It was Shigeo's eleventh birthday party.
Well, it would be as soon as the finishing touches were finished.
They still had balloons and streamers to hang, food to put out, and cats to lock up. Psychic powers made the job easier, especially finding and putting the cats in the main bedroom for the deration of the party. Cat-A-Strophe and Cat-A-Clysm had sharp claws that they couldn't cut because, according to Sho, it was cruel. So was putting the cats away but Serizawa thought that putting them in a bedroom with plenty food and water was less cruel than subjecting them to several dozen elementary schoolers.
A lot of people were coming, probably.
Serizawa had no idea how many people were coming, Shigeo had A LOT of friends, and he hoped that he had enough of, well, everything. Enough soda pop for the kids, and Shigeko, and beers for the adults. Enough cakes, they had gotten three from the Costco, two chocolate and one yellow. Enough snacks, three different kinds of chips and two different kinds of dips, pretzels, candies, and an industrial sized box of poke. Enough milk, regular chocolate and strawberry, but that was mostly for Shigeko and the kids. Hopefully four liters was enough.
Thank God Sho and Ritsu let them store some of this in their apartment.
That was the benefit to living next door to your brothers in law, though no matter how many times they all voted the country wouldn't let them get married for real but they had a beautiful ceremony, you could store the truly excessive amounts of food you purchased for your son's birthday party somewhere where your children and very pregnant wife couldn't get to it. Also because they took up the entire end of the hall they could be as loud as they wanted…well sort of….sound proofing would have to happen but they could at least host all of Shigeo's friends.
How his son managed to make so many was beyond Serizawa.
Really, it was amazing with him and Shigeko raising him that he had done so well. Maybe because he hadn't gotten Shigeko's shyness and he hadn't picked up on Serizawa's anxiety. Not like his sisters. Yuzuko, Katsuko, Ritsuko, and Hanako…so all of the others, pretty much. They were quiet girls when they were around others, Serizawa suspected that they saved up all of their noise and energy for when they got home, and they didn't have many friends…well they didn't need many. They had each other.
And their cousin, too, when she was born.
"D-Don't strain yourself…for yourself and the baby." Said Serizawa even though she was using her powers, not her arms, to hang Shigeo's birthday decorations, purple and green balloons and streamers. She was sitting on the couch, which was good, but she was also holding her stomach with both hands. She had been pregnant before, so many times before, and he knew that the anxiety should have subsided by now but he still got worried when she got that big….or when she was pregnant at all. They had five children together, he should have been better about this, the worrying, by now…
But he wasn't.
And this one wasn't even his kid.
"It's ok, Shoko's just kicking my insides, that's all." Said Shigeko. Serizawa took a couple of deep breaths.
She was fine.
"Hey none of that, Shoko, or you're grounded the minute you come out of there. I am not kidding one bit." Called Sho from the other room. She was so nice to do that for her brother and Sho. Serizawa didn't think that he could ever do that, have a baby and then just…give it away. Not that she was going to totally give it, her, Shoko away. Sho and Ritsu lived just across the hall after all.
"She's a baby, where, exactly, do you think she's planning on going?" he heard Ritsu ask. Shigeko's little brother had hated him for a little bit, not that long, when Shigeko announced her pregnancy. In retrospect maybe, just maybe, announcing it over dinner at her parent's house a few days after her mother had beaten the shit out of him with her ring hand hadn't been the best idea.
It had been welcome news, though.
Especially after the bomb she had dropped on their relationship. She had come home one day and just…just told him that she had cheated on him again. With Reigen. It would have been better, almost, if she had been out there picking up random men. It would have been about sex, only sex, then. But it hadn't been about sex, it had been about love, and that made it just…the worst. He cried, she cried, he almost broke up with her…and thank God that he hadn't. No matter how much it hurt, how many times she slept with Reigen Arataka, he could never leave her. He loved her and when you loved someone you forgave them.
No matter how many times they begged you to break up with them.
If she had wanted to break up, really break up, she would have just broken up with him instead of putting the onus of responsibility on him. She knew that he loved her, even after all of that, and she knew that no matter how many times she ripped his heart out and showed it to him he would always come back to her. Their therapist, every single couple's therapist they had ever gone to, said that he sacrificed too many of his own needs. He didn't disagree, not at all, but he didn't think that they needed to break up. That had been the subtext of everything that every single relationship therapist had ever told them. They had started going when she had been pregnant with Shigeo. That had also been the first, but not the last time, a therapist had let them go. He had said that he couldn't, in good conscience, continue to counsel a thirty one year old man and his pregnant fifteen year old girlfriend/fiancé/woman who had trouble with infidelity but he still loved with all of his heart.
He was glad that they hadn't taken any of the very expensive professional advice that they had been given.
Because he didn't know what he would have done without her. He loved her even after she hurt him so badly…so badly that he hadn't known that he would…if he could ever have left his room…left the pit of despair that he had been trapped in….it had hurt but she…paradoxically she had made him feel wonderful and terrible at the same time. Terrible in her actions but…but wonderful after she…after she told him that she might have been…
That she was pregnant.
With a baby.
A baby had been growing inside of her. Her, a baby, a new human being. He loved her, and her baby, so much….so much more than he had thought was even possible. He remembered it, that first kick, the first time that it really dawned on him that they had, that she had, made a new person. That she had been…well he had known that she had been pregnant with…with his…not his…with her…
With THEIR son. Shigeo. It hadn't mattered then, and it didn't matter now, where he had come from.
"I hope it's somewhere bigger than my insides." She said. He rubbed a hand on her stomach. Before he had been able to feel it, her, Shoko kicking. None of the others, not even Shigeo, had kicked as much as this baby did. She would be a world class soccer player, maybe, or a kick boxer like Sho had predicted. Shigeko just wanted to know how to make it stop. Their children, their girl children, had hardly ever kicked. They had all been easy, Shigeko had said, and Serizawa believed her even though it all looked pretty difficult to him.
Pretty damn scary.
But she was fine.
Of course she was fine. She had been going through this every other year, about, for eleven years. He had nothing to be anxious about. Not his wife's pregnancy, not the fact that several dozen elementary schoolers plus a good amount of adults would be descending upon his apartment soon, and certainly not the lack of sound coming from the girls' bedroom….well maybe that last one was worrying. When they were silent they were up to something…though what they could be up, now, when they had had whole party to go crazy in he did not know.
Last time they had been that quiet they had given the cat a haircut.
The time before that they had given each other haircuts.
What was it with little girls and haircuts? Shigeo never tried to cut his own hair, the cat's hair, or anyone else's hair. Not that Serizawa was complaining. He was grateful to have any children at all even if he was vastly outnumbered in his own home. One boy, four girls, and he wouldn't trade it for the world. Not that he was hoping for another one, either, no way. Well if it happened then it happened, and it always just sort of happened, none of the children had been planned but…he wasn't sure if he wanted more. He loved each and every single one of them, he really did, but it did get hard being at home with five children day in and day out. Not that he was complaining about that, either, he had made his choice. He stayed home with the kids and Shigeko went out and earned the money. It had been that way for…a long time.
Too long.
But she never complained. She said that she liked being out of the house. She had worked all throughout every single one of her pregnancies, even Shigeo, and she wouldn't stop no matter how many times he asked her too. He had been a wreck, then, when she had been pregnant with Shigeo all those years ago. Eleven years ago, almost. It was amazing to think of how fast the time had gone.
"It's not…time…is it?" asked Serizawa. He could see his aura a little, then, but he held steadfastly onto control. He had moved all of the breakables and valuables; the family pictures, games consoles, and his models, out of the room but he didn't want to risk hurting any of the decorations or anything else in the room. Even with powers it took a while to hang a up one hundred and eleven balloons. Why a hundred and eleven? Because Shigeo was turning eleven and it was his birthday and if he wanted a hundred and eleven balloons then he was getting one hundred balloons plus eleven for his age. Like he had said…he ran off of his own internal logic sometimes. All kids did.
"No, not yet. She still has a couple weeks, Katsuya, and Shigeo would never forgive her if she took his birthday, cousin of not." Said Shigeko. He wondered if cousin was the right word. Shigeo had taken to calling Shoko his sister-cousin, which according to their family therapist was a good thing because that meant that he accepted Shoko, though the whole thing sounded strange to other people. It wouldn't have been a problem, and it wasn't, but it would have been nice if Serizawa hadn't had to explain to everyone they came into contact with, from Shigeo's classroom teacher to the man who sold ice cream at the end of the block, the exact circumstances of his wife's pregnancy.
Well really it was Shigeo who liked explaining to everyone exactly, in exact detail, how artificial insemination worked…
Because it was fascinating, he said, and he wanted to share it with everyone…no matter how many times he told his son that maybe not everyone in the world needed to know how Uncle Sho and Uncle Ritsu's daughter was coming into the world. Shigeo didn't get it no matter how many times it was explained to him. Sho had said, once, that Shigeo had inherited his cluelessness from his mother and his chattiness from his father….
Then Ritsu had pulled him away and they had exchanged harsh words.
"She's coming?! She had better not!" first the shouting, then the running, and then Shigeo appeared in the living/dining/party room like a tornado. He could move REALLY fast when he wanted to. All of the kids could. They were still so little that they hadn't finished awakening, Shigeko had been developing new powers into her mid-teens, but even what they had could be a little much. He still got overwhelmed, sometimes, even though he was half of the reason they had their powers in the first place.
"You hear me sister-cousin? You'd better stay in there until my birthday is over. You can have Yuzuko's birthday, she's not doing anything with it anyway." Said Shigeo directly into his mother's stomach. Shigeko touched his hair with her hand and his aura with hers. She used her powers to straighten out his clothes, an early birthday present from her friend Hanazawa all the way from Tokyo. Apparently Tokyo was the fashion capitol of the world and Shigeo should have been tickled pink, Hanazawa's words, that he could be a part of it.
It had taken almost an hour to convince Shigeo to get into that pink and blue suit.
And even longer to figure out how to tie a tie. Serizawa had known, before, how to do it but it had been over a decade since he'd even had an occasion to wear more than pants and a T-Shirt. Sho had never tied a tie in his life and Ritsu, well, he had tried. YouTube had saved them in the end and now Shigeo was there and all dressed up and ready for his party.
He looked just like his father.
"Shige, please calm down. Your mother doesn't need any extra excitement today or you really will end up sharing a birthday with your cousin." Said Serizawa. Blue eyes met his and then narrowed.
"She wouldn't do that to me. She loves me. I read her all of her favorite stories, I can tell that they're her favorites because of her aura. And besides, she's my sister-cousin she wouldn't do me like that…would she? Right? Because she knows that if she did that to me then I would never forgive her…and I'm already going to have trouble forgiving her for not being a boy. Why'd I have to have another sister? I didn't want another sister, I already have four, I don't need another…." Now those same blue eyes were narrowing even more and had trained themselves on Shigeko's stomach.
"Be nice or I am popping each and every one of these balloons!" said Sho loudly. There was a flash of blue, blue aura, and every single decoration that had been so painstakingly hung up to the birthday boy's exact, and very complicated, specifications. Shigeo at least had the decency to look crestfallen and offer to help.
He was such a good boy.
Serizawa couldn't have asked for a better son…and that was his son. Not matter where he came from he would always be Serizawa's son. Even if his eyes were blue and his hair had been light brown when he had been born and he was outgoing when both of his parents were shy or if he never stopped talking when the rest of the family could enjoy the sound of silence just fine or even if-
Serizawa Shigeo was his son.
Biology be damned Serizawa Shigeo was his son. He had held him ten minutes after he was born, he had taught him to count by two and ties his shoes, he had taught him how to use his powers with some modicum of control, so had Shigeko of course, and he had taught Shigeo to never be afraid of himself, so had Shigeko, even after that time, all of the times, he had lost control of his powers and accidentally hurt something…or someone. He had been there. He would always be there.
For his son.
Everyone knew, of course, where Shigeo had really come from. Everyone knew and everyone knew not to mention the elephant in the room. Especially not when the boy in question could overhear and then start asking a lot of uncomfortable questions. Questions that nobody wanted to answer. Questions that he, and especially Shigeko, didn't like to answer. Things were ok, now, more than ok and everyone wanted them to stay that way. They hadn't always been ok, of course, Sho had said some very…unkind…words to Shigeko on Serizawa's behalf even though it really, REALLY, hadn't been necessary. He had apologized eventually and that was all water under the bridge now.
Everyone had, eventually, forgiven everyone else.
And now they were all ok. Especially him. He was the most ok. He had no reason not to be. Shigeko had chosen him, in the end, and that was what mattered. They had a rocky first year, or two, but things eventually got better. She had wanted him to break up with her, before, but then she had taken it all back after Shigeo was born…of course every couple of years she…well then she always took it back when the children were born. Shigeo. Yuzuko. Ritsuko. Hanako. She hadn't said a word about wanting to even so much as separate, now, and hopefully she wouldn't after Shoko was born, too.
Hopefully.
Because she had reason to…no. That was all over and done with now. It didn't matter what had happened. It didn't matter who had come back into their lives. The only thing that mattered was that they were a family and that they were happy. They were, they really were, even if there had been some bumps on the road.
Shigeko had been upset that she couldn't go to high school because of Shigeo and then Yuzuko. She said that online school wasn't the same.
But it was ok now. She had friends and she loved her work, she did a lot of freelance exorcism work in addition to working with Minegishi at a flower shop they both owned, and he loved his job too…and homemaking was a job. Getting the kids to school, picking them up, ferrying them to all the places he needed to go, cooking, cleaning, paying bills, all of it took effort. It all took effort and he was proud of himself. Before, back when she had been pregnant with Shigeo, he hadn't even been sure if he had the capacity to take care of himself let alone another human being.
But he had.
It hadn't been easy at first for so many reasons. Money ran out fast when you had a baby so he had to borrow a lot from his mother, and her parents, and he suspected that Sho was the one hiding balls of cash around the apartment…but those debts were mostly paid off now. It had been a little maddening, too, at first after Shigeo had been born. He needed him and Shigeko needed him, even if she hadn't had a fourth degree perennial tear to heal up she had still be very depressed after Shigeo had been born, and it was a lot of people who needed him and he…he got a little overwhelmed…and when he got overwhelmed he tended to shut down…
Thank God he, they, had so many people in their lives who cared about him.
Or at least Shigeo. Sho had been mad at Shigeko after Shigeo had been born with blue eyes and light brown hair…but he had still proved himself to be an invaluable help. He loved taking care of things and he loved Shigeo. It wasn't his fault who his dad was, Sho had said one night when he had been unusually open, feelings wise, with each other. The kind of nights where Sho rested, for a moment, because usually he was in constant motion. Even his aura had been still. Shigeo had been asleep in a laundry basket, a rare moment of quiet, and they had all just been sitting there watching him sleep. That little, blue eyes, miracle that he had been. So small, so fragile, fragile even though he had presented as an esper from birth, and oh so perfect. So soft and perfect, the most perfect person who had ever existed, though he felt that way about all of his children now…
"He can't help who his dad is." Sho had touched that top of Shigeo's head and said that. His head and his aura. Shigeo had stirred but not awoken. His little eyes moved behind his eye lids and his little arm reaching up to bat away whatever it was that was disturbing what little sleep he allowed himself.
Sho said it again, then, louder. More to himself than anything else. Then he said that he forgave Shigeko…well he had said it eventually. Not that night, no, she had been asleep. He said it later on, much later on, when Shigeo had been old enough to walk and talk and never, ever, ever shut up. It had come out of nowhere one day while they were at the park. Shigeo was chasing ducks, he had been chasing after Shigeo, and Ritsu had decided to take it upon himself to make sure that nobody ended up bitten by an angry duck. Shigeko had elected to stay sitting, she had been tired, and Sho had elected to keep her safe even though she was the last person in the world who needed protecting.
When they got back Sho and Shigeko were carrying on like the old friends they were.
He was a good person, Sho, the best brother in law and friend a guy could ask for. His best friend. Sho had been the one who kept him from going mad over the years. He had never been the most social person and the other parents were…intimidating. Also it was ninety-nine percent mothers and they did not want a man entering their ranks. People tended to look at him strangely, actually, when he was out and about with the children in the middle of the day while all of the other men were either at work or dead. He was used to strange looks, he had married Shigeko when she was fifteen after all, so it didn't bother him too much.
The isolation could get a little maddening, though.
Being trapped in the house all alone with only a baby, and later on a baby and a toddler, then even later on a baby and a toddler and a child, and so on and so forth, had been a lot like being in his room. Nobody to talk to, not really, and Shigeko would always be so exhausted when she came home. Sho was invaluable company. Ritsu, too, once he got older and stopped giving Serizawa the death glares for the crime of getting his big sister pregnant. Ritsu could actually be kind of nice when you got to know him…and he let you get to know him. The rest of the Kageyama family was a different story.
He pressed his tongue against the space where one of his teeth used to be. Mrs. Kageyama sure could hit hard for a lady.
"Are you ok? Is your missing tooth bothering you? We can go to the emergency dentist if you want." Said Mob mostly because she wanted an excuse to duck out for just a little bit. She knew that it was awful of her, and selfish, to want to duck out of her own son's birthday party but she was just so tired…
And nervous.
Nervous because she extended an invitation that she knew, as soon as it had been accepted, that it had been a bad idea. It wasn't that she didn't want to see him, quite the opposite in fact, and that was the problem. She had told herself then, as she told herself every year, that he had a right to be there. He had a right to be in his son's life…even if Shigeo could never know the truth. She wasn't so selfish as to drop that bomb on her eleven year old son, that the man he had stopped in the streets all those years ago because he'd gotten a nasty curse stuck to his back had been anyone other than one of his parents' old friends from before he was born.
Fate could be funny, like that, funny and cruel.
"No, I'm fine, just thinking. Your mother is definitely not coming to this thing, is she? I mean, don't get me wrong Shigeko, she's a nice woman….just not to me." asked Katsuya. At some point she had stopped being Mob to him and he had stopped being Serizawa to her. It had been around the time that she had taken his name. Serizawa Shigeko. That was who she was on paper now. At that point she had stopped being herself, stopped being Mob, and started being someone else entirely.
Mrs. Serizawa.
And at that point it made no sense to keep on calling him Serizawa since she was now a Serizawa as well. It had also made no sense for him to call her Mob, her childhood nickname, since she was not a child anymore. She was married, she had a baby on the way, and she had finally become the adult that she had been insisting that she was. She had gotten what she had wanted but she had lost what she had…and she had to take responsibility for what she had done. There was no going back. Shigeo was wanted, he was loved, and she had been looking forward to meeting him…
And she had.
And it had been obvious where he came from. A lot of children were born with blue eyes, mom had said trying to be helpful, and Serizawa had no idea who his father even was, he had said later on when it became obvious that Shigeo's eyes were blue and were going to stay that way. Not everyone was born with pure black hair, Ritsu had said after a lot of Googling, and not everyone in Japan had that eyelid thing. Everyone had their own way of explaining away Shigeo's appearance. Even Katsuya's mother. She said that she couldn't remember what color Katsuya's father's eyes had been.
Sho had just called her some very unkind, but deserved, names.
But they were ok now. They had made up. Sho had decided, after a little bit, that there was no point in being upset with Shigeo because he was just a baby and had no choice in who his father was. He had forgiven her, about a year later when she had been pregnant with Yuzuko, and they had taken Shigeo to the park. She had been too tired to do much of anything and Sho had offered to guard her even though her powers worked just fine when she was pregnant. She didn't know why he had volunteered to hang out with her, they hadn't been getting along that well, but then he had just said that he was sorry for being such a jerk to her.
At first she thought that he had just been apologizing because him being mean to her was putting a strain between him and Ritsu.
But he had been sincere and now everything was going great. Really, it was. She lived right next to her brother and his husband, she had five wonderful children, she loved her jobs, and she was even giving her brother and the love of his life the gift of a child so that he could be as happy as she was. She was happy, she really was. This was her first born son's birthday party. He was happy and he had so many friends and he was doing much better than she had when she was eleven. Her only friend had been Ritsu and she had accidentally hurt him…not that Shigeo hadn't accidentally hurt his sisters…and they hadn't accidentally hurt him and each other…that was par for the course when raising esper kids. Accidents happened, she accepted that, and she and Katsuya made sure that the accidents her children had didn't send them hiding in their rooms for fifteen years or…
Well Shigeo had still found Master Reigen, just Reigen, now.
There had been a curse stuck to his back. They had run into him purely by chance, he had been coming in from out of town at the same time they were, and all out of town trains stopped at the same station so…yeah. They ran into each other on a random Sunday evening. Not even a holiday, that would have made more sense, but a random Sunday evening on a random day…they had just run into him…
He only had to take one look at Shigeo and he knew.
The resemblance was strong. Not only in looks but in temperament. Well, not totally. Shigeo didn't know when to stop talking a lot of the time but Reigen, well he could talk a lot too, but at least he knew when not to START talking. No. He just thanked Shigeo for the curse removal, gave him a couple hundred yen, and that was that….
They could have gone their separate ways.
But they hadn't. It wouldn't have worked out, anyway, now when Reigen knew, and not when Mob….she had spent almost ten years by then trying to get over him and now…there he was. Feelings that she had been trying her hardest to starve to death came back to life after being fed for the first time in forever. She had missed him so much…and he had missed her…
But she could not have been so selfish as to act on those feelings.
But she had spoken to him, with Katsuya's blessing, of course she was not going to go sneaking around on her family, and of course nothing had happened. Nothing was going to happen. She had just wanted to talk to him, that was all, and he had wanted to talk to her. She had some explaining to do, he had said, and she agreed. She explained as best as she could. She explained how, no matter how it seemed, she was happy. Even though she hadn't been able to go to high school, she hadn't been able to be with the man she loved most in the world, and she had four kids with a fifth on the way.
She had been so happy.
She was so happy.
Even though she was anxious enough that her hair was floating and her daughter, well her niece too….niece daughter? Child that she was having with half of her genes and half of Sho's that would be, legally, her and Sho's child because the government was dumb like that….Shoko. Shoko was upset. That was why she was moving like crazy even though, at eight months along, she didn't have much room to move around at all.
"What about you? Are you ok?" asked Serizawa. He sat down next to her and put his hand on her stomach. It wasn't his kid but that didn't make it any less amazing. There was a person, a brand new person, in there! Someone entirely new was going to be born, itching to be born it seemed, if her kicking and her aura were anything to go off of.
"I'm fine...just a little nervous." Said Mob. He put his arm around her and she rested her head on his chest. She was still small enough to do this. She hadn't grown that much when they first met, only a few centimeters, so this was still very comfortable for the both of them. No matter how much they changed, how much older they got, this would still be so, incredibly, comfortable. Her head on his chest, his aura around hers, the sound of his heart beat in her ears.
She wouldn't have traded it for the world.
"Yuck! Stop being so gross!" said Shigeo
"Don't be like that, Shigeo, one day you'll meet a gir- a someone who you care this much about." Said Serizawa. He was about to tell him that he would meet a girl out of reflex. He didn't care who his son ended up with, just that he was happy. That was something that he had learned over the years, at the end of the day you could only want their happiness. You didn't give them whatever they wanted, like letting them lock themselves away in their rooms for fifteen years, but you did your best to make them happy in a healthy sort of way.
Which was why he didn't forbid his son from seeing his fath-from seeing Reigen. Reigen who had managed to live with a very gross curse stuck to his back, gross enough that Shigeo had seen it at a distance and run off to do something about it without telling anyone where he was going and damn near giving his mother and father a heart attack each. Shigeo had a gift, a curse, for making friends. He attached himself to everyone and anyone and he was hard to shake once he got it into his head that he liked you.
He decided that he liked Reigen.
And Serizawa…he had never wanted to see Reigen Arataka again in his life after what had happened, what he had done with Shigeko…before and after he realized that the woman he had been singing the praises of, had been in love with, had wanted to spend the rest of his life with was Kageyama Shigeko. Serizawa Shigeko. It was a city of two million people, running into each other should have been almost impossible, but it had happened. Fate was funny, that way, in the sense that objectively it must have been funny in a mean spirited sort of way. Him raising Reigen's….Reigen Arataka's….son…biological son…for almost a decade without incident, without the boy in question ever having any questions. Questions regarding why his hair was different than everyone else's in texture and even color, why his eyes were blue when everyone else's were brown, why he was so outgoing when the rest of his family might as well have been made up of hermit crabs…
Damn it, Shigeo, why do you have to be so nice all the time? So helpful? So-
Because Shigeko is your mother, that's why.
"Nope. Never going to happen. I'm going to grow up and live all alone like Uncle Minegishi and do whatever I want whenever I want it. I am not marrying a girl and having a baby, not ever, I've had enough of babies thank you very much. I'd rather have plants, or hamsters, or rocks." Said Shigeo with an air of finality that he could have only gotten from Shigeko's mother.
"Alright kiddo, enjoy living in solitude for the rest of your life. Drop us a line from wherever you end up in this crazy, mixed up, sideways, upside down, citrus flavored world." said Sho bopping him on the head with a balloon. Shigeo put up a barrier and crossed his arms.
"That is not what those are for, Uncle Sho, and you know it. If you aren't going to take this seriously then you can go and play Mario Kart with Yuzuko and Ritsuko and Hanako and Katsuko." Said Shigeo
"Really? Well if you insist!" said Sho before he made like he was going to take off. Ritsu grabbed him by the collar and passed him some tape. Ritsu had said, on a few occasions, that the children were spoiled. Mob didn't think so and neither did Serizawa. When you loved someone you gave them whatever they wanted because you wanted nothing more than their happiness.
She wanted nothing more than her husband's, the father of her children's, and the love of her…the person she loved's, happiness.
And he felt the same. Which was why he hadn't demanded a divorce when she told him that she wanted to make contact, friendly contact, with Reigen. Even though he would have been fully within his rights to. Even though she would have understood if he wanted to, if he thought that she was going to be unfaithful again, if he thought that she was still in love with Reigen. She had thought about it, passing thoughts in the middle of the night when she had stared up at the ceiling and gone over every single thing that she had ever done wrong in her life, what her life would have been like if they had divorced, never married, never slept together in the first place…not thoughts to indulge. This was her life now and she had to make the most of this.
Her life was her own.
He had told her that, Reigen, all those years ago. He had meant that she had to be her own person, she knew that, but that was not the only meaning that could have been taken from his words. She was responsible for her own life. She was the only one who could be held responsible for everything that had happened and it was on her to make the best of it. Which she was. She had a family who loved her and who she loved in return. It was her son's birthday party. Her daughter's would be coming up in a few weeks…thought that one would have been less stressful.
She hadn't invited Reigen to that party.
"It's going to be fine. We have enough food for everyone, we cleared the noise with the neighbors, a lot of things from Shigeo's Amazon wish list, the things he really wanted, got picked out so he'll he happy about that, all of his friends sent their RSVPs. It'll…it'll be fine. Even if the apartment is going to be full of people….Sho and your brother will help us…and it'll all be-" said Serizawa even though he really, really, really was not looking forward to this party. So many people, so much happening, just…so much. The girls' parties were always more subdued. A few friends and friends of the family, cake and ice cream, singing, presents, and then everyone said their goodbyes. Simple. Easy.
"That's not what I'm nervous about. Katsuya…you said that you had no problem with me saying that…he…could come…and Shigeo already invited him anyway and he's…he's never been to a single one of Shigeo's birthday parties…and now I realize what a bad idea this was." Said Mob
"That's…I mean if Shigeo wants him here and he doesn't…suspect…then it'll be fine. Really. I have no problem with this…I can't speak for Sho or your brother but it's going to be a big party, it always is, so it'll…it's going to be fine. Really." Said Serizawa. He was an adult, they were all adults, and if Reigen wanted to celebrate the occasion of Shigeo's birth than that was totally fine, really it was. Nothing wrong with coming out to show his support. They could all do it. They could all be friends. That was what this was, a celebration for family and friends.
Of which Reigen was somehow both and neither.
Reigen had no idea what he was even doing.
He had Mob's, Shigeko's, Mrs. Serizawa's address. His phone had given him the correct directions. Now he was here in front of a nondescript grey building in a decent neighborhood with a sign on the front glass doors that declared Serizawa Shigeo's birthday party to be taking place in apartment 220. Someone had even drawn a map, some child, maybe him…or not. There was a lot of pink, and glitter, and cat stickers…but, hey, that could have been him. Reigen didn't know. He had always been partial to pink his whole life.
He had still wrapped the kid's present in blue paper, though.
Because he didn't know much about the kid who he had met by chance and now, occasionally, followed him around when they ran into each other. Or maybe the kid sought him out. There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. One day he'd just be minding his own business going to the store to pick up a back of smokes or getting some dinner or just taking a walk and the kid would suddenly be there, talk his ear off about something, usually a game or something his pets did or something that happened with his friends or how weird his sisters could be, he got the kid something cheap and nutrition-less for dinner, and then they parted ways.
It was always painful.
Because the kid looked exactly like him. Well he looked a lot like Mob. Black hair, not jet black like hers but nowhere near blond, pale skin, soft voice, long fingers, and even that same bowl cut though his hair was a lot shorter than Mob's had ever been…and she had cut her hair at some point in the time they had been apart…but her hair had never been as short as the kid's. That was because he was a boy. A son. Her son.
His son.
It had all but been confirmed for him in that first meeting….he had a son…and nobody had told him! anger came then as it did whenever he dwelled on it. Mob and Serizawa had both gone no contact with him, or maybe it had been mutual, but one day out of the blue he just…they could have said something! Anything! Because he had spent the past ten years of his life wallowing in a pool of his own self-pity. He occasionally climbed out and tried to live his life properly. He had gotten another soul crushing sales job, he hated it but he was good at it, made an effort to drink less, and had even tried his hand at dating. Actual dating, not one night stands in seedy love hotels. Women, this time, women his own age. Not teenage girls.
Actually he had made an effort to avoid all teenage girls for the rest of his life.
That was not a part of himself that he liked to acknowledge. He had been attracted to Mob and only Mob. He never gave himself another chance to be attracted to someone her age. He wanted to be with her, he loved her, and no matter how hard he had tried over the years he had never once stopped loving her. Not when she chose Serizawa over him. Not when she had stopped returning his calls and texts. Not even when she introduced him to her family, the one she had made with Serizawa.
Mob had five kids.
Four girls and a boy. He hadn't ever properly met the girls, all were shy like their dad it seemed, but he did know, somewhat, Shigeo. Mob's son. His….he had a son. A son that he…he had no idea that he had…but he was not going to yell at Mob about it even though he had spent so many nights lying awake in bed thinking about all of the awful things that he could have said to her, that he would have, but that he knew better than to ever say to her.
He wanted her back.
But that was not going to happen. She was married. She had five kids with another on the way. A sister-cousin for Shigeo. Mob was still so sweet, so wonderful, so giving. Reigen didn't think that he could do it, have a kid only to give it up, and he hadn't even been given a choice. If he'd been given a choice he would have been there for Shigeo. He would have taken Mob in to live with him if she needed it and he would have married her…event though he would have been a grown man married to a teenage girl…and he would have been a father to their child…no. That was just wishful thinking. In reality he would have asked Mob, begged her to, have an abortion. She was not ready at fifteen to be a mother and he was not ready at twenty nine to be a father and the whole thing would have been a complete and total shit show if she had gone through with the pregnancy-
Serizawa had risen to the occasion.
Reigen had never given him enough credit. Even when they had been friends he had always put Serizawa down, in his thoughts, and that was just unfair. Nobody should have felt that way about their friend. Ever. Even if that friend had stolen the love of his life from him. Serizawa was stronger than Reigen had ever imagined. He had been strong enough to raise another man's child for a decade, Serizawa was not stupid he knew where Shigeo came from, he had to…and he had still raised the kid.
He was strong.
Or maybe he was just weak when it came to Mob.
Wasn't everyone? He was weak, then, too. Too weak to enter a stupid apartment building and wish his own son a happy birthday. Too weak to be able to be in the same room as Mob for more than five minutes before he couldn't take it anymore, the mixture of anger and despair and love, too weak to-
Reigen moved his feet.
He opened the glass doors, found the elevator, and followed the arrows taped to the hallway walls on the second floor until he got to the scene of a disaster, it sounded like, or a mass murder. Mob's apartment. A dull roar could already be heard and he wondered, maybe, if it would cover up the sound of his hasty retreat. If maybe he should just leave his present by the door and run away…no. He couldn't. This was his son's birthday. The kid wanted him there, Mob wanted him there, and Serizawa had no problem with it.
He opened the door.
And was promptly shoved out onto his ass.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing here?!" Ah yes, how could he have forgotten? The little brother. The not so little brother, now. He hadn't seen Kageyama Ritsu since he was fourteen years old. He must have been about twenty five, now, and the years had been good to him. Even sprawled out on the ground Reigen could tell that Ritsu stood at least half a head taller than him. The perils of being on the short side, former angry teenage boys, now angry grown men, didn't even need psychic powers to make you want to piss yourself in fear.
"Answer me!" said Ritsu as he hauled Reigen to his feet with his powers. Oh no. Oh FUCK no. This guy…what the fuck was with this guy!? Millions of women in this city and he had to go and bother Shigeko! Nope. Nuh-huh. This was not ok. He hadn't been able to protect his big sister all those years ago when they were kids and this guy…this guy ended up ruining her life! She had to marry Serizawa because of this guy! She had to because this guy had just gotten her pregnant and left her high and dry like Ritsu had known he would! Serizawa was weird for having been into his sister, Ritsu had a daughter on the way now and he knew that he would literally murder any grown men who showed that kind of interest in her love be damned, but at least Serizawa had stuck around and been there for her through everything! Especially the kid that Reigen hadn't wanted to take responsibility for!
"Mob-" said Reigen before he was slammed into the wall behind him. Find. Let Ritsu toss him around. He wasn't the one who was going to have to pay for the damages plus Reigen hospital bills. For once Reigen hadn't done a damned thing to earn this kid's ire. Well…no. The kid, Shigeo, that was on Mob. She hadn't told him and she had gone through with having him. Reigen hadn't asked her to keep an entire human being a secret from him for a decade!
"Don't call her that! Do not ever call my sister that again….ever." said Ritsu. He was a kid, for a moment then, and so was Shigeko. Mob. Nobody had called her that since she had gotten married…when she was a kid…and he was a kid….and it was all Reigen's fault!
"Fine, Shigeko-" said Reigen
"No. You do not get to call her by her given name." said Ritsu lowly. He wanted to end Reigen right there…but he knew that if he did then he'd get arrested and thrown in prison and held ruin his nephew's birthday party and also he'd never see his adoptive daughter/ biological niece grow up…so killing Reigen or even injuring him were out…because he was an adult, now, and not an angry little kid too blinded by his own feelings to have any control over himself.
"Mrs. Serizawa invited me…and so did Shigeo-" said Reigen. Ritsu balled his fists at his side and Reigen braced himself for the hit that he was sure was coming. It may have, if Ritsu's little anger problem hadn't been dealt with in the ten years since he'd last seen him, but the dinging of the elevator and heavy footsteps carrying down the hallway saved him.
"Hi Mr. Kageyama! Hi other Mister!" said a kid as he ran past them, threw the door opened, and let it swing shut behind him. Ritsu, who had been about to hit Reigen, seemed to come to his sense. His posture became more neutral and his eyes had less of a crazy glint to them. Heavy footsteps plodded down the hallway and some light, caught off of the shiny wrapping paper of a gift, hit Reigen in the eye.
"Mr. Kageyama, can you get the door for me? I'm afraid my hands are a bit full. I hope that you don't mind, I brought just a few things so that Mrs. Serizawa wouldn't have to cook in her condition…oh! I'm sorry, I hadn't realized that you'd gotten another roommate. I'm Iz-" said a woman about Reigen's age completely over encumbered by warming trays. She seemed to be about the right age to have a child….a child as old as his son…as Mob's son. Mob had aged so well…because she wasn't even thirty yet….not line or wrinkle anywhere. Her hair might have been shorter and she might have gained some weight but time seemed to have been passing her by…because she hadn't even hit thirty…yet…
"The party's inside, my sister or her husband will help you with the food." Said Ritsu. Well now a different sort of anger was settling inside of him…and it was already mixing with the anger that Reigen was responsible for….and now he really was in danger of spending his nephew's birthday party in lockup because Reigen was still there.
"Leave. Now. Before I do something that I'll regret." Said Ritsu
"I was invited-" said Reigen
"I don't give a fuck! Ok?! You are going to…to fuck everything up! Just leave my sister alone already! Haven't you ruined her life enough! This is all your fault!" said Ritsu motioning around himself. He didn't have time to give Reigen a comprehensive list of all of the ways he had ruined Shigeko's life, from the teenage pregnancy, the fact that she never went to university, the marriage to Serizawa, the way too many kids, the strained relationship between her and their parents…hell, the fact that his parents had been on the brink of divorce for decades! The fact that mom had spent his teen years in various states of drunkenness! The fact that dad checked out of the family after Shigeo was born! The fact that if it weren't for Reigen then maybe he would have had a better relationship with his own parents, it had been Reigen's fault that Shigeko had outed him in the first place! Hell, Reigen was the reason that he and Sho almost broke up, too, since Sho had sided with Serizawa and Ritsu had sided with his sister after Shigeo had been born with blue eyes and brown hair and-and-and he loved the kid and this was not about him! He could not control who his father was!
"The fact that your landlord hasn't updated the wallpaper or carpeting in this hallway since I was your age is my fault?" asked Reigen sarcastically. It was an impulse. He was corner. Ritsu had him cornered and when he got cornered the first thing he lost control of was his mouth. It wasn't the best move because before he knew it Ritsu had him practically by the throat…
Yup. There was that crazy glint in his eyes again.
"You ruined my sister's life. You ruined my family's lives. You almost cost me the love of my life. Get. The. Fuck. Out." Said Ritsu. He could see his aura, which meant that it was visible, which meant that one of the many people who could see auras would come out to investigate…and he hoped to God that it wouldn't be one of the kids..
It was worse.
"Are you seriously that pissed about the quiche? I mean, yeah, who the hell brings…quiche…to a kid's…party…?" said Sho as he went out to the hallway to investigate why, exactly, his husband's was lighting up the building like the end of a summer festival. He assumed that it was because the kids were being loud and kind of annoying. Not to Sho, of course, he loved kids and he loved being the kid wrangler…and he wished, now, that Ritsu had been freaking out by the kids being little terrors….
No way.
No fucking way.
He had better control than Ritsu when it came to these things. He didn't say another word, he just pried Ritsu's fingers away from Reigen's throat. There was no way that Sho was letting Ritsu get himself arrested at Shigeo's birthday party. His sisters had already overwrote his save files and showed his friends the stuffed cat he slept with, the kid did not need this on top of all of that. Also Ritsu would have gone to prison, esper prison, which according to dad was way worse than regular prison.
"Hey, come on, I've got this. You just go inside and hold down the fort. Serizawa's about to have a heart attack and you're sister's taking one of her thrice hourly pee breaks. Someone's got to guard the cake and I think you'll do a better job than me. Hurry up before Hanako gets her fingers in it." Said Sho softly. He held Ritsu's hand in his. He didn't care who saw, not really. All he cared about was keeping Ritsu safe from himself and containing what was sure to turn into an unmitigated disaster if not dealt with now. Sho had gone up against the entirety of Claw, including his own father, when he was just thirteen years old. He could handle kicking Reigen out.
He had been such a cool guy. Before he seduced Ritsu's big sis and made her break Serizawa's heart into a million pieces. But he forgave her. She thought with her dick, metaphorically speaking, but she had said sorry and Serizawa had forgiven her and Shigeo was a great kid despite who his father was so, really, the only person left to be angry with was Reigen.
Because being angry with Ritsu's big sis had almost cost him the love of his life.
"I'm handling this." said Ritsu softly. Sho pressed his forehead against his husbands.
"Ritsu, you've done a lot, let me take it from here. The kid…if someone's going to get it for fucking up Shigeo's birthday party then let it be me. Come on, you have farther to fall than I do Mr. Responsible, Has a Job and a Uni Degree, Uncle." Said Sho, his head still pressed against Ritsu's. Reigen was taken aback by the blatantly intimate gesture. He was also happy for them, at the back of his mind, because those two had made it.
"If you need me, call me." Said Ritsu softly. He needed to cool off. He needed one of those beers in the adults only cooler. Or two. Or ten. No, not so many. He'd have to run interference so that sister or Serizawa didn't find out that Reigen had just shown up out of the blue. Ritsu knew that the signs and the Friendbook page for the party had been a bad idea…and he knew that Reigen was lying about being invited. He had eleven years to start being a father to his son, why start now?
"So, I take it that this is for Shige? Unless it's a late birthday present for me, that is." Said Sho as he picked up a slightly dented birthday present hastily wrapped, it seemed, in plain blue paper. Shigeo liked purple, all of Serizawa's kids did.
"It's for Shigeo, and I really was invited-" said Reigen. Sho didn't say anything, he just opened the door and went inside the apartment. Reigen was, momentarily, deafened as he caught a glimpse of the insanity inside of that party. There were kids everywhere, some were doing swan dives off of a TV stand and onto the couch, some were chasing each other around with silly string, and one was just standing in the middle of it all with a thousand yard stare and a bowl of cheesy chips clutched in her arms.
That one looked like Mob.
Hair like a poodle, sure, but still Mob's. He craned his neck to try and get a glimpse inside, deeper inside, to see his…to see Mob's son. The crowd was so thick…and the kids kept on running around…and if he went in, he wanted to go in, he had been invited to this fucking bedlam that was a kid's party, but he didn't.
He didn't want to spend the rest of the day in the emergency room…or the morgue,
A soon as the door closed it opened again and before he could get another glimpse at the chaos a paper plate was shoved into his arms and a party had was plopped down onto his head. The elastic band slapped him on the back of the head, hard, and Reigen suspected that it might have been intentional on Sho's part.
"Well it looks like it's getting late, maybe you ought to start hitting the road, huh Reigen? Here's a to go plate, hope you like quiche, canapes, and fruit salad. We aren't doing gifts yet but we'll take pictures and you can see Shige open yours on Friendbook…or better yet I'll mail them to you. Well, so nice to see you, but I think my husband might be dying in there so…later!" said Sho. He turned to leave. Reigen knew that the smart thing to do would have been to let him leave, let him go through that door and leave Reigen out in the hallway where he belonged…but since when had he ever done the smart thing?
"She did invite me you know. Mob. Shigeko. Mrs. Serizawa." said Reigen quietly. He knew Sho…well he had known Sho over a decade ago. He had been a good kid, a little hyper and occasionally annoying but still a good kid. He had been the only one, besides Mob, to temper Ritsu's more violent impulses. He could, maybe, be reasoned with.
"I don't care, ok? Just…stop it. Stop trying to get with her, ok?" said Sho
"I'm not trying to-" said Reigen
"Come on, why else would you be coming around her after all this time? And don't give me some spiel about wanting to be a father to Shige. He's got a father, Serizawa, and the position of Uncle has been taken as well so you can just beat it, ok? Just…leave Ritsu's big sis alone." Said Sho
"I'm not here to try and…and get with Mob. She's married, now, and…and you're right, I am here for Shigeo. I know that I can never be a father to him…not that I ever had the chance…but I can be a…friend…I guess." Said Reigen. He tried to appeal to the good heart that he knew Sho must have still had under there. He looked like he was still the same kid, pale and gangly with hair that defied gravity, just taller. He had always been a nice kid, a good kid, and surely he could have found it in his heart to-
Laugh in Reigen's face.
"Do you hear that? That kid in there has enough friends for TWO lifetimes, he doesn't need another one, ok? And I'm not dumb. You're still into Ritsu's big sis, I've seen enough of Ritsu's dramas to know how this is going to play out. You come in after all of these years and all kinds of feelings are rekindled and then you sweep her off her feet and she divorces her husband and you and her play house. I watch TV, I know what happens in these situation." Said Sho
"This isn't television, this is real life, and I am not after Mob…I'm not. I just…you know I had no idea that I even had a kid, right? For ten goddamned years I had no idea that I even had a son and Mob…you know she had no plans of telling me, right? You know she still hasn't come out and just…said…it? Right?" asked Reigen
"Why should we go around talking about something we already know to be true? Seems like a waste of words to me." Said Sho
"He doesn't know…and I know not to tell him. You're right…he has a father…and I am not that man to him but…he's still my son and-" said Reigen
"So? You weren't the one who Ritsu's big sis was with when she was pushing him out of herself. Hell, I was there and you weren't…and don't give me that crap about you not knowing. You were into her. You were always all in her business and stuff, you knew, but that's fine. Sometimes parents leave, sometimes fathers are pieces of shit, sometimes mothers-" said Sho
"Your fucked up parents are not everyone else's fucked up parents, ok? Get it through you thick skull. I. Did. Not. Know. Ok? I had no idea that I had a son…and now I do. Just…imagine you have a son-" said Reigen
"I have a daughter on the way." said Sho crossing his arms. He hoped that Shoko never got herself into these jams. He used to think that love was just love, and he still kind of thought that, he knew that Serizawa was a good guy…but Reigen wasn't. If Shoko ended up with a guy a million years older than her Sho hoped that it was a guy like Serizawa, not Reigen…or a girl, too. He had no room to judge and no desire to make those kinds of judgements.
"Fine. Imagine that…it's yours, right? Not Ritsu's? The kid I mean." Said Reigen. Sho give him his best 'what in the ever loving fuck?' face.
"Yeah….because otherwise the kid would be born with, like, gills or horns or a tail or something….." said Sho slowly.
"Just asking, just asking. I mean the term sister-cousin was thrown around a lot…not half-sister…so, yeah." Said Reigen. Of course he only had the word of an eleven year old to go off of when it came to this.
"Well Shoko would be the kids' sister cousin because I'm their uncle and Ritsu's big sis is her mom and it's her egg and insidey parts, too." Said Sho
"Why not get an egg donor just to keep confusion down?" asked Reigen
"Because I wanted it to share blood with Ritsu and his parents. They kept on going on and on about how the Kageyama name would die with him and shit like that so she's going to be Kageyama Shoko on her birth certificate, maybe, if they'll let us. I don't know, it's so stupid, the kids automatically get the father's family name unless he's unnamed on the birth certificate and this kid isn't Serizawa's and I'm not you, so….yeah." said Sho
"….I really didn't know, you know, about Shigeo. I didn't know and…and I want to be in his life in some capacity. It's like if Mob took this baby from you and hid it." Said Reigen
"….like a kidnapping?" asked Sho
"No, I mean…like if you got her pregnant and-" said Reigen
"Whoa! Hold up! First of all, I would never cheat on Ritsu even if you held a gun to my dick and second of all I would never do that to Serizawa either, same circumstances, and third of all I don't even like girls like that! Hence the whole marriage ceremony but no license thing and the extra complicated taxes, too." Said Sho
"Not literally! Just…ok…pretend you're straight and you're single and Mob's single and you get her pregnant and it's that same kid, Shoko, right? Growing inside of her only you have no fucking clue that she's pregnant…and also she's been sleeping with, in a relationship with, your best friend…and you love her…but she drops all contact with you and you get over her but then you run into her and your best friend and almost half a dozen kids just…out in the world….and it's all like, why the fuck does this kid look like me?! And-" said Reigen losing his patience. Yup. Sho hadn't changed. The one kid who could always send his patience meter straight to zero without even trying. Well, man, now. Sho hadn't grown up it seemed, he had just grown taller.
"Hey, what are you kids looking at?" asked Sho. Reigen shut up immediately. There, at the end of the hallway, was a group of kids around Shigeo's age gawking at the sight before them.
"Nothing, Mr. Suzuki." Said one of the kids. The others nodded in agreement.
"Good. Now come in, party's in here! Hurry up before you miss, well, everything." Said Sho motioning to the door. The kids rushed past them and threw the door opened. The hallway was filled, once again, with the dull roar of an eleven year old's birthday party. Reigen caught sight of the inside of the apartment again. He wanted to go in, to see his son, to see where his son was living and who his friends were and if he was…if he was happy. Even though Reigen could hear, with his own ears, and see with his own eyes that the kid was happy but he wanted to know if the kid was actually…actually happy. If he'd had a good life. If he had been happy. He knew, from the few times the kid would find him and give him the comprehensive 'Serizawa Shigeo' report that he…there were things that made him happy and things that made him unhappy…but Reigen just wanted to know…
Was Shigeo anything like him?
He'd been an unhappy child. There had been so much bullshit going on in his life when he was eleven. His parents had hated each other and finally gotten that divorce that they had so desperately needed….and at the time he hadn't taken it well even though it had to happen…but Shigeo was different. His home life was different…even though Reigen had no idea what that home life really was. He had no idea what his son…what he really felt. What he liked to eat for breakfast. If he truly didn't get along with his siblings or if…or if it was just normal eleven year old stuff. He had no idea, still, what his son even considered to be normal eleven year old stuff. Mob had considered exorcisms and evil spirits to be normal when she was his age…
Mob had been eleven when he'd first met her.
And now she was pushing thirty.
And he had gotten so old. He had gotten old and the kids had just gotten older. They had gotten taller. They were still the same. He wondered if his son had grown older or taller. He wondered if his son was growing to go old and wise or taller, just taller, while still staying the same. Reigen knew that he hadn't grown older and wiser, no, he had just grown taller, well, fatter over the years. He was still the same person, the same idiot, that he had always been.
"I imagined it and it hurts. Ok, so you're hurt and I'm sorry that you're hurt and I'm sorry if Ritsu's big sis kept…kept him from you…but you have got to realize that the past is in the past and…and if you come back then all of that shit is going to start up again. She…Ritsu's big sis already cheated with you, twice, and I know that it's none of my goddamned business what you guys do but it also kind of is seeing as how last time you got Ritsu's big sis to sleep with you my best friend almost spent the rest of his life in his room and my husband and I almost broke up so, yeah, I'm making this my business and-" said Sho. He was not Ritsu, he was not going to kick Reigen's ass because that would have been counterproductive. Reigen was a guy who respected words and words were what Sho was going to give him. Well he would have kept on giving him if the door hadn't opened again.
"Sho? Who are you fighting with?" asked Mob as she opened the door just a crack. It was so loud in there, too loud, that she welcome the distraction. Even though this distraction was not entirely welcomed. This was…she saw him. She had seen him before, of course, but it never failed to knock her over, the fact that he had gotten so much older. She had expected him to stay the same, as he had in her mind, but of course he didn't. His hair had some silver in it and his face had some lines and he had gained some weight…he was about forty or so, now, so of course he would have changed. Of course he wouldn't have been the same as he had been when they had met, when she had been Shigeo's age, time stopped for no one.
Too much time had passed.
She wished that it hadn't but it had. Eleven years had passed and now…now it was this. He was there and he was older and she was older and everyone was older. It was a birthday party, a celebration of getting older, though she didn't have much to celebrate. Not for herself, no, but for her son. This was his celebration. The apartment was full of his friends, friends and people he had collected…and at some point his father, his actual father, had become one of those people in his life who he'd collected and invited to this celebration of the passage of yet another year.
"Mob…I mean Shigeko….or Mrs. Serizawa…I guess…" said Reigen softly. There she was. He had seen her before, of course, and it never failed to shock him, just a little, that she wasn't fifteen years old anymore. Almost thirty. Taller. Shorter hair. Big as a house…not a nice thought to have but, yes, she was big as a house. She was bigger because there was another human being growing inside of herself. She had grown…she was growing….another human being within herself so, yes, she had an excuse for being like…that.
He didn't, unless you counted his terrible diet as an excuse.
"Mob is fine, or Shigeko, I don't really care. Reigen…thank you for coming. Shigeo will be happy to see you." Said Mob trying her best to sound polite. She hadn't accounted for how Ritsu and Sho would have reacted. She had thought, hoped, that those hard feelings were long gone. That it had been enough time, enough time had gone by, that it had all been forgotten. But of course it had not been forgotten. It would never be forgotten…and she had been so dumb to think that just because eleven years had gone by it would all be forgotten. The past wasn't in the past at all, no, the past was standing in her hallway wearing a birthday hat and arguing with her little brother in law.
"Don't worry, Big Sis, I'm kicking this guy out. I mean, I know that you didn't actually invite him-" said Sho
"I did. Well Shigeo invited him first and then I said, I asked Katsuya, and he said that it was ok. It really is, Sho, ok? You don't have…have to worry." Said Mob. Her aura reached out to Sho's. He shook his head.
"Come on, you don't have to lie to me." Said Sho
"I'm telling the truth. Reigen…I invited him to Shigeo's last birthday, too, and he didn't come but I'm happy that he's here, now, because….all of that stuff is over. I made mistakes, a lot of mistakes, but all of that is over now and…and I can handle this, ok? So please just…can you go in and save Ritsu and Katsuya? There are a lot of kids in there and it's freaking Katsuko out." Said Mob. Her eyes never left Reigen and Reigen's eyes never left hers. She wished that she could have said something like she had forgotten how blue his eyes were, or something, but of course she hadn't. Not when she had been seeing it every single day for the past eleven years….
"I can't do this….and neither can….I don't know. Just…don't fuck up again, I guess." Said Sho for lack of anything else. He chose to believe, then, that Ritsu's big sis was not at all into Reigen. That was something that he had to believe otherwise they were all going to go back to square one and that wouldn't have been good for the kids. Any of the kids. Her kids…and his kid. He knew how fast families could fall apart and he was not going to lose this one…but he was also not a kid anymore. People could handle themselves and he did not need to be sticking himself into their business. No, he didn't need to be right there but he could be on standby in case Reigen decided to try…anything. Shigeo was his kid, after all, and even his own father had tried to see him and be more of a father to him after the whole world domination thing…and Reigen wasn't even half the asshole that dad was…so maybe this would all be ok.
And if not, well, that would really suck for everyone involved.
"Well that was certainly…pleasant." Said Reigen after Sho disappeared through the door. He tried, again, to catch a glimpse of the chaos but saw only, well, chaos. Chaos without his son in it. Chaos that involved kids hitting each other with what looked like pool noodles and screaming.
"I'm sorry that Ritsu and Sho were mean to you. I didn't…I forgot to tell them…or maybe I thought that if I didn't tell them then maybe it wouldn't be so bad." Said Mob. She rested her hands on her stomach, then, because she was so nervous that Shoko was trying to kick her way out and into the world a couple weeks too early. Shigeo had been like that, too. The others had just sort of gone along for the ride. Yuzuko, if anything, had stayed along for too long. Shoko wasn't like that. She wanted out and so did Mob…sort of. She wanted to be there, with him, with Reigen, and she also wanted to run away and hide because she still wanted…
There was a difference between what she wanted and what was the right thing to do. She knew this now.
"Mob…hey. Just…hey. How've you…been?" asked Reigen staring at her stomach even though he knew that he shouldn't have. It was like his brain was glitching out. There was the image he had of Mob, his Mob, as she had been when she had actually been HIS…and then there was Mob as she existed in the present. He so rarely saw her, hell he so rarely texted her, and now she was there and…and he still loved her so much.
Even pregnant with another man's child, even with the sound her own other children's voices ringing in his hears, he still loved her.
"Fine. Tired. Very tired." Said Mob
"I can see why. So, is it a party in there or a circus?" asked Reigen
"I don't even know anymore. Shigeo…he has a lot of friends." Said Mob. He flinched when he said his son's, her son's, their son's, name. She wondered what he would have called Shigeo had he been there. He might not have even liked his name…nobody did. Everyone said that it was uncreative. She didn't get it. Shigeo, child of Shigeko. It made sense. That way people knew that he was her son. Like Shoko, daughter of Sho. At least someone got it. She wondered if Reigen would have gotten it. He wondered what Reigen would have called their son…
That didn't matter now.
"Yeah…that's a lot of kids in there…not that I, you know, saw it. They were nice enough to give me some food, at least, before kicking me out." Said Reigen motioning towards his party plate of appetizers that he was amazed someone would think to bring to an eleven year old boy's birthday party. Hell, the kid might have liked it, even. He didn't know much about his own kid. Shigeo didn't usually talk about himself, just things in his life that he had a problem with, and he also asked his own incessant questions. Nothing that Reigen wasn't prepared to answer, no, and nothing that Shigeo shouldn't have been asking.
"You can…Shigeo invited you so you can come in if you want." Said Mob
"Mob…I want to…but I can't." said Reigen. Selfish. Him, wanting to be there, was selfish. He had been selfish…he had spent his entire life being selfish. He had bene selfish to love her, selfish to reject her, selfish to take her to bed, and selfish to do it again a second time, and selfish to want to do it again even now. Selfish. Not that she hadn't been selfish, then…but she'd had an excuse. She had been young, fifteen, and had been by nature a selfish person. Now she was a grown woman and him…he was probably the last thing on her mind. What they'd had.
Why else would she have kept this from him for all of these years.
"Why not? The door isn't opened and Shigeo…he'll be happy to see you." Said Mob. Shigeo was, currently, chasing his friends around with silly string. At least he had stopped using his powers. He might not even have noticed Reigen, at this point, but the gesture was still nice…
"I get the feeling that it won't be such a good idea." Said Reigen rubbing his neck with his free hand. He did not feel like getting beaten up. No way. As much as he wanted to be in there, to see his son, he knew…it would be a bad idea. Not that he was going to say anything that he shouldn't have, that would have been selfish and stupid, but he just wanted to…to see him. He just appeared, sometimes, when he would be out and about in the world…but that wasn't enough. He didn't even have a picture…
"Let me decide that. I invited you so…do I get to decide if you can come in." Said Mob. She knew that this wasn't the best idea but Shigeo…but she wanted to see him. She had been wanting to see him for so…just to see him. Nothing more. She had missed him. He had been such a bug part of her life and then…and then she had to go and ruin it all…but maybe they could have a second chance.
At something.
But not what she wanted.
"So now you're saying I can?" asked Reigen bitterly
"I feel like you're saying two things there. You know I'm not good at this sort of thing, these talking sorts of things, so please just say what you mean and mean what you say." Said Mob
"Fine. Mob…I've been wanting to…to ask you why you never told me? You had ten years to tell me about him but you didn't." said Reigen trying his best to stay calm.
"Because…because I couldn't. I wanted to be with you so badly but I couldn't…I wanted to be with you but if I left Katsuya I would have been breaking his heart and I couldn't do that. I asked him to break up with me, to not love me anymore, but he said that he couldn't. He said that he would love me no matter what…and I guess that I wanted to hear that. I don't know, I was fifteen and I thought that I was an adult. You were right, you know." Said Mob
"About what?" asked Reigen
"That I wasn't ready, that I was too young. I was, I really was. I thought that relationships were…I didn't know about all of the adults parts. Not just the…intimacy…but all of the other parts, too. I thought that because I was doing so many adult things that I was an adult and I…I knew that I had made a mistake but I thought that I should have been grateful that someone loved me-" said Mob
"I loved you." Said Reigen. He meant it. He loved her from the very beginning and he had been selfish to reject her. She had been selfish to lay her heart down at his feet when she was only fifteen and he had no choice but to initially reject her but she…she could have waited but she didn't.
But there was no sense in going over ancient history.
"I loved….I loved you too…but you rejected me and I…I was fifteen and stupid and I had something to prove and then…and then all of this happened. Ok? I'm sorry that I didn't tell you about Shigeo but how could I? I'm sorry-" said Mob
"But." Said Reigen
"But?" asked Mob
"But. You always say that you're sorry but there's always a 'but' at the end." Said Reigen
"So? I am sorry but I couldn't tell you about Shigeo because it…my life was already…I was fifteen years old, married, and I had a baby. I didn't seen any point in telling you that my son had blue eyes. That wasn't even proof….lots of babies are born with blue eyes and Katsuya has no idea who his father was. He's got mixed ancestry to Shigeo….he didn't look as much like you when he was born. He looked like-" said Mob
"He looked like an angry, red, potato. Not a red potato but a normal one with eczema, so glad that cleared up by way." Mob turned so fast she almost made herself sick. She had been so absorbed in what she was doing that she didn't even noticed Minegishi get within her range. She colored a bit in embarrassment. Right. Maybe carrying on right in front of her doorway was not the best place for this conversation.
"Hi Minegishi…you remember Reigen, right? We were just-" said Mob
"Don't mind me, I'm just going to drop this off for the little monster and tell him happy birthday. You couldn't pay me to sit through a kid's birthday party, even with the show." Said Minegishi walking past them. He'd heard enough. Well now, he could see a lot of long whine fests about the state of her relationship coming. Sometimes it was hard to be best friends with the most powerful esper on Earth but, hey, she wasn't about to fire him any time soon so he'd might as well get used to the job.
"Be careful, Sho bought them a hundred cans of silly string." Said Mob as she made way for Minegishi. Judging by the shape of his gift it was another book. She hoped that Shigeo accepted the gift gracefully…and if not, well, Minegishi would have understood. He was nice, still, even though he insisted that the older he got the meaner he got.
"Mob…Shigeko…this might not be the best place for this." said Reigen after Mob's friend…he knew that guy from somewhere…he'd think about it later, went into the den of chaos. They should not have been having it out right there in the hallway. What would the guests think? What would the neighbors think? What would…right. He was still doing it, wasn't he? Worrying about what everyone else thought…and she was still doing it, too, not giving a fuck what everyone else thought. That was how they had gotten here in the first place.
"No…it's not…but I'm…I am sorry about how it all turned out." Said Mob
"Me too." Said Reigen
"I really am….I mean…sometimes I think about what could have happened. If I had waited for you, if I hadn't gotten with Katsuya, if I hadn't had Shigeo…and the rest of them. I do wonder, sometimes, and I…I am sorry about not telling you." Said Mob
"Mob-" said Reigen
"You're the only one who calls me that, you know. Nobody's called me Mob since…since before Shigeo was born. That was hard, a hard thing to adjust to, being called Shigeko all the time…but it wasn't as hard as being Mrs. Serizawa….I was not ready to be Mrs. Serizawa…I don't even think that I'm ready, now, sometimes…" said Mob
"Then why even go through with it in the first place? And why have so many kids? What, are you guys trying to repopulate Japan or something? I mean I know that the birth rate is falling but, just, why?" asked Reigen
"I guess….back then, when I was pregnant with Shigeo, even before Shigeo I felt like…like there was this one path that adults followed and I just…I wanted to be an adult so badly, more than anything else in the world. I think because…because you said that I was too young for you. I just had something to prove and then I made a mistake…well a few mistakes, actually. I was never good about taking my medicine and it turns out that my powers mess with it too, that's why I have so many children, and then after I figured out that I was pregnant I just…I was trapped. Katsuya was so depressed after I told him about…what happened between us…that second time but when…when I came back from my first doctor's appointment he was so happy…and I didn't want to ruin his life. I didn't want to make him live in his room for the rest of his life…and I still don't. He knows that he's not Shigeo's fath-maker, he doesn't care, and he's been so good to the others…what I want doesn't matter. I have other people to think about." Said Mob
"What you want matters too. You matter, Mob." Said Reigen. He did something stupid, then, and took her hand in his. He had forgotten what a gift it was to be able to hold her hand. He had forgotten how…how truly wonderful it was...
She held his hand back.
"I want….I want a lot of things…" said Mob. She was holding his hand for the first time in eleven years…and she had forgotten what it felt like. What it felt like to love and be loved by him. The joy of it, the warmth, all of it. His love had been less…draining….than her husband's. Less work. Love was…their love was…
"Me too. There are so many things that…that I want…that I've wanted for so long…" said Reigen. He took a step closer to her. She took a step closer to him.
"I…I've missed you so much Mast-Reigen. Reigen." said Mob softly. She could smell him…she hadn't smelled him in so long but there…he had changed aftershaves, cut back on the green tea, and didn't smell even vaguely of incense but the smell, the one that could simply be described as 'Reigen Arataka' lingered on. It transmuted itself from memory to flesh just as he had. It had been flung forwards ten, eleven, years into the future, no, the present…
"Mob…Shigeko….Mob…oh my….oh my God, I have missed you so much too…" said Reigen. His hand, his other hand, found her lower back and the thought, a dangerous thought, enters his mind. He could kiss her. He had forgotten it, almost, the rapturous joy that was a kiss from Mob…and he wanted to remember. He wanted to take that memory and bring it to life…
"Me…too…" said Mob before she took a step forward.
And stopped.
Because she couldn't go forward anymore.
She was too big, now, much too big. A well placed kick from Shoko reminded her where she was….WHO she was. She could not do this. Acting selfishly, acting recklessly, had been what had gotten her life up to this point. She was someone's wife, someone's mother, someone's sister, someone's sister in law…the weight of it all settled right there on her lower back where his hand was.
She stepped back.
She put her hand to her lower back and leaned backwards. Maybe her back hurt. Maybe it didn't. Maybe she was just reminding herself why doing what she had been about to do would have been the worst idea possible. Maybe she was just reminding him. She could so easily get what she wanted, step close, smoosh Shoko, and kiss Reigen…but that was not the thing to do. She was not that person anymore. She wasn't fifteen anymore, she was almost twenty seven now, and she could not act like that. As a child did. As a child had done.
She had been such a child, back then.
But she was not a child now.
"This isn't a good idea." Said Reigen, his eyes never leaving her stomach. Even big with another man's child he still wanted to be with her. Even standing outside of her son's, of their son's birthday party he wanted nothing more than to kiss her and make her his. Selfish. He was still that same selfish man he had always been. He hadn't grown older, no, not at all.
"I-I know." Said Mob
"I should…I should go." Said Reigen. He couldn't handle it. Not after what he had almost done. He could not walk right through that door and be…be whatever it was that he was expected to be for that kid. Not after he had almost just…no. Not the time. He didn't know when the time would come but this would not be it.
"You…you can stay." Said Mob even though she knew that it would be a bad idea. Even after all of this time…she still wanted to be with him. Even after she had grown so much…no, not at all. She was still so, incredibly, selfish.
"No, I'm…I'm going to go. I'll talk to Shigeo later, maybe visit when it's not so…busy. Just…it was good seeing you again, Mob." Said Reigen. He gave her hand one more squeeze before he took off. Down the hall, down the elevator, past some partygoers, and off down the street. He didn't look back, he couldn't look back. Not at her. Not at their son. Not at the life she had. Not at the life…the life that they all could have had together. This was his fault, all of it. He'd missed his shot and now he'd have to live with the consequences.
Something broke inside of him.
It hurt, the familiar hurt, one that he had been trying to avoid for years. She was gone, well and truly gone, and he was the one who had pushed her away. That could have been him, up there, with her but instead he was…he was alone. All alone. And it hurt. He had broken so much between them…broken it al irreparably…
No, she had been the one to make her own choices…
Choices that he had made her make. He was the one who'd had unprotected sex with her on the office couch that night all those years ago. He was the one who couldn't own up to what he had done. He was the one that had rejected her in the first place. He was the one who had broken her heart and sent her running to Serizawa…
He had broken her heart.
He had broken his own heart.
And there was no putting it together. At this point there was nothing that either of them could do. This was life, their lives, their broken lives. There was not enough tape and glue to even begin putting the pieces of their lives together…let alone their hearts. Broken. Totally broken. This had been one to many breaks, the one break too many, and now there…there was no fixing it…
After all, nothing breaks like a heart.