They called this a whiskey sour?

Reigen stared down at her drink. Weak. Very weak. Hotel weak, which made no real sense. If anything the hotel should have been on point about this stuff. Drunk people made poor choices like going up to hotel rooms with total strangers on a Friday night. Sober people made poor choices like that, too. Reigen was somewhere in between.

She didn't even know if she was planning on making any poor choices that night.

She checked her phone. The guy said that he was ten minutes away. Of course he had said that he was ten minutes away before, too. That had been twenty minutes ago. Reigen didn't get it. Why swipe right if you weren't planning on showing up? Men. Well whatever. This was still a nice place and she was still glad to have something to do on a Friday night besides go home and eat cup noodle in front of the TV while she may or may not have been also texting her only adult friend…

She was such a kid when it came to him.

But she was not a kid now. She was out and about doing adult things in the adult world. She wondered what the kids were up to. Tome she knew for a fact was having a weekend long gaming binge in Fantasy Hell with her friends. She had thanked Reigen for exorcising the player killer spirit, a rare show of genuine thanks from the little firecracker. The other two…Reigen wasn't sure. If she had to guess Rei was probably doing more of her crafts. She had found a new channel on Youtube and was doing all kinds of weird stuff with food…some of it was cool like the clear cola thing…but it was still a colossal waste of food….like the clear cola thing. Sure you got the syrup to separate but at what cost? Mob looked like she had been about to have a break down…Mob and milk. What was Mob up to right now? Drinking a cool glass of milk in front of the TV? No, wait, she had plans tonight. She hadn't even had to tell Reigen, judging by the body spray bath she took it was obvious.

Mob was growing up. Good for her.

Hopefully not all at once, though. Mob still had a lot of years of being a kid to her, all the kids did. Maybe in like ten years they could all go out together as friends…yeah. That would be nice. But not now. All of her friends, her same gendered friends, were teenage girls. What did that say about her? Maybe she was some sort of bizarre woman child like her mother kept on saying. Maybe she was a textbook case of arrested development. Maybe she had mother issues. Maybe she had daddy issues. Maybe she had commitment issues. Maybe she had intimacy issues. Maybe she had all the issues and she should just learn to drink them all away.

"Give me your finest bottle of mock champagne in your fanciest glass." Oh. It sounded like the staff had their own problems. If Reigen were drunker she would have said something about how they shouldn't mock the customer like that. But she was not so drunk yet.

"That damned kid again?" asked the bartender as he reached under the bar and pulled out a bottle of sparkling apple juice. There was a layer of dust on it. Reigen wondered what the health code had to say about that.

"That damned kid again. Same girl this time, too. Guess she hasn't given it up yet." Said the waiter. Reigen frowned. That was no way to talk about anybody. The nerve of some people. That was cute. A couple of kids out on a date…at a fancy hotel…on a Friday night. Well it was still cute. Wait…could kids rent rooms? Because then it would not be cute at all. Also what kind of kid had the money to come here, anyway?

"Maybe I should just accidentally give you a real bottle, just to get that little asshole out of here faster." Said the bartender. The waiter laughed. Reigen downed her drink in one gulp. Well someone was getting a one star yelp review.

"Whatever gets him out of here fastest. I swear to God that little half bastard drives me insane every time he comes in. like his next move is going to be to snap his fingers and tell me to 'park the desert cart under the lady's nose' or some shit. I am not bringing the little bastard literally one of everything again. Let someone else do it this time. Foreigners….I swear to God…" said the waiter. Reigen slammed her glass down with more force than was necessary.

"You know maybe you ought to do more serving and less bitching. Just a thought. Here comes another, badmouthing the customers? Bad move buddy." Said Reigen. Ok, maybe that drink was a little stronger than she had thought it was. Whatever.

"Lady, why don't you just mind your own business?" asked the bartender. Reigen shook her head.

"Nah, I don't think so. I mean it's hard when you're blasting your business to the entire goddamned bar." Said Reigen

"I don't know who you think you are-" said the waiter. The bartender was doing the universal motion for 'shut your mouth' but the waiter wasn't listening.

"Reigen Arataki, prolific Yelp reviewer. Feel free to Google me." Said Reigen holding up her phone. The bartender made a noise that sounded like a cross between a gasp and a yelp. Heh. Maybe that was why they called it Yelp.

"Ma'am I'm so sorry about this. Please accept a free meal as a token of our sincerest apologies." Said the bartender. His eyes kept ping-ponging off to the side over and over again. Reigen followed them to a serious looking man in a serious looking suit with a very serious look on his face.

Reigen knew that she should just cut her losses and move on but…free dinner. She could not pass up free food.

She was sat in a section away from Mr. Grumbles about Doing his Job. Thank goodness for the small mercies of life. Reigen even got free drinks out of it. This almost made up for the fact that it was looking more and more like she was being stood up. Whatever. She didn't much care about the guy. She just sort of wanted something to do. Something besides sitting at home and eating cup noodle and texting all night like she was in high school again. She was out. That was something. Out. Out was what everyone strived for on a Friday night, wasn't it?

Out was better than in.

Even if she was eating all alone in a sea of couples…on a Friday night…all dressed up.

She wondered what the kids were up to. God, she needed some friends who weren't in middle school…or Serizawa. She wondered what he was up to. He has talked at length about some new model that was coming out. A plastic model from some game he liked. He liked a lot of games, actually. Heh. Maybe one of these days she should just offer to come over and play with him. Videogames, she meant. So long as she was acting like a teenager….he made her act like such a teenager sometimes.

"And why don't you park the desert cart under the lady's nose, hmm?" she knew that voice. Reigen looked up from her drink and saw a flash of yellow out of the corner of her eye. Blond.

"Teru, be nice." She knew that voice, too. Reigen stood up. There, across the restaurant. Mob and Haystack. Reigen wanted to take a picture. They were just so damned cute! Mob was there in her school uniform and Haystack was dressed in…something that might have passed as a suit…if not for the riot of color. She wondered if the kid was colorblind or something. It would make sense.

She didn't ask though. She sat back down quickly. She and Mob had already fought, before, about Reigen taking up too much of her time. Besides, Reigen figured that Mob wanted her privacy when she was alone with her sort of boyfriend. Sort of being the operative phrase. Mob had certainly grumbled enough about the lack of…well physicality….in their relationship. Not that Reigen was complaining about all of that.

Mob was getting older but she still had a while before…all of this.

Reigen's phone vibrated. She knitted her eyebrows together in frustration. The guy wanted a rain check. Yeah, sure. Three weeks from never. Reigen didn't know why she even cared. She didn't much like the guy. Sure he was funny over text but there was no pretending that the two of them weren't after the same thing. Whatever. Plenty of guys out there. Plenty of fish in the sea and she had some damn good bait. Yeah, catching fish was easy.

Getting them to stick around was something else entirely.

Not that Reigen cared. Whatever, it was whatever. She wasn't looking to settle down or get married or start a family. She was young and free and she liked being young and free and she would, of course, make the most of freedom and of pleasure. Nothing ever lasted forever but…but she would make the most of her youth. She didn't care if she had been stood up. Whatever. One fish in a sea of fish. She was young and attractive. She could get whatever men she wanted. Better men than that. She was young and she knew what she wanted and she was going to go for it and not let anything, even rejection, set her back. She hadn't even been rejected. That guy was just lazy. Lazy and…and an asshole. A lazy asshole. He just didn't want to bother leaving his house for…not even for no strings attached sex.

Reigen checked her reflection in her phone.

She was young, she was pretty, and she was half…but that didn't matter. If that mattered to a guy then that was not the sort of guy she wanted to associate with. Whatever. Most guys weren't going to settle down with, or even bother to go on a date with, someone like her. Whatever. She was young and pretty and she wasn't looking for any kind of commitment anyway. She was only young once so she had might as well make the most of it. She had better make the most of the spring of her youth, or the summer of it, because otherwise she'd have all sorts of regrets. She had to make the most of these years before they slipped away and she was left with nothing but regrets. Heh.

Mob was rubbing off on her.

Better than the other way around.

Reigen got up under the pretext of going to the bathroom. She passed by Mob's table and slowed down just a bit. Just to see what was up. Just to make sure that Mob was ok. She had a table pulled up next to her covered in deserts. Haystack had the bloodiest steak that she had ever seen. There was a bottle of sparkling apple juice sitting in a bucket of ice on the other side of them.

"I like you a lot, Teru, but I just…you never kiss me." Reigen had to strain to hear Mob speak. Oh. It was one of 'those' conversations. Reigen knew that she should stop eavesdropping like a creeper and just go into the bathroom already. She was tucked halfway behind the decorative awning. An ancient payphone blocked Mob's view of her, if Mob ever felt like turning her head, which it looked like she didn't. She and Haystack were in the middle of what sounded like a conversation that had been a long time coming.

On the one hand Reigen was grateful that Mob was becoming more outspoken.

On the other hand she was too young to be kissing anyone.

Well that last part was not at all true. She was fourteen. Reigen had been doing everything, and she meant everything, back when she was fourteen. The thought of Mob doing even a millionth of the things she did sent her into heart palpitations.

"I-I would never make you do anything that you weren't comfortable doing. I just…I want it to be good for you. You're…you mean a lot to me and I just want it to be…perfect." Haystack downed his sparkling juice like it actually was champagne. It was so adorable.

"If you don't want to kiss me I understand, Teru. You don't have to make up lies. You can kiss whoever you want to-" said Mob

"I don't want to kiss anyone but you! I'm…I'm done being that guy. I'm not that guy. I just…what we have is about more than that. Much more. I haven't tried anything with you because I care about you. I would never put pressure on you to do anything, you're not that kind of girl." said Haystack. Reigen shook her head. Well now that was just overcorrecting. Mob said that Haystack had been around the block a few times, a few more times than any fourteen year old boy should have, and obviously he was trying to compensate by not doing anything at all.

"Teru, if you want to be with the kind of girl that never wants to kiss then…then I don't think that I'm the kind of girl for you. I'm sorry but I really like you and I just…I think about you a lot. I think about being with you and holding hands with you and kissing you and…and if you want to be with the sort of girl that doesn't want those things then…then I guess that I'm not that kind of girl." Said Mob. Reigen was damn proud of her in that moment. That was the most adult thing that Mob had ever said. There was nothing wrong with wanting what she wanted and there was nothing wrong with making what she wanted known. Good on Mob for being so forward with what she wanted…even if it could have come at the expense of her relationship.

"No! That's not what I meant…I meant that I didn't want to make you do anything that you didn't want to do. There's…Shigeko there's more to this than just me wanting to kiss you. I care about you. You saved my life…and you saw that there was something good in me…and I don't want to lose you. I want to be with you because I have actual feelings for you…and I've never wanted this with someone before…an actual relationship I mean…and I don't want to fuck it up…sorry." Said Haystack looking every bit like he was about to keel over. Reigen wanted to go over there and shake him until he didn't know what was what. The poor kid was overthinking this so badly…they were fourteen! When had relationships become this complicated?

Or maybe they had always been that complicated. Reigen wouldn't have known.

"Teru I don't want to mess it up either…and I don't want to push you into doing-" said Mob

"I want to. If you're ok with this, I mean really ok with it not just trying to give me what I want, then…I want to kiss you." Haystack looked like he was about two seconds from keeling over. Mob looked like she had just won the lottery. Everything not bolted down on their table, and the tables around them began to float. Reigen could feel the ends of her hair being tugged upwards and she took that as her cue to skedaddle before Mob noticed her and the moment was ruined.

Mob was having a nice night. Good. At least one of them was.

The drinks were weak, the food was lousy and overcooked, and the bathroom had been out of paper towels. Reigen could not wait to get home, kick off these torture devices they called shoes, and binge some bad TV before bed. At least she hadn't had to pay for that little night out…though she would advise Mob to change date spots in the future. Somehow. Without telling her that they had passed each other like two ships in the night.

Twice that night.

As Reigen rounded the corner on her way to the train station she passed a closed shop front. That wasn't anything to gawk at, plenty of places closed this early. What there was to gawk at was Mob. And Haystack. Together. Kissing. Like a couple of middle schoolers…which they were. Chastely. Thank God because otherwise Reigen would have had to consult a cardiologist…or a mortician.

Thank God both of their eyes were closed. Eyes crewed shut. Hands touching only each other's hands. Good. She wasn't going to have to teach Mob…and probably the other two…the facts of life anytime soon. Not that she wanted to but, well, it was better than having to open a daycare center sometime in the near future. Mob was getting older but she was still young, much too young. Much too young for closed eyed closed mouthed kisses in the shadows of closed specialty candy shops. Much too young.

Too young for opened eyed kisses, too.

Their eyes met.

Mob jumped back.

"Master!" she squeaked. She quickly put her hands behind her back as though she had been doing something wrong. Heh. Caught red handed.

"Miss Reigen! Um…a pleasure to see you, you're looking lovely this evening. I love the way that…dress…compliments your eyes. Sapphire certainly does you justice, though something a bit lighter would do as well, though not for evening wear unless one wanted to be bold, which of course would work for you-." Said Haystack looking everywhere but at Mob. Reigen wondered if it was healthy for a human being to turn that color. She didn't ask though.

Because this was certainly awkward.

Reigen made a split second decision. This was awkward enough as it was and every second that she spent there just compounded the awkwardness like the interest on her charge cards. This awkwardness would most likely carry on for the rest of her and Mob's lives based on current projections. So really she had to find an out for the both of them-

"Is that you Mob? I'm sorry, I'm drunk. I'm so very drunk that I don't even know what day it is let alone what's happening right now. Are we on a job? What's Haystack doing here? What street is this?" asked Reigen slurring and rocking back and forth. She felt something cradling her. Mob's powers. Maybe she was setting a bad example…but then again a bad example was better than a lifetime of awkwardness.

"Master it's Friday, we aren't on a job, Teru is here for…reasons…and we're on Lower Sodium Street…are you going to be ok? Should I call an ambulance?" asked Mob. She ran over and tried to steady Reigen by hand. Reigen decided to tone it down a little before she ended up with a stressed out student and an unnecessary hospital bill.

"Mob, I'm fine. I'm just heading home-" said Reigen

"I'll carry you! They told us at school that drinking too much could lead to cancer, heart disease, liver failure, kidney failure, cirrhosis, brain damage, high blood pressure-" said Mob looking more and more panicked by the second. Her hair was standing straight up and an electrical charge could be felt in the air. Ok, time to deescalate.

"I'll carry her, don't worry." Said Haystack ever the gentleman. Reigen straightened herself out quickly. Right. She meant to make this less awkward for Mob, not end up making these two think she was dying. Also how could the schools be such scaremongers? That was only going to backfire spectacularly when the kids realized that one drink would not send them to their graves. At least it backfired for Reigen when she was young.

"I don't need to be carried, really. I'm fine. Sobering up as we speak. You two just…relax. I'm an adult I can handle myself. Really." Said Reigen trying her best to get them to listen.

They did not.

But she managed to talk them down to calling her a cab home. Honestly the cab was for the best. Her feet really were killing her. She'd have to toss her shoes when she got home. They might have been on sale but they hurt in every single way imaginable. She hadn't intended to spend quite so much time on her feet that night…heh. But she had. The night had been a near total bust but at least Mob made out pretty well. Heh.

She was funny in her own thoughts.

Her phone vibrated as the cab pulled up to her building. A text from Mob asking if she was fine. Apparently Google Maps said that her trip should have ended two minutes ago and Mob was concerned. Reigen went up to her door and took a picture of herself standing in front of it so Mob would stop worrying herself into an early grave. Kid had enough to deal with…

Her phone vibrated again. Not Mob this time, Serizawa. He sent her a picture of a plastic model. A giant robot with a big gun and a girl sitting on its shoulder. She smiled. He worked fast, it seemed. He had even painted it…

She'd tell him that it looked cool after she sent Mob the 'I'm safe stop panicking' selfie. Well she had meant to send it to Mob. She wasn't drunk, nowhere near it, but she wasn't sober either. She had forgotten who, exactly, she had been messaging.

And there was no way to take back a message. Like words, spoken words, once the message was out there then it was out there. She began several apologies, excuses, and even floated the idea of pretending that she was drunk again when three little dots appeared next to his name.

Then three words.

"You look pretty."

She didn't know why but she clutched her phone to her chest and slumped against her door until she had sank to the ground. She had been called pretty before, been called a lot of things before, but three simple words from him and she turned to jelly. Really. She was much too old for this. She pulled herself together enough to let Mob know that she was fine and then she just sort of…sat there. He messaged her again asking why she was all dressed up, if she was going out, and other such things. She answered his questions as best as she could. Her mind was elsewhere, on those three simple words.

You look pretty.

Maybe this night hadn't been such a bust after all.