Kageyama Ritsu had a job to do.

"This one is real." Said Ritsu as he stood in the middle of the playground. He had never been to this one before, he was technically only allowed to go to the rocket ship park by his house and even then only if he took Tsubomi with him, but mom and dad were at work and what they didn't know couldn't kill them. Not like whatever was in this park anyway.

It felt big.

He could feel it, now, if things were little or big. He could tell when there were spirits near him, espers too, and this felt like a spirit. He could tell the difference between espers and spirits now. He had certainly been followed by enough espers to know what they felt like. He took a deep breath. No espers near him now…just a spirit…a big one. A big and angry one. It was hiding in the sandbox. He wasn't supposed to go in the sandbox, mom hated it when he got dirty, and he wasn't supposed to be in this park either. Not just because he was far from home with someone who he had promised mom and dad that he was just doing office work for.

No, this whole park was taped off with police tape.

He saw movement out the corner of his eyes. Reigen was taking a step forward. He took the police tape between his fingers like he was testing if it was even real. He always had to be moving around and touching stuff. He always had to move around and touch stuff like he was testing if he was real. Like he was one of those spirits who didn't know that he was dead yet. There were a lot of those spirits. Ritsu didn't like having to exorcise them…but he did. That was his job. He exorcised spirits before anyone else could.

He had to so that the evil organization didn't come.

He had been watching them, the espers that watched him, and he knew that they all came from that place that the red haired guy had told him about. They were there, always, the Claw espers. They were watching to see if he was an esper. He was careful never to use his powers where they could see….which made his job hard…but he still made it work. He had to get rid of all the evil spirits in the city so that no other espers had to. If other espers came and got rid of the spirits and showed their powers then they might have gotten caught…and nobody needed that.

So Ritsu did what he had to do…and what he had to do was exorcise this spirit.

"I was thinking just the same thing. My powers-" said Reigen with a wave of his hand. He could feel Ritsu glaring. The kid could do that, glare at you without looking. It must have been an esper thing. He didn't know. Until a few weeks ago he hadn't had any idea that espers were even real….or evil spirits…and apparently the world was full of them…

Which boded very well for his business.

His business which had been on it's last legs until his prayers were answered in the form of an elementary schooler with a set of overprotective parents and an overactive imagination. Not about the psychic powers, no, those were very much real. The evil organization that stalked his every move, the one that the boy of his dreams…Reigen wasn't an idiot he knew how Ritsu talked about that kid…all of that must have been fiction. The whole thing was ridiculous from a logistic standpoint. A multination league of espers planning on taking over the world? If someone was smart enough to create an organization then they should have been smart enough to know that world domination wasn't possible. Sure you had psychic powers but the government had guns. And bombs. And they would probably use them. Also treason was a pretty season crime…so, yeah, there probably wasn't any evil organization stalking their every move lying in wait to kidnap them to use for experiments.

And Reigen didn't need three quarters of a law degree to know that.

"You don't have powers. People with powers have auras. I can't see yours so you don't have powers." Said Ritsu as he lifted the police tape and walked under it. Reigen tried to do the same and managed to get tangled up in it. Ritsu rolled his eyes and felt around with his aura…no espers around him. Good.

He used his powers to untangle Reigen.

He always had to be careful that nobody was around. He didn't want the organization, the one that red haired guy had warned him about, to get to him. Even if…well if he got caught then he'd at least have been able to see him again. Sho…he was pretty sure that his name had been Sho. That was a weird name mostly because it was so common. He had known three different people named Sho, two named Shoyo, and four people named Shoko in his life. He couldn't imagine someone like him with such a normal name. He was….a lot of things…

He was the first person to ever talk to Ritsu…to really talk to him.

Sho had bene the only person who had ever sat with him and listened to him and just…not ay anything. Not say anything like 'you're exaggerating' or 'things will get better' or 'you should just be grateful for what you have' or…well mom and dad never said anything at all. Sho had listened to him and…well he had talked back and…well he had said a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff and…well before he broke his head opened it had been really nice. Being near Sho and holding his hand….

As good as that had been Ritsu was smart enough to know that getting himself caught by the evil organization was not worth seeing Sho again….even if he was amazing….

"Thanks, but you didn't have to do that, student, I had it." Said Reigen. Ritsu smiled just a little bit. He didn't know if Ritsu could actually smile, it had taken weeks before he had ever gotten even that smile out of the kid, but this was good enough. He needed to smile more even if he didn't have much reason to. His parents…Reigen had only met them once and…well overbearing was one way to describe them. Reigen couldn't blame them, of course, knowing what he knew…and having seen the shrine. Most homes had one and, when he'd walked Ritsu home for the first time and met his parents like a responsible adult, he had been tempted to look past the shrine…and he would have….

If it hadn't been for the picture.

A baby…or maybe a toddler? Too young for school. There had been a picture of a child too young even for school in the family shrine. That was just…in a moment he had understood. Why Ritsu's parents were the way they were, why Ritsu complained so much, and just…he got it. He didn't have any kids, at least he hoped that he didn't have any kids out there in the world that he didn't know about, but to lose a child…that was the kind of thing that changed you….

So, yeah, he got the Kageyamas….and Ritsu too. Why the kid didn't smile all that much.

"I'm your assistant, not your apprentice." Said Ritsu. Reigen really wanted to be the greatest psychic of the twenty first century. He was like a kid playing a game. Well Ritsu had never had much use for games. Sure he played with Tsubomi, or at least he had when they'd been small. He had played house with her for hours. House and farm and castle and kitchen and dollhouse and all of those other things that she liked and it hadn't ever been fun…not really. He liked games where you either won or you lost and there was no way to win or lose when you played pretend.

Also he was way too old to be playing pretend like this…and Reigen was even older than he was.

"Same difference." Said Reigen as he put his hand on Ritsu's back and walked him through the abandoned playground. This place….did not feel right. He wasn't the greatest psychic of the twenty first century, or even a psychic, but he could feel the hair on the back of his neck standing up. There was something in the atmosphere around here…the same thing that almost killed those kids. There, in the middle of the park, was a twisted hunk of metal that used to be a jungle gym. It had just collapsed one day with a bunch of kids on it. No deaths but it had been bad enough that this whole park was closed to the public until further notice…

Reigen really hoped that Ritsu wasn't planning on telling his parents about this.

"Right. Well come on, I think that it's hiding in the sandbox." Said Ritsu. This would be quick. Getting rid of spirits was easy. You just filled them with energy until they exploded. Simple. He'd be done with this with enough time to spare that he could get ramen….and he was getting all the slices of pork in his ramen since he was the one doing all the work.

He was the only one who could do all the work.

Reigen could chant and throw salt around and make charms but he couldn't do what Ritsu could do. There were plenty of people who could but Reigen was not one of those people. He didn't know why Reigen wanted to be able to do things like this. All this did was paint a target on your back that was never going to come off. Ever. Really, in Ritsu's opinion, Reigen should have stuck to selling watercoolers or stayed in school or something like that.

Not that he would tell Reigen to do that, though, since if Reigen ever decided to get back to his old life then Ritsu would have to go back to playing house with Tsubomi all afternoon.

"Someone's in a hurry. Trying to squeeze some time in with your girlfriend?" asked Reigen. He poked Ritsu in the side lightly. Ritsu batted his hand away.

"I told you already, she's not my girlfriend. I don't like her like she likes me." Said Ritsu. He didn't even think that he liked girls at all, really. He had kissed Tsubomi once just to see what it was like. It was boring. Then he had kissed Okita from his class. That had felt like something. Then he kissed Hawasaki and Hitomura. Same thing. So he probably didn't like girls at all…well he'd known that for a while maybe…but other people didn't know that.

Not a lot of people anyway.

Mom and dad would have freaked out if he told them. He was their only kid, now, and he had to be good enough for two kids…he didn't know why his sister had to go and die like that….he had to pick up the slack for her being dead. He had to have the best grades and the best behavior and go to the best schools and then grow up to have the best job and then have a bunch of kids so mom and dad could have grandkids because that was just how parents were. He knew that if he came home after this and told his mom and dad that he liked guys, not girls, and how he sometimes stared out into space for hours and hours at night thinking about this one red haired boy he met…well they'd freak out.

To say the least.

The only person who knew, really knew, was Tsubomi and that was just because she had caught him doing something that he shouldn't have. She had agreed to keep her mouth shut…she was a good friend like that…and he hadn't meant to make her cry. He just didn't like her like that. He couldn't help who he liked or he didn't like. She got it, eventually, and he got the feeling that if he told Reigen he wouldn't cry…well of course he wouldn't cry…and he wouldn't freak out either. He was nice like that…and sometimes he even acted like he knew….not that they ever sat down and talked about it.

Why would they? This was Ritsu's business and his alone.

"Sorry, sorry, I didn't mean to embarrass you." Said Reigen. He knew that Ritsu was at least bi. He saw where Ritsu looked, who he looked at, when they were out. Of course he wasn't even in middle school yet so who knew what he would end up being. Part of him wanted Ritsu to end up with that girl who followed him around everywhere….they were just so cute together…not that Reigen made it a habit to play matchmaker with elementary school kids.

No, he was too busy playing exorcist.

"You didn't embarrass me, and shut up. I think it might be able to leave the sandbox…I can kind of feel it moving. Not all spirits are tied to one place, I think." Said Ritsu

"You're right, apprentice….sorry, assistant. My powers tell me that-" said Reigen

"You know that you don't have powers and I know that you don't have powers." Said Ritsu

"How many times do we have to go over this? I hide my aura because I don't want the evil organization to find me." Said Reigen

"I don't know if people can hide their auras." Said Ritsu. There was so much he didn't know. He knew that he could move things without touching them. He knew that he could see spirits and auras. He knew that he could bend spoons at dinner without even trying. In the middle of dinner with mom and dad trying to ask him about his day and Tsubomi and…and they didn't even care they just asked to ask…and when he wanted to stand up and tell them to just shut up if they were just going to talk to fill the atmosphere….and he just…

He didn't say anything.

But his spoon bent and he had to pretend that it had broken on it's own. Mom and dad had bought plastic spoons now since the metal ones were 'old' and it had taken so long to convince them that the spoons were just old. They had freaked out the first time that it had happened…and he had no idea why. It wasn't like they thought that espers were real. They were normal people. They didn't like things like that, supernatural things, they hadn't even let him go in the haunted house when they went to check out Salt Middle School's cultural fair.

Mom and dad were weird like that.

But it didn't matter. Even if they had believed in all of that stuff they still wouldn't have been able to help him. They weren't espers. There were espers out there, he didn't even know how many, and they knew…well…everything. They knew what had made him the way he was. They knew how to do…well…everything. He could move things without touching them and see auras but the internet had said that there were so many other things that he could do….possibly…and he had no idea how to be able to do them. Like…well he didn't even know what…there was so much…

There was so much to know and so few people with answers….people that he could talk to, anyway.

"Well you don't know if people can't hide them either." Said Reigen with a shrug. He didn't mind playing along with Ritsu. Well it wasn't playing on Ritsu's part of course, he really was an esper, but he didn't…well he didn't mind making Ritsu feel just a little less alone. Reigen knew how it felt to be different…well, different in the blond hair way not the psychic powers way….but still. He had been the only person he knew, besides his mom, growing up who looked the way he did. He knew what it felt like to be alone.

It sucked.

And if he could make it just a little bit more bearable for Ritsu then that was what he would do. He kept his hand to Ritsu's back, partially out of comfort and partially out of concern. Concern that he would get hurt, since this was pretty damn dangerous, but also maybe concern that he would turn around and head back home. Reigen…well he needed to keep the lights on. Rubbing backs and spreading salt around wasn't cutting it anymore and had never cut it….but he always split the money with Ritsu so it was fair!

And he watched him, too, after school…at least that was what he had told Ritsu's parents…so there was that to take into account as well.

"That's true….but I still don't think that you have psychic powers." Said Ritsu

"I told you already, my powers are spiritual. Not psychic." Said Reigen. He didn't know how much Ritsu knew, exactly, and lying to him was pretty low…but it wasn't like he was hurting him. What was wrong with making a lonely kid feel like he was a little less alone?

"I don't think that you have those either." Said Ritsu. He hadn't ever seen Reigen doing anything like he could do…but then again there was a whole world of stuff, according to the internet, that Ritsu could do…or didn't know how to begin doing. So, yeah, maybe Reigen had powers.

"You're killing me, kid." Said Reigen. He threw his hands up to the sky and groaned. He could feel Ritsu smiling again. Good. He needed to do that more often.

"Don't make any extra work for me." Said Ritsu as he rolled his eyes. He was smiling just a little. He looked down so it didn't show. It would do no good to encourage Reigen. Once he got on that 'spiritual powers' stuff it was hard to get him off of it. Ritsu had done his research and while he had come across plenty of people talking about psychic powers he hadn't seen even one person mention anything at all about spiritual powers. Well there was the Rising Sun Spiritual League thing but they were different, one of those new religions that mom and dad were always laughing at, so they didn't count.

"So it's here, huh?" asked Reigen as they came to a stop in front of a sandbox. He reached into his pocket and felt around for his salt. It did help…sometimes…well when he got blessed salt…and he had no idea if this salt was blessed or not…but still! If this was too much for Ritsu then he could…..well the best thing to do was to pick him up, run all the way home, and make sure he knew not to breathe a word of this to his parents. Reigen had let his mother push him into law school, he knew the law, and he knew that this technically counted as child endangerment….and child labor….and a few other things too…

And also he was fully aware, without having to dig up any seldom used law related knowledge, that the Kageyamas would literally murder him if anything happened to their son….so….yeah….

Ritsu seemed fine though…well serious. The kid was always serious but now he looked extra serious. That could have been good or bad. They had been in some close jams before, like that spirit who died choking on a slice of cucumber at the produce stand, but nothing that was life or death…and he didn't want to start now…even though now he could feel it…the spirit…right there under his feet….or maybe that was just the beginnings of an earthquake….

He didn't know which scared him more.

"Yeah, right there. You should go and hide somewhere. It feels like a big one." said Ritsu. He pushed Reigen back, not hard enough to hurt him, but hard enough to let him know that spreading salt around wasn't going to help in this situation. Ritsu could feel it, there, spreading around under his feet…he took a deep breath and told his powers to listen. Sometimes they didn't. Sometimes he had to be hard on them.

Sometimes you hard to be hard on people.

"Really." Said Ritsu. He knew that he shouldn't have been like that to Reigen, kind of a jerk, but sometimes you had to be hard on people. Like now. There was a crack and then it started to rain sand. Reigen tried to pull him back. There was sand in his eyes and mouth and it just kept on coming down…

And then it stopped.

He had closed his eyes, before, because of the sand…and now he opened them again. He saw…a wall? A blue wall…the same color that he could see, sometimes, when he used his powers. That was…new. Ok, cool, he could make walls…he reached up. Domes. Bubbles? He'd name this later…or he'd let Reigen name it. He did like to name things.

This was not the time for salt splashing.

"Come play with me….forever! And ever! And ever!" shouted the spirit.

"I have to be home at six." Said Ritsu as the spirit jumped out of the sand…and the ground. Huh. So he was right, it was a big one. It was like a sand and dirt monster, sort of like something that you would make at the beach or something. Like how he and Tsubomi used to make sand people when they were little.

The sand people always fell apart in the end.

"It…might end up being closer to six thirty tonight." Said Reigen. He took a step back….and hit an invisible wall. Ok, so Ritsu could make invisible walls now. That was…something new. That was something that Ritsu hadn't done before. Well the kid was just full of surprises, wasn't he?

"No, six is going to be fine. Try to keep your eyes closed, I'm going to try and make this wall go away now. You're going to get sand in your eyes." Said Ritsu. He put his hands together and wished the wall away as hard as he could. The wall shimmered and tried to stay. He didn't need it anymore. He could do this. He was going to be fine. He wasn't going to get hurt…he wasn't going to die! Sometimes his powers were like another person….like an overprotective other person…

Like another parent.

Like someone who thought that he was fragile and had limitations and that if anything, anything at all happened to him he was going to die. He was going to die anyway, one day, when he got old. Some people died young, like his sister, and he wasn't going to go with her. He had no idea how she died, he has asked once and mom and dad had told him not to worry about that and then they'd cried….he highly doubted that she had died from a sandbox spirit.

And if she had well…he had powers and she didn't.

"This is going to be easy." Said Ritsu. He said that out loud and in his head. He took a deep breath and asked the wall to go away. He was not going to die. He didn't need someone else keeping him safe. He didn't need to be inside of walls. He was fine. He wasn't his sister. She hadn't had powers…but he did. He had powers and he could make them work.

Right now.

The walls disappeared. The spirit was saying more stuff now, about him playing with it forever and ever. He'd heard it the first time. This thing was big but it wasn't scary. Reigen was acting like this was scary but that was because he was a normal person…well Ritsu was mostly sure that he was a normal person. He said that he had spiritual powers and Ritsu didn't think that those were real but, before he met Sho, he hadn't had any idea that psychic powers were real either.

It was a weird world.

Stuff happened that was hard to explain. Like this. He took his powers, balled them up, and then stuffed them inside of the spirit until they exploded. Like putting soup in a microwave for too long. Really, once he got his powers to listen, it was easy. It was good practice too. That was how he had gotten this good in the first place, a whole lot of practice.

There was always practice, really, when he was with Reigen.

"That was….well I would have done it with a little more care but, you know, you did a good job Ritsu. How about some ramen after we get paid?" asked Reigen. Truth be told he was about to keel over. That was…that had been…it had been a lot of dirt and sand and noise and color…he hadn't even had the words for some of those colors….but he couldn't let that show. Not with Ritsu right there and perfectly fine. He was filthy but there wasn't a scratch on him. He was just standing there with his arms crossed and his serious face back on….or maybe it had never gone. Reigen didn't know.

He'd had his eyes closed.

"Fine…but I want six pork slices…and an egg too. I did all the work." Said Ritsu. He brushed his school clothes off as best as he could….mom and dad were going to be so mad that he got dirty….but not as mad as they would have been if they knew what he had been doing. They were going to ask how he had gotten so dirty doing office work….but he would just tell them that Reigen had taken him to the park or something.

He lied to them a lot these days.

But he had no choice but to lie to them. They couldn't know about…anything. They couldn't know about his job, about what he did after school, and about…well about pretty much everything that there was to know about him. He was a doll, pretty much, as far as mom and dad were concerned. He was person enough for two people and doll enough for mom and dad. In the space that his big sister had left behind mom and dad had decided to fill it with him…but not him…a doll version of him…but that was fine. He didn't really care either way…it wouldn't have mattered if he cared. It wouldn't have mattered if he sat mom and dad down and told them everything….told them what he wanted and didn't want and felt and didn't feel….none of it would have mattered so he didn't even bother trying.

There was no point to it. He had a job to do and he did it…he did it well like he did everything else in his life…

And now there was going to be ramen.