Kageyama had another baby? Or maybe Sho's mysterious mother who Reigen had never seen but knew from Sho's many rants back when he'd follow Serizawa to work just so he had someone to listen to him rant and rave about his mother and her rules and her boyfriend and all of that.
Mob hadn't had a baby.
The thought was insane. Mob was fifteen and she was smarter than that. She didn't have big goals, she didn't want to rule the world or cure cancer or create a diet soda that didn't give you a headache but she must have wanted more out of life than having Serizawa Katsuya's children. Right…? There must have been something else she wanted…
Not him.
And it wasn't like he could just come out and ask her. He couldn't ask her if she was pregnant or if she wanted to be with him or with Serizawa. It wasn't the sort of thought, Mob related thought, that popped into his mind anyway. He mostly just missed her smiles, her soft presence, the fact that there had been someone in the world who loved him…
He had messed it up.
She had messed it up.
It was messed up and, after a while, he came to the realization that he had to get on with his life. Much like the same epiphany he had while puking his brains out on his twenty-eighth birthday he realized that his life was not what it should have been. So he decided to change. He moved and got another job that paid decent and didn't make him want to throw himself in front of the train every night and even met a woman and even stuck around for more than one night…
It had ended.
She said that he was still hung up on his ex.
But it had been good for him to get out there. He didn't much feel like repeating that, it hadn't been a good break up, but it had been good for him as a person. Helped him, for a time, get the idea of Mob away from the forefront of his mind for a time…and it also solidified in his mind that he was not made for relationships. So that was how he found himself pushing forty, single, and working a job that made him enough money to live decently on.
It was the best he could have asked for.
Even if his mother still rode him about being all alone, not making enough money, and hardly ever coming to visit. His ears were still sore from her last ear splitting lecture and he could not wait to get back home and just smoke and drink, a little, and let the day wash away. It was always taxing, visiting with his mother, and not just because she was one of the great monologists of Japan. Getting there and getting back was taxing, too.
Maybe he should have just called a cab.
It had to be better than taking a train to another train to a bus.
"Hey! Hey you!" A kid was shouting. A taxi, while expensive, would have had fewer children. He didn't mind them, not really, but he didn't much want to be around them, either. Not since Mob, anyway, but that was more why he avoided teenagers. He did not like the fact that he had fallen in love with a teenage girl and he did not ever want to repeat that. No. That was something that he would take to his grave and beyond.
That wasn't a girl calling after him.
"Hey! You really should stop! It's important! Hey!" The kid was still calling after him. Reigen remembered the last time a kid had sought him out and he did not want that again. He did not want to be Master to any kid ever again. That was stupid. To think that this would be a repeat of what happened with Mob…but Reigen had a bus to catch. A train to a train to the bus. That was the commute from mom's house a city away. It was a long commute and it would only be made longer if he stopped.
"There's a curse stuck to your back! Hey!" that made Reigen stop. He stopped in his tracks just as he got to the bus station. Well a curse stuck to his back was an entirely different story. A curse stuck to his back could have explained everything from his failures in his romantic and personal life to his stagnant career to his mother's disproval in literally every single part of his life.
"Thanks for stopping." Said the kid. Reigen didn't turn to face him, not for a moment, not until he could convince himself that this was not Mob. This was not going to be a repeat of Mob. This was…another esper kid. Not Mob. This was a guy, for one thing, and he didn't sound a thing like Mob. Mob had always had a monotone to her…what he wouldn't have given to hear her monotone again….and this kid was not Mob.
He took a deep breath.
And turned to face the kid.
Well he would have if the kid hadn't jumped right in front of him. Reigen took a step back, he told himself that it was from surprise, because this was very surprising. Not just the fact that the kid had jumped, literally, in front of him but because the kid…the kid looked exactly like Mob. Mob when he first met her. That thick black hair, that impossibly pale skin, even the bowl but, though this kid's hair was a lot shorter. It stood up more, too, not like Mob's. Her hair had always hung straight down but this kid looked like he had just dragged his feet across a stadium's worth of wool carpets and then rubbed a balloon on his head.
And his eyes were blue.
Mob had brown eyes. Her eyes were a very common shade of brown but they were hers. This kid had bright blue eyes. Mob's had always been dull, like she was seeing everything at once and she found it wanting, but this kid…his eyes were alert, alive, and darted everywhere. It was like he was sizing Reigen up while he was being sized up himself. He rocked back and forth in his white gym shoes. There was what looked like powdered sugar on his jeans and T-shirt. Evangelion, if Reigen remembered right.
Reigen wondered how he must have looked to the kid in his rumpled grey suit and pink tie dulled from about fifteen years of over washing. This kid looked like a kid. Reigen looked like a kid playing at being an adult. At least that was how he felt every single day of his life.
"Hi! Thanks, again, for stopping! Sorry to bother you but there's a curse stuck to your back and it looks really gross so I'm going to try and get rid of it. So hold really still, ok?" asked the kid. He was still rocking on his heels. He narrowed his eyes and bit his lower lip.
"Ok...you can do this…" said the kid to himself as he felt his backpack straps and stared at Reigen with a look of determination. Reigen wondered, for a moment, if the kid knew what he was doing. He may have looked like Mob, something that he was trying not to unpack, but he may not have been anywhere near Mob's level. Mob was…she had saved the world…she had gotten rid of that big broccoli tree…she had done so many amazing things in the time that he had known her and…and that kid may have looked like her but…but there was no guarantee that he WAS hers…he couldn't have been. Mob was…not even thirty yet, this kid was at least ten years old. This was not Mob's kid. This was not Mob's kid and he-he-he just looked like her. That was all. That was…he was….it was just a resemblance…
That was the baby he had seen all of those years ago.
The new Kageyama baby. The little brother. Another little brother. That was all.
"You've got this, kid. I trust you." Said Reigen. It made sense, that her parents would have had another esper baby, since both Mob and her little brother had inherited that gift. That explained why he looked so much like her…and why history was trying it's hardest to repeat itself it seemed. Another little esper kid unsure of their powers coming to him..
History was not going to repeat its self.
"I know I've got this, I mean I think I've got this, but I just don't want to hurt you on accident, that's all.." Said the kid as he took in a deep breath. Reigen held still as he felt the familiar feeling of an aura settling in around him. Familiar. So very familiar…
Had it really been over a decade?
"Ok, it's gone now, at least I think that I got all of it. My mom's better at this than I am but I don't see anything else. Anyway, I've got to go now, it was nice meeting you. I'm Shigeo by the way." said the kid. He bowed deeply before turning to leave.
Reigen couldn't let him.
Not with the word 'mom' hanging in the air around them. Mom. He knew Mrs. Kageyama well enough to know that she was not an esper. If she had even the slightest bit of psychic power to her she would have used her powers to kill Reigen all those years ago. This kid…he just looked a lot like Mob. That was all. It was quirk of genetics or fate or whatever that led this kid to look like Mob only male and with blue eyes. That was all. Mob couldn't have been…Mob wouldn't have…
"Wait!" said Reigen as the kid started to go back the way he came. He knew how bad it looked, a man his age stopping a kid his age in the streets, but he had to know. He had to know because…well he had no idea what he was going to do with the information but he just had to know…to know if this kid was Mob's…
"What's up? Do you still feel cursed? Sometimes when I hold back, I was holding back before, I don't get rid of the curse all the way. That's because I didn't want to hurt you on accident. Mom says that I'm not supposed to use my powers on other people but I think that it's ok to help people as long as they're cursed or something. Dad says that I should be careful and stuff but he's always saying that I should be careful like I'm not careful all the time! But he's all 'be careful, Shigeo' and I'm all 'I'm always careful, dad' and then he's always all-" said the kid going a mile a minute. Reigen tried to get a word in edgewise but the kid was not having it.
Reigen was amazed by the kid's lung capacity and stamina as he plowed through what must have been a very daunting monologue. He paced as he spoke, gestured more often than was necessary, and seemed unconcerned with the fact that he was spilling the details of his life to a complete stranger.
Over the course of approximately two minutes Reigen learned a few things.
The kid was named Shigeo, he was almost eleven, he was coming back from his grandmother's house, his parents didn't get a long, and he had a little sister and a mom and he had ditched both of them at the train station to follow Reigen around because he saw the curse on his back.
Reigen let the kid talk.
He may have looked like Mob but he was nothing like Mob. He knew that he should have told the kid to shut up and go back to his mom and sister, that he shouldn't have been talking to strange kids in the first place, that he had nothing to gain by listening to this strange kid rant and rave about his life, but he…he wanted to.
This kid.
This familiarly, unfamiliar, kid.
With the familiarly unfamiliar blue eyes.
He knew those eyes. He thought that he did, anyway, but he didn't want to believe it. There were only so many shades of blue, probably, in the entire world so of course there would have been some overlap between his shade of blue and the shades of blue of others, even esper kids that stopped him in the streets to remove curses and complain about annoying sisters, divorcing parents, and long train trips. There must have only been so many eye shapes, too, as well as eye colors. He wasn't the only person in Japan with unhooded almond shaped eyes. There were billions of people on this planet and, of course, some of them were bound to look a little bit like him. Hell, maybe the kid didn't look a thing like him. His eyesight wasn't what it used to be, reading was getting harder and harder, so maybe he was just getting old. Yes. His eyes were going and his mind was going and since he was pushing forty it was all down hill from here.
That was preferable to where his mind was going.
It was a coincidence.
That was all.
"…so then my mom said-" said the kid, Shigeo apparently. Shigeo. Shigeko. Heh. Mob had never been the most creative person in the world but that…why? If Reigen had a kid he wouldn't name the kid something that close to his own name. He liked Ai or Akira or something with an 'A' sound…but not Arataki or something like that because he was more creative than that. Not that he had any kids. Not that he had any plans to have any kids. He was forty now, thereabouts, and he didn't have or want a girlfriend…
And he hadn't given a crazy amount of thought to having a kid. Not really.
The thought is still terrifying even after all these years.
"Shigeo! You know not to…wander….off….like…that…" said a voice that Reigen hadn't heard in so many years…ten years…ten years gone. More than that. But he still knew that voice. It had gotten a little deeper, just a little, but he could have recognized her voice no matter how many years had gone by.
Mob.
There she was. He turned to face her. It took a moment for his feet to listen but he turned to face her…and he recognized her. Her hair was shorter, she had grown a few centimeters, and there was a child clinging to her hand…but that was Mob. His Mob. It was like she had bene transported, transmuted, ten years into the future. Present. He had seen her in his mind as she was the last time he had seen her, fifteen, but she wasn't fifteen now. She was twenty six if his math was right. Older.
Older than she had been.
"Master….I mean Reigen….Reigen Arataka…hi." Said Mob. She looked at him like…like he didn't know what. Like she was afraid. Like she was angry. Like she was excited. Like every emotion that she had ever felt in her life was dancing behind her eyes. Her face was flat, motionless, emotionless, but her eyes told the whole story.
"You know my mom? How do you know my mom? I know everyone my mom knows! Like, is she secretly superhero or something and, like-" said Shigeo
"Shige! Don't talk to strangers!" said the little girl. Reigen barely heard the kids, no, everything sounded like it was far away and under water. Mob was there. Mob. He was seeing her after all these years…and she was speaking to him…
Say. Something.
Make. Words.
"He's not a stranger, he was cursed and I helped him! You don't get to tell me what to do anyway, Yuzuko, I'm older than you!" said the kid. Reigen wasn't really listening, he was too busy looking at Mob. Staring at her. Probably creepily. She was there. She was there and she had spoken to him and she…she was still so beautiful…
God. She was still so perfect.
"H-hey Mob….how've you been?" asked Reigen finding some words. The kids…Mob's kids…oh God Mob had kids…were arguing, now, and he wanted to be anywhere but there because there were MOB'S KIDS and she…she was right there with her kids…her kids…that she'd had…
Mob was someone's mom.
Mob was a mother.
Her life had progressed while his had remained stagnant. She was…he remembered what the kid had said…she was separated from Serizawa…and they'd had children together. Two of them. A blue eyed little boy who couldn't keep his mouth shut and a little girl….who looked More like Mob…her eyes were brown and her hair was black but his was fluffy, like Serizawa's got when it got long…and he had seen Serizawa make that face, that anxious face, before…and she was still clinging to Mob's hand…
"Good. I've been…it been good…ok…it's been…I don't know." Said Mob. She reached into her bag and Reigen braced himself, he had been beaten up by half of her family already, and he knew that was not Mob's way but he couldn't imagine that she would have been happy to see him. He had been the one, in her mind, to have started all of…this. He had rejected her and sent her to Serizawa and she…and if he hadn't tried to reject her that day then these two kids would not have existed…and…and he was responsible for two kids existing in the world….and that was a lot and this was a lot and he needed a smoke and a drink even though he only allowed himself one drink every other day just to keep from getting drunk but this is one of those times when he needed to ignore his self-imposed set of rules because this was A LOT and…
And Mob pulled a small cat…no…a small cat shaped purse from her purse…and at some point she had started wearing a purse…and she handed it to the little girl…
"Go and get some snacks from the convenience store over there, Yukuko, whatever you two want. I have to…to catch up with…an old friend." Said Mob as she handed the girl…her daughter…oh my fucking God Mob has kids…and the kids' eyes, both of them, lit up like it was Christmas morning. The girl took the change purse from Mob, and then the boy took it from the girl, and then they both ran off to the Family Mart by the bus station that he had passed a thousand times…and now Mob's kids were in there…
Her kids.
Mob had two kids.
Mob and Serizawa had two kids together.
"The boy is Shigeko and the girl is Yuzuko…he's going to be eleven soon and Yukuko just turned nine…." Said Mob softly. She was playing with the strap of her purse, now, and Reigen just noticed that it was purple and green like the robot from that show she had liked all those years ago...he wondered if she still liked it. He wondered if she still liked cats and milk and animes about robots and feelings and…and all of that.
Had she changed?
Had he?
"They're…they're great kids. Your…your son…he said that there was a curse on my back and he…he got rid of it…" said Reigen even though the last thing he wanted to talk about with her was her children. He didn't…but he also did. He did some math. Mob…Mob must have had that kid, the oldest, Shigeo while she was still a kid herself….
He did some more quick math.
It would have been easier if he had the kid's exact birthday.
"Shigeo does that a lot…he helps people. It was a little scary, it always is when he runs away like that…he always does that when I leave him alone…but he's much too old for me to take him into the bathroom with me…and he's always fine…he's a good boy. They're both good kids…" said Mob. She was closer to him, now, but he still had trouble hearing her. She was…she was nervous…and so was he…
He wondered if this was really such a good idea.
He had spent many a night staring up at the abyss and wondering what he would have said to her if he ever ran into her on the streets. Sometimes he yelled at her. Sometimes he ignored her. Sometimes he spoke very calmly and demanded an explanation for…anything. Anything that had happened between them. Sometimes he kissed her. Sometimes he got angry enough that he swore that he could have killed her. Sometimes…well this was not one of those times. This was real life, not the recesses of his mind as he tried to drift off to sleep, and he was really standing there with her in the middle of the street on a Sunday afternoon...
This was happening.
This was really happening.
"Do you…there's a tea place over there…you want to get a cup of tea? I mean…your kids can come too..." said Reigen as he motioned to the tea place behind them. He did not want to do this out there in the middle of the street. He wanted to, he needed to, have something to do with his hands. A cup of tea to sip when he needed time to collect his thoughts, a table between them, and a bathroom to excuse himself to when things got to be too much. If it got to be much too much, too much that even a bathroom break wouldn't be enough time to compose himself, the bus station was right there and he could always pretend that he needed to get on whichever bus was turning up and run out with the promise, the possibly empty promise, that they really should do this again.
It would be easier.
"I'll tell them where I am. They need some time to run around. I just picked them up from their grandmother's and she's all the way in Baked Goods City…they've got a lot of energy to burn off…and I could use a rest." Said Mob. This was happening. Reigen was still having trouble believing that any of this was happening. His mind was having trouble reconciling the Mob that existed in this reality with the Mob that had existed in his mind for over a decade.
Mob was not fifteen years old anymore.
Master Reigen was not twenty nine years old anymore.
Mob knew this. She knew that time had passed, that people grew and aged and changed. She had grown and aged, everyone had, and changed so of course he would have too. He wasn't as thin as he used to be, and his hair was shorter, and he was starting to get some lines by his eyes but he was still…she would have recognized him anywhere. No matter how much time had passed she would always be able to recognize him.
Even if she had pretended, before, that she hadn't.
It had been years ago, back when she was pregnant with Shigeo, that their paths had last crossed. She had been on a train to see Serizawa's mother. She hadn't want to be on that train, she hadn't wanted to see his mother, she hadn't wanted anything more than to be in bed watching TV and waiting for tomorrow to happen. She had been fifteen, pregnant, and miserable. None of the books and websites had warned her for how tired she would be, how much her back and feet and breasts would hurt, and how hard it would be to do much of anything but lay there and wait for her baby to be born.
It hadn't been long before his birth.
She had been as big as a house, as Sho had often told her, and in a lot of pain. She was annoyed, too, because she hadn't wanted to meet his mother. Serizawa's mother was a nice person but she had so many…expectations…of how Mob should have been taking care of Serizawa. His favorite foods, how to fold his clothes, how to draw his baths, and about a million other things that she was supposed to be learning how to do because she was going to become his wife…things that she didn't want to learn how to do. It was enough work going to parenting class and regular school, she didn't want to learn anything else. Serizawa never expected her to do those things, he said, but he also never told his mom to get off of Mob's back.
It had been a lot.
She had been in a terrible mood that day. All she wanted to do was read her manga and sit there. She didn't want to have a person sitting on her bladder making her have to pee every half hour, she didn't want her feet to be so swollen that she had to wear crocs everywhere, she didn't' want the train so be so bumpy that she felt like throwing up everywhere, and she certainly didn't want to get into it with Master Reigen while she was five months pregnant on a the most packed, and roughest riding, train in Japan that she was riding on to see her mother in law who only liked Mob because that meant that she had someone to take care of Serizawa after she died!
Back then she had a lot going on.
Now she did but…but it wasn't so much. Divorcing Serizawa wasn't easy, it wasn't fun, and it hurt them both…him much more than her…but at least she had her family backing her up on this for once. Taking care of the kids wasn't easy, she had relied on Serizawa for that, but Ritsu and Sho, mostly Sho, were very good with them. The trip to see Serizawa and his mother was a long one but she didn't have a human being growing inside of her now.
Also she wasn't fifteen anymore.
She was twenty six, almost twenty seven, and she could handle this. She had thought of him, Master Reigen, just Reigen now, for years. Going over what she would have said if they were to meet under favorable circumstances. Sometimes she imagined yelling at him, blaming him for everything that had gone wrong in her life, but those fantasies never lasted. This was all her fault. She made her own choices, her life was her own, and she had no one to blame but herself. She was the one who had started all of that. She was the one who had messed up. She was the one who hadn't been good about taking her medicine and she was the one who had decided to have Shigeo and she was the one who married Serizawa despite the fact that they weren't good for one another and now she was the one who had made the choice to sit here, beside Master Reigen, just Reigen, while her children chased each other around outside like, well, a couple of children.
She was not a child anymore.
And her life was her own.
"So…" said Reigen as his tea cooled in front of him. Mob stared at hers. Unreadable, as always. He had no idea what he was supposed to do now. She was there and he was there and…and her children were there too. Outside, clearly visible through the window, playing some game that involved running up and down the street and laughing.
"You look different." Said Mob for lack of anything else. What she wanted to say was that she was having trouble reconciling the man he was, now, with the man who had existed in her mind for the past decade. In her mind he was as he always had been. Ageless. But she had been young, too young to notice him aging, because he had aged even when she had known him back then. She had divided the world into two categories, kids and adults, with kids changing and adults being changeless. At some point she had tried to cross over to the adult side before her time and had done all of her changing at once. She wanted to ask him if she looked different in his eyes, if he was having his own trouble reconciling the person she had been with the person she had become.
She didn't know how.
"Yeah, ten years'll do that to a guy. I can't believe I'm coming up on middle age, damn. In another ten years I'll be unrecognizable." Said Reigen patting his stomach. At some point his metabolism had slowed to a crawl and he had gone up a size or two. Mob…she looked great. Even after two kids she looked great. Perfect, like she always had…
No, better.
She was not fifteen anymore.
"I'll always be able to recognize you, Master…I mean Reigen. No matter how much older you get." Said Mob. She swirled her tea with her powers. Something to do. A nervous habit, like Shigeo with his constant fidgeting or Yuzuko and her nail biting. She watched her children out of the corner of her eye. Now they were sitting on a bench playing with their phones, running up and down the street had apparently gotten boring. Yuzuko was nervous, her hair was floating and her thumb was in her mouth. Shigeo was talking, he was always talking, and he seemed totally at ease. Children. Her children. Not a day went by when she wasn't amazed at the fact that she had created human beings and now they were…there.
"Same…and you don't have to call me Master. You're a grown woman now. You can…just call me Reigen…or Arataka…if you want." Said Reigen granting her his given name. They were equals, now, they were both adults here. Two adults drinking tea. A salaryman man and a single-ish mother. No longer master and student.
"Ok….Arataka." said Mob. She granted him his given name. They were equals, now. Truly equals. Two adults. She had said to him, ten years ago, that it didn't matter. That her age meant nothing in the face of love. She knew better now. They were nowhere near equals and now she could see, with the benefit of these ten years, that she had in no way been anything close to an adult. She had been a child, then, and he had been right to reject her.
She had not been ready.
She had not been ready for any of it.
But now she was.
"Mob…or do you go by Shigeko now…or Mrs. Serizawa?" asked Reigen, the last part coming out in more of a choke than anything. She had a ring on her finger, now, and she was…her son had used the words divorced and separated interchangeably…and it was wrong of him to still think of her like that. He had spent the past ten years trying to get over her and now there he was hoping that they could…could what, exactly?
Pick up where they'd left off?
No. They had left off with him in a puddle of his own drunken depression and her off with the man she had given everything to. He would not go back to that. It had been wrong of him to do what he had done. It had been wrong of him to…to even start that with her in the first place…because she had been so young, too young for him…and she was still…no she wasn't. She was a grown woman, now, with two children and a life of her own. Her life had always been her own but…but she had been too young for all of that then.
So had he.
They both had needed to do some growing up, maybe, because he had been wrong to…to have done that. The first time had been…it had been the most amazing time of his life…but the second time had been pure selfishness…and then she had been gone…
And he does not want to repeat that.
But he does want her.
"Mob is fine, I don't mind Shigeko, but I'm not Mrs. Serizawa anymore. At least I won't be, anymore…we're separated…me and Katsuya are getting a divorce." Said Mob. She had said those words before. To her children, to her parents, to her brother and his husband, and it never stopped hurting. It hurt her because she knew that she was hurting him. He had done nothing but love her all these years and it just wasn't fair to him. He shouldn't have wasted another decade of his life on a woman who could never return the love he gave her fully. They had tried, she had tried, but one day she just…she could not try anymore. She moved in with Ritsu and Sho, he moved in with his mother, their apartment got sold, and custody of the children was still being ironed out. It was…it was one of the hardest things she'd ever had to do…but it was for their own good.
She knew who she wanted to be with.
And there he was.
No ring on his finger. No ring tan line, either. She still wore her ring because she was technically still married. She was still, technically, Serizawa Shigeko until the papers were signed…if he ever signed them….
"Oh yeah, your kid said something about that." Said Reigen trying to sound more disaffected than he was…which was not at all. The news of her impending divorce should not have made him this happy. She was getting a divorce, one of the most painful experiences a person could go through, and he was thinking about…about things that he shouldn't have. About taking his shot, finally, after all these years…
"I bet he did. Shigeo…he's not taking it well. I think that's why he ran away from me. He's…he has a lot of feelings about this and he tells anyone who'll listen. The people at MobRonald's hide when he comes in. It's…it's been hard on him." said Mob. She wished that she had done this sooner, when the children were too young to know what was happening, or better yet before they had ever been…no. She loved her children and she if she could go back in time and do it again she still would have had them. She would have just waited until she had at least finished high school…or had them with a different man, too, while she was making big changes to the timeline of her life.
"Divorce is hard on kids. I mean I don't have any kids and I've never been divorced but I know that my parents' divorce was hard on me. Not that your kids won't turn out ok! They will, better than me, because they have you for a mom. Just…and I know I might be running my mouth about shit that is none of my business but…if he's anything like me he's going to get worse before he gets better. I was a lot like him, I went on and on to anyone that would listen because I…I felt like I had nobody to talk to about it and it was, well, a lot…then the acting out happened and my mom she…she punished me a lot when all I wanted was to be….I guess seen and heard. Not that you're anything like my mother! And not that…not that this is any of my business." Said Reigen before he took a big swig of his tea. Right. Not his monkeys and not his circus. Heh. Ten years gone and even now he couldn't help but give Mob advice. Advice that she probably didn't even need. She knew her own son and she knew what was best for him. She was…she was a grown woman now…
"I never looked at it like that…thank you. I love Shigeo, I do, but I don't…I don't understand him, sometimes. It's nice to have someone else's perspective. Ritsu just says that he's weird and Sho just says that he's…well Sho says that he's weird, too, but in a different way. Shigeo has been so…so difficult lately. Yuzuko hasn't been nearly as…difficult. Maybe because she's younger. Maybe because she's a girl. Maybe because she takes so much after Katsuya…" said Mob. She didn't want to talk about him. She didn't want to think about the ring that was still on her finger and her children, his children, their children that were out there and…and the man sitting in front him and all that he meant to her even after all of these years.
"Hey Mob, can I ask you something?" asked Reigen. There had been a silence that had been threatening to grow between them. He did not want that silence to grow because it could, quickly, turn into an awkward silence and that would end with her excusing herself, most likely, and walking out of his life forever.
He could not have that.
"Asking me that is already asking me something." Said Mob with a small smile. Reigen forgot how to breathe for a moment, it had been so long since he had seen her smile, and he had almost forgotten how…how beautiful and perfect her smiles were…
"Why Shigeo? And Yuzuko?" asked Reigen once his heart decided to calm down and his lungs decided to end their strike.
"Why what?" asked Mob. Why not invite them inside and make them sit at the table with them? Why spend every single weekend crossing the country, practically, even though there was no reason for it? No reason beyond her own selfish feelings? Why take them from the only home they had ever known just because their mother could not stop pining over a man that she had lost contact with a decade ago? A man that had now come back into her life? A man that she wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of her life with, as she had since she had just a few years older than her son? A man who, upon looking at him for the first time in a decade, bore more than a passing resemblance to her son? Why put her two children though all of this?
Why be so selfish all the time?
"Why…just why Shigeo? Yuzuko is at least far from your own name but….Shigeo? Mob, come on, that's only one syllable away from your own name." said Reigen. He had wanted to ask her why she had children in the first place. She must have had Shigeo when she was a teenager…and Yuzuko too. Why? She had so much life to live but she had just thrown away, no, given away her youth. To Serizawa. To have his children. He wanted to know….everything. Every single detail about how her life had gone…how she had ended up like this…
"Oh. I like names that sound like mine and the names of people that I know. I always wanted a son named Shigeo and I wanted to call Yuzuko Ritsuko, after Ritsu, but Katsuya wanted to name her after his mother. I'm kind of glad that I didn't end up calling her Ritsuko. Sho likes that name, and Shoko too, which was another name that I wanted for one of my children, and I'm going to let them use it when they have a baby. They're married now, well not legally but they had a big party and exchanged vows and rings, and they want to have kids in a few years so I'll let them have those names. I also liked Takako…after you…for a girl." Said Mob softly. She looked away from him, out to where her children were. Shigeo was sitting upside on the bench and Yuzuko was making her snacks float in front of herself and taking pictures. She had always wanted more children, and she could have had them, but something had always been holding her back…
The man she had been having them with.
She loved him…as much as she could…but after Yuzuko she had been done having children with Katsuya. It had come to her while she had been laying down in her recovery bed at the hospital. Yuzuko had been so small and helpless and she loved her daughter so much…and it wasn't fair. The way she felt about her husband…it wasn't fair to bring children into such a union.
Selfish even.
So she had stopped having children. She could have more. She was still young and she made decent money. Freelance exorcisms made up some of her income and the rest was made up by her and Minegishi's flower shop, thank goodness he hadn't picked sides in her divorce, and as far as money went she could have supported another child. Ritsu and Sho wouldn't let her help out with the rent or bills even though they had moved into a bigger apartment just so that there was room for Mob and her children, she shared a room with Yuzuko but it was better than being all alone with her children in some new, strange, apartment….and it wasn't even so bad, now, since Sho had forgiven her. He had taken sides in the divorce but Ritsu…Ritsu put a stop to that. Mostly.
She was dreading coming home.
"I like that…Takako. Better than Arataki, heh, if you were going to a feminine version of my name." said Reigen. Seemed a bit uncreative to him but Mob could name her kids whatever she wanted. He couldn't see himself naming a kid after either of his parents. Yoshio and Sophia. Nope, not happening. Not that he was going to have any kids, he was almost forty and he didn't even have a girlfriend, and any woman his age would have been most likely either done having kids or hadn't wanted any in the first place.
Maybe Mob wanted more kids.
And he knows that he's thinking thoughts that he should not have been thinking. He's thinking of a future with her, one that he had been trying to dissuade himself from imagining for ten years now. That was not the thought to have. This had been the first time he had sat down with her in a decade and there was no way of telling if they would ever sit down like this together again.
"I hadn't even thought of Arataki….but I like it." Said Mob
"Oh God, what have I done?" moaned Reigen dramatically. Mob couldn't help it…she laughed. Well it come out as more of a giggle but it was enough to send Reigen's heart into overdrive. He couldn't even remember the last time he had heard her laugh…it was intoxicating. It was just as intoxicating now as it had been back then and he wanted nothing more than to take her hand in his…
Her right hand.
Her left hand…she still wore her wedding ring. A plain gold band. Plain but…but so much. She had been married. She was married. She was married to Serizawa and she was there with…without Serizawa. Besides, her being with Serizawa had never stopped him before. A bitter thought.
"I missed this." said Mob. He was just as she remembered him. He may have gained some weight, a few wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and his hair may have even gotten a little bit of silver to it now, but he was still Master Reigen. Her Master Reigen. Her Reigen Arataka. Her everything.
She still loved him.
She had never stopped loving him.
The ring on her finger feels like a dreadfully heavy thing, now. It feels like it's pinning her hand to the table. Both of them. She wants nothing more than to reach across the table and take his hand in hers. She could have so easily crossed that distance between them…and it hadn't ever stopped her before, Katsuya, and what she was to him…but she…she didn't want to ruin…to mess up….whatever this was.
She had messed up, before.
She had been young and stupid. She had wanted everything without thought to what she had. She had been playing with something that she couldn't even begin to understand, to comprehend, and now…now she had to be smarter. She wasn't that girl anymore, that stupid little girl who thought that she was an adult. That impatient little girl who couldn't stand to wait for three measly years. That selfish little girl who couldn't stand to be alone, who mistook obligation and guilt for love, who played with the feelings of a man who was so sweet and wonderful but also so, incredibly, needy….
She was not that girl anymore.
And she was not going to mess this up.
"Me too…I missed this so much…I missed you…" said Reigen. 'I missed you' did not encompass even a millionth of what he had been feeling for her for these past ten years. For once in his life he was without words. There were no words for what he felt, what he had been feeling, what he had been wanting. Well there were. There were three words…
I love you.
Those three words that he had given her all those years ago. That she had given him. He wondered if they still stood, if they were still true, or if she had gotten over him. The thought hurts, it hurts like getting kicked in the chest with a steel toed boot, and he wants nothing more than to make it stop. He wants nothing more than to rip out his heart and to lay it down at her feet and just see what it was that she did with it. She was watching her children now…her children…he didn't mind that she had children. She was Mob and he would love her no matter what…and there had been a lot of 'what' in their past…and maybe in their future…but he didn't care. He still wanted to see it out with her.
"I never stopped thinking about you, not once, and that's…that's why me and Katsuya are getting a divorce." Said Mob
"I…I'm sorry. I mean…that he's leaving you because of me. I never thought that he had it in him but, well, it has been ten years-" said Reigen
"No, I'm the one who wants a divorce." Said Mob
"You? Why? Mob, the last time I saw you…you said that you loved him-" said Reigen
"I thought that I did. I thought that because he loved me, and because the…it was so good…intimately…and because he went to pieces when I…when I suggested that we break up…I thought that I had to love him. I mistook love for obligation and I was also so desperate to see myself as an adult that I…I just dug my feet in whenever anyone tried to talk some sense into me…I even drove my mother to drink with all that I put her through…and I was happy with him sometimes but…but I always…you were always at the back of my mind." Said Mob
"Mob, you've-" said Reigen
"And I wanted to be with you but…but Shigeo was born and I was married and I just…I was stuck! My parents told me that if I was old enough to have a baby then I was old enough to be married and to make my own choices…my dad said choices and my mom said mistakes…and then I thought that I had to stay because they wouldn't…I thought that I couldn't go back because going back would have been admitting that I had been wrong…and we had a baby together! And I thought that I couldn't leave Katsuya because we had this baby together and I was…I was trapped! I couldn't go to school, any school, because I had a baby and I was so depressed I couldn't even move…not that I wanted to-to-to-" said Mob. Her breathing was getting quick and her aura was showing and the table was moving and she knew that she should have shut up, stopped talking, because she was talking too much but it just wouldn't stop coming out!
"Hey, Mob-" said Reigen. He reached over and held his hand over hers. Not touching, not yet, because as worked up as she was getting he had no idea if touching her would make it worse or better…
"And I couldn't move anyway because of all the stiches and I needed him to take care of me…and he could sort of…but sometimes he couldn't. Sometimes he got so overwhelmed and I had to be the one to…to comfort him and the baby…and it was so much…I mean people helped. Those Claw guys thought, still think, that I'm their President and they brought me food and baby stuff and even tried to babysit…they were afraid of Shigeo a little since he was born with his powers like me, he didn't present later like everyone else, and for a while nobody COULD watch him because he could…he has all of my powers so he can steal energy…and he would do that without even realizing it…and I was all alone and…and Ritsu couldn't help me with Shigeo because he had his own school stuff to deal with and Sho wouldn't because he was so mad at me…and he's mad at me again because of the divorce…and it was so hard-" said Mob
"Listen-" said Reigen. This time he did take her hand. Her right hand. He took it in his and he tried to pour every ounce of feeling in his entire being into keeping her calm…and now her kids were getting up…the girl was holding the boy back…and he needed Mob to calm down but she was just getting herself so worked up…
"And the whole time I wanted to be with you. The whole time when I was recovering and taking care of my baby I wanted to be with you…I even saw you on the train once when I was pregnant with Shigeo but I was too afraid to even say hi…because it would have been more than hi….and I loved you so much and I just…I wanted to be with you and I wanted to leave and I hated myself for wanting to leave and I hated my life because I couldn't see my friends or go to school…I wanted to make the most of my youth, before, but I lost so much of it…and I was so unhappy that I…I had Yuzuko…and then I realized how selfish I was being…" said Mob wiping her eyes with the back of her left hand. Her right hand was in his and it…it was making her feel better. This. She had wanted this for over a decade and now she had it…
"You are not selfish, ok? Mob…you are not selfish." Said Reigen softly. She closed her eyes and shook her head.
"I am. I really am…and I was back then, too. After she was born I just…I just looked at her and thought 'I made a human being with a man who…who is not the man that I'm in love with. How could I bring a child into a union like that?' and then I just…stopped having children even though I want more. I just…I've been so selfish. If I had just waited three years like you wanted…or waited until I was an actual adult before I confessed…and if I hadn't just…taken advantage of Katsuya that night..." said Mob
"The loneliest words that we'll ever know…if only, if only, it were so." Said Reigen softly. She smiled at him, again, and the table stopped shaking like a leaf in a monsoon.
"Did you just think that up?" asked Mob
"No…it's from a song. Sorry. I haven't really been thinking up a lot of originals lately…I haven't had anyone to share them with." Said Reigen
"You can share them with me. I'm here and…and I want to be with…you. In whatever way you want. I've…for the past ten years I've missed you…and I've…yeah. I've missed you." Said Mob, her hand still in his, her tea growing cold, and her children arguing in front of the tea shop window. She would have to go to them, get up from here, and go to them. End this…even though she didn't want to. She wanted to drag this moment out for the rest of her life…but she couldn't be so selfish.
She had children now.
And she had been selfish enough.
"Mob…I want…I love you. I love you and I…you can do whatever you want with that information. You can spit in my face, you can tell me to fuck off, you can politely excuse yourself and avoid me for the rest of your life, or you could…." Said Reigen. He let the last part hang in the air. He wanted that last part more than he had ever wanted anything in his life…but he also wanted her to be happy…
"I love you too…and I want…I want to try again. You were right, before, that I was too young for you. I thought that I knew what I wanted, then, that I had it all figured out. That age was just a number…but it's not. I was a child, then, a selfish child and I…we wouldn't have been good for each other…I wouldn't have been good for you. I think now…if you want…we could try again. Restart. If you want." Said Mob. She would have to go soon. Her children needed to get home, do their homework, take their baths, and wind down before bed. She had work in the morning and they had school. She couldn't sit here for the rest of her life with Master, with JUST Reigen…even though she wanted to. She would not be so selfish. She had a life and so did he. They had…they had changed. Grown.
"You…you're right. You were too young…and so was I. I couldn't have handled a relationship, a real relationship, with you. The messy parts. The adult parts. I just…we both needed to do some living and…and I'd like to start again, too." Said Reigen. He held her hand tight. He wanted nothing more than to reach across the table, cup her face, and kiss her. Nothing and no one had ever compared to the rapturous joy that was a kiss from Mob….
"So are we…are we together, now?" asked Mob hopefully. She wanted this. She had wanted this for years…and this time she would be better. The ring on her finger still felt like a dreadfully heavy thing…so she'd take it off when she got home. She'd take it off and put it away in her jewelry box. It was too heavy to wear, now. Much too heavy.
"Yes…if that's what you want." Said Reigen. The gap between them was so little and it would be nothing to close it…
"It is. I want this…I've wanted this for so long…" said Mob. She was struck with the thought, then, that she could kiss him. She wanted to kiss him. She wanted nothing more in the world to kiss him. It would have been easy.
"Me too…" said Reigen. Mob sat up a little, just a little, because…because nothing and nobody could ever compare to kissing him. Reigen. The first person she had ever kissed. The last person that she had ever wanted to kiss. She got up, a little, because she couldn't lean over so far.
The door to the teashop opened with a jingle.
And she sat back down.
Her children. She could sense their auras. Lavender. Yuzuko. Cyan blue. Shigeo. She had children and they would have been beyond upset to see their mother kissing another man. A man who was a complete stranger to them….right after they had just come back from a visit with their father. As much as she wanted to restart with Reigen, to kiss him, to hold him, to take him to bed with her and never part…that would have been selfish. This would have to take time. She had her children to think of and they came first.
She was too old to be selfish.
So they didn't kiss. They paid their bills and parted ways after exchanging updated phone numbers and Friendbook friendvites with the promise that they would meet up again and nothing more. Not in front of her children. She wanted to be with him, she loved him, but she also loved them. When they asked about him, the strange man who'd had a cup of tea with their mother, she told them simply that he was an old friend that she had been reconnecting with.
It was the truth.
Not the whole truth but they could get that later. It was all so new, so fresh, that Mob scarce was sure it was even happening. If the children noticed her mood they didn't comment on it at any point. She knew that she would have to tell them the truth about her and Reigen but that would wait until things were more…settled.
At least until the ink was dry on the divorce papers.
And the divorce would go through. Katsuya had begged her, pleaded with her, not to do this. Not to end everything that they had built together. Not to break his heart again. She didn't want to do it, she didn't want to break anything. They had built a life together and she was breaking it down brick by brick for her own…for everyone. Nothing about that marriage had been fair to anyone. Him. Her. The children. Her parents. Her brother and his husband. Everyone had been hurt at some point because of their relationship.
Breaking up…they were long overdue.
And she would go through with it even if it meant breaking his heart.
After all….
Nothing breaks like a heart.