Ritsuko was so lucky, at least she didn't look like a boy.

No, she looked really pretty, and that wasn't just Mob who thought so. Everyone thought that she was really pretty. She was always getting love letters from boys, even if she didn't like them it was still nice that she got them, and a bunch of girls were jealous of her. At least that was what Master Reigen said all the rumors were probably about. They all seemed strange to Mob, people saying that Ritsuko secretly got plastic surgery or was an adult posing as a middle schooler. Master Reigen said that sometimes people started rumors because they were jealous and wanted to make the person they were jealous of feel as bad as they did.

Master Reigen was so smart…most of the time.

Mob was staring at her sister. She couldn't help it. She didn't know how someone who looked so much like her could have been so different. Ritsuko was so pretty and she looked more grown up, too. Her face wasn't as round, her skin wasn't all blotchy, she never broke out, and she even got to have a real bra, not one of those undershirt things Mom bought in packs of five from the discount grocery store. Her hair was a lot nicer, too. Mob knew that she looked like a ghost, that her hair was always in her eyes and it hung straight down and heavy like the girl's did from those ring movies…and those grudge movies…and pretty much every movie about a ghost ever made. Ritsuko barely even had to brush her hair, it just sort of stayed styled all the time. Ritsuko was so pretty.

She didn't look anything like a boy.

"What's up? You want to change it?" asked Ritsuko, looking over from the TV. Mob shook her head. It was true, she kind of did, mainly because giant robot pilots falling in love wasn't really her thing but it was her sister's turn. She was the older sister, she had to be nice to Ritsuko. She was so little. She may have looked grown up but in a lot of ways she was just a baby.

A girl baby. Not a boy baby.

"No, that's ok. I was just thinking." Said Mob

"That there's no way two people can possibly fall in love after one battle? And not even a life or death one?" asked Ritsuko. Mob shook her head. She hadn't been paying enough attention to be able to comment on the plot.

"I don't know, but that's not what I was thinking about. I was just thinking about you. How pretty you are." Said Mob. Ritsuko shrugged.

"Thanks, I guess, but I'm not that pretty." Said Ritsuko

"Yes, you are. I know that it's polite, when someone says that you're pretty, to say that you aren't but you really are. Everyone thinks so. You don't look like a boy at all." Said Mob. Ritsuko was giving her a look now…oh no! She had said the wrong thing, hadn't she? She was always saying the wrong thing. That was why nobody ever wanted to be friends with her. It was like Tsubomi had said, she couldn't get a clue.

The last thing Tsubomi had ever said to her.

"Who says that I look like a boy?" asked Ritsuko. Oh no! She had the wrong idea…Mob had no idea how she had managed to mess this up that badly.

"Nobody." Said Mob

"If someone's talking about me behind my back I can handle it." Said Ritsuko

"I would never let anyone do that to you, baby sister." Said Mob. Apparently that was also the wrong thing to say. Another look that she couldn't read. Another feeling like she had messed up. It shouldn't have been so hard to talk to her little sister…but it was hard to talk to her.

It was hard to talk to everyone. That was why Mob hadn't had a friend since she'd been a little kid.

"I can handle myself, and I'm not a baby. You don't need to take care of me and, anyway, I don't care if someone says that I look like a boy. I don't care what other people say about me behind my back." Said Ritsuko

"Nobody did, I mean that nobody said anything behind your back. That I know of...I mean I don't know why anyone would say anything behind your back besides the normal weird rumors…but that's not what I was talking about. I just meant that you don't look at all like a boy and that's a good thing. Not like me, I look just like a boy." Said Mob. She looked down at her feet. In bright pink Hello Kitty socks she looked just like a boy…h-word, even in her school uniform she looked just like a boy! That was what she had been wearing when Master Reigen had told her his plan, and a person couldn't look any more like a girl in their school uniform unless they were also wearing a sign that said 'I'm a girl' in big, red, letters.

"Who said that about you? Someone in your class? In my class? An upperclassman? Tomorrow before school point them out to me and I'll write them up." said Ritsuko. Mob shook her head quickly, so quickly that she smacked herself in the face with her braids. She used her powers to put them behind her back. The last thing that she needed was for Ritsuko to end up getting kicked off of the student counsel for abusing her power. All of her friends were there. There was no reason that they both had to be friendless members of the going home club.

And anyway, it hadn't even been anyone in their school.

"You don't have to do anything like that." Said Mob

"I want to." Said Ritsuko

"It wasn't even anyone at our school, it was Master Reigen." Said Mob

"He said that about you? To your face? Where does he live? I'm going to-" said Ritsuko

"I don't know where he lives and, anyway, you don't have to do anything to him. I don't think that he was being mean, he could never be mean to me or to anyone." Said Mob. That was worse, maybe, that he had just come out and said it. He had told her that she needed to keep a Friday opened because they had been hired for an exorcism job at Black Vinegar Middle School. Someone had hired them to investigate some supernatural occurrences. Things floating, people getting hurt, stuff like that. Since Master Reigen was way too old to play a middle schooler, and could get in serious trouble if he showed up pretending to be a teacher, Mob was the one who had to go in on her own.

Dressed as a boy. Because she could easily pass for a boy.

"You know how I feel about him." said Ritsuko

"I know that you don't like him but I don't know why. He's funny and nice and he helps me learn to control my powers-" said Mob

"With his own powers that you've never once seen him use." Said Ritsuko

"His powers are spiritual, not psychic. There's a difference. I can do telekinesis and exorcise things and he can do things like channel the dead and make charms." Said Mob

"I can make charms, that doesn't mean that I have any powers." Said Ritsuko. Mob nodded. She used to do that when they had been little, back when they'd still done arts and crafts together…when had they stopped doing that? Not when they had been little, when they had been older-

Ritsuko brushed her bangs away from her forehead. Mob remembered why they had stopped doing arts and crafts together.

"It's different with him. He's just got powers that are hard to understand, that's all. He's really nice when you get to know him. You don't have to be jeal-like that." Said Mob. Master Reigen had told her, before, that Ritsuko may have been jealous of her. Mob had no idea what there was to be jealous about. She wasn't popular, she wasn't pretty, she didn't have any friends, and she had powers that could have come out and killed everyone around her at any time. Ritsuko was pretty and popular and had somewhere to go after school besides work.

Sure Mob got to spend time with Master Reigen after school but friends might have been better…would definitely have been better, if he thought that she looked exactly like a boy…

"He told you that you look like a guy, that doesn't sound very nice to me." said Ritsuko

"He did but…but it's true. That's why I'm the one who has to go undercover, not him…well, he looks more like a boy than I do but I look like a middle schooler because I am in middle school and also if I get caught then I'll get into less trouble." Said Mob

"So what, you guys are spies now or something?" asked Ritsuko

"No, there's just an exorcism at Black Vinegar and I have to go and do it on my own…I'm kind of nervous." Said Mob

"I can't believe that he's seriously going to make you break into a school for him….you know you don't have to do everything he says, right? I mean I know that you like him-" said Ritsuko

"Baby sister!" shouted Shigeko. She looked around, making sure to glance at the staircase too. Mom and Dad were still upstairs. She didn't know what she would have done if they had heard what Ritsuko had just said. She didn't know what she was supposed to do now! She didn't like Master Reigen! Not like that!

She couldn't like him like that.

The couch was floating a little. She put it back. Ritsuko was probably scared, people got scared when she used her powers on accident. She had seen it on their faces, it was one of the few expressions that she could read. Master Reigen had never looked at her like that, not even when they had first met, but that was because he had powers too. Spiritual ones. Like hers but also not like hers. The closest thing to hers that she had ever seen. They understood each other, a little bit, more than anyone else had ever understood her before.

She cared about him.

They were friends, that was all. She knew that he was older than her, a lot older than her, and that people his age liked people their own age. Otherwise it would have been weird and Master Reigen may have been weird but not that weird. So she knew that she couldn't like him. She could like being around him, like looking at him, like talking to him…like the face he made when he bit into Takoyaki that was too hot, or the way his eyes twinkled when they went out on a job, or the way his whole face practically glowed when they went to the good ramen place…or the way he looked when he smoked…it was ok to like looking at him and being around him and…and thinking about him…

Thinking a lot of thoughts about him…thoughts that her baby sister was too young to know about!

"Sorry, I didn't mean to embarrass you or anything." Said Ritsuko as she sat there with a pillow clutched to her chest. Probably to break her fall if the couch tipped over…but that hadn't happened in years…

A lot of things hadn't happened in years. That didn't mean that they would never, ever, happen again.

"I'm not embarrassed…I just don't like him like that and, anyway, you're too little to know about that kind of stuff. I mean you get love letters but…but that's different." Said Shigeko

"Well yeah, I don't like any of those guys back." Said Ritsuko

"But they like you. I can't imagine anything better than finding a boyfriend. Someone to like you and be with you and talk to you and kiss you…but you're too young to know about that part." Said Shigeko. Ritsuko shook her head and pointed to the TV.

"I know about kissing…and anyway Mom and Dad kiss sometimes. I'm thirteen, not three." Said Ritsuko

"I know that you know about kissing but…but you're too little for it, Baby Sister. You can kiss a boy when you're married." Said Mob

"I'd have to find a boyfriend first, which I won't." said Ritsuko

"Plenty of boys like you…not like me. I don't even know any boys." Said Mob

"They don't even know me, they just like the way I look." Said Ritsuko

"Love at first sight-" said Mob

"Isn't a thing." Said Ritsuko. Mob had no idea how someone as lucky as her baby sister could have felt so bad about himself. They had been raised in the same house by the same parents, it wasn't like she had grown up around people who had been mean for her, and she had everything going for her, everything that Shigeko had always wanted.

And yet she was always so down on herself.

"You shouldn't feel bad about yourself, Baby Sister, you'll meet someone someday. Someone smart and sweet who makes you laugh and thinks about you all the time. Then you'll kiss him and…and other stuff, stuff that they'll tell you about in health class…but you'll still be too young to think about." Said Mob

"You'll meet someone too, someone who doesn't go around telling you that you look like a guy. Someone who doesn't make you dress up like a guy so you can break into schools that you don't even go to." Said Ritsuko

"I'm not breaking in, I'm just walking in, and….and it's not like it's not true. Master Reigen said that I have to dress up like a boy because it would have been weird for a guy his age with no kids to have been buying girl's uniforms…I feel like he was just trying to make me feel better, though. I don't know…I just wished that I looked more like you, I guess." said Shigeko

"Why?" asked Ritsuko as she took a piece of her hair between her fingers. She let it go and it snapped right back into place. Her hair had a lot of….what was the word? Body, that was it.

"Because you're so pretty and I'm so…me. I'm not ugly, I'm not anything. Remember what Tsubomi said back when we were little? That I blended into the background like-" said Mob

"Like a Mob character, I know. I was there when she got people to start calling you Mob…I still can't believe that you let her get away with that. If I had your powers I wouldn't have let her even think about messing with me." said Ritsuko

"I would never use my powers against another person, especially not one of my friends…against someone who used to be my friend." Said Mob. Ritsuko was just talking, that was all. She knew her Baby Sister. She may have watched shows where giant robots fought in space wars and fell in love but that didn't mean that she liked fighting.

Ritsuko was just a baby.

"She was never our friend. She only played with us because she lives right next door and we went to the same school." said Ritsuko

"She would have kept on playing with us, being our friend, if we had been better at the games she liked." Said Mob

"I have no idea why you still want to be her friend. She wasn't that fun to play with. She always went home in the middle of games if they weren't what she wanted to play. Also she invented a way to cheat at dolls." Said Ritsuko. Mob remembered, but they had been kids then, and anyway Mob knew that she was a boring person to play with. That was why Tsubomi hadn't wanted to be her friend anymore.

Why would someone like Tsubomi have wanted to be friends with someone like her?

Someone as pretty as her. Her hair was always so shiny and soft looking, bouncy too, and it always smelled so good. Mob liked it in gym class, those rare times, when they were paired together. Then she could get close enough to smell what kind of shampoo she was wearing, or perfume since she was allowed to wear that now…she always smelled like flowers. She was always so pretty, too. She was allowed to wear makeup even though she didn't need it. She always had such thick eyelashes and her lips were always red, reddish pink, the same color as her cheeks in the wintertime…all the time, really. Not that Mob stared at her that much…she tried not to. Tsubomi was just so pretty and nice and cool…

Mob wished that they could have been still friends.

"She's just so cool, that's all. She's so cool and nice. I wish that we were still friends…I wish that I had any friends at all. Besides you and Master Reigen, I mean." Said Mob

"Reigen…you know, you'd probably have more friends if you didn't hang out with him all the time." Said Ritsuko

"What do you mean?" asked Mob

"I mean that if you joined a club or something then maybe you could meet other people and make friends. Maybe not Tsubomi, she's in tennis club and her friends are mostly the girl jocks, and you don't really like sports that much but there are other people in your class…or the school…or on the planet. People who aren't Reigen Arataka." Said Ritsuko. Mob…had thought about it, joining a club, but she had been too busy with Master Reigen. It had been enough to just be friends with him, she had been working for him since she had been eleven after all, and…well, there were other feelings that she didn't like to think about…but maybe if she joined a club then she could make new friends.

But one that only met a few times a week, she didn't think that she could have completely left Master Reigen even if he had said that she looked like a boy.

"A club…that's a good idea. Thank you, Baby Sister." Said Mob. Ritsuko always came up with the best ideas. She was so smart. She was so everything. Mob wished that she could have been more like her baby sister.

And not just because she was pretty, no, because she was smart.