"You could have died!"

Reigen bowed his head and kept his eyes shut. He was the kid now, not Mob, and he was getting another one of his mother's screaming lectures.

"I actually went to Seasoning City to find you!"

Reigen wanted to tell his mother that nobody told her to go off and do something so stupid. She should have stayed ere where she was safe. Nothing happened here. The place that was hit hardest was Seasoning City followed by Cuticle City and then some scattered stuff happened but nothing that local forces couldn't put down. This was not a place of interest. There weren't any espers here…that he knew of. Mob could have told him but she was busy in the other room playing with the cat.

"I CANNNOT BEGIN TO UNDERSTAND-"

She stopped herself. Her eyes went across the living room and towards the kitchen. Reigen followed her eyes. Mob was standing there with a cat toy in her hand and just…staring…at them. He let himself feel what she felt. Well he didn't have much of a choice in the matter. She was the loudest person in the room, emotionally, even eclipsing his mother. Mob was worried, mom was worried, and Reigen….he felt like crap. Even though he'd had a very good reason to be in the middle of all of that and that reason was named Mob.

"I cannot begin to understand what would possess you to-" said Sophia, her eyes darting back to the kitchen. As a child she had always hated hearing her parents fight. Hearing her and her husband fight might have been what ended up messing up Arataka all those years ago. Mobbu did not need this. She had been to hell and back. Sophia had seen the pictures that were coming out of Seasoning City, heard the survivors' accounts, and seen the death toll. It had been hell, pure and simple, and they had been through it...

"Mom! Can we drop it already! I get it, I should have run away. I wanted to run away! Hell, I tried to run away-" said Reigen. He did not come here for the lecture. He came here to…he didn't know why. To get the hell out of Seasoning City. To get the hell out of that…that place and go to here…maybe he should have stayed him.

Mob was looking at him.

No, this was for the best. He didn't know how they were supposed to get back to normal after all of that. How they were supposed to stay in that tiny apartment together and watch TV and play videogames and whatever else after…after all of that. After what they had done. Almost dying and all of that. Seeing Mob turn into…he didn't even fully know what happened there at the end. All he knew was that he had never been more scared or more powerless in his life….

"You should have tried harder, Arataka!" said Sophia. There had been an evacuation order. When there was an evacuation order you evacuated! Arataka had never been good at following directions even as a child. He had always been so…she didn't even want to think the word. If she thought the word then she might have ended up saying the word and if she said the word then he would have some choice words for her and then this whole thing would devolve into a shouting match and she…she did not want to have any more of those with her son. Not after the last one. The last one that took him out of her life for years and years….and then there were so many tears….and there would be more, she could tell, because she…she had almost lost her only son…

"You think I didn't?! I couldn't!" said Reigen. Now it was his turn to look towards the kitchen. Mob was still staring. He took in a few deeps, calming, breaths. Mob did not need this. Mob did not need to hear this or to deal with this. She had been through enough. They had all been through a lot…but she had been through the most. She had actually fought that madman….and she had won. She had won and she should have been…she should have been doing something other than watching two adults fight.

"There was an evacuation order, Arataka, and when there's an evacuation order then you evacuate! It's not a difficult concept to grasp." Said Sophia. She was pacing the floor in front of the couch now. She had made tea. This whole thing had started with tea. Well she had been drinking a cup of tea and trying to get ahold of her son when, behold, there he was at her front gate with Mobbu in tow. There had been relief, then anger, and more anger to follow. Worry. Anger born from worry. She knew what she was feeling and she knew that she was expressing it poorly.

She glanced towards the kitchen.

The poor little girl did not need this. She had lived through the worst terrorist attack that the country had seen since that nastiness back when Arataka had been young. She was probably alone and afraid. Her own parents were, as usual, nowhere to be seen. As much bad blood as there had been between her and Arataka she would not have left him alone during all of that…and she certainly would not have let him leave the city right after a terrorist attack! That poor little girl was alone in the world…and she did not need to hear this…

"I tried to! I couldn't! I was not going to leave without-" said Reigen

"I'm sorry." Said Mob. She wondered if she had said the wrong thing. She was being stared at now. She must have said the wrong thing. She really was sorry, though, and she wanted everyone to know it. She was the one who ran away and she was the one who wanted to fight Suzuki and she was the one who had…who had made Master Reigen com after her…even though she hadn't told him to. She had asked him to do the direct opposite, actually.

She had told him to run away.

But he was not the sort of person to leave her alone to die…and she had died, maybe, just a little…which only went to show how dangerous the whole thing had been. Master Reigen should have just run away, his mom was right, because in the end he hadn't….there had been nothing that he could do. That was something that only Mob could have done. She was the only one with the power to save everyone…

Well he had saved people too.

He had saved Ritsu and Teru and Rei and everyone else. He had been the one to lead them out of the city. Well Rei had told him where to go but she had been so scared, she had admitted to being scared, and everyone had been so scared, too scared even, but not Master Reigen. He always knew just what to do. He led everyone away and they didn't end up getting killed during the fight. She would always be grateful to him for that….even though she had told him and the others to run away long before it had even gotten to that point. Why didn't people listen to her? She said that there was nothing that they could do and-and-and they should have just listened and run away and-and-and-

"Mob, no, you have nothing to apologize for." Said Reigen. They were not going there again. Mob could beat herself up like no other person could. He was not going to let her. They were not having another repeat of the Asagiri job. She was not going to sit there and call herself terrible and then decide to do something stupid like spend the rest of her life in the park again. No. He was not letting that happen again. Even though she had been really stupid, going up against that guy, and she could have so easily died. She could have died at any point when she was being thrown around. She could have died at any point when she was being beaten up. Hell, she even said that she, in fact, had died when she turned into that…explosion of light…and then that broccoli tree grew….

She had nothing to apologize for.

"I do too have something to apologize for. I'm the one who went off to fight-" said Mob

"Did you just say 'fight'?" asked Sophia. She must have been hearing things wrong. Maybe her hearing was going. She was a year shy of fifty after all. Now was when things started to fall apart. She was going deaf obviously, because there was no way that a little girl like her could have fought off…even with psychic powers….there was absolutely no way that she could have….

"Yes. I said fight. If I hadn't had to go off and fight Toui-Suzuki then Master Reigen would have run away and all the others would have run away…well they probably wouldn't have because my brother's friend Sho, he's a new friend and I kind of like him but we're not good friends yet but I'm happy that Ritsu made a friend, asked them to help him fight his dad, that's the guy who tried to take over the world, and then they said yes and then they almost died. I would have helped but I was asleep for a while because Sho burnt my house down, but it's ok because he had a good reason and he fixed it too, and I couldn't stop them but then I woke up and then there was a lot of fighting and I told everyone to run away but they didn't….even though they should have…and then I went to fight Suzuki…well actually at first I wanted to talk-" said Mob

"What the hell….?" Asked Sophia

"At first I wanted to talk to him because…because I really don't like fighting….but he wanted to fight. Well before that I met Serizawa, he's a new friend but already a good friend I feel like, and we fought but he's not a mean person at all. He doesn't like fighting either but the thing is that Suzuki told him that he had to and then we did fight but we ended up talking, well I stole bunch of his energy and then gave it back to him and some of mine was in there and then he saw what real friendship and stuff was like-" said Mob

"Slow down…." Said Sophia

"I can't slow down because some of this is hard for me to talk about, well the next parts are kind of hard for me to talk about, and if I slow down then I might not be able to talk about them. I don't want to have to talk about this a bunch of times in little pieces so I'm trying to get everything that I have to say out now." Said Mob

"Oh…alright then. C-Carry on…" said Sophia

"Ok. So then we talked a lot and he said that he felt so bad about what happened, and he still does I could tell from the last time I saw him, and then he let me go up to talk to Toui-to Suzuki and then I tried to but he was kind of a jerk. He had already beaten up Sho so badly that he couldn't walk to I tried to heal Sho, I can do that but there's this guy Fukuda who's much better at it than I am, and then I shared a lot of my energy with him but then Suzuki got mad at me because he has the same powers that I do and…and I guess that it bothered him not being all alone in the world. He told me that for his entire life he had been all alone in the world, even with other espers, and I thought that it was such a saw way to live. I feel alone too sometimes, and I did a lot when I was a kid, but then I found Master Reigen and I wasn't alone anymore. He never had anyone in his life like that and I think…I think that that's why he ended up the way he did. He said that when he was my age he decided to take over the world…and that scared me a little because….because what if I ended up like him?" asked Mob

"Mob, you know that you would never, ever, ever have ended up like that bastard. Even without me in your life you're a good person and you would never-" said Reigen

"You made me into a good person, Master, you know that you did. I hurt people before…on accident…but then I could have started to hurt people on purpose. You're the one who told me to just be a good person and that's what I did…what I've been doing…so thank you for that. I wish that he had someone like you in his life to tell him to be a good person…and also to be his friend. He never had any friends, even with all of the people following him around…and that made me sad. I tried to be his friend-" said Mob

"Why the fuck would you go off and do a thing like that for?" asked Reigen. She was too nice for her own good. He had told her before that he had not been the one to make her into a good person, she was already a good person, and there was no way that she could ever have been a bad person. She was not terrible. Even in Mogami's little fantasyland she had been a good person up until the very end. She had snapped in there but out here there was no chance of that. This was Mob. You looked up the definition of 'good person' and her picture was right there.

"Because he needed a friend and I saw…I saw a lot of myself in him. Like he was what I could have been if I had been a grown up…and I had never met you…and also I had been born a boy. I saw a lot of what I could have been in him…and also Serizawa…and I just…I couldn't let a person be that way. I offered him my hand and my friendship and…and to show him how to be good person but then he beat me up…this was before you tried to shoot him-" said Mob

"Excuse me? Did you just say 'shoot'? As in with a gun?" asked Sophia. She glared at her son. He shrank under her gaze. What was the MATTER with that boy? He had never shot a gun in his life…and all of those videogames he used to play did not count! What was he thinking? What was SHE thinking?! What in the hell had Mobbu been…well she knew what Mobbu had been thinking…and that was why she needed someone to look after her properly! She may have carried herself like an adult but she was still so clearly a child! Case and point…life was not a cartoon! You could not defeat supervillains with the power of friendship!

Or maybe you could considering the fact that Mobbu had won….

"I didn't know what else I was supposed to do." Said Reigen through clenched teeth. Yes, he knew that he had been stupid. Yes, he knew that he had almost died. Yes, he knew that if she hadn't taught that Serizawa guy the meaning of friendship or whatever they would have had to bury him in a matchbox. He knew that he had come close to dying and he did not need to think about it. He thought about it enough when he closed his eyes…when he had a quiet moment to himself….

"You should have run away like I told you to." Said Mob

"Yes, you should have. Even a teenage girl was telling you to run away-" said Sophia

"I don't want to get into this now. Mob, we talked about this already. I was not going to let that guy KILL you and-" said Reigen

"But you almost died. I thought that you had died and then…and then that was when the fighting happened….and I tried so many times to kill him because I-I hadn't realized that Serizawa had saved you…even though I should have been able to sense him…but I couldn't sense him. I couldn't because I was so scared…and you…you were so dead…so I let the other me take over and then all the fighting happened…" said Mob

"Arataka…what in the hell is she talking about?" asked Sophia. She wondered if this was what it was like to have a heart attack. Her heart was going a mile a minute and both of her arms were going numb. She could hear her pulse in her ears. Her blood pressure must have been through the roof. Maybe she was about to die. Maybe this was it. Maybe her son had finally been the death of her.

"Mom….don't make a big deal out of it-" said Reigen. He felt like he was going to be sick. His heart was pounding so fast…and his blood pressure had probably never been in a healthy range with all of the smoking and the drinking and the friend and fattening foods he ate….maybe this was it….heh. He had lived through all of that only to die on his mother's couch sipping lukewarm tea. What a way to go.

"How am I not supposed to make a big deal out of-" said Sophia. Her only son had almost died and she was not supposed to make a big deal out of it? What even went on in his mind that…that she even had the option of not making a big deal out of it!? This was a big deal, a huge deal, and she was not going to pretend that everything was hunky-dory just because he was acting like he was the one who was fourteen and not Mobbu!

"It was my fault! I'm the one who-who went off and did…all of that. It's my fault because I was…I am…the only one in the whole world strong enough to stop him! I had to do it, me and me alone…and the other me…which is still me…we're an us…it's complicated and I don't like to think about it…and now we're getting to the part that I don't like to talk about…the instrumentality part…which is what I think happened….I don't want to think about it. I just want….I just want it to be over with…and I'm sorry that I couldn't show him a better way and I'm sorry that I tried to kill him and I'm sorry that even when I stopped because…because you were still alive the fighting didn't stop…and I'm sorry about the big tree too…I don't know why I grew that…and I'm just so sorry…" said Mob. She was still in the kitchen. She could feel the cat, Thomas O'Malley, looking at her. He wanted her to go back to dangling his cat toy. She wished that she could have…but she was still being stared at…

"Instrumentality…isn't that what you call-" said Sophia as she tried to process what she had just heard. That was…the stuff of movies…and comic books…but now it was the stuff of life….and that poor little girl…not a little girl. No, no little girl could have beaten a grown man to submission…which was what it sounded like she had done…and which was also pretty damn impressive all things considered…

"Mom! Don't ask her about that!" said Reigen. There were two things that he did not want to think about. That whole mess…and Mob's sex life. He didn't know which was worse. Instrumentality was what she called sex, two become one and all of that, but he was not going to bring that up. Mob would either blush and hide her face in her shirt or she would, matter of factly, admit to…well…everything. He was not going to shame her for have a, admittedly much healthier than his had been at any age, sex life. Plus he did not want to think of Mob and that…yeah. That guy…that bastard…who he hoped was rotting somewhere…and Mob said that it was different anyway. Well she never made a direct comparison but she had said…but then again he had ended up having to dig her out of the ground…and she was naked…

And he wanted to beat himself over the head with the nearest blunt object just to erase all memory of this conversation from his mind.

"It wasn't like sex. Sex is fun…and I have a body then…and my own mind. That was…terrible. The worst thing ever. It was like…even between me and the other Shigeko there is still a her and a me. When we're an us thigs get…weird…and we were an us. We were an us and then Touichirou was also an us with us…and then we knew all of his thoughts and feelings and stuff and then he knew all of ours…and he knew everything about us and we knew everything about him…and it was just…I don't ever want to do that again with anybody. That wasn't like sex, I like sex, and I also want to stop talking about sex now." Said Mob. She wondered if she had said 'sex' too many times. She was embarrassed, she knew that it was showing, but she had to make it perfectly clear that what had happened between her and Touichirou, between her and SUZUKI was not sex. That would have been…she didn't even like him like that….or at all, really, when it came down to it. Nope, it had been nothing like that at all. It had been something like that but…but not like that.

"Hey mom, is that a new cabinet? It's really nice. Where'd you get it? When'd you get it? Who'd you get it with? In fact, did you redecorate this living room? It's really nice. You've always had such an eye for décor-" said Reigen. His eyes were darting around the room like that time in university when he had taken that stuff his roommate gave him…and his heart was going just as fast, too. This was not something that they ever needed to talk about. This was not something…and not to shame Mob but…and he was glad for her. He was glad that she had a good…that she was having a good….this was none of his business.

Nope.

None of his business at all.

But good for Mob either way. She had a good sex life which was more than a lot of adults had…and he was not going to be saying that to her any time soon. Because that would have been weird. Well every single part of their relationship was weird but that would have been the weirdest part. That would have been….things were already weird between them. One-sidedly weird. She had no memory of what Dimple had made her do when he possessed her…and he did…and he would be taking that memory to the grave with him. He wished that there was some way to remove specific memories…and maybe there was. What the hell did he know? He wasn't a scientist. He just needed to forget for just a minute-

"That cabinet is the same as it's always been. This room is just the way you left it. That cabinet came from your father's parents. It's full of liquor. The cabinet is old but the liquor is new…and I think that we could all use a drink." Said Sophia. Mobbu was only fourteen…but it sounded like she needed a drink more than anyone else in that room. Arataka looked like he needed a drink more than anyone else in that room. He had always drank too much…but then again who was his mother? That was how Reigen's dealt with their problems.

The solutions to all of life's problems could be found at the bottom of a bottle.

Hana knew that she could not find solutions at the bottom of a bottle.

But it helped, it really did. She had tried to call Shigeko but there had been no answer. No replies to her emails, either, or her friendbook messages. Nothing. Complete radio silence from her own daughter. Hana had even gone down to her daughter's place of work. It had burnt down. Well for once Shigeko had something in common with her mother. Her office, hers and her husband's as well, were gone. Most of downtown was burnt down or knocked down or just….down. Down was a good word for it.

Down.

The phones had been down, now they weren't, and the internet had been down until recently but now at least those were back. Work…work was down and there was no school either. Nothing. Nothing to do all day but sit at home calling a daughter who wouldn't pick up her phone. Emailing her daughter. Heading down to her daughter's place of work. Nothing. She…she was not worried. She knew what her son had said and she trusted him. If he said that his sister was fine then she was fine.

She was not worried.

And she had just picked up a bottle of cheap liquor, bottom shelf rubbing alcohol practically, on her way back from Shigeko's job because…because of reasons. Because she'd had the brilliant idea of marking the liquor bottles at home because her son's girlfriend seemed like the type…and now she couldn't take a single drink without her husband knowing and then breathing down her neck about it…not that he wouldn't be breathing down her neck about spending money on this…

She didn't care.

That was what brought her to her current predicament. She had a full size drinking glass of tea and liquor and she was watching television like this was a semi normal night. Her husband was on their laptop in their room trying to save their family from financial freefall and her son was in his room studying. Even though the schools were closed Ritsu was still at it. He made her so proud. At least she had one child who didn't give her grief.

She loved her son.

And her daughter as well.

She tried Shigeko's cellphone again. Still nothing. Straight to voicemail. Either her phone was off or she was screening her calls. Both were equally likely. Shigeko didn't have much of a reason to speak to her mother now did she? She was all grown up and out of the house now. She was working and…and doing the things adults did. She didn't need her mother anymore. She didn't need her mother or her father anymore. She had made her choice.

She tried her daughter's cellphone again.

Nothing. She didn't know what she was so worried about. Shigeko was fine. She was fine because she was always fine. With her powers there wasn't anything that could hurt her, not really, and Ritsu had told her that Shigeko was fine…and also her name was not on the list of the dead. Hana had checked that obsessively when it came out. They were updating it constantly. It seemed like every hour they were pulling a new person up out of the rubble. She didn't…she didn't understand why any of this had happened…well she knew why. She had seen that ghastly broadcast like everyone else in Japan…but she still did not understand. The government said that it had been the work of a delusional criminal organization. People agreed. There was no such thing as psychic powers, according to most people in the world, but Hana knew better. She knew exactly what psychic powers were capable of. She knew exactly what her Daughter was capable of….

What she could have been capable of.

There's a new layer of fear to it, her relationship with Shigeko, and she does not like it. She had always been afraid of her daughter losing control and hurting someone, namely Ritsu. She had done it before back when she had been only eleven years old. She was fourteen now. She'd be a true adult before Hana even knew it. She'd grow up and her powers would grow with her and then she would be capable of…things like that.

Shigeko was not that kind of person.

As far as Hana knew her daughter's ambitions didn't extend past drinking as much milk as she could and passing math. Shigeko rule the world? No way. But she was still nothing more, really, than a teenage girl. She would grow up and then…and then there would be no one to stop her if she ever got the idea to…to do…to do the unthinkable. But she wouldn't. This was Shigeko. She was not a vindictive person. She lost control, true, but she didn't terrorize people like that…

But she could have if she wanted to.

Hana put her phone down and focused on the broadcast. They were talking about shelters. There were shelters for the homeless and displaced. Every hotel in the city was full. Some people didn't have the money for a hotel anyway. Some people had come back to the city to find that they had lost everything. Downtown was destroyed, mostly, but a lot of neighborhoods were hit too. Looters. Vandals. Fires. One block had even had a gas explosion. Hana was lucky, truly lucky, to have come home to, well, her home…

Even if her neighbors had their own stories to tell.

The neighbors across the street swore up and down that the house had been on fire. That they had seen Shigeko go into their burning house. That there had been nothing, just smoldering rubble, before they evacuated. They obviously were thinking of the wrong house. This house was still standing. It was perfectly fine, perfectly clean, and perfectly not at all on fire. She would have noticed if there had even been a small fire, if her neighbors had been exaggerating, but there was no evidence of any fire at all.

Ritsu would have told her if there had been a fire.

Ritsu was a good boy. He was everything that she ever could have wanted in a son. There was no way that the house had burnt down and then…what, exactly? Rebuilt to the exact way it had been before complete with the half eaten sandwich in the back of the fridge that had gone moldy ages ago? Absurd. Truly absurd. Everything had been fine. Ritsu had been fine. He had not been in any danger….no, not at all….he had been with his girlfriend. He had been at his girlfriend's house and…and he had been fine. Aside from whatever it was that he and that little….he and his girlfriend had gotten up to because obviously they hadn't been supervised properly and they had been free to get up to anything and everything and Ritsu was a good boy but he was still a boy and his girlfriend was not a very good girl and-

The ceiling lamp shook.

"Ritsu? What are you doing up there?" asked Hana. She turned towards the stairs and shouted. She really should have gotten up…but the floor seemed a bit uneven….or maybe it was her house slippers. It certainly had nothing to do with the amount of alcoholic tea that she had been drinking. Nope, nothing at all.

"Nothing mom!" said Ritsu eventually. Hana knew that she should have gone up there and checked on him but…but he was a good boy. He was a good boy and he had to know that she thought that he was a good boy and that she could trust him. She did trust him. She trusted him when he said that his sister was fine and that the house hadn't burnt down and that…that he was fine. He really was fine.

He had to be.

"You have to be quiet." Said Ritsu for what felt like the millionth time. He sat at his desk hunched over his notebook. His mechanical pencil was pressed to the page but he didn't dare write anything. Not when he had company. Unexpected company.

Suzuki Sho was in his room.

Part of Ritsu had been worried that he would never see Sho again. He had been worried that….that he would leave his life as quickly as he entered it. Their alliance was over. Claw was done, Sho's dad had been arrested, and Shigeko was safe….with Reigen….but that still counted as being safe. Really there was no reason for them to keep on doing…this.

Whatever this was.

"I am being quiet." Said Sho as he picked himself up off the ground. He had been trying to a cartwheel on Ritsu's bed and had severely underestimated how small it was…and he had also severely overestimated his ability to do a cartwheel. Or maybe he was just better at doing them on solid ground. He didn't know. All he knew was that it was very important that he do a cartwheel.

He had to keep moving.

"If you jumping on my bed counts as being quiet then I sure as hell don't want to know what you consider being loud." Said Ritsu. Maybe he could write about this. The guy who kept on inviting himself in. The guy who invisibly opened his window, flew through, and then started jumping on his bed. That was a better than all of the other things that he had to write about beds and what happened on them…

He was such an idiot sometimes.

His phone vibrated again. Rei. She been carrying on a one sided conversation with him about…he wasn't even sure. He caught the beginning of her message. Oh. She wanted to see him tomorrow. Well that was an easy one to answer. No. His parents had him under house arrest, it felt like, because of what had happened. They didn't even know the whole of what had happened but they were still keeping him inside 'until the fuss died down' as mom had said. He didn't care. Well he sort of did, he wanted to see Teru again and see how he was holding up. He had managed to find a hotel and he was living there until his family found him a new place to live. Shigeko wasn't there. She was with Reigen. Why she kept on going back to Reigen Ritsu did not know.

Girls could be mysteries, sometimes, or at least the ones he knew were.

"I was not jumping. I'll have you know that I was in the middle of a perfect cartwheel when your bed decided to be way too short. Seriously, how do you sleep on this thing?" asked Sho. He bounced up and down on Ritsu's bed a couple of times. Way too soft. How did Ritsu manage to sleep here? Or maybe he just liked it this way. Sho didn't know. He had never slept on one bed long enough to get used to it. Maybe most people slept on soft beds. He didn't know.

Mom didn't have a bed for him.

She had a couch that he was welcome to sleep on. There wasn't enough room in her new house for him. He hadn't given her any warning, to be fair, and he was sure that she'd made him a room when she found a new place for them to live…together. If she wanted to. Even though her face got really tight and her eyes got really intense when he knocked on her door. Even though…there was no even though. She was his mom and of course she wanted him there.

"On my side for about seven to eight hours a night." Said Ritsu with a shrug. He looked away from his notebook. He didn't have anything to write about, bed related or otherwise, because if he wrote about then…then it would be something that he had to think about. Everything would be something that he had to think about. Him. The way he had almost died. Shigeko. The way he hadn't been able to save her and how she almost died. Rei. The way that, if it hadn't been for her, he and the rest of them would have died. Sho. The fact that if it weren't for his dad then none of this would have happened, nobody would have almost died in the first place….

He was not blaming Sho.

Not for what happened with his dad, not for dragging him and everyone else into it, and not for…not for other stuff. Feelings stuff. Feelings that Ritsu….that Ritsu knew that he should not have had. The kinds that caused moments of…it had been temporary insanity. The kind that was….that was born of being afraid to die. Being afraid to die without knowing what…what certain things were like…and now he knew and he knew that he could never do it again and he knew that he didn't have to do it again….

And he wouldn't do it again.

"Seven to eight hours? How does that even work? What are you, a baby?" asked Sho. He was lucky to get five hours. He had barely slept since…well to be fair he had been standing guard over dad. He couldn't just fall asleep on the job like that. What if dad had gotten up and decided to get back to the whole 'world domination' thing? That would have been crappy. Dad hadn't, though, and he had even said that….it didn't matter. It didn't matter what dad had or had not said or what he should or should not have said. It was over. Roll credits.

It was finally over.

He had been working to take down Claw for so long…and now it was over. He had been dreaming of the day when it would be over, when Claw would be done with, and when he could see his mom again. Now it was all over. There was a kind of a sort of a…loss. Dad was gone but dad had been a jerk. Why did he even care? Dad had been nothing but an asshole to him for the entire thirteen years of his life. There was no reason to even care if that bastard lived or died. So what if he had said…so fucking what!? It was over! It was over and-

And-

And he stood on his hands. This he could do. He stood on his hands and stared at Ritsu. He was trying to look annoyed. He knew how Ritsu looked when he was really annoyed by something, he looked like he was sucking on a lemon, and he did not look like that now. He was smiling a little, just a little bit, the sort of smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth. Sho didn't know why he was hiding it, the fact that he was smiling, because really he looked so…Sho liked it when he smiled.

It took his mind off of shit that he knew that he should not have been thinking about.

"What are you even doing?" asked Ritsu. This was dumb. If he fell then mom would have been up there and if she caught Sho in his room she'd kick him out…maybe. She'd definitely want to know how he got in the house without her or dad noticing and then he'd have to think up a lie and then another and another and he was not in the mood to be thinking up lies. He didn't know what he was in the mood for but…but it wasn't that.

His phone vibrated again.

He ignored it.

"What's it look like?" asked Sho. He wondered how long he could keep this up for. Eventually the blood in his head would make him pass out and then he'd probably fall and break his neck or something. That would have sucked for Ritsu. Seeing his friend die in such a stupid but also cool way. His friend.

He'd never had one of those before.

One his own age. Serizawa didn't count. They were back to being friends…or at least Sho didn't want to kill him or kick his ass or anything anymore….they were ok. They were back to being friends but it was just…different….when you had a friend your own age. Sho hadn't had a friend his own age in…ever. It was nice. Ritsu was nice. Ritsu was more than nice. He was brave as fuck. He was trustworthy as fuck. He was loyal as fuck. He was…

Ritsu was a lot of things.

And all of them ended in 'as fuck'. He earned it. He earned it a thousand times over. Holding his own against Shimazaki like that….not a lot of guys would have done that for him…or been able to. Ritsu was awesome. Ritsu was the most awesome. That was why he liked him so much. That was why he liked him…liked him, liked him. Maybe. Probably. Even though he knew that he shouldn't have. Ritsu had a girlfriend and they were in love and you were not supposed to mess with that. Love. Love was one of the most important things in the world. Maybe if his parents had loved each other more then none of this shit would have happened. Sho knew love was important and he was not going to mess with it.

Plus Ritsu obviously wouldn't have liked him back, anyway.

Ritsu had a girlfriend which meant that he liked girls and Sho was not a girl. He was not a girl and that was that. Besides, even if he had been a girl he wouldn't have messed with Ritsu's relationship, that was just not right. They loved each other a lot, that was why Ritsu had so many of his girlfriend's drawings everywhere, and also why he had that picture of her on his desk. That was love. She was probably who was messaging him nonstop, too. Sho was probably keeping him from talking to her and telling her how much he loved her and stuff. Yeah, maybe he should have just left and-

And he didn't really have anywhere else to go.

"It looks like you're trying to pass out from all the blood rushing to your head." Said Ritsu. He shook his head. Sho was ridiculous sometimes. Maybe all of the time. They didn't really hang out socially that much. They had been a little too busy saving the world and all of that. Now they could, though, they could hang out. Him and Sho and Teru…or maybe just him and Sho. Teru wasn't still mad at him for what happened but…

He wanted to be alone with Sho.

He needed to knock it off. He could not like this guy. He could not like any guy. Besides, he had someone who liked him…and that was that. He was not going to hurt Rei like that. He couldn't break up with her, that would have hurt her, and he couldn't cheat on her either. That would have hurt her even worse. She had done nothing at all to deserve that. She had done nothing but love him….and he had to at least act like he loved her back. She didn't deserve to get hurt like that.

His phone vibrated again.

He checked it.

"No, I'm trying to walk on my hands." Said Sho. He wanted Ritsu to look at him. He hadn't realized how badly he wanted Ritsu to look at him until he stopped. This was dumb and he was being dumb. Ritsu was, of course, going to pay attention to him again…and he shouldn't have needed that much attention in the first place. He had spent so much of his life practically invisible…maybe that was it. Maybe he just had issues. There was no maybe about it, he had issues, he had so many issues that his issues had issues.

"Well then do it." Said Ritsu. He skimmed over everything Rei had sent him and replied that, no, he couldn't come and see her and then he cited his parents as the reason. That got him a crying emoji and then more text. He didn't know why she wanted to see him so badly. They had just spent days and days together….maybe she wanted to get back to what they had been doing in those days and days….not that they had been doing much if all of the talk that Ritsu overheard was to be believed….

He felt himself blushing and then put his phone face down on his desk.

She'd had a lot more fun than he did. He didn't even know how that worked. From what he had been able to gather it was supposed to be really complicated, girls and stuff like that, but of course he was just as naturally good at that as he was at everything else in his life. She had certainly told him so enough times. She hadn't been good at it at all…and she had stared a lot….but it was mostly about her anyway. He could give or take….at least he thought he could…his mind was going to places that it shouldn't have….

"Check me out." Said Sho. He could walk on his hands and he did walk on his hands…for a little bit. People were not meant to walk on their hands. Not without the assistance of psychic powers, anyway, and he was not using his powers for that…even though he maybe should have….because he wound up overbalanced and tipped over…and Ritsu caught him. Great. Just great. Now Ritsu probably thought that he was an idiot or something. Anyone but him, apparently. He didn't know why he even cared….well he did know….and he wished that he didn't know. If he didn't know why he even cared then he could have pretended that he didn't care. But he did care.

Because he liked Ritsu.

"I told you so." Said Ritsu. He had managed to catch Sho, that was good, because he didn't need his mother in there. He had managed to catch Sho with his powers and now…now all that was left would be to put him down….any minute now. Any second now. He just had to let go…but his powers wouldn't listen. That wasn't new, they didn't listen sometimes, but usually in the opposite way. He had never been able to tell them to….he had never had to tell them not to do something, before, usually he had to argue to even get them to work….

He didn't know what was wrong with him.

Well he did. He knew exactly what was wrong with him. He knew what was wrong and he knew what he had to do to fix it. He liked Sho. He liked him and there were two things that he could do. He could avoid Sho for the rest of this lives until he even forgot that Sho existed, not likely, or he could mess up his and Sho's friendship so badly that…that it was like the mess that he had made out of his…whatever it was with Teru….not something that he wanted to do.

Or he could ignore it.

Yes, that could work.

"Well then let's see you do better." Said Sho. Ritsu was still holding him up. He could break through easily, he was strong enough, but he didn't want to. Ritsu had caught him…and there hadn't been anyone there to catch him in so long. Longer than he could remember. Maybe he didn't even like Ritsu like that. Maybe he just wanted someone to be there when he fell. Someone to catch him. Someone that he could trust.

He hadn't been able to trust someone in so long.

But he knew that he could trust Ritsu.

"Trust me, Mob, you are not going to like this." said Reigen as he sipped a cup of room temperature sake. Mob had finished her cup, hers had been watered down, and now she said that she wanted more. She was reaching for his cup now. They were sitting in the living room, him and mom on the couch and Mob on the floor, and she was reaching for his cup.

"I might." Said Mob. She was not a child. She had gotten a cup that was half sake and half water. She did not want to be treated like a child. She had saved the world and she…she was not a child. Even if she felt, then as she sat on the floor, like a child amongst adults.

"Trust Taka-chan, Mobbu, if he says that it's bad then it's bad. I caught him drinking cooking wine once." Said Sophia. Solutions could always be found at the bottom of a bottle. She couldn't believe that she was doing this with her own son…and his…whatever she was going to call Mobbu. Whatever she was tipsy enough to call her. Whatever she was about to call her but had managed to stop herself from saying. She was not about to go and open up that can of worms. That can of worms would not have gone well with room temperature Costco sake.

"He still does. After we came back from saving the world Master Reigen drank a whole bottle of cooking wine." Said Mob. She laughed when she said that. She laughed and the table jumped. When she laughed and the table jumped Master Reigen laughed too. His aura and her aura were together. She was happy and he was happy because she was happy…or maybe it was the other way around. She didn't know. All she knew was that she liked sake, there was an orange cat sitting on her legs, and Master Reigen was happy.

"Arataka…..what is wrong with you?!" laughed Sophia. She didn't know what was so funny about that, she had caught him doing the exact same thing fifteen years ago and it hadn't been funny then…cleaning up his vomit from the kitchen floor at three in the morning…but the thought of him doing that as a grown man…she laughed. She was happy. She laughed because she was happy. Sake did make everything better.

"Yeah Master….you're not supposed to drink cooking wine." Said Mob. She laughed and the cat jumped away from her. Well as well as it could. It was such a fat cat, maybe because of all the treats in the kitchen, and she kind of wanted to give the cat a treat…all the treats. It was such a good cat…it needed all the treats in the whole wide world…

"Oh come on, it's not like I do it regularly." Said Reigen

"I don't know, Master, I don't watch you every minute of the day." Said Mob. She was just teasing him and he knew it. That was why he tugged on her hair like that. Not meanly. There were different ways to tug on her hair. He never tugged on it in the mean way, that wasn't like him at all, but he had his own tugs that meant different things. There was the one that said 'I'm here, I've got you' as well as the one that said 'Mob, you dummy'. This was the 'Mob, you dummy' one but he didn't mean it meanly. He could never be mean to her.

Never again.

She watched him. He and his mom were talking about something that he did when he was a kid, now. Apparently when he had been young he had drank cooking wine until he got sick. Poor Master Reigen. She couldn't imagine him as a kid….well now she could. Behind the TV, it was sort of distracting seeing pictures behind the TV, there were pictures of Master Reigen. When he was a baby and then a little kid and then a big kid and then her age and then high school aged. He looked….he looked nice when he was her age.

She would have liked him.

She could imagine him in a dark blue gakuran. She could imagine him sitting there inside of her classroom. Maybe in front of her. In front of her because then he couldn't notice her staring…and she would have stared. She stared at him a lot now…but not as much as she could have stared at him if he had been her age. It would have been ok to stare at him. It would have been ok to feel the way she felt, now, about him. It would have been ok to hold his hand….to kiss him…to do….and she stopped thinking about that. He was an adult, fourteen years older than her, and it made no sense to think about him being her age. That was not how it worked, she had to think of him as he was now…or maybe not at all.

She had a boyfriend.

And she missed her boyfriend. She missed Teru. Her hand went to her pocket. Her phone wasn't there. Her phone was in her NERV bag hanging on the hook by Sophia's front door. There was a hole in her bag and a hole in her phone and she wished that she had left her phone at home before she saved the world. Then she could have gotten on her phone and seen how Teru was doing. He was in a hotel now…and he wanted her to be with him, probably, and she wanted to be with him….but she also wanted to be with Master Reigen….

Kissing Teru was nicer.

And she didn't know where that thought had come from. She had never kissed Master Reigen before and never would. She had kissed Teru more times than she could count. The only boy she had ever kissed, kissed on the mouth for real, was Teru. Kissing Ritsu on the forehead and the cheek when she was little did not count. Teru was the only boy that she had ever kissed and the only boy who she ever would kiss…because he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her…and nobody had ever wanted that from her…

And that was why he was the only boy who she would ever kiss.

Even though she wanted to kiss….she wanted to kiss Master Reigen. In the end he had slid his cup towards her and she had drank the whole thing at once even though it burnt going down….and now her thoughts were getting all fuzzy…and the cup was floating now…and Master Reigen was talking to his mom about more stuff that had happened before she was even born. She would have been his friend, maybe, or maybe even more….if they were the same age. If they were in the same class. But she would still have known Teru…and she maybe still would have loved Teru…and then she and…she didn't know what she would have done in that case….

She liked kissing.

She could have kissed Master Reigen if she wanted to. She could have stood up and kissed him. She could have stood up and kissed him before he could even have stopped her…and she's staring to put her weight on her hands to push off from the ground before she realizes what a terrible idea that this would be. She had a boyfriend and she loved him and when she grew up she was going to marry him…because that was what he wanted…and no matter what happened Master Reigen would always be older than her…and Teru loved her and she could never have hurt him and…and she loved Teru…

And Master's Reigen's stubble would have hurt anyway.

She's watching him now, watching his talk. She's always watched him talk…and she…she almost could have never…she doesn't want to think about it. She doesn't want to think about how close she came to losing him. How close he had come to dying. She could have…she could have lost him…and now she wants to kiss him more than anything else in the world. Because she almost didn't…she almost lost the chance forever….because he almost died….and she almost died. They had almost died…everyone she knew had almost died…and then…but now it's over. It's over and she's not in the middle of it anymore. She's there and she's safe and everyone she loves is safe and….and she saved everyone…and everyone is safe…and her mind keeps on going around and around in circles and she has no idea how to make it stop. She has no idea how to get back to being….not like how she just was because she should not have bene thinking of Master Reigen like that….and even before that….she hadn't been happy in so long…well she had but that was right after she almost died….and Teru had been there…and she wanted nothing more than to be with Teru again…but not if it meant that she didn't get to be with Master Reigen anymore…and she doesn't want to choose….but she had already chosen….and she thought that she'd had more time….

A cup is placed in her hands.

"Come on Mob, don't be like that." Said Reigen. He knew what she was feeling, it was what he was feeling, and he did not want to feel that way. Mob apparently cycled between being a horny drunk and a sad drunk. Well he was a happy drunk and he was going to pass that happiness onto her. She should not have been upset. It killed him when she was upset. She had been…she had gone through so much. Not only just now but also…also before. With the Asagiri job. With the Asagiri job and also…also what had happened the first time with Claw…all those months ago…

"I-I'm not being like anything." Said Mob. She blushed when their fingers made contact. She wished that he would just hold her hand. She still….she still wanted to and she had almost died without knowing…without knowing the unknowable. She was not going to…but he was so close….

"You know how you're being." Said Reigen. She really needed to quit him. He wished that he could have just come out and told her that he did not and could not share in her feelings. She had feelings for him and that was…well not ok but not something that he was going to make a thing out of. She was fourteen and got crushes. School girl crushes for the school girl…which she was even though it didn't feel like it all the time…and who it should have felt like it all the time…because she was fourteen…and…and…who hadn't gone to school in ages…but he had no idea who it was that he was even arguing with in his own mind.

"I-I-I wasn't being like anything." Said Mob. She knew that he could feel what she was feeling…and she drank the cup down really fast. It burned. It got refilled. She would have drank again but she sort of felt like she was going to be motion sick. Master Reigen could not have known how she felt. She did not live through all of that only to die of embarrassment….

He could not know what she was thinking of.

How he had been one of the biggest reasons she had won. Well she had told him that but…but he didn't know how she meant it. Like when she told him that she loved him…he had no idea how she really meant it. She loved him and…and she knew that it was wrong to be in love with him…and now that she was thinking about him and how much she loved him…she thought of Teru and how nice it felt to be near him…and how warm he was…and how sometimes when they would watch interesting movies he would tell her facts about the movie and it wouldn't be annoying at all even though she knew that you weren't supposed to talk through the movie…

Her cup was refilled. She took another quick drink. It burned going down. She didn't care.

She didn't know why she was like this. Maybe if she drank enough she could get better. Maybe that was where the answers were, at the bottom of her cup.