Reigen wouldn't ever admit it out loud but he wasn't much of an artist.

But that didn't matter. That was why God had bestowed upon the human race the gift of photoshop. Why spend hours upon days upon weeks upon months drawing something, getting callouses on your fingers and carpal tunnel in your wrists, when you could let a computer do the work for you? These were modern times they were living in after all, why not take advantage of the technology they'd been given?

So, yes, Reigen wasn't much of an artist but at the end of the day that didn't really matter.

"Perfect!" said Reigen as he put the final touches on what had to be his greatest work yet. Days ago Tome had remarked, she had never been afraid to speak her mind, that the old poster was getting kind of stale. Blasé. Played out. Reigen, of course, had to agree.

Since she didn't really give him a chance to disagree.

The old poster had been, well, old. Very old. A picture of him from years ago, when he had been a younger man of twenty four, before the ravages of age took their hold on his delicate skin. Age and smoking, as Tome had been quick to remind him of. Smoking did tend to age a person, as did stress, and too much salt didn't help either.

Tome, as it turned out, knew a thing or two about skin care.

Within her very long lecture series on the benefits of moisturizer, which they apparently made for faces now, it occurred to Reigen that he may have needed to update the poster. He was older, now, and it was good to, well, not blindside the customer. He was older and wiser and, with age, came new developments in his life.

And no, not only the smoking induced crow's feet that Tome had been so happy to point out.

Time, these years, had brought more than aging. There had been other things, better things, things like Mob and…well, people was a better word for it. Time had brought people into his life. This wasn't a one man operation anymore, or even a two man operation. This was a three man, one girl, or rather two man, one girl, and one boy operation…

It was more than just him these days! That was the point!

Spirits and Such had grown, just as Reigen had, and the new poster needed to reflect that. So that was what Reigen did, he made the new poster reflect that. It had been a labor of love, finding the best clip art, candid shots of all of them, and then adding it all together but it was worth it. He had slaved over this for days and now, finally, his work was done!

And it looked pretty damn good if he did say so himself.

"What the hell is that?" asked Tome as she leaned over his shoulder. He dug his heels into the floor and pushed his chair away from his desk…maybe a bit harder than necessary. He hit the corner of his desk and nearly sent a potted plant flying. It seemingly caught it's self and landed right back where it had been.

Of course Reigen knew better, he knew that it'd had help.

Serizawa hadn't even looked up from where he was sitting, pencil caught between his teeth, eraser slowly but surely being chewed off. He was working on something for school, as Tome had informed him time and time again it was finals time, and apparently Seasoning City Community College, was on the same schedule as every other school in this city. Reigen hadn't wanted to force Serizawa to choose so, of course, he had given him…and Tome too! He had given them both the option to stay home and study.

An option that neither of them had taken…an outcome he was mostly happy with.

Mostly.

"How about some personal space?" asked Reigen as Tome completely invaded his. Not only did she plant her feet right in front of his laptop but she started clicking away at it, too.

"Seriously Reigen, what am I looking at here?" asked Tome as she zoomed in and out. Reigen stood up and slid his laptop away from her before she could undo his hard, painstaking, grueling work.

"You're looking at our new poster." Said Reigen as he held onto his laptop. Tome rolled her eyes at him. For a moment he felt like his mother.

"You did this yourself, didn't you?" asked Tome

"Well it's not like I have the budget to hire an actual graphic designer." Said Reigen

"You should have found the money. I mean, come on, the lighting isn't even right on half of these-" said Tome reaching for his laptop again. He put himself between his laptop and her overzealous hands. Nope. The last thing he needed was one of the kids fiddling around with his work laptop. He wasn't even done paying it off yet.

"Hey! Keep your hands to yourself!" said Reigen

"Come on, let me at least match the lighting!" said Tome

"It's fine the way it is." Said Reigen, once again feeling like his mother. He may have even sounded like her, too. Teenagers, were they all such a trial? Mob wasn't but Mob was something onto himself. Were they all so annoying? He wasn't sure if he wanted to find out. On the one hand he thought that the kids were great but on the other hand he didn't want to turn into one of those guys who hung out exclusively with teenagers. It just wasn't a good look for a guy his age.

"Come on, you need all the help you can get! Serizawa, back me up here!" said Tome. Serizawa nearly jumped up from his spot at his desk.

"Sure! What am I backing you up about?" asked Serizawa, looking up from his school book. A tome of great importance, one that he shouldn't have been torn from. He had heavy circles under his eyes and his hair, while better than it had been when he'd first showed up, looked like Serizawa had combed it in the dark. He should have sent Serizawa home that day…or the one before it…or the one before that…but that would have meant being alone with Tome and he, very selfishly, didn't want that.

He just didn't want to be the kind of guy who spent all of his time hanging out alone with teenage girls, that was all, it wasn't a good look.

"Get over here and look at this." Said Tome motioning with both hands. Serizawa closed his book and got up. Reigen pulled his laptop even closer.

"Serizawa, you don't have to-" said Reigen

"Yes he does!" said Tome as she yanked his laptop right out of his hands. She was a lot stronger than she looked. Reigen could have pulled it back but then he would have been in a game of tug of war with Tome, something that would have made them both look completely ridiculous. Reigen Arataka didn't do ridiculous.

No, he was always the picture of calm and collected dignity.

"What am I looking at?" asked Serizawa as he leaned down and stared at Reigen's laptop quizzically. Reigen reached over and closed it…maybe a bit harder than he should have.

"Nothing." said Reigen as he pulled his now, thankfully, closed laptop over to his side of the desk. Tome rolled her eyes again. Reigen nearly channeled his inner mother and told her that if she kept that up they'd get stuck like that. He kept it to himself after all, he wasn't her mother, and even if he had been he would have just let her eyes get stuck like that. It would have served her right for embarrassing him…trying to embarrass him.

"Don't be like that, a great artist takes responsibility for his work." Said Tome

"I never said I was a great artist." Said Reigen

"So you admit that it sucks then?" asked Tome cheekily. Reigen groaned.

"Don't you have to go home and do homework or something?" asked Reigen motioning to the wall clock.

"I've got someone who takes care of that for me." said Tome with a wave of her hand.

"Ok, I'm going to pretend that I didn't hear that. Anyway, don't you have tests to study for or something?" asked Reigen. Tome made a big show of checking her nonexistent watch. Now it was Reigen's turn to roll his eyes. Serizawa just gave her that same quizzical look that he'd been giving Reigen's laptop a moment earlier.

"Well I do suppose that it's time for me to make that long walk home…alone…in the dark…on an empty stomach…" said Tome rocking on her heels.

"It's Wednesday, your mom makes curry on Wednesdays." Said Reigen. Tome sighed.

"Fine, be that way. I'll just head out alone, starving, and in the cold…all alone…starving…and in the cold…." Said Tome as she began to slowly make her way over to the coatrack. Reigen shrugged.

"Well it is a winter's evening after all." Said Reigen. Tome grabbed her coat, stuck her tongue out, and practically flounced out of the office.

"Fine then, be that way! Goodbye, enjoy being alone with the mess you made!" said Tome in a tone that wouldn't have been out of place on one of those Korean dramas Mob was always trying to get him to watch.

"Goodbye! See you tomorrow!" said Serizawa, his voice booming through the now empty office. Well, not really empty, it was just the two of them here now. Tome just took up so much space that, in her absence, it was like the room was empty. Like there wasn't anyone there…like there wasn't anything there…anything between him and Serizawa…

It was easier when there was a buffer between them.

Not that he didn't like Serizawa, because he did, he was a really nice guy and an all around good friend. It was just weird, even now, having another adult around. He had gone so long with it just being him and Mob that he wasn't entirely sure how to just…be…there with another adult. When it was just him and Serizawa it felt like part of his brain decided to go on a tea break and his replacement needed some more on the job training before he was ready to work the controls. What was he even supposed to say, now?

Talking to the kids was much easier.

He was older than them. He was Reigen Arataka, Master Reigen, imparter of wisdom and guidance. Well, to Mob at least. To Tome he was more like a distant uncle she hung around with. Someone who's buttons it was safe to press because she knew that he'd always still want her around no matter how truly annoying she got. What was he to Serizawa? His boss, of course, but Reigen had never been in that kind of position before. At least not with someone his age, well Serizawa was a year older, but that didn't matter when a person got to be their age. He was the one in charge but he wasn't going to be an ass about it. He wanted to be more of a friend…but was that crossing the line? He didn't want to get too familiar either…

He'd left the corporate world partially to get away from things like this and yet here he was.

"See you tomorrow, I guess." Reigen called out even though he had heard the outer door slam shut. Well now, that had been awkward as hell. He checked the time. It wasn't that late but not early, either. Time to head out, maybe get some of that dinner that Tome had been trying to wheedle out of him, or maybe…

Get some drawing done?

He turned away from the clock and found Serizawa hunched over his desk, a spirits and such pencil in one hand, and the other holding a notepad down. The top page was flipped over. Serizawa had definitely seen Reigen's less than stellar doodling skills…he could feel the tips of his ears turning red…

Hey! He had never called himself an artist!

Reigen had called himself many things over the years. A psychic, a masseur, a mixologist, a dog walker, a watercooler salesman, a gardener, and on several occasions during his elementary school years the secret apprentice to the great Mogami…before he met the man as a spirit….but never in his life had he called himself an artist!

Well there had been that time in kindergarten with the fingerpaints…

Ok, so he had never called himself a skilled artist. Not like what he wanted to be…sort of. Sometimes it felt like he wanted to be everything under the sun. He was old enough to know, though, that some things just weren't in his wheelhouse. That was fine. There were some things in this world that he could do that other people couldn't and some things that people could do that he couldn't. Like draw. No, Reigen Arataka couldn't draw his way out of a paper bag. Not like Serizawa, apparently, could.

Not that he had any idea why either of them would ever need to draw their way out of a paper bag but, hey, he'd seen stranger things.

Stranger things even than this. Serizawa was so completely entranced in what he was doing. Reigen could have set off a bomb and it wouldn't have distracted him. He got like this sometimes, very focused. His brows knitted together, his tongue bitten between his teeth, his shoulders seemingly locked in place, broad and-

"Was this what you were going for?" asked Serizawa as he stood up straight. Reigen took a less than graceful step back. He'd been way too close. It hadn't seemed that way, Serizawa had been hunched over, but now that he was standing up at his full height he took up so much room behind the desk that there just wasn't any room for Reigen.

Hence the less than graceful stumbling.

"I mean it's a little hard to tell, I didn't spend much time on it, but I think that this might be at least close to what you were going for." Said Serizawa as he held up the notepad. Reigen took a second to collect himself, to get his startled heartbeat under control, a moment he disguised by leaning in to seemingly get a better look at what it was that Serizawa had been scribbling there.

No, not scribbling, drawing.

"Damn…" said Reigen. Serizawa had been spot on. It was all of them, there, in the middle of an exorcism. Exactly what he had done only not cobbled together from photographs and clipart.

"Sorry! Sorry, I know I'm not that good and that I shouldn't have overstepped-" said Serizawa

"What are you sorry about? This is great, don't sell yourself short." Said Reigen, taking the notepad from Serizawa. To get an even better look, of course, not so that he had an excuse to step even farther away from him or anything like that.

"Oh…thank you. I'm sorry, I'm just not that good…I mean my lines are shaky and my sense of proportion is off-" said Serizawa, falling back into that old stutter. Serizawa did that sometimes when he was scared or overwhelmed or anything negative, really. It drove Reigen up the wall and not in a good way.

"Who the hell told you that?" asked Reigen

"The President." Said Serizawa quietly and with an expression that could only be described as 'freshly kicked puppy'. Well he'd stepped in it, hadn't he? Not only that but he'd tracked it all over the freshly shampooed rug and even rubbed it in for good measure. Time for some damage control.

"Well then fu-screw him, then. What's he know about art? Nothi-" said Reigen

"He drew up all the blueprints, the Claw blueprints I mean." Said Serizawa

"So what, he was some kind of architect or something?" asked Reigen in a tone that wouldn't have been out of place on Tome.

"No, not really. He only designed buildings for fun. Before he was the President he studied business because his Dad wanted him to but then the economy fell apart and didn't get better and his dad filled his pockets with rocks and walked into the ocean so the president-" said Serizawa

"Well it doesn't sound like he was any kind of an artist." Said Reigen cutting off what sounded like the beginning to a very interesting story. He didn't care about the so called president, the asshole who'd tried to kill him and Mob among other such serious crimes, so he wasn't going to let Serizawa go on about him as he sometimes did. It was Reigen's fault for asking, he knew that Serizawa had a thing about his former boss and sometimes went on about him without even thinking…

Well it made sense, that guy had been Serizawa's only form of human contact for three years after all.

"He's not, I mean he wasn't. Sho's the artist in their family." Said Serizawa

"Well then if he's not an artist then what right does he have to critique your, uh, art?" asked Reigen, stumbling over his words as he lost his train of thought. It was hard to keep it, not when Serizawa was looking at him like that. Like he was the answer to all of his hopes and dreams…

As good as it felt Reigen knew that he shouldn't have wanted it.

"You're right, he doesn't. You do." Said Serizawa

"Well uh…yeah, I guess…" said Reigen rubbing the back of his head. That wasn't what he had been going for anyway. He glanced at the door, almost hoping that Tome had forgotten something or just felt like begging for a ramen dinner off of him…he might have even treated her despite the fact that the budget really didn't have the room right now.

Anything, really, to get that buffer back between him and Serizawa.

Serizawa's eyes met his and then followed the path that they took. Reigen knew that he was sensitive to these things, auras and the like, and he had been his whole life. That didn't mean that he was used to it, the feel of an aura against him. The full body tingling, the warmth that spread from the tips of his ears to the souls of his feet. He didn't know if he wanted to take a step backwards or a step forwards.

So he stayed where he was.

"Oh! Right, it's getting late, we should probably close up before we get another last minute walk in. Remember what happened last time?" asked Serizawa, referring to the time a last minute photo exorcism had turned into a late night hike through the woods looking for a cursed cat, and then an early morning trip to the all night diner. It hadn't been a bad time, really, though of course Tome had been there.

With or without Tome, Serizawa had a point, now was not the time to be reliving their late night adventures.

"Yeah, that was something…anyway! I'll see you again tomorrow, best of luck on your tests!" said Reigen. He internally winced, he had been laying that on a bit thick. He wasn't talking to one of the kids.

"Those aren't until next week but thank you! I'll so my best!" said Serizawa. He was just so damn enthusiastic and earnest that Reigen honestly had no idea what he was supposed to do with that. So he did nothing. He just sat down behind his desk, opened his laptop, and pretended to do some last minute work. His attempt at a work of art staring at him the entire time.

As soon as he heard the outer door close he shut his laptop.

And now he was alone with Serizawa's work of art. It was a rough sketch really, nothing he'd hang in a museum, just a doodle. He tore it out of the notepad. He held it in his hand and stared for a moment before folding it up and putting it in his lowest desk drawer. He'd put a pin in the new poster for now. He'd come back to it once his skills had improved, or rather when Serizawa was less busy. He was the better artist out of the two of them, after all, and Reigen hadn't even had any idea.

What else was there to know about Serizawa?