Reigen Arataka was never having kids.

"Now tell me again, slowly, what happened." Said Reigen as he took his hand off of Teru's mouth. It had been the only way to shut him up. He had come to the office that morning and found Teru asleep on the couch with several bags on the ground in front of him. Apparently he was running away from home. Apparently he had no choice. Apparently he had done something so crazy that he had no choice but to run away from home and start a new life.

What he had done…well Reigen hadn't quite catch that.

"I slept with the enemy and now we have to leave the country!" said Teru as soon as he could speak again. What was with Reigen? Teru had made himself perfectly clear. He slept with the enemy and now he had to leave the country and he had to find Ritsu and take him with. Reigen, too, since he knew too much. Claw would most definitely find him, hunt him down, and kill him if he didn't give up everything he had.

"Yeah, that doesn't make any more sense the second time around." Said Reigen. He needed coffee, he couldn't start the day without coffee or maybe tea. Something with caffeine. Something that could wake him the hell up. There was so much he had to do today. A lot of 'physical exorcisms', a lot of notarizing bullshit, and some heavy photoshopping too. He was behind as it was…but it looked like he was going to be even more behind. He knew Teru well enough to know when he was scared…and right now he was terrified.

Reigen had to stay calm. For both of their sakes.

"What don't you understand?! I slept with the enemy and-" said Teru

"I'm assuming that's a metaphor for something?" asked Reigen. That had BETTER have been a metaphor for something. He was starting to feel like his mother. Kids these days were growing up so fast. Too fast. Hopefully not THAT fast.

"Uh…" said Teru. Reigen looked pissed. He had no right to be pissed. Teru was the one having a crisis here! He was the one who had messed up he was the one who'd gotten his heart ripped out and now he had to be the one who saved everyone. He was the one Ritsu was going to try and beat up, too. He didn't need Reigen getting pissed at him on top of all of that.

"Again. I'm assuming that's a metaphor for something?" asked Reigen. He knew what they said about assuming…but they said a lot of things. That had better have been some kind of metaphor because otherwise…otherwise Teru had really messed up. This was why kids needed parents!

"It's…not a metaphor for anything." Said Teru. He knew what a metaphor was, like how in Flying Dead Pig the Pig was a metaphor for how people sucked, and he knew that there was no way to take what he had said as a metaphor. He'd slept with the enemy. They'd made out, did drugs, slept together, and then went to bed. And then she got really weird and tried to recruit him into Claw. And now he was here. What was so hard to understand about that?!

"I see. Stay there." said Reigen. He walked over to his desk, picked up an old newspaper, and walked back. He felt like he was on autopilot. Like there was someone else controlling his body. Like someone had jumped into his head and told him that he needed to knock some sense into Teru. Maybe it was his mother. Maybe this was the first step and then in a week or something he would wake up, look in the mirror, and see mom looking back at him.

"What are you doing?" asked Teru

"Knocking some sense into you." Said Reigen before he did just that. He whacked Teru upside the head like his mother had done to him. He had thought that it had been degrading at the time but now…well mom had done what she had to do. Reigen hadn't been a little angel back when he'd been twelve, far from it, but he had never slept with the enemy. He hadn't had any enemies or girlfriend when he'd been twelve…because he'd been twelve!

There was something wrong with these kids today.

"Stop it! It's annoying and you're ruining my hair!" said Teru as he put up a barrier. It had taken a while to get his hair into some semblance of order. If he had to be on the run then he at least should have been able to look the way he wanted to. At least he was still in charge of how he looked. At least he hadn't messed that up like he'd messed up every other part of his life.

"That's what you're worried about right now? Really?" asked Reigen as he stopped. Teru reached up and smoothed down his hair. That kid…he was never going to understand that kid. He was even worse than Ritsu sometimes….Ritsu. Did he know…he was still out of town. When was he coming back, again? This wasn't going to be good for him. This wasn't going to be good for anyone.

"Yeah, kind of. If I have to be on the run then I should at least be able to keep my dignity." Said Teru

"On the….ok. I want you to walk me through exactly what happened. Then I'll figure out if we need to be…on the run…or not." Said Reigen. The run. Ritsu declared that they were all going on the run at least once every few weeks. Usually it was nothing. Reigen had seen a distinct lack of people dressed in red walking around. That was the best way to tell a Claw member apart from the general population, they wore a lot of red. They had been weirdly quiet…but now…Reigen didn't know what they were up to.

"Ok. So yesterday I got up and saw that my nailbeds were really gross and also I was out of the stuff I use for it, it's this winterberry-" said Teru. It had been such a normal day. That was the important part, that it had been such a normal day. It had been the last normal day of his life. He had a lot of those. It was kind of weird, really, and maybe even a little funny. How a day could be so normal one minute and then the next you had to flee the country because people were trying to kidnap him.

"Teru." Said Reigen. He know that Teru liked to hear himself talk but right now they didn't have time for one of his famous monologues.

"What? It's all interconnected. So anyway I was out and then I felt something really…big? It's hard to describe to people without auras. Well what I felt was Ritsu's boyf-friend….the guy who saved Ritsu from Claw and-" said Teru

"The redheaded kid? From Claw?" asked Reigen. This was…not good. That kid…well that was a good kid. The rest of Claw, however, was not. His eyes darted over to the door. Had he locked it? No, no, it wasn't locked. There was no point in turning the 'closed' sign to 'opened' if he was just going to lock all of his customers out….well that didn't matter anymore. He was never going to have…ok. Ok. He had to stay calm. For Ritsu and Teru's sake he had to stay calm.

"How many redheaded guys from Claw do you know?" asked Teru, rolling his eyes.

"Just keep talking." Said Reigen. He was tempted to add a 'don't you roll your eyes at me' but caught himself just in time. He wasn't ready to turn into mom, not yet, maybe not ever. Mom was…she wouldn't have been able to stay calm right now. Reigen had to stay calm. The kids were counting on him to know what to do…now if only he knew what to do.

"Well actually Tsubomi saw him first but anyway I found him and then I brought him home-" said Teru

"Don't tell me you actually…." Said Reigen. He knew…but he didn't need confirmation. Teru was too young! This was…nope. This was not happening. Teru was only twelve. What twelve year old girl asked a boy to…well kids were growing up fast these days…too fast! Way too fast!

"What?! Him!? No way! He's annoying, he's gross, he smells like he's never even seen a bar of soap before and, fine, he's kind of cute but he's still so….him! And he's a-I mean me and Ritsu are…just…I didn't sleep with him!" said Teru. What in the hell was WRONG with Reigen!? Him and Suzuki Sho?! Gross! Teru had higher standards than that!

"Sorry, sorry, it's just when someone tells me that they were sleeping with the enemy and then they tell me that they invited the enemy into their home my mind just automatically goes for the worst possible option. But of course you know better than to sleep with the enemy, or anyone for that matter. You know, because you're only twelve years old." Said Reigen. It felt like a thousand pounds had been taken off of his shoulders. Teru had meant something else. Good. He had been worried…double worried. Reigen wasn't blind, he saw the way Ritsu and Teru looked at each other sometimes, and he wasn't above admitting that he hoped something came out of that. Some kind of long love story, long and sweet, like in a movie or whatever. The kids deserved it after what they'd been through. There was more than a crush going on there, more than kid stuff, but not THAT much more than kid stuff.

"I'm twelve and a half." Said Teru. He was nearly thirteen. He was going to middle school next year. He lived alone and took care of himself. He wasn't a kid anymore.

"That's still way too young to even think about sleeping with anyone. Which is why you didn't…which is why I'm assuming that you didn't." said Reigen

"I'm not too young. I'm not a little kid and anyway I didn't sleep with him, I slept with his sister." Said Teru, crossing his arms. Honestly.

"The…sister…" said Reigen. Teru looked way too smug….he had no reason to look smug! This was…Teru had told him the story, before, of the girl who saved his life. Apparently the President of Claw had a real problem when it came to his kids. The boy had saved him and Ritsu and the girl had saved Teru. That should have been the end of it. Kids…there was something wrong with these kids. They made the worst choices…and for love! Weren't they too young for all of that? Shouldn't love have been gross? Shouldn't they have been throwing rocks at cars or climbing trees or digging to the earth's core or whatever it was that kids did these days?

These kids would be the death of him…and they weren't even his kids!

"Yeah, Shigeko. She came for her brother but then they had a fight and then…I did a really dumb thing…" said Teru. He had. He had fallen for the honey trap. If he had been a spy and this had been the 80's then he could have been shot or something. He hadn't been able to help it. No girl had ever asked to do all the things with him and…and she was her. She was Shigeko. He had been in love with her since he had been nine years old. Well the idea he'd had of her. The idea that had been VERY long.

"Don't tell me that the two of you actually…." Said Reigen. This was somehow even worse. The girl, supposedly, ranked very highly in Claw…his eyes darted to the windows. There wasn't any mob of Claw members coming for them….yet.

"We tried drugs!" said Teru. That had been his first clue that this Shigeko wasn't who he had thought she'd been. She liked drugs. Not only that but he had tried them…she had gotten him to try them…that was when he should have asked her to leave. That was when he should have kicked her out, not afterwards. Not after he woke up and saw her there…and she had been so perfect…but then she wasn't.

"Oh. Wow. You have no idea how relieved I am…I mean you did really bad, Teru, really bad. Don't do drugs." Said Reigen. He could deal with this. At least this wasn't the kind of thing that could have ruined Teru's life forever…well, yeah, say no to drugs and all of that…but at least there wasn't a baby coming. No, just the entirety of Claw…he looked out the window again. Nobody out there, nobody at all. Too cold for people to be outside…a crazy thought. Maybe that was what was keeping Claw away.

"I know! I know that I messed up! She just had drugs and-and I didn't know that they were drugs and-and I thought that it was just a vape-" said Teru

"Which you shouldn't be smoking either. What did I tell you and Ritsu about smoking?" asked Reigen

"That once you start it's really hard to stop…but vaping isn't smoking! I already told you that it's completely different!" said Teru

"It's really close, Teru, and also not for kids." Said Reigen

"I'm not a kid anymore!" said Teru. He hadn't been a kid in so long…not since he had been kicked out. Moved out. Ran away. Not since he had run away to Seasoning City. He hadn't been kicked out. This was just best for everyone. His parents' movements were very public. It was safer for Teru to live here on his own than to be with them. It was safer for them, too. He couldn't always be there to protect him and it was his fault, anyway, that Claw was after their family in the first place.

"Trying drugs doesn't make you grown up, Teru. Being an adult is more than-" said Reigen

"I know that trying drugs doesn't make me an adult! Sleeping with Shigeko does." Said Teru. He held eye contact with Reigen. He wasn't a little kid anymore. He wasn't an adult but he wasn't the little kid Reigen seemed to think that he was.

"You…you actually…" said Reigen. The room was spinning. He was going to faint. Teru had actually…why?! Why in the hell…well because he felt like it….but…even he should have known better! This was…he needed…he needed to sit down…and he needed a drink. A drink and a cigarette. A whiskey sour and a cigar. A bottle of whiskey, a bottle of sour mix, and a box of cigars.

"I did and it was the greatest thing ever! I mean it started off that way. Afterwards she got really weird." Said Teru

"Of course she did. She's your age, right? She had better be your age. I warned you about older girls, I know I did." Said Reigen

"We're the same age…and what's that got to do with her trying to do a honey trap on me?" asked Teru

"A what?" asked Reigen. This was…these were twelve year olds! What kind of an organization used a twelve year old for…that? And in an effort to get another twelve year old to join…well obviously the same organization that kidnapped and brainwashed kids.

"That's when a girl from the enemy's side sleeps with you so that you join her side." said Teru

"Yeah, I know what it means. How do YOU know what it means? That's the question here." Said Reigen

"I saw it in a movie." Said Teru

"You and movies." Said Reigen with a shake of his head. Teru watched things that a kid his age had no business watching and now he was doing things that a kid his age had no business doing. This was why he, why all kids, needed parents. Reigen didn't understand how his parents could have just abandoned him here with no guidance or supervision….not even someone making sure that the very organization his parents fled didn't come after him. It was like they didn't even care.

"Yeah, she did the honey trap thing like in a movie but I saw through her and I kicked her out. Then I tried calling you and I called Ritsu and he freaked out and…and now you're freaking out…and it's make me freak out! I just…I know what to do. We just have to flee the country. I've done it before and I can do it again. We just have to go and pick Ritsu up from his grandma's house and then we can go somewhere…uh…like China? It's a big country so we should be able to hide." Said Teru

"None of us speak any kind of Chinese." Said Reigen

"Well then what do we do!?" asked Teru

"I don't know! I just….sorry, sorry, I just need to think. I just need a minute." Said Reigen. Fleeing the country was a last ditch resort. Nobody was going to believe him if they got caught. What was he supposed to say? 'Sorry, officer, but I had to flee the country with these two kids who aren't related to me in any way because an evil psychic cult is after us'? No, they'd drag him either right to jail or to a padded room. This was…he needed to think. Teru was getting lectured later, that was for sure. He was in for the master and student lecture of a lifetime.

What had he been thinking?

He hadn't been thinking, that much was obvious. He had more hormones than sense and there had been a willing girl. Reigen would have fainted on the spot if he had been in Teru's place and at Teru's age. Teru wasn't Reigen, though, he was his own person…his own really stupid person. A honey trap plot…it felt wrong even thinking that…was the least of his problems right now. He could have had a kid on the way. He could have been kidnapped. He could have been killed. He could have been…this was not the time for speculation. This was the time for action.

He was the only adult here...damn it.

"Well?" asked Teru. Reigen had been thinking for more than a minute…and they didn't have a minute. He'd already spent enough time here. He had to keep moving, staying in one place was too dangerous. This was his life now. Moving from place to place…it could be fun….no it couldn't be.

"We can't flee the country." Said Reigen

"Why not?! I've done it before." Said Teru

"Yeah, with your parents. Not me. If I try to flee the country with you and Ritsu then I'll go to prison for kidnapping and I know you've seen enough movies to know that prison is a really terrible place." Said Reigen

"Fine, then me and Ritsu are going to run away together. It was nice knowing you, Reigen, and I'm sorry we dragged you into this. Try not to get captured." Said Teru with a wave of his hand. He didn't care. That was just how adults were. You couldn't depend on them. They just did whatever they wanted to do. Eventually everyone had to learn how to take care of themselves. Teru knew that he sure had to.

"Teru, no. You and Ritsu can't run away. You're too young. Claw isn't the only thing you two need to worry about. There are some really bad people out there and I…and the last thing that I want is to have to build a shrine for the two of you." Said Reigen

"What am I supposed to do, then?" said Teru

"We. What are we supposed to do." Said Reigen. That was it. We. They were in this together. Teru needed him and he had no idea what to do…but he could fake it. He had faked a hell of a lot in his life.

"Ok, what are WE supposed to do, then?" asked Teru. Reigen thought that they were a WE. He was a he and Reigen was a he. Reigen could do whatever he wanted to do. Teru knew what he had to do. He had to get out of here. He had to get to Ritsu and then they had to run.

"We…are going back to my place. It's not safe for you to be on your own right now." Said Reigen

"And then?" asked Teru Reigen's place. He had never been there before, that was why he had spent the night in the office. Reigen's house…like…like he wanted Teru there. That was…well Teru was welcome a lot of places, of course, but it was still…kind of nice. Having someone who wanted to keep him safe…no. Teru could keep himself safe. He was just going to be keeping himself safe at Reigen's house.

"And then you and I are going to have a talk." Said Reigen. Somebody needed to talk to Teru and that someone was him. Ritsu…maybe him too…but mostly Teru. Teru had done…a lot of things. Cheated on Ritsu and had…had full on….ok. He wasn't going to get mad. Not about the cheating or the stupidity…or the fact that Ritsu was going to be completely devastated. His first real boyfriend had cheated on him with the daughter of the leader of Claw. Poor Ritsu…

"We don't have time to talk! Claw could be after us right now!" said Teru

"I know that! I know…I know…but right now we need to get somewhere that's less….out in the open…and then we need to talk. You know why." Said Reigen. He was going to say something about the cheating…or maybe he should have just left this between Ritsu and Teru. Or maybe he needed to knock some more sense into Teru. Or maybe the two of them…maybe this was none of his business. He honestly didn't know. How did parents DO this? Deal with these utterly bizarre problems? That was the only word for this, bizarre.

"What's there to talk about?" asked Teru. He knew what Reigen was going to say. He was going to tell Teru that he needed to slow down, that he was acting older than he was, and stuff like that. The normal stuff that adults said to him. Adults could be real hypocrites sometimes. He went on dates and kissed girls, and sometimes did more than kiss them. That was what adults did. Why did they get to hook up and go on dates but he couldn't? Because he was young? That was a pretty stupid reason, in his opinion.

"Did you just tell me….were you safe?" Said Reigen. He didn't shudder…he was proud of himself for not shuddering. Even though the fact that he'd even had to ask Teru that made his skin crawl. Too young. Way too young. This was way…way…WAY too soon!

"…uh…." Said Teru. He knew what kind of safe Reigen meant….and no, he hadn't been. He hadn't been thinking about that. It hadn't even occurred to him that he had to worry about that. He had been too worried about the whole 'Claw coming to kill him' thing. He was still worried about that, of course, but now he had something totally new to worry about!

"Teru….ok. Ok. We are going to deal with this. We are going to deal with everything. I'm going to deal with everything. You just…just let me deal with this. Ok? Now come on." Said Reigen. He picked up some of Teru's bags, Teru picked up the rest without complaining. Good. They were going to hide in his apartment with Teru and then…well he didn't know what they were going to do next…but it was going to be something.

He had to do something.

He had to figure this out. Teru needed him and he had to be the adult here. He couldn't let it show. He couldn't let Teru see exactly what was going on inside of his head. He was shaking…he just needed a cigarette. One which he was not going to have. He still had to set a good example. Teru was watching him right now. Reigen had to be calm, he had to be in control, and he had to set a good example. Teru was just a kid….a kid with no parents, or at least none to speak of….

Reigen was never having kids of his own. He already had two he had to look out for.