Duct Tape was really much better than packing tape.

Reigen and Serizawa had learned that the hard way. Sure, packing tape could seal a box just fine, but the seal wouldn't hold and the next thing you knew there were a thousand tiny little plastic model bits all over your floor and nothing that you could do but look down and laugh…or in Serizawa's case cry, as Reigen knew he had been doing. He couldn't hide anything from her, not when she had been standing right in front of him, and not when the thing he had been in near tears over had been her fault.

It may have been her fault but, also, it was something that she could fix.

The tape part, that is, not the model. That was Serizawa's area of expertise. She'd left him at home to fix it while she made the not so arduous journey to Costco for bulk duct tape. She'd paid up for the membership so she might as well have used it even though she had come for one thing…and only one thing. She could smell the free samples from here, the siren song of their aromas wafting over right to housewares. She knew, though, that she couldn't trust herself to make it all the way over there without grabbing something that she didn't need. Bulk body wash, warm socks despite the fact that she had a drawer full of them, frozen Takoyaki even though with the addition of Serizawa's frozen food the door was now barricaded shut, those soups she liked with the cheese…

No, Arataki, duct tape.

She just had to grab a package of duct tape and get going, it shouldn't have been so complicated. They had silver, she should have gone with the silver, but they also had red and pink and purple and blue…not to mention the patterns. Stripes, polka dots, zigzags, weird 80's throwback geometric shapes…even though the label said it was 90's…and puppies.

Three different kinds of puppies.

She was an adult. She shouldn't have been standing there for this long just staring at duct tape. She should have been out of home goods by now and standing in that mile long line trying, and most likely failing, to ignore the food court. She had to get back home so she could bring the tape and then tape up some boxes of her own. Four, nearly five, years of accumulated junk that she couldn't part with. Junk that she was going to send to storage, probably until the day she died, because she just couldn't part with anything…God, why was this so hard?

Just make a decision.

It didn't matter which tape she took. She was just going to be sealing boxes with it, it wasn't like she was going to be putting it on display. She was the only one who would ever see it…her hand hovered over the silver. Classic silver…ugly silver. The kind you used to duct tape your leaky pipes together because your landlord was too stingy to hire a plumber…she really needed to get on him about that. She pulled her hand back. She worked hard for her money, she wasn't going to spend it on something that she hated, even if it was the cheapest option…but then again she worked hard for her money so she shouldn't have just thrown it away on whatever had the prettiest picture on it.

That was something one of the kids would have come up and she was, supposedly, over a decade older than them.

She reached out and grabbed the one with the puppies on it, the yellow labs. It was more expensive, and a waste of money, but she did like the pattern and what was the point of denying herself what made her happy? She had her own happiness to think of. She wasn't going to live in a dreary, grey and silver, world just to save a few yen…a few hundred yen…why did this have to be so expensive? She sighed and put it back.

It was time to be responsible. She had a household to think about now.

"Looks like it's silver for me." said Arataki as she put the puppy duct tape back and bought the silver. She had more important things to do today than stand and stare at duct tape at Costco. She had her tape and now she could leave…any moment now. She sighed and forced herself to take a step forward…and then another…and then another. She was nearly out of the aisle now…the smell of free samples and bulk junk food was starting to hit her…but she had to be strong! She had to set a good example, if not for herself then for the kids, why if they could have seen her now-

-wait.

"Mom! Can I get more tape? I need to make wallets!" shouted…Rei? She knew that red hair anywhere. Rei, definitely Rei. New coat, new shoes, same kid. Huh. What were the odds?

Well, since this was the only Costco in the city and it seemed like everyone was out shopping that Sunday Reigen had to say that the odds were pretty good.

"We're sticking to the list, Rei, now get back here and help me pick out carpet refresher!" called out a woman, presumably Rei's mother. She'd only known the women through texting and email. It was amazing how much trust the kids' parents put in her. For all they knew she could have been a kidnapper, or a murderer, or one of those people who didn't return their shopping cart to the cart corral….huh. Well this was an…honor? The kids' parents trusted her so well. The only person who had really vetted her was Mob's mom…

Wait. Where was Mob?

"Rei, hey." Said Reigen. Rei turned around and gasped.

"Reigen! Hi! What are you doing here?" asked Rei. Reigen pointed to the tape in her hands.

"Same thing as you." said Reigen

"You're bored so you're going to go home and make duct tape wallets?" asked Rei

"No, I'm going to go home and pack boxes. So that's what all of you have planned for today, duct tape wallets?" asked Reigen. She wouldn't have exactly called that a riveting way to spend her Sunday but, hey, kids were kind of weird these days if the internet was anything to go off of. Hell, if the kids she knew were anything to go off of.

"What do you mean?" asked Rei

"You, Mob, and Tome. I can't believe your parents actually took all of you to Costco with them. They're braver than me, let me tell…you…" said Reigen. Rei looked scared, there, her eyes had gone as wide as dinner plates and she was starting to stutter…something was up.

"Right! Everyone! Everyone is at Costco with me right now! That's what we were going to do this weekend because we told you we were having a sleepover…because it's true! It's-" said Rei

"Rei, now! Pick out a carpet refresher for grandma so we can get a move on already! Her condo isn't going to deep clean it's self!" shouted Rei's mother. Reigen didn't have to be a genius to put two and two together. She'd been a teenage girl once too, she knew all the tricks.

She just hadn't expected the kids to use them on her.

"And I take it that Mob and Tome agreed to go with your family to…deep clean your grandmother's condo?" said Reigen, crossing her arms and tapping her foot. That had been enough to get her to break when she had been young and she hadn't been nearly as sweet as Rei. She hoped that Tome and Mob were just off doing what she thought that they were doing and not anything worse. Mob…she worried about Mob, especially considering all the life or death situations she had been put in over the years and Tome…there was a good chance that if she wasn't with that boyfriend of hers she was either locked in or out of something.

"Um…yes? They like cats and…and stuff. They like…like cleaning cat pee out of carpets at my grandma's condo while she yells and…and takes her teeth out and cleans them right in front of you…" said Rei

"Uh-huh, and how much of this is true?" asked Reigen

"…none of it…but don't tell my parents! And don't tell Mob and Tome I told on them! But especially don't tell their parents!" said Rei. Reigen…was torn. On the one hand she wanted to be someone that they could trust but on the other hand she didn't want to lie to another adult. Their parents had put a lot of trust in her and if they found out that she had lied to them about something as serious as their children's whereabouts….and if something happened, if they had been in some kind of danger…though with what she figured they were doing of course they were in danger. Tome was weirdly reckless for someone as lazy as she was and Mob…well, she was way too good natured to demand her boyfriend take proper precautions…teenage boys being what they were….

Oh God.

"Are they safe?" asked Reigen

"Yes." Said Rei

"And they're doing what I think that they're doing?" asked Reigen

"Um…what do you think they're doing?" asked Rei. Reigen sighed.

"Do you really want me to say, out loud, right in the middle of Costco what those two are probably doing with their boyfriends right now? Or can I spare us the embarrassment?" asked Reigen, with a sigh. After this she was going to the liquor section and getting one of those giant bottles of wine. She needed it. These kids had finally driven her to drink!

"N-No! I mean yeah, they're doing that, but you don't have to talk about it! No way!" said Rei. Reigen nodded.

"Good…well, not good, but thank you for being honest with me. Now I really think that you should get back to your parents now before they get thrown out of here for yelling." Said Reigen trying her best to sound neutral. She couldn't get upset. It would have been hypocritical, first of all, and second of all it would have probably given Rei a complex. They already got so many downright poisonous messages about sex, they didn't need her shaming them…but it wasn't shaming, was it, to tell them that they were playing with fire and when you played with fire you got burned…or in this case got pregnant? Was this even her place at all? She wasn't their mother, thankfully, she didn't think that she could have survived more than a day if she had been.

She was filled with the sudden urge to call her mother and apologize…it had been hitting her a lot lately.

"You're welcome but…um…you're not going to tell on me, are you?" asked Rei. Reigen shook her head.

"No, not this time…now get going before I change my mind." Said Reigen. That seemed fair…to the kids. She didn't know what she was supposed to do with their parents. She had their numbers, she could have told them that their daughters were off…no, no parent wanted to get that call and…and it was kind of personal…she didn't even think that this was the kind of thing that she was supposed to be involved in!

But she was.

But she wasn't, too. She had been about their age when she had started fooling around with boys and she knew how horrible it had felt when her mother had gone snooping and found out…but then again she also knew what she had done to make her mother snoop. It really was playing with fire and…and really, the only thing that she could do was try and make sure that they didn't get burnt…so that was what she was going to do.

Later, though, after she bought the duct tape…and after a brief stopover in the wine section, too.