Reigen knew that bugs were put on this Earth specifically to torment her. She was sure of it.
There was nothing wrong with disliking insects. They spread disease! And they were gross looking, too. All of those legs…and the eyes…oh so many eyes. Spider, cockroaches, beetles, silverfish, stick bugs, praying mantises…just terrible creatures. Terrible.
That was why there was nothing wrong with what she was doing.
There was a spider in the building a web in the corner of the office. She knew that the adult thing to do would have been to take off her shoe, walk over to the corner of the office, and squish the damn thing. But she couldn't. Because that would involve coming near it and she was not prepared to do that.
So sat, or rather perched, on her chair behind her desk and watched the spider like it was going to rush over and eat her like she was a particularly juicy looking fly. Maybe she should get some Venus fly traps, did they eat spiders or just flies? But then again carnivorous plants were expensive and difficult to tend to. They needed a lot of direct sunlight, which she did not have. Well she had a window sill at the office but it wasn't sun facing. The same went for her windows at home. They mostly just provided her with a lovely view of the brick walls of the building next to hers and the parking lot which was always bathed in shadow. So, yeah, no carnivorous plants.
Look at her. Twenty nine years old and shaking in fear over a simple spider. If her mother could see her now. Mom had always thought that her fear of bugs was ridiculous. Mom always thought that everything about her was ridiculous. That was mom after all. She never approved of much of anything. She went around specifically looking for things to disapprove of. Like Reigen's hair or her clothes or her make up, or her choice of profession, or pretty much everything. Well she was not ridiculous…even if she was shaking in fear of an itsy, bitsy, spider…
She was not a child anymore and she was not afraid of a spider! She was going to get down off of this chair, take off her shoe, and smash that spider into smithereens! Salt optional.
Salt Squish: A special move in which Reigen fills her shoes with salt and exorcises spiders, cockroaches, and other household vermin!
She looked down. She'd skip the salt, these shoes were expensive. One could not skimp out on what came between them and the ground after all. In fact, it would have been a total waste of money to use these shoes to squish a spider. She looked around. Nothing that she could use. It would be a shame to waste perfectly good paper, or ruin any books…because of the environment. Yes. One had to be considerate of the environment. Gotta take care of the Earth, you only get one of after all!
Plus the spider could be endangered! Yes! Wait…were there endangered spiders in Japan?
Well there would be if people just went around killing them willy nilly.
So therefore she was not cowering fear of a spider but was instead thinking of Mother Earth. She was not sitting perched up like a bird because she was afraid but because…it was good for her core strength? Yes. That was it. She was perched on her chair like a bird because it was good for her core muscles and her leg muscles and all of her other muscles which she didn't feel like saying the technical names of just then in that moment in time.
She'd wait for Mob. Mob could get rid of it. That was her job, wasn't it? That was what Reigen paid her for. She got rid of spirits and such, that was why the sign said Spirits and Such. Yeah, Mob could handle this like she handled everything. That was…a good sue of her powers. That was Reigen's job after all, to teacher her to control her powers. Yeah, she'd leave this to Mob. She always left the small fries to Mob!
The first thing Mob saw when she came into work was Master Reigen sitting on top of her chair. Not on her chair but on top of it, with her feet on it and everything. That was weird. Weird and dangerous.
"Mob! Hey!" said Reigen waving her student over. He wonderful, kind, devoted student! The best student in the whole, wide world!
"Master, why are you sitting like that?" asked Mob as she put her bag down next to her desk.
"Don't sit down! Mob, I've got a job for you, an important one." said Reigen slowly getting back to sitting normally. She overbalanced herself and began to tip over. Mob caught her with a wave of her hand.
"Master, you should be more careful. Also did you know that there was a rip in your stocking?" asked Mob. Mom said that when someone had something wrong with their appearance, that they could easily correct not something that they were born with, it was alright to tell them.
"What? Damn it….cheap hundred yen a pack…clearance bin….factory defective….found at the laundromat…." Muttered Reigen. Right down the side, too. Great. Well now the world knew that Reigen was too lazy, busy, to shave. It really did take up a lot of time and money that could be better used doing the important things in life.
"I have some socks that you can borrow, if your legs are cold." Said Mob. She always carried a spare pair of socks. You never knew when your feet would get wet or extra cold or the elastic could break on the sock that you were wearing. Mom said that it was important to always wear high socks so that way people couldn't see how hairy your legs were. Kids got socks and adults got to shave, mom had said. Not that Mob wanted to, she liked not having to rub sharp blades against her legs…
"No, no, I'm fine. I'm fine." Said Reigen settling into a more normal sitting position. She folded her hands in front of her and tried to look calm…even though that spider across the room was eying her with it's eight beady, nefarious eyes as it plotted its dark purpose…
"Oh. Ok. What's the mission you had for me, Master? Where are we going today?" asked Mob. She hopped that wherever today's job was it was near a MobDonald's. She could really use some fries, and a milkshake too.
"Mob your mission, if you so choose to take it, requires the upmost skill and bravery. If you choose to accept, my student, then you must take the greatest of care." Said Reigen trying her best to sound dramatic. Mob nodded, her eyes totally on Reigen. She could have been a monk, Mob, if they were in an old movie.
"Whatever it is I'll do it, Master." Said Mob. No matter how powerful the spirit she would exorcise it. That was her job and she would make Master Reigen proud no matter what it took.
"Thanks Mob. Hey, squish that spider for me, would you?" asked Reigen pointing to the spider just chilling over in the corner.
"Master Reigen, I can't do that. Spiders are good, they eat bugs. If we have spiders then we won't get anything worse, like beetles or ants or cockroaches." Said Mob. She didn't know why Master Reigen was so afraid of bugs. They were tiny. They were more afraid of people than people were of them.
"Mob, please. Come on, for me? Do it for your Master." Said Reigen. Mob shook her head. She reached over with her powers and picked the spider up, web and all. Reigen forgot how to breathe for a minute. It was coming closer and closer and closer and closer and-
"Master, I'm going to put this outside. It's not doing anything to hurt us and I can't just kill it for existing. That would be bad." Said Mob. She did not get to decide if another living creature had the right to exist just because she had the power to get rid of it. She did not get to decide those things just because she was stronger.
"Yeah…I guess you have a point." Said Reigen not bringing up the fact that Mob ate meat and eating meat was worse than squishing a bug. She gasped and pushed back so hard that she hit the wall behind her. Well there goes the security deposit….
"Thank you. I'll be back, Master, I just have to find a good place for the spider. Maybe in the alley, there are a lot of bugs out there." Said Mob. She didn't see what was so scary about this. It was small and gross looking and the bites itched but it was also small and didn't want to hurt anyone. There was a difference between hurting someone because you want to and hurting someone on purpose.
There had to be a difference.
Reigen watched Mob round the corner with the spider floating beside her. Mob was braver than her. Well of course she was. She had been able to see spirits since the day she was born, she had told Reigen one day. She had psychic powers that she could barely control. She did things and saw things that Reigen could only dream of. Reigen couldn't even begin to image what it must have been like to have that much power…and to have it slip from her control….
Mob had actual things in her life to be scared of.