Mob had tried to hold his hand.
He had no problem with this…usually. Since their relationship upgrade she had been very free with her affection….well she had always been very free with affection…but now it was different. Now it meant something. Well it had always meant something but now it meant something…else. Something more. Something that he was still not entirely comfortable advertising to the entire world.
Mob was his girlfriend.
He knew that his thoughts on public displays of affection, even that innocent gesture, made no sense. She was eighteen, a legal adult, and there was nothing wrong with two consenting adults holding hands. Hell, they had gotten up to much worse behind closed doors…but these were not closed doors. They were out in the open. Exposed. Right there for all the prying eyes in the city to take notice of. He could feel them, a million eyes on him, boring into him, all because Mob was trying to hold his hand.
"Arataka. Why do you keep doing that?" asked Mob. It was the end of the day. They were on their way home, now, and all she wanted to do was be near him. Not that they hadn't been together all day already but that had been for work and work was different. At work they had to be Reigen and Mob, professionals, and not Mob and Arataka, a couple. A couple who was in love and…and could finally show it.
"Doing what?" asked Reigen doing his best to play dumb. He had shoved his hands in his pockets in an effort to get her to stop it already….but getting a clue had never been Mob's strong suit. She needed to have things spelled out for her…and this was not something that he was prepared to spell out. Mainly because he didn't have a leg to stand on. They were a couple. They had spent the past few weeks telling everyone they knew. They lived together and had been living together for some time now. They'd made love more times than he could count….
So there was no reason not to hold her hand.
"I keep on trying to hold your hand and you keep on pulling away. Why? Are you mad at me? Is it because I accidentally left your futon out in the rain? Because I got all the water out and I put it in the futon dryer already so it should be fine. It doesn't even have the mildew smell, either." Said Mob
"No, it's not about that. It's just…um…my palms are sweaty." Said Reigen. That had been the best excuse that he could come up with on the fly. He needed something concrete, something divorced from his irrational feelings of paranoia…he really ought to get that looked at. Sit down with a professional and have the roots of this hand holding aversion looked at. It probably had something to do with his mother or his childhood or the time when he got locked in the hall closet when he was four and thought that he was going to die.
Maybe.
Or maybe it had something to do with the fact that he had met Mob when she was elven and now she was his actual girlfriend. He was her boyfriend. They were in a committed relationship. A committed adult relationship. With the girl he had met all those years ago…the one in pigtails terrified of herself looking to him for answers…but she was not that person anymore. She was eighteen now, a grown woman according to the letter of the law, and she had started wearing her hair down years ago. She didn't even look to him for answers anymore, no, now they looked for answers from each other…because they were a couple. Now. No longer Master and Student but a couple…
And he had no reason to feel the way he did.
"You're always sweaty. I don't mind." Said Mob. She didn't get why he thought that it would bother her if he was a little sweaty. He was always sweating even when it was cold out. She had always figured it was because he never stopped moving. Even at his desk he was always fidgeting around. Even when he talked he was always moving his hands. She was used to him being sweaty, it didn't bother her, and even if it did it wasn't like they weren't regularly exchanging much more than sweat now.
She couldn't wait to get home.
Was that why she wanted to touch him? Because she wanted to go right to bed with him? She didn't know what was with her. It was like she had never done it before….she had, more times than she could even remember, but with him it was….different. Maybe because she had wanted this with him for so long. Maybe because she had spent so much time thinking about him that she was making up for all of the lost time…
Or maybe she was just a horny brat like he kept on calling her.
But not in a complaining sort of way.
"Wait for me to get home and wash my hands…and the rest of me, too. I must stink after the day I've had." Said Reigen. He wasn't kidding about that. Rubbing backs was strenuous work…and maybe he wasn't as young as he used to be…which was asinine. He wasn't even forty yet. He was in his early thirties and he should not have been feeling his age. Maybe he was prematurely aging. Maybe this whole thing was prematurely aging him.
That wasn't fair.
She was the best thing that had ever happened to him. She was his sunshine and his star shine and she tasted of angel wine, the sweetest wine that he had ever had, and she had been his everything for so long…and that had not been fair to her. She hadn't done anything wrong. She hadn't done anything but love him…and she wasn't doing anything but try and love him…and he loved her right back. He just needed…he needed to get over himself.
Because nobody was watching them.
"I don't mind the way you smell after a long day's work. I like it. You smell like incense and green tea and smoking and…yourself. I don't know, it's weird. I know that I'm not supposed to like the way you smell when you get like this but I do. I mean I like the way you smell when you come out of the shower, too. When you smell like soap and shampoo and stuff. Or like how you smell when you get ready in the morning. Like aftershave and cologne. I guess I just like the way you smell all the time." Said Mob. That had come out wrong. Too long and too wordy and too weird. It was weird how, in the morning, she was apt to cuddle up with him while he was asleep and just…be….with him. Just lay there and take him in. The way his aura, what little aura he had, merged with hers. The way his chest felt under her head. The way he sounded when he slept. The way he smelled right when he got up….all of it. She wondered if he noticed those things about her. She wondered if it was ok to ask.
Because she still wasn't sure.
There was so much in this relationship that she wasn't sure of. Like if he was bothered when she accidentally called him Master. Sometimes they would just be talking and it would slip out. Sometimes they would be in bed together and she would scream it out as she finished. Sometimes she would just think it in her head. Like she'd be at the store and see something he liked and just think to herself 'Master Reigen would probably want this' and then…and then she'd remember that he wasn't that man to her anymore.
He was Arataka, not Master Reigen, to her now.
He was Arataka now and with his given name came a lot of other stuff. Kisses. Cuddles. I love yous. Touching. Sex. All of it. It was like they were different but the same at the same time. She had never felt that way before. She had been in a relationship before but that had moved quickly. Teru had never been anything other than, well, 'Teru' to her. She had never had to wonder what the change in their relationship had meant because they had barely been friends before they became boyfriend and girlfriend.
Also she had been a lot younger back then.
"Yeah, you're right." Said Reigen. He took his hand from his pocket and let her take it. She was happy, now, he could feel it. He could feel it and he let that happiness override his feelings of being watched. Well he tried to. He tried his hardest to. Maybe if they had been in a different neighborhood. Not that he was all buddy-buddy with the people who lived and worked around his building. He was probably a stranger to most of these people. Just the guy who always wore the grey suit. Maybe the fraud psychic if anyone had a long enough memory for that little debacle.
Nobody was looking at him.
He had spent his entire life trying to get people to look at him, to notice him, to make him feel like someone. He had spent so much of his life as no one. As a disappointment. As someone that shouldn't have even been there. As someone who was just…wrong….in every measurable metric. He had always been too loud, too annoying, too scatterbrained, too distracted, too light haired, too light eyed, too much like his mother, too much like his father, too much like himself….just too much. Somehow both too much and not enough at the same time.
But to her he was enough.
To her he had always been enough. He had been enough to save her in every way a person could be saved. He had been there, that day, the day of the insurrection. When that madman tried to take over the world just because he felt like it was owed to him. When the city had burnt and two living Gods, not his words, he decided to duke it out…and she had won. He had saved her from becoming that sort of person….if she would have become that sort of person. He knew the other sort of person that she could have become. She could have become so afraid of herself that she just…stopped. Stopped living and just existed. In a prison of her own making. For most of her life. For most of herself until someone else, someone who hadn't been him, gave her a way out. Made her feel like something less than the monster she had imagined herself to be…
He had saved her.
And she had saved him, too. She had saved him for what he had become. Nothing and nobody. Another faceless cog in some company. Another failed business venture from another idiot with more dreams than he had basic sense. She had not only saved his business but she had saved him. Sometimes literally. Sometimes she had literally saved his life. Time and time again they had been in danger…and time and time again she had been the one to save him. She had been there for him in every way a person could have been there for another…and she had always looked at him like he was someone no matter what he had put her through….
And he owned her at least this.
"You're not that sweaty." Said Mob
"Sweaty is in the eye of the beholder." Said Reigen
"I thought that was beauty." Said Mob
"That too." Said Reigen
"Wouldn't sweaty be in the hand of the beholder? Since we're holding hands?" asked Mob
"Well then you would be the one to judge that, since you're the one holding my hand." Said Reigen
"Oh. You said that because 'beholder' has the word 'hold' in it." Said Mob
"Yup. Nice to see you catching on." Said Reigen. He wanted, then, to give her hair a playful tug like when he was a kid…but her being a kid, having had been a kid, was the absolute last thing he wanted to think about.
"I'm better at it, now, I think. Getting a clue I mean." Said Mob
"Well you're a lot older now, too, but honestly you were never that bad at it back then. Hell, I'm the one who sucks at it." Said Reigen
"You? No, you've never had trouble getting a clue…well you didn't know that I was in love with you for years…so maybe you were." Said Mob
"I knew." Said Reigen. He said it quickly, dismissively, like he was telling her that he knew it was going to be cloudy out that day or he knew that the ice tray needed refilling. Quick and simple and with none of the weight of all those years behind it.
"What do you mean? You said-" said Mob
"Part of me always knew how you felt, Mob, and part of me…part of me felt the same way. It doesn't matter now. It wasn't like anything could have come of it. You were just a kid and I was just the sweaty weirdo you worked for." Said Reigen
"I was a kid…but you waited and I waited, so it's ok…and you were never a weirdo. You were sweaty, you still are sweaty, but you're not a weirdo. Also I still work for you…or with you now, I guess." Said Mob
"Don't." said Reigen. He did not want to think about the past. About their past. About how that little girl had somehow grow up to be the woman holding his hand. Barely a woman. She was eighteen. She was young, too young for him, and the world knew it. What was a man his age doing holding hands with someone who was only a few weeks out of high school? That was what they were probably thinking. That and other things, too, and…and he needed to make himself a tinfoil hat because he sounded totally crazy. He had no idea what people were thinking about. They could have been thinking about internet porn and the cost of microwave dinners for all he knew.
"Don't what?" asked Mob. Even at her age she was still saying the wrong thing. Even at her age she didn't know the right combinations of world…even for when she was talking to him of all people. The one person in the world who had always been able to understand her. To know just what it was that she meant.
"Say that I was waiting for you….I wasn't. Mob…I would never have asked you for this. You were my student and my friend and-" said Reigen. This was a conversation that did not need to be had again. There was no sense in beating a dead horse. She didn't give a damn about their history or their age gap or how any of this looked…so he shouldn't have, either. Really there was no sense in caring about any of that now. The couple ship had said long ago. Not that he wanted to go back. There was no turning this ship around and there was no jumping overboard, either.
"I don't regret this. I'm a lot better at getting a clue now and I know what you're going to say when you get like this. Arataka, I do not regret this and I don't think that it's weird or anything like that. I'm happy. I honestly can't ever remember ever being this happy." Said Mob
"You've been in a relationship before." Said Reigen
"Yes, but this is different. This is with you…and I had feelings for you for a very long time…and I still do. I don't think that there's anything wrong with that and I don't…I wish you didn't think so, either. It hurts me….that you have doubts…that you talk about having doubts." Said Mob
"It's not about doubts it's about….you know that I love you and you know that I wouldn't trade what we have for the world-" said Reigen. She needed to know that regardless of how he felt he wanted this. He wanted this and he wanted her. He wanted her more than anything else in the world.
"Neither would I." said Mob. She loved him and she would not have traded him for anything else in the whole world.
"But it's just…I knew you when you were eleven…and I'm still not fully over that. I'm still not fully over the fact that you were a kid and I was in my twenties when we met…and it's going to take time…but I'm not going anywhere." Said Reigen
"Is that why you sometimes don't want to hold hands when we walk home together?" asked Mob. She knew that it was still new to him, it was new to her too, but he cared about things that she didn't. Like what people thought. She wasn't hurting anyone, and she was an adult, so to her it didn't matter…but to other people it did. They lived in a world with other people…and they were not an island…which meant that they did not exist all on their own.
"Yes…but I am, also, legitimately way too sweaty for my own good. I'm not even sure if this is healthy. I should maybe see a doctor about this." said Reigen with a laugh. It wasn't real, not really, and he knew that she could tell. She knew him well enough by now to be able to tell.
"You should…and you don't have to hold my hand if you don't want to. You don't have to show people that we're a couple if you don't want to." Said Mob. She meant it even though it hurt. She wanted to shout it from the rooftops. She was Reigen Arataka's girlfriend at last! But he was not her and he did not feel the way that she did and that…that was ok. She did not get to tell him how to feel. He had his feelings and she had hers and that was ok.
"Mob…no. I want to. I mean…there's no point in hiding it. Everyone we know already knows. I just…I'm the one being ridiculous here." Said Reigen. Really, what was the point in agonizing over how this looked? It wasn't like he could change anything. It wasn't like he wanted to change anything. Mob was his girlfriend. He had wanted to be with Mob for…longer than he was comfortable admitting to himself. Much longer than he was comfortable admitting to himself.
"Ridiculous?" asked Mob. She had seen him being ridiculous. Getting up at midnight to try out their new takoyaki maker had been ridiculous. Jumping up onto the kitchen table when he saw a cockroach had been ridiculous. Leaving the bread out and letting it get all moldy had been ridiculous. The way he was being now, open and honest and sincere, was in no way, shape, or form ridiculous.
"Yeah. Everyone we know now that we're a couple so I shouldn't give a damn what strangers on the street think. I love you and it shouldn't matter to me-" said Reigen
"It's ok that it matters. You can feel the way you feel and that's ok. I feel…I feel like it doesn't matter but you feel like it does and that's ok." Said Mob
"But it's a ridiculous way to feel. I mean, we're already told everyone we know. What should it matter what people who don't even know who we are think? You're an adult and I'm an adult and it's not like I've been into you since you were a kid. I mean I met you when you were eleven but I was not into you when you were eleven…I would have had to kill myself if I had been….and it's not like either of us is doing anything so I shouldn't feel like this. I'm being ridiculous and paranoid and ridiculously paranoid." Said Reigen
"You can feel however you want. There's no right or wrong way to feel about this. I just want you to feel happy and comfortable. I know that we told everyone we know but…but there's a difference between telling people who we know and are close to us and telling everyone in the world. There are a lot more people in the world than there are people we know, for one thing, and also not everyone thinks the way that I do. Some people might think that it's weird and…and what people think matters. Not a lot but a little…and I know that it matters to you." Said Mob
"Well it shouldn't. You, Mob, are what matters. You matter and I need….I need to get over myself. I can't live my whole life trying to please everyone. My life is my own and I chose to spend it with you, ok? That was just me being…me…and I don't want to…to be like that. I want to be with you and I don't…I shouldn't care how randos on the street feel about that." Said Reigen
"Arataka-" said Mob
"Besides, we're already holding hands and we've been holding hands this whole time. It's ridiculous to feel like anybody is watching or even cares." Said Reigen
"You can feel however you want to." Said Mob. There was no right or wrong way to feel. If he wanted to feel…that way…about her holding his hand then she would stop. She wanted nothing more or less than his happiness. They were a couple, now, and his happiness was her happiness. That was how it worked…and not just because of how his powers worked. That was just how love worked.
"I know. This is how I want to feel." Said Reigen. He pulled her close and he kissed her. Not one of those long, passionate, tip her over movie kisses and not one of their all alone in their beds kisses, either. Just a normal kiss, the kind a guy would give his girlfriend after a long day of work. Maybe not the most appropriate thing to do in public but, hey, he was in love.
And the whole world ought to know it.