Takane Tsubomi.
She had the longest and prettiest hair out of all the girls in the class. Her bright eyes sparkled like a chandelier, her laugh was like flute music, and everything about her just glowed.
"Your name's Mob, right?"
Mob's face burned and his little heart kicked up, although he did not know why. He did his best to reply:
"Y-Yeah."
"That's different," she said, fascinated. "Who gave you that name?"
A fair question he did not have an answer to. He lowered his head nervously as more heat flushed his cheeks.
"I-I— "
"Takane-chan!"
Mob was saved the obligation of responding when her friends called out to her. Her eyes shimmered even more like diamonds, and she fixed her bag to join them.
"I have to go, okay? I'll see you later, Mob!"
Mob watched her go. She grouped with her friends, and they walked away together, her laughter echoing across the schoolyard. The wind whipped her long hair, and she tucked part of it behind her ear.
Mob gripped his chest where his heart was fluttering like a soft, frightened bird.
.
"Shishou."
Surprisingly, it was Mob who drew the line and did not call Reigen anything close to a family title. Reigen never asked why, though, but if he did it was a simple answer: he wasn't Mob's family, not really. He took care of Mob, surely, but Mob had a father somewhere, and it wasn't Reigen. Even at Mob's tender age he knew that.
Reigen looked up from pouring his tea. Mob sat in the little pillow nest he made for himself on the window ledge, a rather mournful look on his face as he watched the rain fall outside the window. The trees that overgrew into the fence blocked whatever view of the graveyard he would have gotten, and Reigen felt a little sorry about that. It would have added the ambiance his spirit consultation office needed.
Reigen lifted his cup from the desk. "Yes, Mob?"
Worried twitches played at his mouth. That was unusual, for Mob hardly ever stressed over anything. His eyes did not move from the window.
"Shishou… What's love like?"
Poor Reigen, taking all that time to make tea and having it end up sputtered all over the floor. Reigen coughed and smacked his chest a few times, a confused look donning Mob's face as he watched his guardian spontaneously spew tea and hack up spit. Eventually, Reigen grasped his lost composure, sitting up with a jolt that almost flung him around in his rolly chair.
"W-Well, Mob, you see," Reigen tried to communicate good faith before Mob would think he was lame. "Love isn't something that can be defined so easily. It is something that is experienced, but cannot really be explained. Love is something you feel, not something you say."
"But how will I know what I feel is love?" Mob didn't quite get it. "How will I know it's not something else?"
"Oh, you'll know," Reigen assured him with his classic charismatic grin. "You'll know."
Mob contemplated that for a moment. Then, he nodded once, content with that answer.
"Okay."
He went back to observing the rain. And thank God too, because Reigen was running out of bullshit to say. He sighed in relief that it was over, rising from his chair to find the paper towels.
Reigen did not know what love was at all.
.
No one could say Ritsu was not observant.
He had a way of noticing and understanding things far beyond his maturity level. Whether it be something like the way his mother brushed away her hair with her left hand when she ran into someone from high school or knowing how to work the stove before he should have, he knew what was going on and what it meant.
Usually.
He still had a world full of mysteries.
Like the night he found an estranged backpack in the attic. His father had pulled down the ladder for him to collect his own stored schoolbag, and in the process he found another. It was tucked away behind boxes of old picture frames and candles. He had only noticed it because of the vivid yellow of its one protruding strap. And when he finally worked it out, he saw it was a small backpack like his: one a child would take between daycare or elementary school and home.
A name was written on the little paper identification tag: Shigeo Kageyama.
The name made Ritsu more curious than anything. He wondered if the bag was a hand-me-down from a distant relative, since he could not recall any of his father's family having the first name of 'Shigeo'. Or maybe the bag had not come from family at all, and by some happenstance one of his parents had picked up something they saw had their name on it.
He decided to ask his mother.
"Mommy, do we have anyone in our family named Shigeo?"
His mother stopped running the water. She picked up a spoon and looked thoughtful while she wiped it clean.
"I don't think so…" she replied after a moment. "Your great-grandfather was named Shiro, though."
She did not have that hard line around her mouth she got when she lied, so Ritsu believed her. However:
"Then why is there a bag in the attic with the name Shigeo on it?"
She paused and peered down at the little boy next to her so attentive and so determined to know.
"What bag?"
"The bookbag behind the boxes of pictures," Ritsu reminded her. "It's yellow, and it says Shigeo."
His mother just looked perplexed. She returned to polishing the spoon, shaking her head as if ridding it of cobwebs.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Ritsu pouted in a childish manner more fit for his age. But alas, if she did not recall it could not be helped, and Ritsu had to leave it at that.
If she knew the bag, or a Shigeo, she did not remember.
.
"That's incredible, Mob-kun!"
Her awed expression reflected in the orb of water floating from the drinking fountain. Mob perked a little straighter as an emotion flowered in his chest.
Pride.
"And I'm only going to show this to you, Tsubomi-chan!"
She laughed at the special honor, or perhaps because of the lack of his typical shyness. Mob twirled his finger, and the water slithered back into the spigot.
"Do it again! Do it again!"
For her, he would.
.
"This is the place?"
"Yes!" the man, who bore the unfortunate status of being Reigen's client, confirmed. "It's haunted, I tell you!"
Reigen inspected the very unassuming looking garden shed. He leaned on his hip, half-whispering to Mob.
"Do you sense anything?"
Mob shook his head. "Nothing."
"I got nothing either."
"First it was my pliers!" the man cried. "Then my hedge trimmers, then my wrench… now the ghost has gone and taken my weed wacker!"
"Calm down, calm down." Reigen took charge over the man's misplaced hysterics. "We'll take a look."
Mob stood beside the shed. And that was a good thing, because Reigen was nearly crushed by the parade of brooms and buckets and other objects that fell from the shed door as soon as he opened it. The crisis (nearly) adverted, Reigen gazed into the tiny shed stacked ceiling-to-wall with junk.
Oh.
"I see what your problem is!" Reigen whirled around, confidence in his stance but sweat on his brow.
"You do?" the client sounded relieved. "Is it a ghost?"
Reigen nodded once. "Yes."
He clamped down on the man's shoulders.
"You are haunted by the ghost… of carelessness."
The man gasped in shock and acted like he wanted to faint. Reigen spun back around and pointed a determined finger in the air.
"Mob, pull your hair back and get a garbage can! We're going in!"
Mob let out a little sigh. They were supposed to be psychic consultants, but if cleaning out an over-packed shed solved someone's problem, he guessed that worked just as well.
.
"I can do it, Mommy!"
A determined spark flashed in Ritsu's eyes. His mother's mouth pinched in maternal worry, but in the end she could not say no to that adorable face.
"Alright, Ritsu… just stay on the path we showed you and don't go out in the street, okay?"
"Of course, Mommy!"
Ritsu thought he had never been happier. Finally, he was allowed to walk to and from school all by himself!
Ritsu did exactly as his mother said. He followed the sidewalks right to school without a hitch, and even looked both ways before crossing the street without her reminding him. He made sure everyone in his class knew that his mother thought he was responsible enough to school alone, and he even rejected an invite to a playdate so he could do it again for the sake of principle. He was a Big Boy now.
He was so enthralled with the experience he almost did not notice the other boy.
"The last one."
His voice was what stopped Ritsu outside the graveyard. The boy was inside the confines of the graveyard fence. He looked to be about a year older than Ritsu, and he wore the uniform of a different elementary school. He was crouching near one of the gravestones like he was engaged in conversation with someone beside it.
Since Ritsu was walking home and not to school, he felt he had the time to stay and see who it was—or maybe what they were doing.
"It wasn't very interesting, Tome-san."
Just who was he talking to? Ritsu did not see anyone around. Nevertheless, the boy nodded as if something had responded, his round haircut settling back into place.
"There wasn't even a real ghost."
No way did he just say that. Ghosts weren't real! Even Ritsu knew that!
That boy needed 'a talking to,' as his mother put it. And Ritsu decided he was going to be the one to do it. Forgetting his mother's instructions, he marched into the graveyard, so unnoticed he startled the boy when he spoke.
"Who are you talking to?"
The boy scrambled to stand immediately. He was a little taller than Ritsu too, although his shaky demeanor took away from that. He twisted the edge of his shirt and flushed.
"O-Oh… Tome-san."
Coming up with a name impressed Ritsu slightly. Even so, he was not convinced, and he crossed his arms to try and act adult.
"Tome-san?"
"Yeah…" The boy swallowed a lump in his throat. "She lives here. You probably cannot see her because you're not a psychic."
A psychic. That was his excuse? Maybe Ritsu had only seen one reality show on it, but that made him feel like a qualified expert on the subject. He even pulled out a fancy term:
"Like… An ESPer?"
"Yeah!" the boy replied, a little comforted by his outright knowledge. "I can do that."
He did not come off like he was lying, but that did mean Ritsu believed him. What a ridiculous claim! What a ridiculous idea!
A psychic boy that made friends in a graveyard.
"Alright…" Ritsu thought to humor him. If he was a psychic, he could prove it.
Ritsu dug around in his bag. He fished out the spoon his mother gave him for his custard snack, holding it out to the boy.
"If you're a psychic, then you can bend this spoon without touching it."
Ha, got him there! Only… not really, because he was eager to do it.
"Oh, I can do that!"
The spoon bent in the middle without another word. It twisted once or twice into a nice curly-q, and the boy beamed at his first actual approval to bend a spoon.
"There!"
Ritsu stared at the spoon, dumbfounded. He hesitated so long that the boy became nervous again and stood like a pike.
"I-I— "
"That's amazing!"
Ritsu unleased a whole different side of himself. He cupped the spoon close to his chest, his eyes full of wonder and admiration.
"That's amazing!" he repeated. "I want to do that too! Do you think you can teach me?"
… Teach him? Mob didn't know. He had always had his powers. He didn't know about others.
"I… I can try."
"Great!" Ritsu was full of life now, and by no means deterred by the uncertainty. "You'll be here tomorrow, won't you?"
"Yeah." That he did have a confirmed answer to. "If you want me to."
"Thank you! Thank you, Oniisan!"
Both of their eyes glittered at the title. It also made them collectively realize something, and Ritsu laughed at how impolite he had been.
"I'm sorry, but what's your name?"
"Mob."
"Mob-niisan!" Ritsu said it in the way he wanted to. He also offered a short bow at the waist.
"You can call me Ritsu."
He then stood upright and tilted his head inquisitively.
"How did you get the name Mob?"
Not again.
.
A/N: Young Mob and Ritsu fill my heart with love.
