"When is our fish person going to evolve?" asked Mob as she sat on the couch next to Master Reigen. It was late, nighttime, and his mom had gone to be a while ago. Mob was kind of tired, just a little, but not too bad. They couldn't go to sleep yet anyway. Their fish person hadn't evolved yet and Mob wanted to see what it would become.
"I honestly have no clue. I never made it this far in the game." Said Reigen. Now he remembered what made him stop playing this in the first place. It was like a Tomogachi but worse. Also when it died it was much more emotionally devastating.
"Why not? This is fun…mostly fun." Said Mob. Honestly this game went on for way too long, in Mob's opinion, but this was a game from when Master Reigen was a kid. People were a lot easier to entertain back then it seemed.
"Mob, this game is boring as hell. You can admit it." Said Reigen
"It's…not so bad. It's cool when the fish person evolves. I just wish that it would evolve faster." Said Mob
"You and me both. Now I remember why I stopped playing this game in the first place." Said Reigen. He passed Mob the controller. It was late. He needed to get to bed. He didn't have any reason to get up in the morning but he still shouldn't have been messing up his sleep schedule. All of this was temporary, his visit with his mom, and he would have to get back to his life at some point.
"You said that you stopped playing because your mom took your Dreamcast away." said Mob
"That's why I stopped playing Dreamcast all together. I stopped playing this specific game because it just goes on…and on…and on. I kept on getting bored and then my fish person kept on dying." Said Reigen with a shrug.
"That's very sad Master. You put so much time into this game and then it was all for nothing…and also your fish person died." Said Mob. That was why they couldn't stop playing now. They had been playing all day with only breaks for meals. They couldn't stop now, their fish person could evolve, or it could die. She did not want it to die…even though this game was boring and being looked at by a human faced fish was creepy. Very creepy.
"What, are you seriously getting attached to this thing?" asked Reigen
"No, not really, but we've still put a lot of work into it. I mean it's not like it's alive or anything…unless it's alive to its self. Like how spirits don't want to be exorcised even though they're dead." Said Mob
"I don't think that videogame characters have real sentience Mob, not like people and spirits." Said Reigen. He didn't blame her, he'd had the same sorts of weird two a.m. thoughts when he was her age. It was the fact that this fish had a human face. That was making it too human but also not. Uncanny. It was uncanny.
"I guess…but we can't ever be sure. It's like in this movie that me and Teru saw about the world inside of a computer and all the programs were like little people. It was kind of boring but now I'm just thinking that maybe to them they're alive…or something." Said Mob
"You've been watching way too many movies." Said Reigen. He wondered if she missed her boyfriend…her friends….her life. The way that her life had been before all of this. She probably did. He wondered if she wanted to go home. Also a possibility. She hadn't said a word to him about going home, though, not a single word…but they could not stay here. They both had lives that they had to get back to.
"I don't think so. Me and Teru haven't watched a movie together in a while. Not since before…everything that happened." Said Mob. She drew her knees up to her chest. She didn't want to think about everything that happened. It was over now, it was all over, and now she was fine. She was safe and she was fine and everyone was safe and everyone was fine. So that was what it was. Fine.
"Do you…do you want to? Spend time with him, I mean." Said Reigen. He wanted to ask her if she wanted to go home but he could not get the words out. If she said yes then…then they would have to go back. He wanted to go back…he really did. He had to go back. The options were either go back home or live with mom until the day one of them died. Of course he was going to go back…it was just a question of when.
"I will. When we go back." Said Mob. She wanted to be with Teru so badly…but she couldn't. They were here now. She wasn't going to make Master Reigen go home. She had no idea if he wanted to. She knew how much his mom liked having them around, too. She would be sad to go from here, it was nice not having to worry about things, but she knew that she had to get back to her life eventually. She had to go back to school, she hadn't been back in a while, and she also missed her friends and Teru and Ritsu and everyone…and she had to…to get back to normal.
"Hey Mob?" asked Reigen
"Yes?" asked Mob
"Do you want to go back? I mean when do you want to go back?" asked Reigen. It was a simple question and one that he knew that he had to ask. He could not keep her here forever and he did not want to stay there forever, either. He didn't much want to go home, though, too. Maybe they could move….no. There was nowhere to move to. Seasoning City was still in ruins and people were still putting the pieces of their lives and the city back together…and he was one of those people.
"Whenever you want to go back, Master Reigen. We can't stay here forever but I like it here a lot. We can go back whenever you want to…or we need to. We haven't been to work in a while so we should probably go back soon. People might think that we've gone out of business." Said Mob. She wanted to get back to work so badly. She wanted to sit at her desk and do her homework and write receipts and go out for ramen afterwards. She also wanted to go out on jobs and save people from evil spirits and…and all of the other things that she used to do before everything went wrong. Before Mogami and the unreality and then saving the world. She just wanted things to be normal again. She just wanted to be normal again.
"You're right, we should open the office again…I should open the office again. Yeah…it's been a while, hasn't it Mob? I'll just…let me handle it for a while, just a little while. Ok, Mob? Just…it's not about you. I just know that…that it's been a lot for you lately. You…you've got a lot to get caught up on. You haven't been to school in I don't even know how long. Yikes, I do not want to think about all the work you have to catch up on." Said Reigen. He'd be reopening the office but not with her. She had a whole life to get back to and he was not keeping her from it. No, he was going to give her space to be fourteen and have fun and he was not going to be putting her in danger ever again either…not that he was replacing her! He wasn't…but he knew that she would see it that way…and he had to talk to her about it, about what was going to be different, but he'd just never had the chance. Mob was happy and she was having fun and he was not going to take that from her.
"I don't want to think about it either. I hope that nobody is going to be mad at me because I missed so much school…but they probably will be. I know that my parents are mad at me…or at least my mom is." Said Mob. She knew that she would be in trouble when she got back to school. She was only fourteen, she had to go to school, there was nothing that she could do about that. She didn't have to go to high school though but she probably would because that was what people did. She already had a job and she had moved out but she still needed to go to school. Also she liked school. Not the school that she had gone to in the unreality but this was not the unreality. Here in this reality people were nice to her. Here in this reality nobody acted like Asagiri had. Here in this reality she had so many people who cared about her…so she had no reason to be afraid to go school. And she wasn't. Not one little bit.
"You talked to your mom?" asked Reigen. He attempted to sound nonchalant, like he couldn't give a damn either way, but he did give a damn. He gave more than a damn. Mob's mother had entrusted him with her Daughter's safety and look what that had gotten them. She had almost died…there was some shame there…but there was even more anger. Towards her parents, of course, because they were the ones who abandoned her in the first place. He kept that anger to himself as best as he could. Mob was having a nice time. He planned to keep it that way.
"No, not yet. I just know that she's going to be mad at me. I haven't talked to her since the time she called me because I stopped going to school. She was mad at me then and I know that she'll be mad at me now…but it's ok because I'm going back to school when we get back to Seasoning City." Said Mob
"Do you feel up to it? Because I don't want you to push yourself. No matter what I just want you to feel ok." Said Reigen
"I feel fine. Much better than before. I know that this isn't the unreality. I know that people are going to be nice to me. I've been feeling really good lately, Master, because I saved the world. Even if I had to give up my physical body to do it." Said Mob. She didn't much like to think about that part. The part where she hadn't had a body and Touichirou hadn't had a body and then they were both their own people but also the same person…and it hurt. Instrumentality had not been fun but it was all over now. She was never going to have to do that again for as long as she lived. The world was saved and she felt fine.
"Did you….Mob, did you really? I mean I saw…I honestly have no clue what I saw…but we don't have to talk about this if you don't want to." Said Reigen. He had no idea if she was being literal or not. There, in the dark, the cloistered world of the living room…it seemed alright to ask. Just alright. Not the best idea but…but he needed to know exactly what happened. He couldn't help her if he didn't know….not that he knew how he could help her. He had done such a piss poor job of it the last time she needed him…
"I'm telling the truth. When I absorbed the explosion I lost my physical body and so did he. I wouldn't lie about something like that." Said Mob
"That's what literally happened?" asked Reigen. It sounded too much like death. He could not accept something which sounded that much like she was telling him that she had died…even though she had been through enough to kill a person ten times over. He wondered how she could sleep after all of that happened to her. He knew how he had been sleeping knowing that those terrible things had happened to her. Not well at all.
"Yes. I didn't have a body and it hurt. It was kind of like when I went into the sea of red LCL but it didn't hurt as much. Probably because he wasn't a spirit. Here, you can play with our human faced fish person some more. You haven't had a turn in a while." Said Mob. She did not want to talk about it anymore. She had other things to talk about. She would think of what those things were later but right now she did not want to talk about the time that she had lost her body in an attempt at saving the world. She wanted…she wanted to play videogames. Yes, that was it.
"God, I forgot how tedious this game was. You know he still grows if we don't interact with him, he just might die but, hey, we can always try again." said Reigen. He read her loud and clear. Time to change the subject. Time to change the game. This game lent its self to conversation, which normally neither of them would have minded, but now there was just too…much…for both of them. What they needed was a distraction.
"But then what will we play? I don't want to go to bed yet, I'm not tired." Said Mob. Master Reigen patted her on the head and then went over to the box which housed all of his old Dreamcast games. He dug around the box for a little bit before he pulled out a game. He held it high above his head triumphantly. Mob smiled just a little bit. He could be so silly sometimes. She liked that about him, that he wasn't afraid to be silly, not like how Teru always cared so much about how he looked and how other people perceived him. Not that she was comparing the two or anything.
"Student, tell me, have you ever heard of a little game called….Crazy Taxi?" asked Reigen. Mob shrugged. Good. This game was fast paced and left little room for heavy conversation. The perfect distraction for these long nights where they had so much to say to each other but he also knew full well that talking about what they needed to talk about would only cause them both unnecessary pain. They had been through enough. She had been through enough.
So they had might as well play some videogames.
There was nothing to do, really, but play videogames.
It was bit like how Serizawa's life had been before. Back when he had locked himself away. There had been a sort of stillness, calmness, to his existence. A sort of half-awake feeling. Time passed him by, the years passed him by, and he let them. He didn't have to worry about anything. What he would do, who he would be, any of those big questions. He knew what he would do, live out the rest of his days in his room, and he knew what he would be, less of a danger to himself and those around him. It had been for the best, back then, but now….he needed to remember that this was now, not back then, and he was going to get out of this room.
Eventually.
He had only come to visit his mother, he reminded himself, and he was going to leave. He was going to get back out there and join society for real this time. Not by following someone else's dream but by making his own path. He was going to help people, he was going to make up for all the trouble he caused, and he was not going to make the same mistakes that he had made in the past. He couldn't change the past, he couldn't take back what he had done, but he could move forward.
That was what he was going to do.
Moving forward had just involved a stopover at his house, at his mother's house, and it was only temporary. He had a job lined up and a plan, sort of, and even if he didn't have all the details he would still try. He was…he had to be braver now than he had at any point in his life. Saving that man's, Reigen's, life had been easy. Someone was going to die so he saved him. Starting his life over for the second, no, the third time….that was going to be hard. But he was going to have to be brave and he was going to have to try.
He was going to leave this room and try.
But not now, of course, because it was in the middle of the night. The curtains were opened. He could see the moon and the stars and the glow of the streetlights, too. He had kept those curtains closed for fifteen years. He had forgotten what the view was like. It was nice. He wasn't going to stay though. He had things to do. He had to move to Seasoning City and see what became of the other members of the Ultimate Five and he had to figure out when his new job started and he had to figure out what he was going to do in that new job and he also had to see if Sho was still mad at him and if Sho was still mad at him, something which was completely understandable, he would have to patch up their friendship…if it even could be patched up…and also he had to…to see HER again…and he had no idea what he would ever say to her…
She had defeated the President. The President was in prison because of her.
No. Don't think like that. The President is in prison because of all the crimes he committed. He was the one who had done bad things and…and he had done all of that to himself. The girl, Mob, Miss Kageyama, whatever she wanted to be called…she had done the right thing by stopping him…and Serizawa had done the right thing by betraying him. The President had said it himself, Serizawa had meant nothing to him, and therefore the President…he was nothing more than a distant memory…
Not a very distant memory at all.
The last pleasant memory he had of the President was actually when they had found him after the big fight. When he had been naked and vulnerable and Serizawa had dressed him…he counted that as a good memory for so many reasons. The intimacy, the fake intimacy, of it. The fact that the President had truly needed him…even if it had been because he was still dazed from whatever had happened….but he had needed Serizawa to dress him because nobody else would and also there were all of those girls around and it was not good to be naked in front of girls like that. The President had needed him then…but not really….
Suzuki Touichirou didn't give a damn about him and never had.
He didn't care about anyone other than himself. Hell, he had tried to beat his own son to death. That…that was the last straw. There had been cracks before, cracks in Serizawa's imagine of him, but trying to kill Sho…Sho who was his own son and also a great person…that had been it. So why did he still feel the way he felt? And what was he even feeling? Good and bad, he felt good and bad when he thought of Suzuki….and he shouldn't have felt anything because he had been cast aside like he had been nothing…
He needed to go back to feeling nothing at all.
So he decided to play some videogames. That was how he had managed to pass the time, fifteen years of it, and that was how he was going to pass the time again. He wasn't going to play all night and he certainly was not going to spend another fifteen years in this hellhole…his mom had cleaned it for him so that was unfair to her….he was not spending any more time in this room than he had to. He just…he just needed to shut off his brain again. He had been the master of it, before, shutting off his brain. Distracting himself with videogames and TV and building all of the tiny plastic models that made the room feel even more cramped than it had been before…
This was not forever.
This was just until…until he ironed out the details of how he was going to build his new life. That was all. Mom even said that she would help….so that was good. He didn't even want to stay in this room. Even if it was small and safe. Even if, while he was in there, he didn't have to worry about a thing. The time just flew by. In that room he was safe and everyone was safe from him….but he couldn't stay. He didn't even want to stay. He wanted….he wanted to…
He wanted to play Dreamcast.
In the course of cleaning mom had boxed up some of his lesser used consoles. He hadn't touched his Dreamcast since he had been…twelve? He wanted to say twelve. Since the beginning of his self-imposed isolation in this room. He had liked this a lot but then mom had gotten him a Game Cube and eventually this had just found it's way off into the corner….and now he was playing it again partially for the nostalgia and partially because he wanted to see what had become of his virtual pet. The human faced fish thing.
It had died of neglect.
He was not going to start that game up again. He liked caring for another living thing, it gave him a sense of real purpose, but this game was boring and tedious and also kind of creepy. Why did it have to have a human face? It was…it wasn't right…and he remembered what had made him stop playing this game in the first place. He did not do well with boredom. Boredom made him think about things that he, really, would rather not have been thinking about. That was why he had played so many, a truly appalling number, of videogames. To keep from being bored. To keep from thinking.
To keep himself occupied.
Not that he was going to be keeping himself occupied for fifteen years again. No, he was just…he couldn't sleep. He had might as well do something, then, if he couldn't sleep rather than lay there in bed staring up at the ceiling and going over his many, many, MANY failures and deficiencies as a human being. He had might as well sit down in front of his TV, brush off some old favorites, and turn off his brain until he was tired enough to sleep.
It was in the middle of a quest, he hadn't played Arcadia in forever, when his mom knocked on his door.
"Katsuya, are you still awake?" asked Serizawa Yuzu through her son's door. She wondered if he would be staying this time. He said that he had no plans of staying, that he was going to build a life for himself in Seasoning City, and she….she would support her son in whatever she chose to do. That was what a good mother did. Even if…even if she had been the one to deliver him into the hands of evil itself in the first place….but she could still do right by him. She would support him in whatever he chose to do. Even if he was going to leave her again. That made no sense. She wanted him to stay but she wanted him to leave, too, at the same time. She wanted him to go out and have as close to a normal life as he could but she also wanted him to stay in that room of his so that she knew he was safe. There was so much wrong with it, wanting him to stay, but she was…she was trying to be a good mother and what mother wouldn't want her son to be safe and sound in his room? Especially after the ordeal that he had been through.
"I'm still up, mom, just playing some videogames." Said Serizawa after a moment. It had been close, far too close, to those times when he had been younger and she would knock on his door to tell him that she was home or that she was going to work or that it was his birthday or Christmas or New Year or…but it wasn't like that. He was getting himself all worked up over nothing. He needed to stop. His control should have been better than that. He should have been better than that.
"Oh…alright. I was just checking on you. I'm going to be going to bed now but if you need anything just…just come to my door and knock. It doesn't matter what." Said Yuzu. She heard some movement from the other side of the door. She wondered if he had gone back to what he had been doing. He did that, well he had done that, when he had been younger. She didn't mind. She was just happy to know that he was still alive in there. Even if that door always stayed shut she was always so happy to know that he was still in there and he was alive and he was as close to happy as he could get.
The door opened.
"Goodnight mom, I'll see you in the morning…for breakfast. We should…we should have breakfast together. I can help you make it. I-I sort of know how to cook…a little bit." Said Serizawa. That should not have taken as much effort as it had. He had barely been back in his room and he…he had almost been so rude to his mother. As rude as he'd been before. Why had it been so much effort for him to get that door opened? What was wrong with him? This was not then, this was now, and he could open that door. He wasn't….he wasn't as afraid of himself. He knew that he was better, now, that his control was better. He knew that he would never again repeat the time that he had accidentally sent his own mother flying.
"Good-Goodnight, Katsuya….and thank you. Yes, I would like that. I can show you how to make a few things. You know, so you'll know how to cook for yourself when you…when you leave." Said Yuzu. This was surprising. In a good way. In a way which was both good and…and not good. She was not at all afraid of her son, even if he had accidentally sent her flying once she still was not afraid of him, but what she was afraid of was the fact that he was serious. Him, out there in the world….he should not have….he had left her once already….but this was what she had always wanted for him. This was what any mother would have always wanted for her son. To be able to, at least willing to, try and stand on his own two feet. That was all that she could have wanted for her son. Even if the thought of him alone out there again where anything could happen to him was so terrifying….
She was a good mother and a good mother would have wanted nothing more for her son to get back up and try again.
"Me too…..I would like that too…" said Serizawa. There. He could not lock himself away in his room because he had plans for tomorrow. His mom was going to show him how to make breakfast. That was something that he would need to know how to do if he planned on moving out and moving on with his life. Yes, he was …he was going to get up in the morning and make breakfast with his mother…
He was not going to waste another fifteen years of his life playing videogames.
Sho didn't own any physical copies of games but that had never stopped him from wasting what must have been years and years of his life playing videogames.
At least Dad had called them a waste. Mom never said anything. He still didn't have his own room, and he didn't really need one anyway because a couch worked just fine as a bed and table and also a place to build a fort, and that meant what whatever he did mom could walk in at any time and see. It had been scary the first few times. She had no aura and he couldn't sense her coming…she had caught him drawing actually, that first time, but she hadn't gotten mad and told him that his drawings were a waste of time. She hadn't said that about him watching TV, either, even though he wasn't watching anything educational.
She also had no problem with him playing videogames.
She had asked him what it was that he had been playing. She was always asking him things like that. What he had been playing or watching or drawing. Questions that he knew should not have felt so very intrusive, she was his mom after all and she was nothing like dad, but it had felt so…prying. Like he was going through one of dad's interrogations. Not fun at all. But she was just being nice, moms were supposed to be nice like that, so he had no reason to hide what he was doing when she came into the room.
He did it anyway.
And he still his what he was doing long after she had gone to bed. He had no plans of going to bed. He couldn't. Not when he was all exposed in the living room…even though there was nothing wrong with sleeping on a couch. He had no idea what was wrong with him. Claw was over and done with, dad was in prison, and the world was saved. He had nobody and nothing to be afraid of. No one would ever hurt him again.
But he still could not sleep right there while his mom was in her own room and could have come out at any minute and been right there…
So he had no plans of sleeping. That was fine. He was an esper, he only needed about three or four hours of sleep a night, so there was no need to get himself all twisted up like that. He had no plans of sleeping that night. Maybe later on when mom went out and ran the errands that she could. The Costco was opened again and she had been weirdly excited about that. Yeah, he was on vampire bat time now. He was up all night and slept all day and that was fine by him.
Left him plenty of time to have fun.
He had that sort of freedom now, the freedom to have fun, because dad wasn't there anymore. He wasn't there to tell him that he was wasting his time. He wasn't there to tell him that he was being ridiculous. He wasn't there to rip his drawings into little tiny pieces. He was gone and now it was just Sho and he would draw whatever he wanted or watch whatever he wanted on TV, within reason because he was living with his mom and she didn't like violent stuff, and he could play whatever videogames he wanted…on his DS, anyway, because Serizawa had been the one with all the consoles but now he was staying with his mom and Sho…he didn't want to travel so far from his mom. Not yet, anyway, when he had just gotten back to her. Even though playing games was more fun with Serizawa because it was more fun than playing against the computer and also he had pretty much every game ever made…
Sho could have fun all on his own.
He still had access to dad's money and that meant a game buying spree. He got a bunch of stuff, stuff that he had never even heard of, because it looked interesting. He got a bunch of collections, too, because they seemed like a good value. All of those games all in one. Games for consoles that had come out long before he was born.
He wondered what kind of games Ritsu liked.
Sho had been playing through the Dreamcast collection. He wondered if Ritsu had a DS. He wondered if Ritsu would have wanted to play with him. He wondered if Ritsu was still awake. He wondered if Ritsu was getting sick of him yet. He wondered if he could ever get sick of Ritsu. He seemed, on the surface, like he would have been a boring guy but he was anything but. He was so smart and…and he was good at fighting…and also he had this way of talking where it felt like…where Sho felt a lot of things about his friend that he was still trying to work out.
So maybe it wouldn't have been a good idea if he were to go and see Ritsu.
Because he knew that he felt more than friendship for Ritsu. He wanted to be more than friends…and everything that came with that…and he knew that Ritsu would never have wanted that with him. He had a girlfriend and they were in love and love was the most sacred thing ever. He didn't want to ruin that. Ritsu loved that girl so much that he had risked his life for her…well they had all risked their lives…but it had been special because they were in love! Just like it was special….well he had no idea if it was special when he and Ritsu fought alongside each other because he had no idea if he and Ritsu were even in love.
If he was in love with Ritsu, he meant.
He had never been in love before. He knew that he wanted to be more than friends with Ritsu and it went past the whole wanting to bang thing. He did want to bang Ritsu but he also wanted to bang a whole bunch of other people. Mostly guys now that he thought about it…and that was ok because there wasn't anyone in the world who was going to tell him that it wasn't…and so what if he wanted to bang Rtisu!? He was a really good looking guy! And he was strong, too, and more powerful an esper than he gave himself credit for. Also he smelled really good…kind of like soap but better…not that Sho should ever have been close enough to know what kind of soap he used and then commit that smell to memory so he could go to the store later and figure out which soap it was that he used-
Yeah, he had it bad.
But he didn't know if it was love…and even if it was love and not just really liking someone there was nothing that he could do about it. Even if there was the minute chance that Ritsu liked him back, that he liked guys at all, he still had a girlfriend. She was really nice, she liked to draw and also she was super powerful too because she could see the future, and they were in love…and Sho was not going to interfere with that. What if by interfering with that then their kids ended up never being born? That would have been his fault. What if their kid ended up being the most powerful psychic in the world? Or the prime minister of Japan? Or the owner of a successful chain of pet stores? Then what? Sho would have been responsible for removing that person from the world all because he wanted to hang out with and hold hands with and kiss and bang someone with a girlfriend.
Maybe the best thing to do, then, would be to leave Ritsu be.
Maybe he was just tormenting himself spending so much time with someone who he could never be with. Not in the way that he wanted to, anyway. Or maybe he just wanted to bang Ritsu really badly and his brain was telling him that it was love. He had no idea. He had nothing to compare this to, nothing outside of TV anyway, and it wasn't like he could just ask his parents how they knew that they were in love. How to tell the difference between being in love and wanting to bang.
Yeah, waking mom up in the middle of the night and asking her that would have gone over really well.
He had no idea how he felt but he did now that he should have just left Ritsu be…and he had fully planned to let Ritsu be…but then he found this super fun game where you took care of a human faced fish thing and it evolved and it was so cool and he just had to show Ritsu. For friendship reasons. Not wanting to lay down next to him and hold his hand and kiss him and all of that other stuff reasons. No, he just really, really, really needed to show Ritsu this game and it absolutely could not wait until the sun came up because that was the time that he had set aside for sleep. It was important to keep to a schedule.
This really could not wait until the morning.
"Rei…Rei, wake up." Said Ritsu. He shook her just a little. He could hear the TV going downstairs, mom or dad or maybe both of them were still awake. It was late, really late, and Rei shouldn't have been in his room in the first place. He would have been in trouble if his mom and dad had caught her in his room during the daytime but at night…they'd have to describe new words to describe how angry his mom would be. Heh. Maybe even angry enough to kick him out like she'd kicked out Shigeko…or maybe he could just leave on his own like Shigeko had left on her own.
"Wh-what? Oh no! What time is it?!" asked Rei. She sat up too fast and ended up bumping heads with Ritsu. Oh no! Now it was even worse. She looked like such an idiot. She couldn't believe that they had bumped heads and she couldn't believe that she had slept so late, too. Her parents were going to kill her. She was going to die. She would never see Ritsu again. She would-
A hand rubbed her head.
"You're ok. I mean you don't have a bump on your head or anything." Said Ritsu. They'd bumped heads. It was his fault for having rested his head on hers. He had fallen asleep too. He couldn't help it. She was just so warm and comfortable…and also he had been feeling pretty boneless after….yeah.
He was not going to think about that.
About how she had wanted to pay back all that he had done for her. Not that he had ever asked her to, not that he ever would have asked her to, but she had wanted to and he had no reason to say no. Not unless he was prepared to come clean about everything. Since he had no plans to do that, and it was what boyfriends and girlfriends were supposed to do, he had let her repay the favor. Even though she had been terrible at it. Even though she had spent the whole time apologizing for being terrible at it. Even though he had wanted to be anywhere but there until he closed his eyes and thought of…someone who he was not supposed to think of. Two someone's who he was not supposed to think of. After that the whole thing had been over in no time.
And then he had felt both very guilty and very boneless and very tired.
Rei had wanted to cuddle, afterwards, so that was what they did. He used his powers to move his dresser in front of his door and then they had cuddled and went to sleep. That would only work for about a millisecond, barricading the door, because mom would probably get pissed off that she couldn't come in and she'd kick it opened or something. Also him locking his door was pretty much an admission that he had been doing something that he shouldn't have been doing. Even though, actually, he was doing what they wanted him to do. They wanted him to find a girl and marry her and live a normal life and that was what he was doing.
Maybe he wanted to get caught.
Maybe a part of him wanted to get caught. Maybe a part of him was tired of living the life that other people wanted him to live. Maybe he wanted to get caught in some stupid effort at proving that he was not the perfect little Ritsu doll that his parents wanted him to be. Maybe he wanted to get caught, too, so he would have been forbidden from seeing her….and that would not have been fair to her at all…
She was in love with him. Being away from him…that would have hurt her…and the last thing he wanted to do was to hurt her.
"Oh my God! I can't believe that I did that! I am so, so, so sorry! I can't believe that I was such a klutz…" said Rei. She tried her best to whisper. If she got caught in his room then that would be the end of them. His mom would ban her from the house and from seeing him and if she couldn't see him then their relationship would die and she was not going to let that happen! Even though when she looked into the future she saw….
The future was not written in stone.
It was written in the sand. The future changed constantly. There was no path for it, there were multiple paths, and even if when she followed those paths she saw…well that didn't matter, her powers became less and less accurate the more she looked into the future. She and Ritsu would be together forever. They would go to high school and university together, she'd have to really bring her grades up, and then they'd get married and have babies and it would be the best….
She would make the future happen. She didn't care what she had to do, she would do everything in her power to make that future happen.
"Rei, it's fine. Just…don't get my parents in here. It's late and I know that my mom would not take it well if she found you in my room. My dad…it depends on how afraid he is of my mom right now." Said Ritsu
"You're right. I should really get home…I don't think that my parents seriously think that I was in my room all day…but I want to stay with you…you're so comfortable." Said Rei. She leaned down and rested her head on his chest. He smelled so good. She wished that she could have spent the night with him…not like that! She just wished that she could have spent the night in his arms. Like married people did. She felt so well rested….so this was why adults slept in the same bed. She liked this. She wanted…she wanted to spend this night and every night with him…she looked into the future.
She was going to end up sleeping in her own bed.
"You…you're comfortable too but we're both going to get in trouble." Said Ritsu. Too warm, it had been too warm. Comfortable in some ways but also too warm. Not in the good way. Not like when he'd fallen asleep with Sho next to him…
He put an arm around her.
"You're right, you're always right. I'm going to get in trouble if I stay here….let me see actually…ok, if I stay here then I get in trouble but if I come home now…my sister's been covering for me…but she's going to want a million favors in return…so I guess that I have to go home. Sorry. I'll see you…I don't actually know when I'll see you again but…but I'll message." Said Rei. Ritsu was holding her so close and tight…of course he didn't want her to go. If she left then he would be all alone with his parents and she did not wish that on even her big sister. Any of her big sisters. Even Riko.
"I know you will…I will too." Said Ritsu. He held her hand like she liked. She would message him 'good morning' and then nonstop all day until she told him 'goodnight' and then they'd do it all again. He wondered if it would be easier when they were married. Maybe she would say less to him once they were living together…or maybe she would say more to him because they'd be together all the time. They'd have kids, too, and then they'd probably end up fighting all the time…or not. No. He wouldn't do that to her. He would not treat her like that or put their kids though that.
"I'll message you when I get home. Can you help me down through your window? I don't think that I should go sneaking through your house. Your parents would definitely notice." Said Rei. She scooted to the end of his bed and tried not to make any faces. She felt so gross. All slimy from…stuff. Maybe it would have been less gross, afterwards, if she were undressed…not that she was ready for that yet. She wondered if that was normal, being ready for touching stuff before being ready for naked stuff, but it wasn't like there was even anyone she could have asked. Asking her mom was out of the question because then that would be the same as confessing that she and Ritsu were doing that sort of thing…even though there was nothing wrong with consensual sexual expression between two people who had feelings for each other. Mom's book had said that right there in black and white and it was written by relationship doctors. She couldn't ask her mom or her sister, Riko would just call her a nosy little pervert again and maybe throw a sock in her face which was always super gross. The only other person she knew who did things like that was Mob and she was not going to tell her friend about the boyfriend and girlfriend stuff that she did with said friend's little brother. It hadn't gone well the last time she told Mob about…stuff…and that hadn't even been real stuff. Not like the stuff that she and Ritsu did now…
Forget talking to people. She'd stick to books from now on.
"I'll walk you home. It isn't safe out there." said Ritsu. He scooted to the end of the bed. He regretted putting his feet down without looking. He tossed the gross tissues into the garbage can beside his desk. Maybe that would be a good reason to have her not return the favor all that often, too much cleanup, or maybe not. He shouldn't have been trying to weasel out of it. It made her happy and he was supposed to make her happy. That was part of the job of being a boyfriend. Keeping her safe and happy. At least it wasn't a lot of work. He had heard, before, that some girls were super high maintenance. Expensive dates and gifts and stuff like that. Their dates never got more expensive than a trip to the arcade and he usually just won something for her there. She didn't ask a lot from him and he knew that he should have been grateful. She was a good girlfriend by all the metrics that he was supposed to measure her by. She was pretty and liked spending time with him, he never had to worry about her cheating, she loved him and wanted to kiss him and mess around with him and that was what he was supposed to want in a girlfriend.
He was supposed to want a girlfriend in the first place.
"Th-thank you…but you don't have to. I can tell that nothing is going to happen to me…but thank you so much for walking me home. I mean it's cold out and it's late and if your parents find out that you're gone they'll get so mad so it really does mean a lot to me that you would walk me home so…so thank you." said Rei. She was nervous…why? She knew the future, she knew that nothing was going to happen to her out there…but it was that he wanted to spend time with her. That was it. She knew how he was, how distant he could be, and sometimes it felt like he didn't want to be with her. That was crazy of course. He loved her. Even if he usually just responded with one or two word answers when she messaged him…he wanted to be with him. He just didn't show it that often that was all. That was good, actually, because it made the times that he sought her out and…and wanted to spend time with her…it made them even more special.
"You don't have to thank me. It's not like I could just let you walk around out there at night on your own. I have to keep you safe, that's my job." Said Ritsu with a shrug. She was his girlfriend and he was her boyfriend and he had a job to do.
So he did it.
He helped her out his window and walked with her. She could have walked by herself, she could see the future after all, but he still was going to do the right thing and walk with her. He always did the right thing. It should have felt good, doing the right thing, but he mostly just felt cold. It was cold out. Even where she was clinging to him as they walked he felt cold. He didn't know why. It wasn't that cold out, not really, and either way he shouldn't have felt bad. He was just walking with her. He was making her happy. Who cared if he was happy? He was making someone else happy, someone who loved him, and that was what mattered.
It was always best to make others happy.
He was through being selfish. Well, acting selfishly. He still had selfish thoughts. He still wanted things that he knew that he should not have wanted. Things that he wasn't even going to think about. Things that he was trying his damnedest not to think about. Someone he was trying his damnedest not to think about. Someone who he swore that he could feel…but that was all in his head. It was him and Rei, who was clinging to him, and no one else. There wasn't a familiar aura coming towards him. There wasn't a very familiar red auras coming closer and closer until-
"Hey! What's up?!" asked Sho as he glomped onto Ritsu. Ok, maybe not the best thing to do considering how he felt but sometimes he had ideas and they became actions without him thinking them through. Like that. That had been…something that he had wanted to do…so he did it.
He let go.
"Sorry!" said Sho. He was more used to seeing auras than people. He had seen Ritsu's aura only, his girlfriend's wasn't that bright, so he hadn't noticed her…but not he did notice her. He felt guilty even though he hadn't done anything wrong. Well he had thought about doing a lot of things that were wrong but just because he thought about something that didn't mean that he would act on it…well sometimes it did but not when it came to things like that.
"Oh…hey." Said Ritsu. He didn't know why he felt so guilty. He hadn't DONE anything. Well not with Sho, anyway, so he had no reason to feel guilty. So he had to stop feeling guilty. Now. Any minute now. Come on already!
"Hi! Wow, I haven't seen you since we saved the world! You look better, by the way, a lot better. I guess all of your injuries got healed in the explosion too. That was so weird how that happened. It was so scary but then we all woke up and we were fine. I didn't see that coming at all." said Rei. Wow, how had she not seen him coming? Probably because she hadn't been looking for him. She had been looking for anger in her future so obviously she hadn't seen Sho. He was a friend, well he was more Ritsu's friend it seemed like, but any friend of his was a friend of hers too. That was important to the long term stability of a relationship, she had read, having mutual friends.
"Of course you didn't seen me coming. I blend into the night." Said Sho with a shrug.
"Sure you do." Said Ritsu as he reached over and flicked Sho's bright red hair. Sho batted his hand away, though he didn't mean it. Thank God it was dark out. His ace was as red as his hair. He hoped that the city didn't fix those streetlights any time soon. He needed the cover of darkness.
"Hey! I totally blend into the night!" said Sho. He couldn't meet Ritsu's eyes. He couldn't meet anyone's eyes. What was with him? Ritsu had a girlfriend. Right there. The red haired girl holding his other hand.
"No, it's because I wasn't looking for you. I was trying to see if anyone dangerous was around and I know that you aren't dangerous. You're a friend, well you're more Ritsu's friend, but I hope that you can be my friend too. Why are you out so late? Is everything ok? I haven't seen anything bad in the future but my future vision isn't the greatest." Said Rei. She was talking too much, she knew that she was talking too much, but she couldn't help it. She had to say something. If she didn't talk, if she didn't say something right then and there, then she would have said something about what she had just seen. That had been…cute. That was a good word for it. There was just something about two boys together…which was not something that she should have been thinking about!
"Your future vision is fine." Said Ritsu. He hated it when she got like that. She knew that her future vision was fine. She just said things, sometimes, so that he would tell her something nice. He wished that she would just come out and ask him to compliment her.
"I can't always see clearly. Sometimes things change and sometimes I just can't see things because I wasn't looking for them specifically. Like right now I can see that…you're going to hang out with him and he's got a game to show you…wow, you guys really are good friends." Said Rei as she flipped through the many paths that the future could take. Ritsu and Sho would spend a lot of time together. She was so happy for them! Ritsu needed more friends, he had a lot of trouble getting close to people, and she could see a lot of good things in their future….and a lot of good futures…but she wasn't in a lot of them…but that was ok because she was in some of them. The future was always changing. She couldn't cling to any one version of the future. Unless all paths lead to one place, like with the explosion, or with…not all paths led to one place this time…just a lot of them.
"I could be your friend too, if you want." Said Sho. He didn't have a lot of friends. Well he had thought that they were friends before but being friends was probably more complicated than just saving the world together. It was ok for him to be friends with her. It was good, actually, because then he could hang out with her and he could also hang out with Ritsu…but a friends. His girlfriend would be there and then if she was there then maybe he would have stopped thinking about Ritsu like he had been since maybe even the day they'd met.
"I-I have to take her home before she gets in trouble. We can hang out afterwards." Said Ritsu quickly. Why didn't he want her to hang out with him and Sho? There was no reason for him to not want…well there was…but that was not a good reason at all. No, she could hang out with whoever she wanted to. He had no reason to feel guilty. He hadn't done anything wrong…with Sho…and he was never going to do anything wrong ever again…so there.
"I can come with you. There's all kinds of creeps out here, I bet. Murderers and creeps and stuff. All that bad stuff that happens to girls. Two guys are better than one, in this case, I think." Said Sho. He didn't want to wait around for Ritsu to come home. That either meant hanging out outside in the cold, hanging out back at mom's house, or hanging out in Ritsu's room without him there. None of the options seemed good. None of the options involved being with Ritsu.
"You don't have to-" said Ritsu. He did not want to mix these two parts of his life. He didn't have a good reason, a terrible reason actually, but it was still a reason. If it was just him and Rei then it was easier to be her boyfriend. To make her happy. To pretend that he could possibly return the feelings that she felt for him. To not feel guilty about the way he really felt about her, and the things that he did with her, and also the things that he couldn't feel for her. It wouldn't be easy if his girlfriend and the guy he liked were within a hundred meters of each other.
One hundred meters was still too close.
"Sure! That'd be great! I mean I don't see any danger in our future but the future is always changing." Said Rei. This was great! Now she was friends with her boyfriend's friend! Maybe Ritsu would come with her to the Awakening Lab more. Then he would be better friends with her friends and then maybe he could bring Sho too and then they could all hang out and it would be great! Even though she felt like, sometimes, that maybe she shouldn't have gone back to the Awakening Lab. If Matsuura's work ever ended up being successful, if he ever ended up figuring out how to give people powers, then there would be more people like the ones who tried to take over the world. She never wanted to go through that again, having to save the world, and it was maybe even irresponsible to give people powers. There were some people in the world who should not have had powers, who could not have been trusted with powers, so maybe it was best to just let people get powers randomly. What if someone wanted to get powers and then try to take over the world? What if they had to go through that again?
She hoped that never happened.
"Great! Anyway, I've got to show you guys something. I found this game about this human faced fish and you have to take care of it and it evolves and it's just so…weird! I mean I like virtual pets as much as the next guy but I don't think that they should have human faces. It's just…weird." Said Sho as he pulled his DS out of his pocket. He showed them the weird virtual pet, human faced fish game, rabbit hole he had found himself in. This was nice, walking with friends, just walking and talking and not having to worry about anything.
Was this how normal people felt all the time?
It probably wouldn't. No, not the way he felt right then and there. He stood next to Ritsu. His girlfriend was on the other side. He was maybe walking too close to Ritsu. He was maybe bumping shoulders a little too often with Ritsu. He didn't know. He would think about it later. Right now he had to…to think about how weird this human faced fish game was. Not that it had a totally human face. There was just enough wrong with it to make it even worse.
"Yeah, that's pretty firmly in the uncanny valley." Said Ritsu as they walked down the empty streets together. It would have been cold, he would have been cold, if he hadn't been walking so close to Sho. He felt like a furnace, Sho did, or maybe it was Ritsu. Or Rei. She was pretty warm next to him too. Or maybe he was just warm enough for everyone. He couldn't help it, he was right there in the middle, and there was nothing he could do but stay stuck in the middle…stuck between the guy he liked and the girl who loved him. There was nothing he could do but walk between them even though he wanted to run away or disappear or…or something.
But he didn't, because he couldn't, because there was nothing he could do but be stuck in the middle of all of this…
And wait for their human faced fish to evolve, too.
