Mob hadn't had a room all to herself in a while.
This was a junk room. Reigen Sophia said that it used to be a home office when Master Reigen's dad lived with them but then he left and they turned it into a guest room. It had become a junk room shortly after Master Reigen left because Sophia didn't usually have guests. Then it became a junk room. Now it was Mob's room.
For the time being.
Sophia had said that this room was Mob's for the being. Neither of them knew how long that would be. She and Master Reigen hadn't talked about that, about when they would be going back to Seasoning City, but she hoped that it wasn't soon. Soon would be too soon. They had only just gotten here. Mob hadn't had any time to properly explore the house. This house. The house where Master Reigen had grown up.
Well, not really.
Because he had moved into this house when he had been her age. She had heard him talking about it, he hadn't been talking to her he had just been talking, as he tended to do when he drank. They hadn't drank together in a while. She liked it. It was more like they were the same, equals, instead of adult and kid. Even if he did lay down on the ground and ramble about how his life had been. How he had hated this house when he had been her age. How he had hated moving here, hated his school, and hated life. It was hard to imagine him being her age and being so….mad…..about stuff. About moving to this house. About how his parents fought all the time. She didn't want to imagine him like that.
Well she did and she didn't.
She wanted to imagine him being her age. To imagine a time when they might have been friends. To imagine a time when they could have been friends…or even more than friends. To imagine a time in which the times when he put an arm around her or played with her hair or any multitude of the other things he did…the little ways he touched her…could have meant something more than what they did now. To imagine him being in her class, maybe, to imagine him being someone that she could have been with….and she knew that she shouldn't have imagined him like that.
She tries to tell herself that she wouldn't want to know him when he was her age.
She tells herself that she wouldn't have wanted to know him when he was her age. That when he was her age he drank and smoked all the time, which really didn't bother her, and that he was so mad at everything back then…and she tried not to be mad…and that they couldn't have possibly been happy together. That he wouldn't have given her the time of day back then. That they wouldn't have known each other and if they had known each other then they wouldn't have been friends let alone anything more than that.
She tries to tell herself that.
She has to tell herself that because she has a boyfriend who she loves and who loves her. She has Teru and Teru has her and they have each other and Teru is her age and she should be with him forever. She had thought that there had been more time to choose but, really, there hadn't even been a choice to make. Master Reigen was never going to like her like she liked him. No matter how much older she got he would always be older, too, and he would never be able to think of her the way she thought of him. So really there was no point in laying down on this dusty old futon and imagining a world where Master Reigen was her age and they were a couple together.
No point to that at all.
Because that was never going to happen. She had might as well get up and…and she didn't know. There was nothing for her to do. She hadn't gone to school in a while…so why did she still feel like she had to get up and go to school? Why did it feel like that was something that she had to do? She felt like…she missed school? Yes, she did. It was all over, all of it, and the thought of getting up and putting on her uniform…which had been ruined in the fight…..the thought of getting up and putting on her uniform and having breakfast seemed so good right then….
Getting back to normal.
Truly getting back to normal. Getting back to what her life had been like before all of this. Back when she hadn't felt bad about herself almost all the time. Back when she'd hung out with her friends and not had this weight on her…a weight that felt like it had been lifted. Lifted a little. She'd saved the world and showed someone how to be a better person. That was good. That was great. That was….that was….that had been so scary. It had been scary and it had hurt…but now it was over. It was over and she was there, in the office turned bedroom turned junk room turned bedroom again.
And it was nice.
Also it was white. A very bright shade of white. The white just showed off the dust marks on the walls. Sophia's had moved some boxes and shelves to make room for Mob. The room had seemed so much smaller, before, when Mob first unrolled the old futon and went to sleep on it. The room was bigger now because a lot of the junk had been moved out of it. She knew that this was not her room, she didn't have her own room anymore, but she felt almost like…like it was. Even though this only temporary. Even though she needed to go back to seasoning city eventually. Her friends and brother and boyfriend were there after all.
Also her parents.
Mob's phone had broken during the fight. She and Master Reigen hadn't gone to the phone store yet even though they really needed to. She needed another phone. She needed to know if her parents…well she knew that they were ok. Ritsu's friend Sho had thought of everything. He was a nice person like that. She felt so bad about what his dad had done to him…not just the whole beating him half to death thing but also the whole thirteen years of his life…and here she was worrying about her parents when his parents were, well, his parents. Was that how it worked? Was it that you didn't get to worry about yourself when someone else had it worse? It felt like that. Poor Sho. She hoped that everything worked out with him and his mom…and also that he and Ritsu stayed friends. She hoped that he and Ritsu stayed the very best of friends, and they were good friends since Ritsu let him hang around so often, and she hoped that they were both happy.
She hoped that everyone was happy.
She had no idea how everyone was doing. Ritsu was back home with mom and dad. Teru had found a temporary place to live that wasn't the Awakening Lab. Rei was probably fighting with her sister again, something which Mob didn't understand at all. She was big sister to Ritsu and they never fought….aside from the time that Ritsu had gotten his powers and then turned into a jerk…but she did not want to think about that. She wished that her phone wasn't broken. Then she could check up on everyone…but that had happened. That was a thing that had happened. Her phone was broken and most of downtown was broken and a lot of things were broken so there was nothing else to do but accept that things were broken and then get out of bed.
Futon.
A futon was not a bed. A futon was a bedroll. Master Reigen slept in an actual bed. It was actually a little bit funny. He had fallen asleep on the living room floor and Mob had carried him up to his room with her powers and put him to bed. He was almost too big for his bed. His room, and it was his room because this was his old house, had been so much like and so much not like his room at their apartment. It had been messy, and the plants were long dead, which was like their apartment but it was also different. He had a lot of posters up on the walls. Mob hadn't been in there for very long but she had recognized some of the shows that they were from. Master Reigen really liked that junk food fighter show…and also Death Note, for some reason, which was not something she expected from him. He also had a poster of Mogami above his bed…and that was when she had left the room really fast.
That hadn't been her room.
Now she had a room, temporarily, and it was this one. But now she was going to leave it because it was another day and she had…well she didn't have things to do but she still had to get up. So that was what she did. The room was cold, or maybe she had just been overly warm. She could see dust and cat hair dancing in the air as she sat up. She didn't mind. She'd slept in worse. She wondered where that cat had done to. That was the best part out of all of this. There was a cat in this house. A big, fat, orange cat that was so very fluffy….and like she had said last night it was sad that the poor cat would never know how fluffy it was. So sad….
That was something to do. Look for the cat.
She stood up and shook out her hair. Messy. She'd brush it later. Or maybe she should have brushed it now…she went through it with her powers. Good enough. It could have been worse. It could have been a lot worse. She was…she felt good. Happy. Better than she had before. Even if the room was cold and her nightgown was kind of thin and she had kicked her socks off in the middle of the night. She still felt good. She had saved the whole world…and now she had a cat to play with…so it was good.
Now where was that cat?
Her search took her out of her room and into the hallway. The walls of the hallway were pink. Mob wondered why the walls of her room weren't pink too. She liked pink. Maybe Master Reigen's family had run out of pink paint or something. She liked pink. If she ever got her own room for real, when she was an adult or something, she would have liked pink walls. Or maybe blue. Or maybe whatever color Teru wanted since she would be sharing her home with him. She wondered if he would have wanted to live in a house or an apartment. She liked this house a lot. Maybe she would have been happier in a house. A nice big house with pink walls and soft carpets.
The carpeting felt good against her bare feet.
Even if there was a lot of cat hair on it. Mob didn't mind. When you had a cat the cat would shed. That was just how cats were. They shredded their fur everywhere. That was why mom had never let her and Ritsu get a cat. She said that the fur would be a ghastly nuisance. Mob didn't know what there was to get all upset about. It was just a little cat hair. She could pick it up with her powers easily.
So that was what she did.
She used her powers to pick up all the cat hair. She balled it up until it was one fuzzy little hairball. The rug seemed brighter, now, much brighter. That had been a lot of cat hair. Mob knew that she had to throw it out even though it was an impressively sized hairball. She wasn't grossed out but she figured that other people would be. She had to throw it out…and if she'd had her phone with her then she could have taken a picture….but she had to throw it out.
She threw it out in the bathroom.
The bathroom had been down the hall from her. One bathroom. There was one bathroom for the three of them. Mob didn't see how that was a problem but Sophia had said that it would be. She said that it would be a tight fit, all three of them in one house, but Mob didn't see it. Three people in one bathroom didn't seem like a lot. Well not all in at the same time but taking turns. Now it was Mob's turn. It was Mob's turn but they had no set up a system of turns or anything like that. Nobody else was in the bathroom. It was later in the morning than she usually got up. She had been sleeping a lot more lately. A lot more since…since everything that had happened. Since the big fight.
She felt well rested.
She decided to brush her teeth. She had put her toothbrush in the bathroom. It was in a mug, a world's greatest mom mug, next to Master Reigen's and Sophia's. Pink, blue, and white. Kind of like the colors that her family had. She wondered if they had toothbrushes again, her family, if they had toothbrushes and toothpaste and all of the other things from the bathroom. Making the house its self had been easy…easier than making the things in the house anyway…and she was worried, now, that she had forgotten to fix everything…and that her family could have been without toothpaste or toothbrushes or soap or-or-or-and she reaches down for her phone. It doesn't work for two reasons. First of all this nightgown did not have pockets and second of all her phone was broken.
She brushed her teeth.
What else could she do? Besides look for the cat, of course, but she had to brush her teeth before anything else. That was the first thing that you did in the morning, you brushed your teeth, and then you started your day. Mob didn't have much to do with her day but she had might as well start it. So she brushed her teeth. The toothpaste tasted weird here. The toothpaste at home tasted like bubblegum. This toothpaste tasted like cinnamon…which was weird….but Mob was not complaining. She was not the one who went shopping so she was not going to be the one who did the complaining. Mom had said that. Only the one who did the shopping could also do the complaining. That was how it worked.
Mob wasn't complaining.
She was brushing her teeth. She watched herself in the mirror as she brushed her teeth. She looked the same. Two eyes, one nose, one mouth, long bangs, long hair, pale skin. Mob. She was still Mob. She was Mob and she was fine. She knew who she was. She wasn't in the void anymore. She wasn't in instrumentality anymore. She was herself again. She was herself again and she existed, again, within the limits of her vessel. This vessel had limits but it also had freedom. It limited herself to this space, this small space, but it also gave her the ability to interact with the world. The world around her did not hurt. The world of the void…it had hurt…but that was never happening again.
She was never going to do that again.
Any of that. Because it was over. Over and done with. She never wanted to…to put her friends in danger like that. To put the people she loved and cared for in danger…and she never would because it was all over. She had won…no. She hadn't won. She hadn't won because nobody had won. Instrumentality was not winning. Instrumentality was just…not winning. They had both lost and both lost their bodies and themselves….and now it was…it was over. It was over and she was ok and her teeth were brushed and she had no reason to be in the bathroom now.
So she left the bathroom.
Where was that cat? She loved that cat so much. She barely knew that cat but she knew that she loved him. He was orange and fluffy. She wanted nothing more than to pick that cat up and hold him and put him and all of that other stuff. There was a laser pointer. She had accidentally pointed it in her eyes last night when she had been playing with the cat. She hadn't been hurt even though Master Reigen had been worried. It took a lot to hurt her. She had survived being set on fire and throw into space and shoved through the ground and even lost her whole body. It took a lot to hurt her. That hadn't always been the case. When she was little, a lot littler than she was now, she had fallen and scraped her knee and then…and then she had cried so much…but now she knew that if she fell down and scraped her knee that she might not even have noticed.
She touches her hair.
There's a little bit of a disconnect between herself and her body. Like there's a little bit of a delay between the fact that she's touching her hair and the way that her hair feels under her hand. This is her body that she's touching. This is her body that she's feeling. She is herself. She is herself and this is her, this person is her, and she is herself. She is herself and this is her body…and this body is herself…but she is also herself. She is also herself.
She is herself and she is her body.
And she doesn't want to think about this anymore. She doesn't want to think about what happened. She didn't want to think about how it had felt…and how she felt now. She wanted to go back to feeling good. It was a new day. It had been several new days. She was feeling good. She had saved everyone and she was ok now. She was ok and everyone was ok….most everyone. She wondered how he was doing. Touichirou. She wondered how he was….if he was ok. She wondered what it was that they did to people who tried to take over the world. Probably nothing good. He deserved it…she felt like he deserved it, anyway, because he had tried to take over the whole world. He had hurt so many people…so she should not have been so worried about what was going to happen to him…what was happening to him right then and there in that moment in time….and maybe it was bad…and she wanted to…to make sure that nothing bad was happening to him. That she wasn't the reason that something bad was happening to her…not her. Him. There was still a him and a her…and there would always be a him and her.
She reached out with her aura.
She hadn't meant to. The minute the thought came to her mind she acted on it. She expanded outwards. She could feel…there was Master Reigen in his bed…there was…other espers…but not many. She extended out farther and farther until…she got kind of dizzy. She was dizzy want…
And her feet were not touching the ground.
So she stopped. Her feet went back to touching the ground. The ground was cold here, because the flor was tile. The floor was a cold white and black tile…and she wondered if he was cold, too…even though she knew that she should not have been worried about her. He had been fighting against her. He had tried to take over the whole world. He had used his powers to do so many bad things…and now…and now he was being punished because that was what happened when you committed crimes. You got punished. That was just how it all went. That was why they had that saying about not doing the crime if you could not do the time. He was doing the time. He had done the crime, pretty much all of the crimes, and now he had to do the time.
And it was not her fault that he was wherever it was that he was.
She didn't know why she was thinking about him so much. While it was true that they had both lost their bodies and their souls got all mixed it none of that changed what he had done. Sure he had changed now, at least she had gotten the feeling that he planned on changing now, but that didn't change what he had done in the past. It wasn't enough to feel bad about what you did. It wasn't enough to say that you were sorry. It wasn't enough….she did not get to decide this. She was not the one who made up the rules and the punishments. She was not the one who decided who got punished and who didn't. She was….she was just Mob.
And she was done brushing her teeth.
So she went to look for the cat. It had to be somewhere, everything was somewhere. She checked behind a door…a door that opened up to a room that she had not been in yet. This was Reigen Sophia's room. There was a double bed and it matched the nightstands and makeup table. There were pictures, too, of people Mob did not know….and a lot of someone she did. She assumed, anyway, that the baby in those pictures was Master Reigen. She didn't stay long enough to really check. This was not her room. She should not have been going through other people's bedrooms.
Even if she wanted to.
Even if she wanted to make Reigen Sophia's bed for her because she had left her bed unmade. Even if she wanted to sit down at the makeup table and just…well it wasn't polite to wear someone else's makeup so Mob would not be doing that any time soon. She wanted to, though, and she wanted to see what was in Sophia's closet….but she didn't. She was not going to snoop through other people's stuff because that was impolite.
Even if she hadn't ever been in an adult woman's bedroom before.
She had hardly ever been in her own mom's bedroom. She hadn't been allowed in there, and neither had Ritsu, because that space belonged to mom and dad. Mom and dad were still allowed to go into their rooms whenever they wanted to even though that was not at all fair. Mom mostly did that, not dad, and Mob didn't even know why she kept on doing it. It wasn't like Mob had anything worth snooping through. Mob didn't want to snoop anyway. To do what her mom did and look around for things that she knew would make her upset like bad report cards or candy wrappers. Mob just wanted to know what it was that grown adults kept in their rooms. Sophia's room looked a lot like Rei's room, actually. There were pictures on the walls, picture of people instead of posters and drawings, and there were clothes on the floor and a table covered in makeups and hair ties and other things….Mob just wanted to know what they were, that was all. She wondered what you were supposed to have in your bedroom. Mob didn't know, she didn't have her own room…and she never would.
Because she would be going back to Seasoning City eventually.
She knew that she had to…and also she wanted to. She missed Teru…or at least she knew that she was supposed to miss Teru. She knew that she was supposed to be all sad because they were apart, and she was a little sad, but not very sad. Not as sad as Teru got when they were apart. Teru didn't have as many people as she did, she felt like, because he didn't have any parents or any siblings and he had even told her that she was his first real and true friend. He had friends but nobody that he didn't have to be anything other than the person he pretended to be, with. He said that she was the only person that he could ever be himself around….something which struck Mob as being very sad. That was why he was so sad when they were apart and also so happy when they were together.
She was sad when they were apart, too, and happy when they were together but not as much as he was.
Did that make her a bad person? Did that mean that she didn't love him as much as he loved her? Sometimes she felt like she was a bad person….but she also felt like she was tired of feeling like she was a bad person. She didn't want to feel like a bad person, she didn't want to be a bad person, she wanted…she wanted to be a good person. She wanted to be a good person and she wanted…she wanted a lot of things….
Like finding that cat.
There was a cat.
Sho liked cats. He liked cats and dogs and pretty much any animal with fur. So he should have liked that cat. He did like that cat. He liked mom's cat. Its name was Duchess, because it had all white fur and was fancy and finicky, and Sho loved that cat. He even loved that cat when it woke him up early in the morning put digging its paws into his face. He hadn't been sleeping too well anyway. How could he? He had never had his own bed, before, but at least there had always been a bed for him to sleep on. Now all he had was a couch.
Mom's couch.
That was where he was supposed to sleep now. Mom's couch in her apartment that she shared with this cat. She had a boyfriend, too, but she told him not to come around until Sho got settled. As if he could get any more settled than he was now. He had his whole life with him, it all fit in one backpack, and that backpack was sitting right there on the floor covered in cat hair…he was covered in cat hair too…but that was ok because this was the cat's home, it had been the cat's home first, and Sho was the one intruding upon it. This was the cat's home and his mom's home and also she said that she and her boyfriend who Sho had not cared to learn the name of had been talking about getting a place together so really this was not anywhere near being Sho's home. He had no home. He hadn't had a home since he was seven. He was thirteen now. Years had passed. He was over stuff like this.
He had won.
He had stopped dad and his side had won so, really, he should have been happy. He should have been doing somersaults and cartwheels and backflips and front flips and whatever other kind of flips he knew how to do. This was what he had been waiting for, working for, hoping for since he was a kid. He was back with mom. Dad was defeated. Everything was right in his life…
But it wasn't.
Because things were never just over. Things didn't work out like they did on TV. Sure the whole take over the world thing was over but that was just part one of the shit show that was the life of Suzuki Sho. Now he had to find a place to live and go to school and work on being normal. That was what mom had said. All he had to do now was worry about being a normal kid. Even though he was neither of those things. He was not normal and he was not a kid. Well he was only thirteen and three quarters, which was a kid legally, but he didn't feel like a kid.
How many kids organized successful coups and ousted their own fathers from power like it was nothing?
Well, ok, it hadn't been like nothing. Also getting dad put in jail…he hadn't thought so far ahead. He hadn't thought about what it would be like to actually see them carting his father off to esper prison, which was probably worse than real prison, and to possibly even his execution….it was harder than he would have thought that it would have been, especially with all the stuff that dad had said. It would have been easier if dad had just called him a failure again or told him to go to hell or something like that. No, dad had to go and say that he was sorry.
Sho hadn't accounted for that.
He also hadn't accounted for just how big Claw was and just how many people wanted to see Dad's dream becoming reality…and just how few people knew what really happened….and just how many people wanted to see him carry on with Dad's work and his dream…but he was not going to do that. He would ignored them and tell them to fuck off and beat them up and whatever else it was that he had to do to get those asshole off of his back. He wasn't his dad and he was not going to try and do something as stupid as to take over the world…and fuck those guys who thought that just because his name was Suzuki and he had red hair and blue eyes he was going to pick up where dad left off.
He wasn't.
Some of them were talking about Ritsu's big sis, how she was the most powerful esper ever, and how they should follow her. Those were the ones who knew more of what happened. They were fighting about that, now, last Sho had heard. Good. Let them beat the shit out of each other. Let them all destroy each other until they were one less thing for him to worry about. He had enough to worry about. Shit that he hadn't even thought to worry about. Shit that he had never worried about in his entire life.
School and shit like that.
Normal kid stuff. He was supposed to be working on being a normal kid. He was in mom's custody now and she said that she had to find him a school to go to. She said that he would like it. She said that he would like to be normal. She said that his life was going to get a hell of a lot better now. She even said that, a hell of a lot better, which was weird because he didn't remember his mom talking like that. In fact he didn't remember much of his mom. She was different than the memories he had of her…which meant that maybe his memory was really shitty or she had just changed. He knew that he had changed.
She had looked at him like he was a stranger.
When he had first knocked on her door she had looked at him like she had no idea who he was. That made no sense. How many other thirteen year olds with red hair and blue eyes did she know? Well obviously a lot because she hadn't recognized him. Then when he told her who he was she had just gotten the saddest look on her face….and it didn't make any sense. She had no reason to be sad. They were together again. They could be a family again. There was nothing stopping them from being together. No more dad and his crazy world domination plots. None of it. Just him and his mom. It would have been great.
It could have been great.
But it wasn't great. It hadn't been great from the very beginning. After the hugs and the kisses and the tears she had asked him about his life….and then it had all started to go downhill. She asked and he answered. He told her about the missions he went on when dad said that he was old enough, the places he'd stayed and the people he'd met. He told her about what it was like growing up with dad. How he was. How much of an asshole he could be. The way he treated….everyone. Maybe the best thing to do would have been to have kept it all to himself. Maybe the best thing to do would have been to tell mom that his life had been just fine and normal up to that point. But he didn't. He didn't lie to her.
He told her just what it was like after she left.
After she left him all alone with dad. After she went off to live her life with no thought at all towards her own Son. With no idea what she would be leaving him to. Maybe he wanted her to know how bad it had been. Maybe he wanted to know if she had any idea of how bad it was going to be. Maybe he wanted to know if she was planning on casting him aside again. If she thought that he was nothing, too….if she had ever seen him as anything or anyone to begin with….
She just hugged him and told him that everything was going to be alright.
And then she started up with her plans for his life. How they were going to get a bigger place and he was going to go to school and make friends and be normal. How everything in his life, the bad parts, were in the past and now he could start a new life where he could be a normal kid and just do normal kid things and soon everything that had happened would just be bad memories…or whatever. Sho…he would have liked it I she had asked if he wanted to go to school. If she had taken the time to ask him how he felt about all of this. If she had taken the time to ask him if he wanted to have a normal life and be a normal kid.
But she hadn't asked.
And he hadn't stopped her. She was happier, then, when she was telling him what his life was going to be. That was just how parents were, they had power over you, and they used it. They kept you boxed in to this idea of who they wanted you to be. They were your makers after all and if you were going to make something then why not make what you wanted? Why not make the perfect normal kid who went to school and made friends and did all of the other normal kid stuff. Why not make a kid that could inherit the world after you took it over. Why not make what you wanted to make because, after all, you were the one who went through the trouble of banging unprotected so therefore you got what you wanted and if your kid wasn't what you wanted him to be-
He had to get out of there.
This place was not big enough for the three of them. Him, mom, and the cat. This place was too small and Sho did not do well in small spaces. It was early in the morning, well at least by his standards, and mom was still asleep. She had work that day. She had work even though most of the city was out of work because of what dad did. Mom said that she was lucky to still have a job to go to. Mom said that she was going to work harder to save up and find them a bigger place once all the panic passed. Sho didn't say anything to that. She was his mom, she could do whatever she wanted, and so could he.
So he did whatever he wanted.
And what he wanted to do was to see Ritsu. He liked being around Ritsu. Hell, he liked Ritsu. Not in that wanting to bang him sort of way either, even though he totally did, but also in that butterflies in his stomach making him want to puke his guts out sort of way. Liking Ritsu was not ok. Ritsu had a girlfriend and they were in like, or even love, and messing with that was the worst thing that a person could do. There was nothing more important in this world than love and nothing hurt more than when someone you loved left you.
So Sho was not going to mess with Ritsu's relationship.
But that didn't mean that they couldn't be friends, they could be, because Sho had more self-control than to go and start kissing a guy just because he liked him. No, he and Ritsu were just friends. Best friends. The best friends in the history of friendship! That was all. Ritsu probably wouldn't have been into him even if he hadn't been seeing Rei. Ritsu was….Ritsu. He could have had any guy he wanted…if he had even wanted a guy in the first place…and Sho was just…Sho. Sho was just Sho, the guy who couldn't even save the world on his own, and Ritsu was Ritsu, the guy who put his life on the line even though he hadn't had to. He was also smart and funny, but not in a ha-ha sort of way but more in a Minegishi sort of way, and he was cute, too, so cute…and the way he smiled on those rare times when he did…
Sho had it bad.
But he was not going to go and see Ritsu just to spill his romantic guts to him and ruin everything. No, he was going to see Ritsu to….hang out in his room and….watch him do normal kid stuff. Yeah, Ritsu was the expert after all. Ritsu knew how to do all the normal kid stuff and Sho had been too busy staying alive to learn how to do. Maybe if he just spent enough time observing he would learn how to be a normal kid and then mom would be happy with him and never cast him aside or leave him again.
So, yeah, that was a good idea.
"So when did this look like a good idea?" said Ritsu as he sat up. It was too early and he was too tired. He had been up all night either texting Rei, sometimes he wondered if she ever slept, or stuck in his own mind going over every single mistake he had ever made in his thirteen years of life up to this point. Also mom and dad had started up with the Olympic level shouting matches so, yes, it hadn't been a long and restful sleep.
And he had been woken from what little sleep he had gotten to Sho starting at him.
"Like, an hour ago. You're a really heavy sleeper, you know, you didn't even notice me coming in. I mean you turned over for a little bit but you eventually turned back onto back. How do you even sleep like that? That does not look comfortable at all. I can't believe you managed to sleep so soundly on your bac, Ritsu." Said Sho. He had made sure to be very quiet. Ritsu was asleep and even though Sho was awake at this crazy hour it didn't mean that everyone else would be. Plus Ritsu looked….relaxed…when he slept. Not that Sho had spent that long watching him sleep. No, he had spent much more time watching Ritsu sleep back at the safe house during the….yeah. Then he had just been trying to commit him to memory in case…in case the worst were to happen.
Now he had just been staring for the sake of staring.
"Or maybe I was just pretending to sleep in the hopes that the creeper who broke into my room in the middle of the night would get bored and go away." said Ritsu even though there was no anger at all in his voice. He was…he was happy to see Sho. Even though he had just seen him last night. Even though he should have been upset at the intrusion into his room. He was just…happy.
And he shouldn't have been.
"Or maybe the creeper who broke into your room in the middle of the night, actually this morning, was there to watch you sleep all along." Said Sho. Ritsu was pissed at him. He knew how Ritsu looked when he got pissed and this was not it. Ritsu was happy. He looked….cute. It was the behead, that was what did it. The bed head and…and the way his pajama shirt was pulled way far too the right…
Ritsu fixed it.
"Then maybe the creeper who broke into my room early in the morning needs something else to do with his time." Said Ritsu. Sho was still looking at him. Sho had been looking at him. He needed….he felt more self-conscious then at that moment than he'd ever felt before in his life. He fixed his shirt and tried to run his hands through his hair. He stopped when he felt a warm hand on his forehead.
On his scar.
Where his scar should have been.
But as quick as that hand was there it pulled away. Ritsu felt warm. Every single inch of him felt like he had just gotten out of a warm bath. He swallowed. Now not only was he self-conscious but also he was…nervous. Very nervous. His eye met Sho's before they dipped down to his bedspread. Blue. Not evidence at all that his room had burnt down. That his house had burnt down. He felt like he was about to burn down or burn up or just burn.
"Maybe getting a life is the reason why he broke into your room early in the morning in the first place." Said Sho
"What do you mean?" asked Ritsu
"My mom wants me to get a life…a normal life….and I was up thinking about how I don't know a damn thing about being normal. I mean I have a life but it's, you know, my life. I was just thinking about how weird my life's been and then I thought that it sucked how weird it had been…and also that my mom shouldn't be telling me how to live my life….but she's my mom and I love her. So, yeah, I've been thinking about that stuff for a while. Then I remembered you and you're the most normal guy I know. So I figured that I would observe you to figure this whole 'norma0'l thing out." Said Sho. There was a pause in which Ritsu stared at him and he stared back and it was a lot…but in a good way…and he was so nervous…but also in a good way….and that good way was a bad way and he should not have been feeling like that but he was and-
"I'm the most normal guy you know?" asked Ritsu. He laughed, which came out weird, and he wished instantly that he hadn't. What was wrong with him? Had he always laughed like that? What that what he had been laughing like for his whole life? Why hadn't anyone told him how dumb he sounded? Now Sho probably thought-
"Well, yeah. I mean there's Teru but he's probably still with his girlfriend and I am not bothering them when they're alone together and probably banging or whatever." Said Sho
"Oh my God please never say that again." said Ritsu maybe just a bit too loudly. He threw himself back down onto his bed and pulled the covered up over his head. They were pulled down quickly, however, and he found his personal space completely invaded.
He didn't mind it as much as he should have.
"What? It's the truth. I mean they love each other and when people are in love, and even when they aren't, they-" said Sho
"If you say it I swear to God-" said Ritsu
"What? That's what people do. They bang." Said Sho. That was something that he never got. Maybe it was because he had spent his whole life, pretty much, around other espers. He knew when two people were going at it, their auras told the whole story. People were squeamish about the weirdest stuff.
"Do you have to put it like that?" asked Ritsu. He pulled the covers up over his head again. He did not want to think about Teru and his sister doing….anything. Nope. There were a million and one other, more pleasant, things to think about. Cats with fluffy fur, the smell of a new notebook right from the store, warm clothes right out of the dryer, the way the sun hit Sho's hair….
"Well, yeah…how else would I put it? I mean there's a million different words for it but, yeah, that's what people in love do. That's how we got here and our parents and our parents' parents….and now I kind of get what you mean. My mom and dad….nope. I mean love is a good thing and all my parents used to be in love but thinking about the two of them…that's not something that I want to think about. Not at all." said Sho. He used to think, a while ago, about what it would be like if mom and dad got back together. If they ran into each other and remembered why they had been in love with each other….he had seen that in a movie, once. That was where he had gotten the idea. A movie he had seen when he was a little kid. Well life did not work out in the movies and mom and dad were not going to get back together, for the purposes of love or banging or otherwise. Mom had a boyfriend and dad…dad was somewhere in prison….
Sho pulled the covers off of Ritsu and then laid down next to him.
"Um…." Said Ritsu. There were a lot of words that he could have used. Words like 'what the hell are you doing' and the like…but he didn't use them. His brain was both going a million miles an hour and also much too slow. This was, like most things with Suzuki Sho, unexpected. It was so weird to go from talking about sex to, well, having him lay down….right there….this was not a big bed. They were close. The only person who he had ever been this close to, besides his sister, had been Teru when they were play fighting….or Rei. His eyes moved from Sho and across his room. So many drawings from her, Rei, his girlfriend. His girlfriend who he could not hurt by doing any of the things that he was thinking of doing.
Sho was so close.
"Whatever. What do I know? It's not like I've ever even kissed anyone let alone banged them. What do I know about love? You know more than I do. I don't know shit about love." said Sho. What did he know about anything? Anything besides all the stupid stuff dad had spent years and years trying to fill his head with. All he knew was that this bed was warm and he was getting cat hair all over it…and that was what was happening right then and there. Also he knew that Ritsu was warm and right then and there he needed warmth. He needed to feel warm…and he hadn't even realized that he had been cold.
This was a nice bed.
And it had been so long, it felt like, since he had been in a bed. Even though it hadn't been even a week yet. A week ago he had been in some safe house planning out how he was going to stop dad and save the world. Now dad was stopped and the day was saved and now it was time to go back to normal. He didn't know what normal even was but he knew that it was something he had to get back to…
He wanted this to be normal.
Beds were normal. Laying down in a bed was normal. Laying down in a bed next to someone else was not normal. The last time he had ever shared a bed with someone….he had been a little kid. Well he wasn't a kid anymore, little or otherwise, and he should have…he shouldn't have…he didn't even know. All he knew was that this was a warm bed.
"I…I don't really know anything either." Said Ritsu. Sho had never kissed anyone before…why does he like that? It's none of his business who Sho has and has not kissed. He shouldn't have given a damn…but he did. He did and it made no sense. The thought of Sho kissing someone else…he had no reason to feel jealous. He had as little reason to feel jealous as he did of rolling over and just….
What was with him?
"You know more than I do. You've got a girlfriend and she loves you and you love her. That's something. That's more than I have." Said Sho. He felt like, sometimes he felt like, he didn't have anyone at all. No more dad and mom….mom had her own life now. All those guys who helped him save the world went off to hide and, you know, not be hunted down for being with Claw for years and years. Sho didn't have to run. He was just a kid and no court would convict him of doing any of the things he did…because he had done them on dad's orders…and now dad was gone….and the way he felt made no sense. All alone. Even if he was alone, now, he actually…he wasn't. He wasn't. He was there and Ritsu was there and therefore he was not alone.
"Yeah…she loves me." Said Ritsu. Rei loved him and he could not hurt her. Though if he could do it all again he would have just flat out rejected her. He hadn't ever seen it going as far as it was now. Well he knew that his options were either to be with her for the rest of his life or to break up….he just hadn't foreseen just how much would happen between them. It had all been a series of abstract concepts, the things that he did with her now, and even forever felt…far away. Abstract. Being with her was more than just doing what she wanted and making her happy. She was always thinking of him and he hardly ever thought of her….and that made him terrible. Maybe. He didn't know.
All he knew was that he wanted nothing more in that moment than to roll over and kiss Suzuki Sho.
"Want to go do something? Outside, I mean." Said Ritsu. He knew fully well that he was not supposed to leave the house but right then and there at that moment he did not care. He needed to get up and get out. He needed to get the hell out of that room before he ended up doing something that he knew he was going to regret. That was what had happened the last time he had given in to this sort of feeling.
So much regret.
Things between him and Teru were…not the same as they had been before but also a lot better than they could have been. After all Teru didn't hate him so that was a win. Ritsu was not going to give into these sorts of feelings. Not at that moment with Sho. He hadn't known Sho as long as he had known Teru….he had no idea if Sho would kiss him back or tell him to get the hell away from him….
And he was not going to find out.
"Yeah, sure. Come on let's….let's climb or something. I saw this big tree at this park by my mom's house and we could climb it or….something." Said Sho. He didn't much want to get up out of bed. He hadn't been in a bed for so long….but he had to. This was not his bed. This was not his bed and this was not his room and this, Ritsu's life, was not his. People's rooms were like tiny windows into their lives. Ritsu's room was like a tiny window into his. He had a lot of school books, awards, and pictures that his girlfriend drew for him. There was also a lot of blue. Ritsu must have liked blue…and school…and also his girlfriend. Normal. Ritsu was pretty normal….even though normal meant the same thing as ordinary and Sho would never have called Ritsu ordinary.
There wasn't anything ordinary about him.
"Yeah….let's do that." Said Ritsu. He needed to get out of that room. His room was like it's own little world and right now it felt like that world was just him and Sho. he had to move out into the greater world, the world with other people in it, the world where he could remember that he couldn't just do whatever he wanted. There were consequences to his actions. If he acted on these feelings than he would hurt someone who had done nothing but love him. He wished that he had never even stared this thing with her but he had and now…and now this was his life…
So he had might as well go climb some trees.
"How are you this good at climbing trees? Are you cheating and using your powers?" asked Reigen. This had been a hell of a lot easier when he had been her age. This had been the way he had spent many an afternoon when he had been a kid. Climbing this tree. Giving his mother a heart attack whenever he got close to the top. At some point he had outgrown tree climbing, around high school he had stopped, and at some point he had gotten too old to climb trees…or at least it felt like it.
"Body improvement club." Said Mob simply. She was glad, now, that she had packed tights even though she hated them. She hadn't known that they were going to be climbing trees or even that she would have enjoyed climbing trees but she wasn't complaining. This had been…she had no idea who's idea this had been. Master Reigen just pointed out the window and said that when he was a kid he used to sneak out by using that tree as a ladder to and from his room. It had seemed like it was too tall to climb but Master Reigen that it wasn't and he could prove it. That was how they ended up climbing this tree. Well how she had ended up climbing the tree. She had made it up a lot farther than he had. She was more used to exercise even though she hadn't been to body improvement club in a while. She wondered how everyone was doing….
She wondered if she would ever go back to school.
She had to go to school. She was only fourteen. She had to go back to school…even though she had been gone for so long. She felt better, now, less terrible. She wondered if she felt good enough to go back to school. She wondered if there was even a school to go back to. She wondered when they were going to open the schools again. School was closed here, too, in Lower Back Pain City even though nothing had even happened….
She'd think about this later. Right now she had to climb this tree.
"They have tree climbing in that little club of yours?" asked Reigen as he hoisted himself up onto the trunk of this tree. Ok, he was now officially off the ground. Had this tree always been this tall? It had been easier when he had been young and spry, like she was….and oh God he was getting old. Pretty soon he'd spent his day raising coy fish and playing mahjong and yelling at kids to get off of his yard.
"No but we had upper body strengthening. This is pretty much all upper body strength." Said Mob
"You're seriously just pulling yourself up with just your upper body?" asked Reigen. He was not looking up, Mob was in a skirt and she was up considerably higher than he was, and he had no idea how she had climbed that fast. Damn….Mob was strong….
In more ways than one.
"Yes. Aren't you?" asked Mob as she pulled herself up higher. She wasn't afraid. She wasn't afraid of being up this high because she had been up higher. She had been up so high that she could see the whole world underneath her. She had been up so high that there wasn't even any air up there. She wasn't scared or tired. Her hands was getting scratched up and so were her feet, her shoes were terrible and she was climbing in her stocking feet, but she was not about to stop. She'd been through worse. So much worse.
"No, I'm pushing myself up with my legs. How are you this strong?" asked Reigen
"I just said, body improvement club. Fight on, Master Reigen." Said Mob
"Wish they had that when I was a kid." Said Reigen. He also wished that he hadn't been smoking a pack a day since he had been her age. That was probably what was holding him back the most. Actually he was having an easier time breathing these days.
"What clubs were you in?" asked Mob. She was thinking about it, now, him as…as someone her age. It takes less than a second for her mind to spin a story. It's after school and he invited her over and they were climbing trees…and then when they got to the top he would take her hand and kiss her softly…and then she would kiss him back…and then he'd hold one of her hands in his and the other would be on her waist….and it would move lower towards her leg….and she then decided to climb a little faster. She had to climb faster even though she knew that no matter where she went her mind would follow and so would all of the thoughts in it.
"Me? I tried a few on a trial membership basis but…well I was a card carrying member of the going home club for pretty much all my middle and high school years." Said Reigen. She knew an abridged version of his life. She knew that he had his troubles but he was not going to go deep into it. He was not going to tell her what made him climb this trees night after night when he had been her age. The places he would go after he climbed down. How difficult it would be, sometimes, for him to climb back up. She didn't need to know the details of all of that.
"Oh…right, you said that before. Sorry." Said Mob. Her mind amended its fantasy to him and her in the club room, her club room, and he had joined body improvement club on a trial basis…and they were all alone…and the two of them….she tried not to think about it. It wasn't even accurate. She had no idea what his school was like. He had worn a black gakuran, that was all she knew and she only knew that from pictures, and therefore she had no way to create an accurate fantasy…and she should not have been thinking about that sort of stuff anyway.
"Nah, don't be. The past is in the past." Said Reigen as he tried and failed to catch up to her. He knew that he should have told her to slow down and be careful, the things an adult was supposed to shout at a kid who was climbing a tree, but he couldn't bring himself to do so. Not when he was doing the same thing that she was….and now when he had seen her…what she had gone through. Mob was one tough little girl.
No, she wasn't little.
Well she was, physically, smaller than he was and he was not a tall man to begin with. He was smaller than average and she was smaller than him…but she had grown a bit. Taller. As a person, to, he noticed. He couldn't imagine thirteen year old Mob taking on the man who thought that he could rule the world. Fourteen year old Mob was different from thirteen year old Mob…and he wondered what fifteen year old Mob would be like. Sixteen year old Mob. Twenty six year old Mob. He wondered if he would even still be in her life but then…
Of course he would be.
He wasn't going anywhere and neither was she. He would always be there for her. Also he had a promise to keep. He said that he was going to get way too drunk at her wedding, dance like a moron, and stuff his pockets full of hor dourves and Reigen Arataka was a man of his word…these days. He was never lying to her again so, therefore, he was going to be in her life long past this. Wow…adult Mob…
He looked forward to it.
Her being an adult. He looked forward to it because he wanted to see the person she would become…and also for more selfish reasons. He wanted to be her friend as an adult. Maybe then people wouldn't look at him weird. Maybe then his own mother wouldn't give him those sideways looks when she thought that his attention was elsewhere. Maybe by then she would have gotten over her little crush on him, too. Yes, she would end up growing out of it soon enough. She was just a kid after all, only fourteen, and she got crushes all the time…most likely. They didn't exactly spend their time giggling over crushes and stuff…now that would have been weird….but he knew what it was like to be her age. He knew what it was like to be fourteen and he knew how quickly crushes happened. They came and hit you like a tsunami of wants and feelings but then they eventually rolled back into the ocean of emotion from whence they came. She'd get over him. Besides, she had a boyfriend. She had a boyfriend who she loved, he knew full well those kids were in love, and it looked like the two of them were going to be one of those rare couples who were actually going to make it. Her mind was probably on her boyfriend, too, which would explain all of the feelings that he was picking up from her….
He knew how she felt.
He could feel it, the intermitted butterflies and also….feelings that he would not name….and he knew that they were not because of him. At least he hoped that they were not because of him. He wished, a tiny bit, that Mob had been a guy. If she had been a guy then they wouldn't have been having these problems. Or maybe they still would have. Actually if Mob was a guy and had a crush on him then he could have easily shut that down. Reigen wasn't into guys or kids. There. Simple. Well he could easily have shut all of it down now, because he was not into kids and Mob was still a kid even if it didn't seem like it, but he was not going to bring any of it up. Mob was really sensitive.
"How high do you think that we can climb?" asked Mob. The world was so far down…well it seemed that way, anyway. She had been up much higher. This was high up for him, though. He was a lot squishier than she was. He could have fallen and gotten hurt…but she did not need to worry about that. She would have been there to catch him, she would always be there for him…at least she would always try to be there for him.
"Well I used to be able to climb to the top….but that was about ten years and thirty pounds ago. Why? Do you need help climbing down?" asked Reigen. He knew that he was too old, too tall, and too heavy to be climbing trees. The smart thing to do, the responsible thing to do, would have been to climb down. Mob was the kid and he was the adult. She could climb as many trees as she wanted to. He couldn't, he was an adult now…and it just wasn't fair….but then again if he planned on categorizing everything that was unfair in the world he would have been there for quite a while.
"No, I was just worried about you. Even if I fell out of this tree I would be fine, Master Reigen. I've been through much worse." Said Mob. She figured that she had said the wrong thing. A cold feeling started in her heart and moved through her whole body. She almost lost her grip on the branch in front of her. She had made Master Reigen feel like this…and she hadn't wanted to. She always said the wrong thing….
"I'm not coming down until you come down." Said Reigen. He wasn't afraid. She had been through much worse and so had he. They had been through much worse together than falling out a tree….and there was no guarantee that they would even fall…and she was ahead of him anyway. If she were to fall then he would have no choice but to catch her. Even if it meant that they both came tumbling down he would still make every effort to catch her.
"I don't want to come down but I will if you want to. Or if you're afraid or-" said Mob
"Afraid? Mob, you underestimate your Master. I've climbed up and down this tree a thousand times at least. Falling out of this tree is the last thing that I'm afraid of." Said Reigen
"What's the first thing?" asked Mob. She used to think of Master as fearless but now she knew better. He had been afraid back at the fight. He had been both brave and afraid at the same time. He had actually tried to shoot someone for her, to kill someone for her…and he had been so scared while he did it…he had been scared but brave. He was full of contradictions like that. He was scared but brave, confident but worried a lot of the time, Master Reigen but also….Arataka. He was only Arataka when he was vulnerable….but Master Reigen was invulnerable. Of course they were one in the same. Even if she didn't like to think about it Master Reigen and Arataka were still one in the same. Not like her and the other her. Not like Mob and Shigeko.
"The first thing that I'm afraid of?" asked Reigen. Well if she wanted to know the first time he had ever felt fear it would have been the first time he could remember his parents fighting. His dad had broken a bowl so his mom had broken a dish….and that was all he remembered. That and the pulse pounding terror. If she wanted the top of his list of fears….that was more complicated.
"Yes. What are you most afraid of?" asked Mob
"Losing you." Said Reigen. He didn't even have to think. There was nothing in this world more terrifying than the thought of losing Mob. Losing her to spirits or supervillains or to his own stupidity. Or her own stupidity….no, stop it. That had been Dimple. That had all been Dimple. She would never in a million years have done anything so stupid as to kiss him. No matter how she felt she still had sense enough to know that kissing him was a very bad idea. The worst idea that she possibly could have had.
"Oh…same." Said Mob as she pulled her way to the top. She could see over the house from up there. lower, below her, was Master Reigen's bedroom window. He had climbed in and out of his window countless times. There were countless times when she could have lost him. There were countless times when he could have fallen to his death…and then she never would have known him.
The branches beside her shifted.
"Man, I can't believe that I forgot all about this view." Said Reigen as he made it to the top for the first time in over ten years. He could see up over his house…and across the street to…and that was not something that he was going to agonize over. His ex-girlfriend's house. Well her parents' house. He had no idea what had become of her over the years and he didn't much care. He was almost thirty years old, now, and he as not going to agonize over some middle school heartbreak.
That was Mob's world.
He was a grown man, now, and those times were over. A grown man climbing trees with a teenage girl was still a grown man…and maybe he should have gotten down from that tree. There was a gift that some people in this world were born with. Greater even than the gift of esp. It was the gift of truly not giving a damn what other people thought. Reigen had pretended many times over the years to have been blessed with this gift. He hadn't been. He still cared about what other people thought…and caring about what other people thought had gotten him into that mess with Mob…the one that had led her to running away from him…
But not caring what people thought also wasn't an answer.
Mob had feelings for him and he shouldn't have encouraged them…even though he didn't. He was not into her in the lets bit but…but he did care about her and he was affectionate towards her. She needed it. After the month she'd had. The Asagiri job, being homeless, and now that ridiculous world domination plot…all of it would have been a lot for a grown adult let alone a kid. A kid who had done more in a month than he had ever done in his life. She had saved the world…the whole world…and she had been through so much….
And she had feelings for him.
He never explicitly condoned them but he never told her not to feel…well he had. That night after the press conference he had told her to her face that he would never have those sorts of feelings for her…and she had broken down…because he had picked the absolute worst possible time to reject her. She had been in so much pain…and she was in so much pain now…well she had been….before…not now but before….she seemed fine now….
She was on top of the world now. Literally.
And he was not going to bring her back down. He was going to climb up and join her. That was what she wanted and that was what he wanted…and he was not encouraging her feelings for him. He was just joining her, that was all, because she wanted him to be by her side.
"It's a really nice view, Master Reigen, you're right." Said Mob. She couldn't see much, just more houses, but that was fine. It wasn't about her view but who she was seeing it with. She would have watched paint dry with him if it meant that they got to be that close. She loved him, she really loved him, and she knew that he would never love her back the way she loved him….but that was ok. This was ok. What more could she have wanted beside this?
Being on top of the world with Master Reigen…it just didn't get any better than that.
