Mob liked ice cream. Tome liked ice cream. Rei liked ice cream. Since they all liked ice cream they decided to have it together.
Master Reigen said that she didn't need them that day. Mob still wanted to stay but Tome had dragged her out the door. She said that Master Reigen and Serizawa had been giving each other 'looks' and those looks could only mean one thing…then Rei started laughing…and then Mob knew what Tome was talking about.
Not something that was her business.
But good for Master Reigen. Mob was happy, they all were, that she had found love. Maybe Mob's mom would stop calling her a Christmas Cake. That seemed like such a mean thing to call someone…and such a terrible thing to be. Not having love. Mob didn't think that people expired at twenty five like they were milk or something but she did know that nobody wanted to die alone, nobody deserved to die alone, especially not Master Reigen.
Or Serizawa, but it was different for boys.
Mob didn't want anyone to die alone and she wanted everyone to be happy and Master Reigen was not replacing her and it was fine and everything was fine and everyone liked ice cream so she went to get ice cream with Tome and Rei. Yes, it was fine. A good time of ice cream, conversation, and people watching.
"Those are definitely pod people." Said Tome as she dug her spoon out of her ice cream sundae and pointed at a man and a woman waiting in line. They were dressed in identical grey shirts and tan pants. They had the same white gym shoes, the same black socks, and even the same haircut.
"You think? Maybe they're just, like, brother and sister or something." Said Rei. Those people's outfits made no sense, none at all, but she doubted that they were pod people.
"I don't think that brothers and sisters are supposed to dress alike. Ritsu and I don't dress alike…well sometimes I borrow his T-shirts…oh! Rei, do you still have the purple EVA shirt I lent you? Ritsu wants it back." Said Mob. She didn't think that those people looked like pod people, mainly because there were no such thing as pod people. If aliens really came to Earth she doubted that they would try to assume human form. First impressions were important and first contact was no time to be deceptive.
"It's…somewhere in my room. Does he need it back right away?" asked Rei omitting the fact that she had been using that shirt as a pillow case since Mob had lent it to her.
"Kind of. It was Sho's before he borrowed it and I didn't know that it as Sho's when I took it from the clean laundry or when I lent it to you." Said Mob
"Why are you lending things that aren't yours in the first place? I thought that you were all about following rules. Don't tell me that I'm starting to corrupt you." Said Tome scraping her spoon against the side of her ice cream bowl. Mob shook her head.
"You could never corrupt me, Tome, because you're a good person. Even if you sometimes do bad things you're still a good person. Also me and Ritsu share T-shirts sometimes and I didn't think that he would miss it….but he kind of does. Kind of a lot." Said Mob
"Your brother is such a pod person. Who gets that worked up over a t-shirt?" asked Tome
"Ritsu does, I guess. I think he just misses it because it was from Sho. Sho's his best friend I think, they're always spending time together." Said Mob
"I'll give it back next time I come over, I guess." Said Rei. Darn. She knew that it was weird, using his shirt like a pillow case, but she could admit that she turned into a total pod person when it came to him. She liked him and she couldn't stop liking him so she had might as well embrace the fact that she liked him. Really it was the healthiest thing to do. Even if he didn't like her back. Or maybe he did. Mob could be very guarded with her feelings and he was her little brother after all…
"You guys can come over this weekend and we can have a sleepover at my house so long as we're quiet and don't go through the fridge again, my mom says." Said Mob. Last time Mob had Rei and Tome over they had been too loud, mom said, and eaten the family out of house and home, mom had also said. Mob didn't think that they were that loud, they kept the volume at fifteen, and they hadn't eaten that much…only a block of cheese and a liter of milk and a pint of berries and two things of ice cream.
"Yes to the sleepover but no to your house. Mob, I love you but your mom is like an adult version of your brother….no thanks." Said Tome
"Yeah, I mean your family is super nice and all but….um….she can be kind of grumpy sometimes. Sorry." Said Rei
"Oh. I guess that she can be like that sometimes. I wanted to have a sleepover, though…" said Mob
"We can go to my house, we just have to be out before my mom and dad come back from their overnight shifts." Said Tome
"I don't want to get you in trouble." Said Mob
"We can go to my house! I mean, if you guys want to. No pressure. We could always go to Mob's house and just not bother her mom. We could hang out with Ritsu, and Sho too if he's there." Said Rei playing with her spoon. She shouldn't have vetoed the whole Mob's house thing to fast. Ritsu was there and he would be there all night. Last time she hadn't been able to speak to him in private or anything else because Sho had been there but maybe this time…and either way Sho might have been there and Sho was really nice and funny and he always had cute animal pictures….
"Pod person." Said Tome flicking her spoon at Rei. First years in love were so adorable. It was so amazing to think that she had, at one point, been that age. It seemed like a lifetime ago. At least she had never been so weird about a guy. Nope. No point in chasing guys, either they came to you or they didn't, or you wore them down…which was totally different than chasing them.
"Am not. I just think that if Mob wants to have us over then we should…maybe entertain the idea…" said Rei twirling her spoon. She looked into the future and saw…fun sleepover…at her house…and then it all got super fuzzy….but no Ritsu. Darn it!
"Well I vote your house." Said Tome. Rei's sister may have been kind of a bitch to them but Rei's mom let them eat anything, watch anything, and do just about anything. They still couldn't climb up on the roof and watch the stars, though, even if Mob could have easily caught them if they fell off.
"Me too. I like your house, Rei, we have more stuff to do. We could do more food hacks if you want to…or something like that." Said Mob. She liked Tome's house best because she had all the games consoles but she wasn't about to be mean to Rei like that. She wouldn't have minded going to her house but Rei could be such a pod person, to borrow a word from Tome, when it came to Ritsu. Not that she wasn't happy that Ritsu had someone who liked him and not that she didn't want Rei to, eventually, be her sister or anything like that.
"OK, I guess we could go to my house…but your house is still on the table! I mean, if you want to. I mean I have no problem going to anyone's house. That's what I mean." Said Rei. Tome rolled her eyes. So transparent. She would never even begin to understand what the fascination with Mob's little brother was. First years were such a weird bunch.
"…who's orders a sundae but all bananas?" asked Mob changing the subject. There. Plans were made. No need to start Rei up about Ritsu. Not that Mob minded, she didn't, it was just still kind of weird that her friend was in love with her brother, that was. Just a little weird. Mob didn't mind, not much, not at all.
"Pod people. They've just assumed human form and they're trying to infiltrate our society." Said Tome as she not so discreetly took a picture of the two weirdo's eating nothing but bowls of bananas. Hey, if they didn't want their pictures taken then they shouldn't have been such weirdos.
"It's hard, I think. I mean it would be hard. There are a lot of rules and stuff to remember. Even I have trouble with them sometimes." Said Mob
"Well that's just because society sucks." Said Tome
"You think everything sucks." Said Rei
"Not everything sucks, just a lot of things, and they'll never stop sucking unless we acknowledge that they suck." Said Tome
"Still, all of society can't suck." Said Rei. She didn't want to live in some no society bad future scenario like she had seen in countless movies. She liked having the trains come on time and clean water in her house and being able to exchange money for goods and services and other such things they had learned about in economics class.
"The sucky parts suck." Said Tome
"There's not that many of those, though. I mean there are a lot of rules and stuff but they don't all suck, like the rules about being nice to one another. We should all be nice to each other all the time otherwise we'll hurt each other's feelings." Said Mob
"I think that there are. Like why everything thinks that we're kids and we can't make any decisions at all about our lives." Said Tome. Life was so unfair sometimes. She was fifteen, she could decide when she wanted to get up and go to bed and what she wanted for dinner and when she wanted to see her boyfriend and what she wanted to do with him and how long she would spend on the room looking up at the vast expanse of the universe and realizing how small she truly was….
"But we are kids." Said Mob. Fourteen was still a kid even though she didn't feel like one all the time. Not that she minded her life that much. Mom told her that she wasn't allowed to buy her own shoes or clothes or wear make up or anything like that but she didn't have to worry about adult things like
Master Reigen did.
"We aren't little kids, though." said Rei. Now she knew what Tome meant. So it never got easier, even when you were a third year. She thought that things would have been different when she got to middle school but it was all just more of the same. Sit down, shut up, go to bed, get up, do this, do that like she couldn't run her own life! Even now she'd have to be home in a few hours because her parents still had the power to tell her when she needed to come home. Why was the age of adulthood so late in life? And who had the power to decide when someone was and was not an adult?
"But everyone treats us like we are! It's ridiculous! If I were born a hundred years ago I'd have been an adult buy now and-" said Tome
"If you were born a hundred years ago you would have been dead by now…because it had been a hundred years ago." Said Mob. As soon as she said it she realized that Tome was not being literal. Great. Fourteen years and however many days old and she still couldn't get a clue. At least her friends never made fun of her. That was the good thing about having friends, they never made fun of you.
"Mob, so you can be funny." Said Tome. Ok, that was good. There was a snarker inside of Mob this whole time. Who would've thought?
"Sorry. I didn't mean to-" said Mob
"No, no, no, you got me. Here, as a token of my legendarily good sportsmanship please accept the maraschino cherry from my sundae. Eat it in good health." Said Tome spooning her cherry into Mob's sundae.
"Um…thanks…" said Mob who was not entirely sure that it was sanitary to be sharing food like that.
"So she gets you once and she gets your cherry? I've been getting you for months and what do I get? Nothing." Said Rei half clearly kidding. At least Mob thought that she was.
"Rei, if you wanted my cherry you should have said something a year ago." Said Tome with a shrug.
"You know I didn't mean-" said Rei
"Honestly, Rei, unrequited love is the stuff of bad manga and office politics. You really should have said something. Now I'm in just the most awkward position-" said Tome dramatically with her head thrown back and her arm over her face. That was how Mob knew that she was kidding. She liked that about Tome, it was easy to tell with her a lot of the time.
"Come on, you know I didn't mean it like that. Besides, unrequited love is the most beautiful kind of love anyway. When it's unrequited that makes it tragic and when it's tragic it's beautiful. That's why a lot of shows and manga and stuff get so boring when the main couple gets together." Said Rei
"It's sad, not beautiful, to be in love with someone for years and years and the person that you're in love with has no idea. I don't know. The only person I've ever really liked is Teru and we only knew each other for a few months before I became his girlfriend. It was still hard, though." said Mob
"Ok, in real life it sucks but in stories it's beautiful and tragic. When your whole thing is one of those will they/won't they things and then they finally kiss then it's, like, where do we go from here?" said Rei
"Smut." Said Tome with a shrug. She didn't care if the pod people across the way were glaring at her, this was a free country and she could say whatever she wanted.
"Tome!" said Mob
"What? You disagree? Mob, we both know what you keep on borrowing from me." Said Tome
"….I read it for the…love…" said Mob as she shoveled a spoonful of ice cream into her mouth way too fast. She really did read those fan stories and stuff for the love. There just so happened to be other stuff in the pages between the parts about love. That was all. Nothing more.
"Oh! Here, that reminds me, here's your manga back…sorry about the cola on it my sister snuck up on me while I was reading and then my drink spilled everywhere. Sorry." Said Rei as she fished a slightly sticky book out of her bag and passed it to Tome quick before the pod people glaring at them could see it.
"And this is why people don't want to lend you things." Said Tome as she flipped through her book. Mob tucked her chin down low and attempted to disappear into her shirt. They should not have been reading books like that out in public where people could see them!
"I said sorry. I'll get you another copy when I get my allowance again…or if I find more money in my sister's room, whichever comes first…and before any of you say anything she takes my money all the time. That's just how it works when you have a sister." Said Rei
"The glorious war of sisterly rivalry…this is why I'm glad I'm an only child. Remind me to thank my parents for either using protecting or being in a dead bedroom sort of relationship for the past fifteen years. Really, I am so glad I don't have someone messing with me and fighting with me all the time." Said Tome
"I don't think that Ritsu and I would fight…if he were a girl I mean. I think that we would all be best friends and he'd be here with us…and he'd be called Ritsuko because he'd be a girl….and he'd hang out with us all the time and stuff like that...and also he'd let me braid his hair." Said Mob
"He could still be called Ritsu if he were a girl. I knew a girl named Ritsu once." Said Rei
"No, his name would have to rhyme with mine. That's how it works with sisters. That's why you and all of your sisters have names that start with the 'r' sound I think." Said Mob
"I know! I hate it, it's like mom and dad wanted us all to be a matching set. Rumi, Rin, Riko, and Rei. I am so glad Rumi and Rin are at university, that way people don't comment on our names all the time." Said Rei
"So I guess that you and Mob's little brother won't be carrying on the family tradition of 'r' names then?" asked Tome
"No. I don't know what kinds of names Ritsu likes but I like Zuimu, Saki, Akiko, Kari, um….that's all the names that I've thought about so far." Said Rei
"Mob, any thoughts on your future niece or nephew's name?" asked Tome mostly just to watch Mob squirm.
"Um….whatever you guys want is fine I guess. I mean it's really none of my business what you guys want to name your kids…" said Mob. Nope. She did not want to think about this. She could be ok with Rei wanting to marry Ritsu and spend her life with him and become Mob's sister but this was an area that she did not want to think about at all. She knew, in vague terms, that this was what people did as they got married. She knew that people had kids but she also knew, now, that babies didn't come in the mail and she did not want to think about her friend, her little brother, or her friend and her little brother in that state of affairs.
"I don't want to take any names that you like, though, for when you have kids with Teru…or whoever! I mean I just know that you really like him and I can't really see a future where you break up any time soon!" said Rei
"Um….I like Shigeo for a boy and Takako, Ritsuko, and Shoko for girls. That's all that I've really thought about it….um…what about you, Tome?" asked Mob
"Me? I guess Atari just to be on the nose but unlike the two of you I am not itching to get into all of that. I'm a modern woman and I see that there's more to life than getting married and popping out a bunch of screaming kids." Said Tome
"I want more than that!" said Rei
"I don't. I mean, not really. I'm happy right now and I don't really want anything more than…I guess part two of this. I still want to be friends with you guys and I still want to be Teru's girlfriend and I still want to work for Master Reigen and I don't want anything to change when I become an adult." Said Mob
"Me too, except I want to go to university but I'll still hang out with you guys." Said Rei
"Well I mean you kind of have to. Didn't you just get through telling us how much you wanted to have Mob's little brother's kids?" asked Tome
"Tome! Rei didn't mean right this minute! She and Ritsu aren't even together yet." Said Mob
"Yeah, I meant in the future….but please don't tell your brother I said that. Any of that." Said Rei. Rei knew how skittish boys could be. Go and Takeshi had both run off when she tried to kiss them…not that Ritsu would have been so immature as to run away if she tried to kiss him but if he knew about all the things she stayed up all night imagining he would have sanded off his fingerprints, changed his name, and moved to parts unknown.
"I won't tell him, don't worry. I'm good at keeping secrets." Said Mob. She did not list the secrets that she was good at keeping, of course, like how messy Master Reigen's house was or how much her dad lost at pachinko or how Sho and Ritsu had sleepovers every single night. That would have been bad secret keeping.
"Such as?" asked Tome
"That wouldn't be good secret keeping, Tome. I don't tell people's secrets, nobody's, not even my own." Said Mob
"The labyrinth of your mind is an enigma." Said Tome
"This is why I know I can tell you anything, Mob." Said Rei. Mob really was a good friend like that. Rei know that she would never tell the future said so.
"Thanks you guys." asked Mob. Sometimes it was easy to tell with Tome and sometimes it wasn't. This was one of those times when it wasn't. Or maybe it was and just she was bad at it. Talking things. Conversation things. Social things.
But it didn't matter if she was good or bad at it. Not when she had friends who didn't care and liked her for who she was.