When had apartments gotten so expensive?!
Seriously, how was a person supposed to keep up with the cost of living. Reigen clicked her phone's screen off and put it down on the couch next to her. It crunched against something…oh, right, probably the chips she and Serizawa had shared last time he had stayed over. She really needed to get to cleaning up around here. She would add it to her to do list. Her ever growing to do list.
Finding an apartment was proving to be more difficult than she had thought.
Finding this place had been easy. She had just answered the least shady ad she had seen online, paid her first and last month's rent plus the security deposit, and then that had been that. It had been easier because she had been younger and had been after less. She was capable of living in less than ideal quarters. It had a separate bedroom, which was amazing for someone just starting out, and it's own bathroom too. That was all she had needed, before, back when she had first moved in. It had been enough to ignore the many problems in the unit and the building it's self, too.
It had been enough for her.
Sure there weren't a lot of windows and all but one faced a brick wall but it wasn't like this neighborhood had anything worth viewing. Sure, some of the sockets didn't work, and a couple gave off sparks when she first tried to plug things in, but that was what extension cords were for. And sure, the water pressure wasn't always the best but it wasn't anything that she couldn't learn to live with. It had been fine for her but…well, she wasn't just 'her' anymore.
At least she wouldn't always be.
Serizawa wasn't opposed to the idea of living with her, moving in with her, or at least she thought that he wasn't. They hadn't ironed out every minute detail of what living together would entail but he was open to the idea of finding a place. Now all they had to do was, well, actually find a place. It was proving easier said than done. Serizawa living in a one room, thirteen and a half tatami, place. That was enough for him but way too little for her. They needed a place like this, at least one bedroom, but in a nicer area and big enough for all of their stuff. He had a bunch of his stuff in storage, he'd said, and more at his mom's house. She had stuff still at her childhood home that she had never bothered to take with her when she moved. Serizawa probably, too, would have wanted to be closer to work and also he probably would have wanted to live in a nicer neighborhood and with outlets that worked and plumbing that didn't clank when you turned the taps and water that you could always count on…and he probably wanted it to be up to modern earthquake standards, too…
Maybe a two bedroom.
She pressed a hand to her stomach. She wasn't pregnant. She wasn't having a baby. At least not….not now. Rei had called it a 'when' thing and not an 'if' thing. Which meant that it happened. She…had no opinion on babies. They were cute, sure, but they were also loud and a lot of work. Also she had never seen herself with kids…never without them, either…and she had no idea how Serizawa even felt about kids. Really felt about having some of his own…
Maybe just the one bedroom.
She sighed and picked up her phone, ready to get back to it. They needed a better place than this and she would have to find one. He was too busy right now. Visiting his mom always took it out of him. He hadn't asked her to come along but…but maybe it just hadn't occurred to him. Or maybe he had thought that she wouldn't have enjoyed visiting his mom with him. She knew that he wouldn't have gotten anything out of visiting her mother…
Speak of the devil.
'Arataki, it's mom. Call me' Reigen sighed and dismissed the message. It wasn't anything important, she was mostly sure of it. It never was with Mom. She had probably found another box of Reigen's old, childhood, junk and wanted to know if it was ok to throw it out. Not that she ever did, of course. Reigen had seen the forbidden closet of mystery. It was stacked floor to ceiling with boxes of Reigen's old junk. Junk that her mom loved to complain that she never threw away. Reigen knew the drill. Mom would complain that she never threw anything away, Reigen would say that of course she got it from mom because mom was the biggest packrat around, and then they'd argue and mom would get into the theatrics and then they'd tensely make up and Reigen would go home, head pounding from the fight.
Yeah, no. Not something that she was going to deal with right now.
She went back to the apartment finder website…maybe a different one would have been better. Yeah, there were a million of them, right? There had to have been something better out there. She hit the back button and found herself back on her search results page. She went to the second, non ad, suggestion. Her finger hovered above the 'narrow search' options. One bedroom or two…one of two…
Damn it, Rei.
As if reading her mind, thankfully not one of Rei's powers, a second message took over Reigen's screen. Not from Rei, thankfully, but from Tome. Odd…wait, no, this was the group chat. Someone had added her back into the group chat. She didn't have the heart to tell them to take her out of it. Sure, alright, the kids could be kind of grating sometimes. She was kind of old for some of their humor and all of that but she still loved them.
And, of course, it was nice to see what they were up to.
'I tried to make cotton candy. This happened. HELP!' Reigen could see a picture trying to load. She braced herself for the worst…and then got it. It was a dryer with what looked like burnt sugar and food coloring stuck to the barrel….Reigen winced. There was no way Rei was getting out of this one. Dryers were so expensive and to lose one in such a stupid way…yeah, Rei was not long for this world…
Reigen added that to her search parameters. Washer and dryer…
She changed it to just washer. She didn't need to drive the rent up quite so much. She did, however, need to stop wasting so much time at the laundromat. It would have been nice to have just been able to wash what she needed washed, hang it out to dry, and then just be done with it. She was tired of trudging to the laundromat every weekend with her laundry sack thrown over her back like she was the world's most disappointing Santa. Yeah, in unit washer sounded pretty great…
Expensive, though, probably very expensive.
'Say your sister did it.' Another message overtook her screen. This one was from Tome. As good a plan as there was any. Rei's seldom seen sister was back from boarding school, apparently there had been some unpleasantness and she had been dismissed, so in theory it could have been pinned on her…but still, that was dishonest. Reigen's fingers hovered over the reply button…
This was maybe one of those things that the kids had to figure out on their own.
Reigen was an adult, a responsible adult, and that was why she was doing the responsible thing and finding a new apartment and not giving the kids pointers on deceiving their parents. They would have to figure it out themselves like every other teenager on the planet…though she didn't know of any other teenagers on the planet who would have thought to make cotton candy in their dryers.
'I can carry it with my powers. We can pretend it got stolen and I can hide it at my house until Sho finds that guy he knows who can fix anything. Then we can fix it and pretend that the thieves changed their minds and brought it back.' Reigen didn't know if she should have been proud of Mob for that or not. On the one hand that was very quick thinking and on the other hand, the more adult hand, it was wrong to lie to your parents like that…and your friend's parents…lying in general was wrong was the point she knew she had to make…though it was pretty rich coming from her.
What had she taught Mob, inadvertently, over the years?
'Didn't he leave a hole side of your wall burnt?' Tome did bring up a good point, if the guys' work wasn't up to snuff then they needed to find someone else…though she doubted that there was a website to find confidential psychic repairmen. Though she didn't want the kids finding strangers on the internet…and now that she thought about it she didn't know if she wanted the kids out there talking to strange psychics that they barely knew either…
'It's not that bad is it?' Reigen watched as a picture tried to load. Alright, now she was curious. It couldn't have been that bad, right? If her parents hadn't noticed. Though how they hadn't heard from their neighbors that their house had mysteriously burned down and then reappeared within the space of a long weekend Reigen would never know. Maybe they had just learned to ignore any and all weirdness when it came to the kids. That was the smart thing to do sometimes.
But not every time.
It took Reigen a moment to figure out what she was looking at. A bra, she figured that out immediately. One of those cheap lingerie things that itched like nobody's business and pretty much just existed to give boys something to stare at. Reigen, too, hadn't been above mall lingerie in her younger years. What she had been above, or at least smart enough not to do, what Mob had done.
What Reigen was way too certain Mob had done.
'Sorry, talking to Teru too.' And then a happy face like…like what did Mob have to be happy about in this situation?! What did she think she was doing?! Did she even think? Reigen hadn't even…well, not at her age, not that she would have done so at her age or….well she had been pretty stupid when she had been fifteen…but still!
Really.
"Damn it, Mob." Said Reigen as she went to her contacts and found Mob's number. She needed to update her picture of Mob for this contact. She looked so young there…she had been so young there. That had been taken on her first day of middle school. They grew up so fast. It felt like yesterday that Mob had been collecting those little plastic capsule cats and lecturing Reigen on why strawberry milk was the best kind of milk. Now here she was all grown up in her last year of middle school with a boyfriend and more hormones than sense!
Breathe.
She took a deep breath and hit the call button. She was not going to freak out. She wasn't her mother. She was…well, she wasn't happy, but she wasn't going to freak out. She knew better. When you freaked out people shut down and then lines of communication went down and then the next thing Reigen would know Mob would find herself in a situation she was in no way prepared to navigate and too afraid to ask for directions from someone who had already been where she was trying to go.
Reigen knew better than to make the same mistakes her mother had…and Mob wasn't even her kid!
"Pick up, I know you're there." Said Reigen as her phone rang. She knew that Mob was there. She had been in the group chat. She was near her phone. What, was she screening Reigen? Actually…yeah, that would have made sense. Reigen knew that if she had been in Mob's position she wouldn't have wanted to speak to Reigen either. She would have probably packed her bags, destroyed her phone, and vowed to live in the woods until the end of time, or cellphones, whichever came first. If Mob didn't pick up then she wouldn't have held it against her or anything…and maybe it would have been better. It would have saved them an awkward conversation…
She was the adult here. There were some conversations that needed to be had, and better to be had with Reigen than Mob's actual mother. Now THAT would have been awkward.
"Hello?" asked Mob, sounding incredibly confused. Did Reigen get right into it or did she give Mob time to acclimate herself? She didn't really want to have this conversation either….maybe if she eased into it then it wouldn't be as painful.
"Mob, hey-" said Reigen
"Is everything ok? Are you alright? Is there a spirit? Is there-" said Mob
"No, no, this isn't about work." Said Reigen
"Oh…do you just want to talk? You never call me just to talk!" said Mob
"Yeah…we need to talk, but you don't have to sound so excited." Said Reigen. Alright, that was enough easing. Time to rip this band aid off. She hadn't expected Mob to sound so, well, excited. It killed her to have to destroy that excitement but better her make Mob feel bad now than Mob get a lecture from her mother, or worse, she wind up in some real trouble. The kind of trouble that even the great Reigen Arataki couldn't save her from.
"I am excited, you've never called me just to talk before. What do you want to talk about? What are you doing this weekend? Did you see any cute dogs? Did the stuff you ordered from Wish ever come? Are you and Serizawa getting marrie-" said Mob
"Mob, this isn't a social call. I just wanted to talk to you about, uh, the picture you posted to the group chat." Said Reigen
"…the posters don't hide the burnt parts of the wall, do they?" asked Mob after a long while. Reigen closed her eyes and banged her head against the side of the couch. If it had been anyone else she would have thought that she was being messed with but, no, of course she wasn't. This was just Mob being herself. Her normally adorably clueless self. Normally she loved her.
Normally.
"What? You think that this is about-no, no, it's not about the wall. It's about the other picture you sent. The one for Teru." Said Reigen. God, why did this have to be so awkward? Reigen hadn't been this awkward when she had been a kid, right?
"Oh, that one. Sorry, I'm also talking to Teru and I sent the wrong picture. That wasn't for you guys, you're my friends and it would be weird, and also I don't like girls like that, and also it would be cheating and cheating is wrong." Said Mob
"Mob, you can't be sending people pictures like that. Not your boyfriend, not your friends, not anyone." Said Reigen
"Why not?" asked Mob
"Why not? Because those pictures can haunt your for the rest of your life. Also you're only fifteen and I don't know the exact legality of taking a picture down your shirt but it seems like the kind of thing that the courts frown upon." Said Reigen
"But I didn't take a picture down my shirt." Said Mob
"Ok…without a shirt on, then." Said Reigen. Mob was being weirdly pedantic about this. Was this just how the younger generation was, now? They just traded inappropriate pictures like it was nothing? Maybe this generation really was going to the dogs…God, she sounded like an old person. Next thing she knew she was going to be doing tai chi in the park and arguing with the ducks.
"No, I was wearing a shirt in that picture." Said Mob. Reigen sighed.
"I can clearly see that you aren't, Mob, so you can stop lying. Listen, I know I'm older than you and the world has changed since I was your age but some things haven't. You don't want to be sending topless pictures of yourself to boys, or girls, or anyone really. You don't know what the person on the other end is going to do and as much as you can trust a person you can't truly know them. People are capable of…well, you never know what people are capable of." Said Reigen quietly. She didn't want to sour Mob on other people, or love, but…well, she was getting old. Maybe even old enough to know just how bad the world could be. Sure, she had saved the world and nearly died, but there were some things that were worse.
Much worse.
"I'm not lying. That's not a shirtless picture of me, that's just my knees in a bra." Said Mob
"That's….what?" asked Reigen. The kids…the kids were into some weird stuff these days…things that she had never wanted to be privy to…
"It's a trick that Tome taught me. If you out your knees in a bra and then take a picture looking straight down it looks like you're taking a picture down your shirt. Boys like that." Said Mob
"Yeah, I bet they do. That's…that really clever but still be careful, I guess, about those kinds of pictures." Said Reigen
"I will, Master, I'm not dumb. I know better than to take pictures like that. Even Tome thinks that doing that is a bad idea and one time she drank alien blood…hey, do you want to come over to Tome's house after work on Monday? We're going to make a bunch of alien blood for this thing her club is doing at her school-" said Mob
"No, I'm good, that's all you guys." Said Reigen
"Alright, I guess you want to spend time with Serizawa since you guys are in love. Are you guys going to get married yet? Rei says that you are and I kind of want to be a bridesmaid because I saw this movie with my mom-" said Mob
"Gotta go, Mob, my…soup…is burning." Said Reigen before she hung up. She took a deep breath and tossed her phone onto her coffee table. It slid off of the table and hit the floor with a concerning thud. She hoped that she hadn't broken the screen again. The last thing she needed was a second problem to deal with.
Or a third.
Not that it was a problem, the fact that she was apparently fated to marry Katsuya. It was the direct opposite of a problem. She…she liked him a lot, maybe even loved him, and she had nothing against marriage. Maybe it was too much, or maybe it was the whole 'fate' aspect, or maybe it was how the kids were way too invested in her love life…there were a lot of maybes.
Too many maybes.
Too many things to focus on. A new place, marriage, the kids growing up, the general passage of time…it was just too much, sometimes. She just…she had to focus on one thing at a time, that was all. This was what she had always wanted, right? Her life to move forward? To get away from that stuck feeling, the one that had practically suffocated her back when she had been selling watercoolers? She wanted to get away from that feeling and….and she had…and she was going to keep getting away from it.
She picked her phone up off the ground.
She was going to find a new apartment…but first she was going to find a place that replaced phone screens. Phone repairs were so expensive…when had everything gotten so expensive?!