It was amazing how many people could fit around a table.
Rei's mom, his girlfriend's mom, had made a big pot of curry for everyone. Pork curry because she remembered that he liked it. Her mom was nice like that. Her whole family was nice like that. They were nice people….and part of him kind of wished that they weren't. Part of him wished that they had nightly shouting matches. Part of him wished that the atmosphere in Rei's house was so thick that it could be cut with a knife.
But that wasn't what Rei's house was like.
"You can't just pick out the potatoes, stupid, they aren't your personal potatoes."
"I'm not taking all the potatoes, Riko, I just need more because you keep on taking out all the carrot pieces."
"Hey! Company eating rules! Armistice until the Kagyeama's go home. Then we can resume World War Kurosaki."
Ritsu almost rolled his eyes. Rei's mom called this a war? This was nothing. Ritsu knew war, the war at home, and this was nothing compared to that. He had been through a real war, a psychic war, it felt like and this did not even compare to that. His hands shook. He put them down onto his lap.
A hand held his.
Soft, very soft, with pink nails. Her fingers laced themselves within his. A palm pressed against his. An aura pressed against his. Not much of an aura but one that was there. Orange. A soft sort of orange. Not a bright sort of orange, not that artificial orange color that denoted orange flavoring, no, a regular soft sort of orange. Kind of like the inside of an orange, the flesh of it, but she didn't taste like oranges. No, she had just kissed him twenty minutes ago. She had tasted like bubblegum.
He wondered if any of her lip stuff had rubbed off on him again.
That might have been why his mom was practically glaring at Rei. He wondered if mom could tell. He wondered if she could just look at them and tell what they had been getting up to. Not that Ritsu had been getting up to much, not if what the stuff that the guys at school talked about was anything to go off of, but he had been getting up to something that he knew his mom would have freaked out over.
She would have freaked out if she even knew a quarter of what he had gotten up to in these past few days.
"It's fine, I know how kids can be. It's been a…stressful…time for everyone. I'm just glad that Ritsu is alright…and your daughter as well." Said Hana. She knew how strained her voice sounded. She knew that she should not have been scraping her spoon across her plate like she was. She couldn't help it. Like she had just said, it had been a stressful time for everyone. Amazingly enough the stress was still there even though she knew her son was alright. There he was, alive, and unhurt. Even their house was unharmed.
If anything it was cleaner than when she had left it.
So she had no reason to feel like this. It was over. Everything was over. They were letting people back into the city, the internet was working again, and people were starting to shamble back to what was left of their lives. Downtown was ruined, most of it, and as her husband had said the economy would take time to recover, and she had her own work to worry about…but the worst of it was over. Her child was fine and this…this was something that had been coming for a while. It was normal to meet your son's girlfriend's parents.
This was normal.
Even though just a few days ago a delusional terrorist organization, the government's own words, had tried to take over the world. Even though she had come within an inch of losing her son, it seemed, even though according to his girlfriend's mother the kids had slept over with their friends for a day or so before staying at the Kurosaki house. Ritsu had never been in any real danger….well Mrs. Kurosaki had said that when the kids came back their clothes had been in tatters…but her son was fine.
He was sitting there holding hands with his girlfriend like normal.
Normal. This was a normal night. Normal. Normal was a word that she liked. If she tuned out the TV playing in the other room she could have even imagined that nothing had happened. There had been no terrorist organization. Downtown was fine. Her son had never been in danger. Her daughter…she didn't know. Her daughter must have been fine. Ritsu would have said something if something had happened to Shigeko….
Shigeko was fine.
"Yeah, she was always like that. There's no helping her." said Riko. The table jumped. Rei looked down and began to eat quickly with her free hand. She knew that it had been childish and immature to kick her sister like that….but that was not an ok thing to say! Not at all! She was not going to be embarrassed at the table with Ritsu's parents, who didn't seem to like her very much, and she…well a glimpse into the future told her that she would not be getting in trouble.
Mom was going to say that she was allowing this on the grounds that what Riko had said was uncalled for.
Dad was going to talk more with Ritsu's dad about how the city being broken would hurt the financial sector badly.
Ritsu's mom was going to cough a lot and glare at her.
Her future vision told her that. She saw the paths the future could take and walked down the path with the highest probability. Just as she saw it, the whole sequence of events, it came to pass. She was maybe using her powers too much…but they were her powers and she could use them however she wanted. She wanted to know what was going to happen. She wanted to be sure of something, sure of the future, sure of what was going to happen. That way she could be safe.
As if she ever could be unsafe when she was with Ritsu.
But he was going to leave after dinner. All signs pointed to yes. She didn't even need clairvoyance to see that he was going to have to get back to his own house and his own family and his own life…and then he was going to leave her all alone…even though, hello Rei!, she had her entire family with her. Plus the internet was working again and she had to get on her laptop and make sure that everyone was ok after everything that happened. She had been neglecting her friends for her boyfriend. She had no idea if Takeshi was grounded for life again, if Go ever realized how serious the whole thing had been, and if the Shiratori brothers were off of that weird 'I go, you go' stuff that they had been going on and on about. She hadn't even checked in with Mob, either, since the whole rebuilding the house thing. She wondered why Mob wasn't there. Well she knew why, Mob had moved out a while ago, but Rei would have thought that she would have wanted to check in on her parents and little brother.
And her friend, too.
But it was selfish of her to want Mob to drop whatever it was that she was doing and get on some kind of messenger and just say 'hi' or something. Mob had been through a lot. They had all been through a lot but Mob had been through way more than a lot. The explosion, the end of Akira explosion, had been Mob. Mob had even said that she lost her body when that happened. That was a lot.
So if she didn't want to find a laptop and be on messenger all night then that was fine.
She was probably with Teru anyway. Rei had always scoffed at the sorts of girls who ignored all of their friends for their boyfriends, not that Rei was calling Mob that sort of girl, but now that she had a boyfriend…and they did more than kiss…she could kind of understand it. Well Mob had done way more than kiss, she had done everything, and Rei hadn't done much more than kiss…even though it felt like a lot...but the principle was still the same. Relationships could be sort of intense and sometimes your other friends just slipped your mind.
She knew hers was intense, anyway.
And she wondered just how intense was a normal amount of intense. She wanted to ask Mob. She wanted to ask Mob a lot of stuff. Mob was the only person she knew well, besides all of her older sisters, who had done…stuff. Who had a boyfriend that they loved and did stuff with. Rei wanted to know if it was normal to feel all cold and scared inside at the thought of Ritsu being gone. She wanted to know if it was normal to think about him all the time, him and the stuff that they did together, even when she knew that it was wrong….like while she was sitting at the table…
Being glared at by his mother.
"Oh, she's a lovely girl." Said Hana. That was the thing to say, the polite thing to say, about the girl trying to dig her claws into her son like that. This was a normal thing to worry about too, she knew that it was, because her son was only thirteen and she knew that look on that girl's face. She knew the look on her face and the flush to her cheeks and the smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
And she was having none of that.
If there was one thing that she was still in control of it was her own family. Shigeko may have been off doing God only knew what but she still had Ritsu and she was going to keep him on the good path, the right one, the one that did not involve whatever he had been getting up to with that girl. She knew that they had been getting up to something, based on the amount of makeup these people let their daughters wear they were the permissive sort, and she was not alright with it.
Thank God that Shigeko never gave her these sorts of problems. That girl, despite having a boyfriend, would remain a virgin until the day she died.
"Thank you Mrs. Kageyama." Said Rei in her most polite tone. She held Ritsu's hand tighter under the table. She was maybe holding it too tight….she checked the future. She eased off before he pulled his hand away. He had been right about to. She didn't want that. She didn't want any space at all between them, not until he had to go, and then there would be all of the space between them…and that would have been just awful.
Her dad was going to make a joke about how hard it was to have two daughters.
His dad was going to make a joke back about how hard it was to have one of each.
Both of their dads would laugh at the thought of how hard it would be to raise two boys.
His mom would get that look on her face, like she was sucking on a lemon, and then she would call her husband by his given name like she was scolding a little kid.
Then the atmosphere would get weird.
Then Riko would ask about Mob.
"So….don't you guys have another kid? Short, pale, and gloomy?" asked Riko. Rei wanted to kick her under the table again but she knew that if she did mom would send her to her room and then lecture her about being polite. The first time had been excused but the second time would not be. Her clairvoyance hadn't failed her lately and it would not fail her now.
"Shigeko is…away, at the moment." Said Hana. She could have slapped that girl over the head. Obviously the younger sister took her behavior cues from the older one. Shigeko's whereabouts were nobody's business. Shigeko's living situation was…she was not going to talk about it. She was not going to look like a failure.
"Riko, shut up!" hissed Rei. The last thing Mob needed was her parents getting all in her business about coming back home and stuff. Mob had been through enough. She did not need the added stress of living with her parents again. Rei hadn't even been sitting at this table for a full hour and she was ready to start ripping her hair out and eating it. She didn't know how Ritsu put up with this.
"She's with Reigen." Said Ritsu. He knew that his voice had too much of an edge to it. He knew that he should not have been scraping his spoon against his plate. He knew that his hand was gripping Rei's too tightly. He knew that he should have been normal, calm, like he was telling mom that he would be coming home late tomorrow….and it was normal. Shigeko lived with Reigen. That was normal.
"Is she….alright?" asked Hana. She wanted to take her words back as soon as she spoke them. What sort of a mother was she? She had no idea if her own daughter was alright. If she had enough to eat. If the part of the city she was living in, wherever that was, had been hit hard. By the terrorists…the ones who the government had labeled as delusional…even though they weren't. Even though the things that she had seen them broadcast were no different from the things that Shigeko had been able to do, in miniature, as a child. A small child. A toddler. A baby.
"She's fine." Said Ritsu. She was fine, she had said that she was fine, and she looked fine. Even though she had just been beaten up and broken and buried….Reigen had been the one to dig her up…and then she had passed out…but she was fine now. He wanted to tell his mom and dad what had happened. She should have known. Dad should have known. He wanted to get up on the table and start shouting at the top of his lungs.
She had saved the world but mom and dad were still going to treat her like a monster.
"That's good. She hasn't been affected, at all, by what happened?" Said Hana. She could feel eyes on her. She could see it, the silent conversation between Mr. and Mrs. Kurosaki, and she knew how this conversation looked. Sounded. How she looked and sounded. Like a bad mother. But she was not a bad mother. She was doing the best she could. Even with four girls these people could not even begin to understand what it was to be Shigeko's mother.
"….no. She's fine." Said Ritsu. She had been affected. She had lost her body, in the explosion, and then she had put herself back together. She was someone who had been to hell and back…and so had he…and mom and dad could not know. They would just think that he was a monster, too, just like they thought that Shigeko was a monster. He didn't know what he would do if mom and dad ever thought that he was a monster.
Where could he even run away to?
That was what he would have done if mom and dad ever decided that he was a monster. If they figured out who he was and what he could do. He didn't want….he was selfish. He was selfish because he didn't want to leave his life even though a lot of it sucked. Hiding sucked. What he had lived through sucked. Sometimes life just…sucked.
"Good, good, that's good." Said Hana. She didn't know what else to say. Somethings in life were just ghastly. Like this. There was nothing that she could do about this. She could only make sure that her Daughter was still alive. She could only make sure….through her son. She couldn't even pick up her phone and call her own Daughter…somethings in life were just ghastly. Like this. This whole thing, this meal, this return to normalcy…
It was just so….ghastly.
"Yeah….it is. It is…" said Ritsu. Rei was still holding his hand. She made eye contact with him. He knew what she was trying to tell him. She was telling him that she was there, for him, and that she was trying as best as she could to make him feel better. She knew that this was hard for him. She knew how he felt…and she cared…and he wished that she didn't. He wished that she would just stop caring about him and…and just…let go of his hand already.
Because it sucked.
This whole thing, his life right now, just…sucked.
"This sucks." Said Reigen. He had no idea that it would be this crowded. Wasn't the evacuation order over with? Weren't people supposed to be on their way back INTO the city? Not OUT OF it?
"Do you want to go back home?" asked Mob. She tugged at the strap of her gym bag. She didn't much want to go back home. Home was nice, it was normal, but she just…she would rather have been at the busy train station instead of sitting next to Master Reigen on the couch watching people talk nonstop about what they thought that had happened….what they thought had happened in the fight….what they thought that the tree was….
What they thought Touichirou had been trying to do.
Suzuki. What Suzuki had been trying to do. Everyone was talking about it, about him, about what he had done. Every channel was talking about him. Everyone was trying to pick him apart…and they couldn't. She was probably the only one who picked him apart and understood what it was the she had found. She might have been the only person who understood him…
But he was not the only person who understood her.
"No, mom would never forgive me if we didn't show up, in person, and make sure that she knew that we're still alive. Now come on closer to the front, Mob, I am not standing all the way to Lower Back Pain City." Said Reigen as he walked closer to the end of the platform. He had a hand on her back, not the small of it, and he tried to push her through the crowd and towards the front. That way they might have been able to get seats, or at least she could get a seat.
She had saved the whole world, she could have a seat on the train, even if he had to pick someone up and move them himself.
"I don't mind standing." Said Mob as the train came in to view. Master Reigen's hand was on her back, his on her back, and she wondered if he could feel her heartbeat. It was fast, it was always fast when he touched her, even though she knew that it was wrong to feel that way. She loved Teru.
He had almost died for her.
And if that wasn't real love then she didn't know what was. She loved Master Reigen, she loved him a lot, but she knew that he wasn't in love with her. She didn't know what would happen when she became an adult but she did know that now, at this moment in time, he was not in love with her. Teru was. She felt kind of bad for leaving him but…
But she did not want to be in that city for one moment longer.
"Well I do so come on. Don't be afraid to use your elbows." Said Reigen as the train pulled in to the station. His hand was still on Mob's back. For stability. For safety. Even though it was award keeping his hand so high up on her back, between her shoulder blades, but he was not going to let his hand drift down to the more comfortable and more familiar small of her back.
It didn't mean anything.
But it could have to her. He could feel his own heart trying to beat its way out of his chest. He could feel how warm he was despite the cold. He was sweating in his jacket but he knew that it had nothing to do with the temperature. It had everything to do with her and the way that she felt about him. So she had a little bit of a crush on him, that was normal, and he was not going to make it weird.
Or any worse than it had to be.
"But I don't want to use my elbows." Said Mob as the train finished pulling up. She did not want to shove anyone out of the way. If she stood then she stood…even though she really did not want to stand. The pair of shoes that she had left behind at her parent's house hadn't fit anymore so all she had were these white ones. The ones that she had saved the world in. She was grateful to the other Shigeko for putting clothes on them when theirs got ruined but maybe, just maybe, she could have taken a second to pick out some comfortable shoes for them to wear. Though when she used her powers to keep herself up, with less of her weight on her feet, it wasn't that bad. She still wanted her old shoes back, though, but they had been ruined in the fight. A lot of things had been ruined in the fight.
She wondered if Touichirou was alright.
She wondered if Suzuki was alright.
She shouldn't have cared if he was alright or not. She should have been happy that they had caught him. He had been the one who was responsible for all of this. He had been the one to try and take over the world. Nobody had told him to do that, no, that had come from within. He had been the one who decided that having psychic powers gave him the right to hurt people and ruin their lives…even though it wasn't totally his fault. He had just never had someone to show him the right way to be. To show him that he was more than his powers. That he didn't need his powers to make him a complete person, that he could make himself a complete person though the bonds he formed with others…
She had shown him that.
"Then I guess I'll have to do enough shoving for the both of us." Said Reigen with a sigh. The train pulled up and he sprang into action. This had been a lot easier when he had been younger…and not just because he hadn't had Mob to think about. He wasn't shoving meanly, no, just enough so he could make his way to some of the few open seats on this train. He managed to find two together and sat Mob down before he sat down himself.
Her feet must have been killing her.
"I wouldn't have minded standing." Said Mob softly. She reached down and played with the hole in the front of her bag. She had put tape over it, duct tape, but she could still feel where the hole was…and it still looked ugly. That was where her broccoli seeds had been. The broccoli seeds that had grown the tree that people were trying to figure out.
Some people were praying to it.
Which was dumb, in Mob's opinion, because that tree was not God. She didn't know who or what God was, exactly, but she did know that the tree had not been the work of God. That tree had grown because her powers had gone crazy when she absorbed the explosion…and then became the explosion. There was nothing magical or godly or divine about that tree and if she had been a meaner person she would have gone down there and set the record straight about what had happened.
But she didn't want to.
She just wanted to get back to normal.
"But I would have minded you standing. Come on, Mob, I know how you feel. Your feet are killing you." Said Reigen. He nudged her a little. She looked over at him. Her eyes met his.
"Do you really?" asked Mob
"What do you mean? You know how my powers work." Said Reigen. He knew how this conversation must have sounded…but everyone was in their own little world. Some people were muttering into phones either angrily or sadly or, more rarely, elatedly. Some people were listening to music so loudly it leaked through their headphones. Some people were talking in groups amongst themselves. Some people were muttering to themselves as they scrolled through their phones.
This train was noisy.
So he clung more tightly to Mob's aura. She was calm, quiet, a rock in the storm of this train. The emotional storm. She was with him and she was ok…and that was enough for him. They were getting back to normal. They were on their way to getting back to normal…even though they were, technically, on their way to his mother's house. It was something that they had to do, visiting her, because a phone call or an e-mail would not have been nearly enough. Her calls and tests and e-mails had gotten more and more frantic, then angry, and then she had just been asking him to call her…and to come home….
So that was where he was going, home, even though that house was the last place that he wanted to be….
He had to get out of the city.
"I do but….I don't know. I just feel so…I don't even know." Said Mob. There was so much happening inside of herself. There was so much happening inside of her mind. She felt…she was happy to have won…even though she didn't know if this was something that could be called victory….and she was happy that her friends were ok…even though she had lost them…and she was worried about Mogami…even though she didn't want to even begin to think about her and him and what had happened…
She felt sort of terrible.
But she knew that she was not. She was….she had let her friends get hurt…she had let Mogami get away…and in the end she hadn't been able to save Touchirou. To show him the right way without beating him up. To win, if this was even winning, because….because she had still lost. She had lost her mind and her body and she hadn't been able to stop him from destroying the city or hurting her friends and now he was on his way to prison and people were talking about executing him and she did not want to be responsible for him dying…
She hadn't been the one to tell him to take over the world.
She hadn't wanted any of this.
But she had it.
Here it was.
"…you're tired, your feet hurt, and you're kind of chilly…and a little motion sick, too." Said Reigen. He reached over and zipped her hoodie up. This was another one of her boyfriend's hoodies. He wondered how warm it could have possibly been. Not very, if the way she felt was anything to go off of. Her blushing had subsided and now she felt cold. Cold and vaguely motion sick.
"Yeah…I am. I always get motion sick on the train." Said Mob softly. She let him zip her hoodie up. She closed her eyes and leaned towards him. She wondered if it was ok to fall asleep on him. He had said that it was ok, then that it wasn't, and then that it was again. She didn't know. She knew that she wanted to be with him…and she wanted to be with Teru, too, but he had his own things to do. His parents' people had contacted him and now he had stuff to do. He had to collect his not destroyed stuff and then move into the hotel that his parents' people had found and just wait there while his parents' people got things settled.
She wondered if he missed his parents.
He said that he didn't. He said that he didn't care. He didn't care if they came back to Japan or sent their people to take care of him. He said that he didn't need anyone to take care of him. He said that he could take care of himself. He said that he was fine but…but she felt like he may not have been telling the whole truth about that. He had told her, before, when they had been all tangled up in the dark together after….all of it…that he knew that his parents cared about him because they would come back to at least see if he was alive.
He cared even though he said that he didn't.
And she cared about him. She wished that there was some way to make his parents care about him. To make them want to be with him, to want to take care of him, and to see the wonderful person that he was. He was not the monster that his parents thought he was, they had left because of his powers and how Claw had come after him, and that was not fair to him. He was a good person and he tried every day to be a good person and they could not just leave him all alone in the world like that and-
-and the train did not need to be derailed.
"And now you're freaking out a little bit. Mob, come on, you're ok. You saved the whole world. You-you're fine." Said Reigen
"I know…and I'm fine. Just….I'm fine. A little motion sick is all." said Mob. That was not a lie at all. The feelings inside of her were making her motion sick. She had won. Everyone was telling her that she had won, Master Reigen included, so therefore this must have been victory. Even if it didn't really feel like it.
"You and trains, Mob, I swear." Said Reigen. He remembered that first morning. The morning after she had come to live with him. The way she had rested her head on his chest and just closed her eyes and rode out the motion sickness. She wasn't doing that now. She was slumped over to the side but not onto him, no, it seemed like she had outgrown that…maybe. He didn't know if he wanted her to.
He wanted her to change.
And he wanted her to stay the same.
"I don't know why I'm like this. I've always had trouble in moving vehicles since I was a little kid. Like the time I threw up in Ritsu's hood. I told you about that, I think." Said Mob
"You threw up in his hood?" asked Reigen sticking out his tongue. Mob's brother may have been a little pain in the ass sometimes but he did not deserve that.
"I'm pretty sure I did, Master." Said Mob
"Uh…refresh my memory." Said Reigen
"Me and my family were driving back from grandma's house, I was seven or eight I think, and my stomach was upset. I told my mom but she said that we couldn't make any stops because we were making good time so I tried to not be motion sick but I couldn't help it so I threw up in Ritsu's hood. He wasn't that mad at me and he even said, later on, that he forgave me….but I still feel bad. He really liked that hoodie." Said Mob
"Don't feel bad, you couldn't help it. Your mom should have pulled over. My parents were like that too. I mean I never threw up but my parents just would not stop for any reason. Even bathroom breaks." Said Reigen
"Why wouldn't they stop?" asked Mob
"Same reason your mom wouldn't. They were trying to make good time. I don't understand it now and I didn't then. It wasn't like they had anything planned when we got home." Said Reigen. Nothing more than screaming the house down every night, anyway, but he didn't want to think about that. Those times were done with now. He was a grown man and his parents were long divorced.
"Adults are weird sometimes…or maybe I just think that they're weird because I'm a kid." Said Mob
"No, some people just never stop being weird. Like mom….I swear with her sometimes." Said Reigen more to himself than to her. She had tried to drive into Seasoning City during a terrorist attack just to make sure that he and Mob were alive…even though she knew that she was putting her own life in danger….
He knew what that was like.
"What did she do?" asked Mob. She liked Reigen Sophia. She was always so nice to Mob even though she was a normal person and Mob had powers. Well she must have been used to Master Reigen's powers but his powers had never been anything like hers. Mom, her own mom, had always treated her like a monster…but Reigen Sophia had never once treated her like a monster. That was weird but Mob…she didn't care. If that was weird then Mob didn't want to be around normal people.
"She actually tried to drive into Seasoning City while all of the…stuff…was going on." Said Reigen. He felt his lungs stop working and his pulse quicken. He didn't think. He just reached down and took Mob's hand. There was no need to have this train get derailed. He knew how this looked to the world…and to Mob herself…but he had not lived through what seemed like the end of the world only to die in a train derailment.
"That's so…why would she do that? She could have died." Said Mob
"Because she's my mom and she loves me…us…and that's just what they do." Said Reigen. He waited until he felt her calming down before he let go of her hand. Disappointment. From her.
"…but she could have died…." Said Mob
"That's what you do when you love someone, Mob, you risk your life for them. That's what it is to love someone…in my opinion, I mean." Said Reigen
"I think that's right. When you love someone then you don't care that you're risking your life for theirs. You just want them to live, it doesn't matter what happens to you." Said Mob
"Yeah but…but it's hard for the person on the ground, you know. It's hard for the person on the ground to look up and see the person they love putting themselves at risk." Said Reigen
"It's hard, too, for the person in the air. It's hard to risk your life, sometimes, but then you look down at the person on the ground and you know that you're doing it for him and that's how you know…that you're doing the right thing." Said Mob
"But the person on the ground is looking up at the person in the air, too, and he's scared for them. He doesn't know what he'd do without them in his life and he knows that the only reason that they're even in harm's way is because of him…and he feels guilty." Said Reigen
"The person on the ground doesn't need to feel guilty, Master, because the person in the air wants to be there. The person in the air wants to save the person on the ground because the person in the air knows that they're the only one who can save the person on the ground." Said Mob
"Even though it shouldn't have to be that way." said Reigen
"Yes, even though it shouldn't have to be that way." said Mob. She got the feeling that they were not talking in hypotheticals anymore. She just got that feeling, she didn't say anything, because that might not have been the right thing to say. Words were hard sometimes. Words had limits. Words could only express so much. She wished that there was some way to express everything to Master Reigen, to everyone, to have everyone in the whole word just understand each other already…but that was not going to happen. She knew what it was like, instrumentality, and she knew how much it hurt.
She didn't want to put anyone else through that.
She didn't even want to have gone through that. But she did. She had gone through all of that and come out the other side and her feelings should not have been making her motion sick like this. The train should have been the only thing that was making her motion sick…and it was. It kind of was. She leaned against Master Reigen.
She just needed some stability.
It was like all the stability had gone from the world.
But Sho didn't care! He didn't care if everyone was going underground or fleeing the country or whatever. He didn't care. He was fine. He was fine and everything was fine! He won! Well his side won….anyway….his side won and now everything was over and they could all just live their lives and all of that other stuff that happened after you beat the bad guy and you won….
They never got to this part.
On TV they never got to this part. Either a bigger bad guy showed up or the show was over. Sho did not want to deal with a bigger bad guy, he had barely been able to handle dad, so he guessed that it was over. But it wasn't. The sun rose and set and it would always rise and set, as it had been doing since the beginning of time, and now he had to figure out what to do now. Time was passing and for once he had to fill it himself.
No more dad to plot against.
No more Claw missions.
No more going from country to country finding espers for dad.
No more facing danger every single day.
No more….
No more anything. He was alone, now, at the safe house. He had no idea how long the safe house would be safe for. They government had dad and that guy, Joseph, told everyone that it was best if they disappeared. Everyone but Sho. He was just a kid, thirteen, and he had to go back to his mom. Well he didn't HAVE to. He didn't have to do anything….but he was a kid and that was what kids did. At least he wasn't in any danger of being locked up. Because he was a kid. Because he was a kid and because he had worked against dad. That was why nobody was coming after him.
Or Serizawa.
He had gone back to his mom, too, but just for a little bit he said. He promised Sho that he would totally come back to Seasoning City and then he would try and make up for what he had done…or not done…or whatever. They could go back to being friends. Were they still friends? Fine, whatever, they were friends and everyone was friends and he was fine and everyone was fine. There was no reason to feel like this.
No reason to be rocking back and forth on some borrowed bed in a borrowed house.
This was not his house, his room, or his bed. This was just another safe house. Now it was empty. Everyone had gone. It was just Sho. Sho and a burner phone. He had smashed his, and he stood by his decision, and now he had this phone and he knew all of the important numbers by heart….including hers. Mom's number. He knows mom's number.
So he should just call her already.
He just got done facing off against dad. He just got done running for his life….being carried for his life…and he just got done almost dying. He just got done living under a giant evil tree watching dad sleep and praying to whatever God was listening that he woke up from his coma and that he spent the rest of his life asleep. He had been through so much so typing in mom's number and calling her…that shouldn't have been hard…
He was Suzuki Sho.
He could do anything.
He had done anything.
He hadn't been afraid at all.
He was not afraid of anything.
Especially not his own mother! If he was not afraid of dad then he was not afraid of mom, either. She had never even given him any reason to be afraid of her. She had always been the good parent. She had always been the one who loved him. She had always been the one who was there for him. She had never hurt him, not in the ways that dad hurt him, and….and while it had hurt when she left she had a very good reason. She had to get away from dad. He knew that she had to get away from dad because the best place anyone could be was away from dad….
He dialed her number.
It rang.
It rang and it rang and it rang and with every ring he got a tighter and tighter feeling in his chest and his hands shook and the bed shook and the room shook and that made no sense whatsoever because there was nothing here for him to be afraid of. It was just his mom. He knew her. He missed her.
He loved her.
She picked up the phone.
"Hello?"
He couldn't speak. His throat was dry and his tongue wouldn't work and his lungs had decided to go on strike and, frankly, he didn't blame them. Not after what he had put them through. Not after getting his ribs smashed and then also, probably, breathing in all of that dust and stuff from those destroyed buildings had been pretty dangerous too, so really if his lungs stopped working and he suffocated it was his own fault. If he suffocated and then mom never heard him or what he had had done or all the things that he had to say to her…
It would have been his own fault.
"Hello?"
He swallowed as best as he could. He drew his knees up to his chest and started rocking back and forth. The room was shaking. That was him. Everything was him. He started to look for exits. He wanted to run. He needed to run. He needed to run away. He could go out the door or out the window. He could hide. He could run or he could hide…but he did not do that. He did not run and he did not hide. He was Suzuki Sho.
"Hi, mom." Said Sho. There was a gasp and then the line went dead. He wondered if it had been a bad connection, they'd only just fixed the internet and phones and stuff, so maybe mom hadn't wanted to talk to him. Maybe she blamed him for what happened, for letting things go as far as they had, for not realizing that what dad was doing…that it was so transparently wrong…until just a few months ago. And he didn't even come to that realization on his own! It only came when he saw some girl, her friends, and Ritsu kicking the entire Seventh Division's asses…
He sucked.
As a person he sucked.
His phone started ringing. He read the number. He knew that number. He tricks himself into thinking that it had just been a dropped call. That mom had been happy to talk to him. That she had missed him. That she had worried about him. That she was worried about him. That she had never stopped worrying about him and that she had just been waiting for all of these years to hear from him again and now they could be together and be a family and then she would love him and he would love her and they would love each other and then everything would be great and-
He answered the phone.
"Hey mom." Said Sho. That was what people said to their moms, right? After going years from the last time they had spoken…maybe it was best to be normal. To be regular. He didn't know much about being normal but he could try. He had to try. Mom was a regular person and she didn't want any of his craziness, the craziness he brought with him, and that was fine. He just wanted to be with her. That was all. He would be whatever she wanted him to be so long as someone wanted him to be with them. Without using him or hurting him or making him hurt anyone else.
"Sho?" asked Mom. There was a pause. Who else could it have been? Did she had other kids? Maybe she had gotten tired of waiting for him and she had decided to have more kids, her own kids, kids who didn't come from some guy who thought that he could rule the whole world and didn't care who he had to hurt or kill to do it.
"It's me. Hey. I just thought I should call since…since it's all over. With dad I mean. It's all over." Said Sho. He could hear the background of wherever she was. There was a TV or something. Some music, too, fighting with the sounds of the TV. He could hear her walking. He heard what sounded like a door closing.
"Sho…..Sho? Sho? Oh God, Sho….Sho. Are you alright? What happened to you? Where are you? What happened with your dad? What's happening…." Mom asked a bunch of questions. Sho wanted to tell her that if she wanted him to answer a question then she needed to wait instead of asking fifty more. She just kept either asking and asking or apologizing and apologizing…and he had no idea what it was that she was saying sorry for. It wasn't like she was the one who had tried to take over the world. It wasn't like she was the one who had let it go as far as it did. She had blameless in all of this.
"I'm fine, me and my friends beat dad and now it's all over. The government came and took him away and now all of those guys who were loyal to him are either getting arrested or running away. You don't have to worry. It's all over. Me and my friends took care of it." Said Sho. He had stopped rocking, well his body had, but the bed was still rocking back and forth. The floor was getting super scratched up. He didn't care, this wasn't his floor. This wasn't his floor or his bed or his room. None of this was his.
But this was his mom.
She was his mom and she had gotten really quiet again, so quiet that he could have sworn that the line had gone dead again, but it wasn't. He could still hear her breathing. He could hear her breathing and walking. He could still kind of hear the music, too, and he had no idea what song that was. He had no idea what sort of music she liked, what sort of shows, if her favorite color was still yellow, if she still liked cinnamon on toast…there were so many things that he just…he didn't know about her…
She was his mother but she…she was also someone entirely new, maybe, than the person he had left behind.
Who had left him behind. She had left him with dad. She had left him all alone and he was different, too, maybe. Maybe they had both changed so much that they were strangers to each other now. Maybe this had been a bad idea. Maybe he should have just stayed out of her life. They were strangers to each other, now, when it came down to it. She didn't want anything to do with him, probably, because he hadn't been able to stop dad…hadn't even thought to stop dad…before it got as bad as it did. Before it went as far as it did.
"Do you….do you need a place to stay?" asked mom. It had taken her a long time to ask him that. It was taking him an even longer time to answer. She had asked…which meant that she wanted him to be back.
She wanted them to be a family again.
Wasn't this what he had wanted since the day she left? His mom back? His family back? A family? A house and a place where he could just…be. Just be there and just be safe? He wanted to be safe. He wanted nothing more than to be safe with someone in a place where he didn't have to worry about getting hurt or hurting someone else. A place where…
"Yeah, I mean if you have room." Said Sho. There was more silence. She was thinking again. She might have just been thinking about logistics. She might have just been thinking about how she was supposed to feed him and where he was going to sleep and…and….and stuff like that. That was all. Mom stuff.
She was just thinking about mom stuff. That was all.
While the whole world had been worried about being taken over his mom had been worried about mom stuff.
"This is all my fault, Katsuya, all my fault. If I hadn't let that Suzuki into this house, into your room, into your life…."
Mom was mad at herself. He didn't want mom to be mad at herself. He didn't want mom to blame herself. His life was his own and he had made his own choices. He had been the one to go along with something so wrong….so blatantly wrong….and now he was the one who would have to live with it for the rest of his life.
He wished that mom would have stopped blaming herself.
"Mom, you didn't do anything-" said Serizawa. He wanted mom to stop it. To stop pacing the floor between the table and the kitchen. To stop talking like this was all her fault. To just…stop. She was just….she just wouldn't stop. He didn't know why she blamed herself, anyway, because he had been the one to leave his room of his own volition.
He had left the safety of his room of his own accord.
"That's right Katsuya, I didn't do anything. I should have just let you be, at least up there you were safe. I just wanted….I wanted you to have a life…and you did. You had a life in there and it was a right bit better than the one you had out here. This is all my fault. I never should have made you leave your room." Said his mother even though she had no reason to say things like that. This was not her fault and he had no idea why she thought that it was her fault. In the end it had been his choice. In the end everything had been his choice. In the end his life was his own.
"Mom, please. Just…please. I chose to follow him and I chose to do…to do what I did…even if I knew it was wrong I still chose to do…all of it. I'm sorry." Said Serizawa. This was not how he had planned this visit going. He hadn't seen his mom in years, not since he left his room, and he had wanted…he didn't know what it was that he had come here looking for.
Her forgiveness.
Because she knew. She knew what he had done, what he had been an accomplice of, and he wanted her to know that he was sorry. That he was sorry and also that he was still alive. She had been worried, she had always been worried, but now she knew that he was ok. She knew that he was ok and…and she was blaming herself for some reason…and she had no reason to blame herself. She may have invited the President into their home but going with him, clinging to the first bit of hope he'd had in years, and clinging through the years even though….even though he knew even from the start, maybe, that it had been wrong….
Maybe he shouldn't have come back.
Just for a visit. This was just a visit. He had made that clear to her. Even though she had cleaned out his room for her…and that room was tempting. It was small and safe and when he was in that room there was no way that he could hurt anyone…or be hurt by anyone….but he couldn't go back to that room. To that self imposed prison. To the hell that had been his life, his existence, and his life had been nothing but existence. He had spent so many years just sleeping, it felt like, waiting for time to pass him by…but now he had…
He had something of a life now.
Well he had Sho, who he needed to make his peace with, and also he had a job…a job offer. Some place to be every single day. Some place where he could help people. Use his powers to do something good. Use his powers to do something that didn't involve hurting people. Use his powers to…to do something with his life…something good…
He was not going back up to that room.
He was not staying.
Even though he knew mom wanted him to. Even though he knew that it was the safest option, the best option, the one that would keep him from…keep anything bad from happening to him. His room was safe…but he could not go back to it. He was not going to forsake the rest of his life for the safety of his room. Not again and never again. He wasn't going to go back there…back to his room…he was not going to…
No.
He wasn't.
And he meant it. For once in his life he was going to make his own decisions. He was going to choose for himself and he was choosing to leave. To leave his room and to live his life. To live his life for real for once. His life was his own and he had made his choice.
And for once in his life he was choosing right.
Maybe this hadn't been the right choice.
"Are we there yet?" asked Mob
"Just a little bit more. Sorry, I forgot mom's house was this far from the train." Said Reigen. He could feel a sharp sting on the back to his heels with every step she took. He could feel a low level annoyance from her, too, and it may have had to do with the sheer amount of walking that they had to do.
"Maybe this is why she has a car." Said Mob. She had been happy to see Sophia again, to get out of the city, and she still was. She just wasn't used to so much walking. Well she had walked around a lot when she and Master Reigen had been fighting and she had to live outside. This was totally different. Back then she may have been cold, hungry, tired, and dirty but at least her shoes had fit.
"If you can call that thing a car." Said Reigen. He checked his phone again. Mom had said, before, that she was giving up on going to the city and heading home. He wondered if her car was up to that. That thing was older than he was. He hoped nothing had happened to her. Seasoning City was the only place that had been hit. She was probably fine.
He walked a little faster.
Then he slowed down. Mob was smaller than him. Shorter. She couldn't keep up and her feet already hurt. Right. Heh. It was funny, almost. She could lift buildings with her mind. She could survive being thrown from the stratosphere. She could survive whatever it was that had been that explosion…losing her body…but she was still fourteen and tiny and her shoes didn't fit and the whole thing was just…in a way kind of funny…
"Master Reigen, slow down." Said Mob as she tried to keep up. She didn't know what the big hurry was. The sooner they got there the sooner they would have to leave. She wanted to be with her friends and her brother and her boyfriend…but she just didn't want to be in Seasoning City. She wanted to be…here. Wherever this was.
Lower Back Pain City.
The houses were bigger, here, and it wasn't as cold. This was where Master Reigen was from. Well he was from a lot of places, his family had moved around a lot when he was a kid, but this was the place that he had stayed at the longest. This was the place that he had lived when he had been her age. There was something about that. There was something about walking down what might have been the same streets that he had walked down all those years ago when he had been a kid. Like she was.
She didn't really feel like a kid.
She knew that she wasn't an adult but she didn't much feel like a kid. Something in between. Something new. Something new to her. She hadn't felt like a kid in a while but now…now she didn't know what she was. Mob. She was Mob and Mob was her. She was Mob and she was walking and this was normal…normal-ish….and that was what was happening now at this moment in her life.
She was walking down the street like normal.
She caught up to Master Reigen, or maybe he just slowed down, but they were walking along side each other now. Her gym bag was heavy. The strap dug into her shoulder. She lifted it with her powers and Master Reigen's bag as well. That was normal, too, for them. She was always the one who helped carry heavy stuff. Like laundry and groceries. She was the one who did the lifting and she didn't mind. She liked helping him. She liked being there for him.
And he was there for her.
And they were there for each other…even though she had told him not to be. Even though she had told him time and time again to run away. Even though he had almost died….and he hadn't had to…and she was not going to think about this. She was going to think about how this was where he grew up…sort of. She was going to think about how he had been her age, once, and she was going to think about what he must have been like. What it would have been like if she had known him then….but that's kind of hard…because she has no idea what he was like when he was her age. All she knows is what he's like now…and she likes it….
She likes him.
She likes him and she's grateful that he's alive. That he woke up that morning alive. That he was walking down the street with her and that he was alive and that they were both alive and that the world was still there….all of it. She was just so grateful to be there with him…walking with him….
And she was also grateful that their walk was finally over.
"Well, here it is." Said Reigen as they came upon the house that he had sworn to himself that he would never go back to for as long as he lived…but here he was. With Mob. Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea. Maybe he should have turned back. Maybe he should have stepped away from the front gate, picked Mob up, and ran back to the train station. He could see the cat in the window. He could see mom's car in the driveway.
Sometimes you had to run away.
"Do you have the key?" asked Mob as she stared at the house in front of her. It was big, and white, and there was a cat in the window. She didn't know what she had been expecting….and she didn't know if she had even been expecting anything. This was…this was the house he had lived in, before, back when he had been her age. He had been her age a while ago….
He had a life before her.
A life she had been told bits and pieces of. A life that had gone on for fourteen years before she had even been born. She wanted to know more about him, about the person he had been, about what he had been like back then. She didn't know why this was so important to her. She knew him now as he was in this moment. She knew the person he was and she loved he person he loved. She loved him so much…
Would he have loved her back?
She didn't know and she knew that she had to stop thinking about that. She had someone who loved her and she loved him back and it didn't even matter if Master Reigen would have liked her if they had been the same age. They were not the same age. She was still a kid and he was still an adult. Even if she didn't much feel like a kid and he didn't much feel like an adult, sometimes, fourteen years still separated them.
"You know what, Mob, I actually don't so maybe we should just head home and-" said Reigen. He wanted to run away. That house…that damned house. Mom's car was there and the cat was as fat as ever so she was still alive…unless she had died and the cat had eaten her…he watched it. It was sleeping in the window. It didn't look like it had just spent the past few days eating his mother's corpse…and he didn't want her dead at all! Just….he just didn't want to be there. At that house. That house he had told himself that he would never return to for as long as he lived.
Sometimes you had to run away.
But this was not one of those times. It couldn't be one of those times. The curtains had moved, the cat was out of the window, and the front door was opening. Mom knew that he was there and there was no escape now. He wished that Mob had worn better shoes. Maybe they could have booked it. Run all the way back to Seasoning City. Mom knew he was alive, now, at least so mission accomplished.
Sometimes you had to run away.
"Reigen Arataka! You get in this house this instant!"
Sometimes you wanted to run away.
"Oh, and hello Mobbu. Always so nice to see you."
And sometimes you couldn't.
