A/N: Shout-out to whatevsbla on tumblr for the cute fanart! You can check it out on my blog ( thejapanesemapletree) under the 'fic: a risk of going through a doorway is that it may be locked shut behind you' tag!

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Mob looked over his fanned cards.

"Go fish."

Reigen's mother eyed him with a humorous sort of scrutiny and picked the top card from the pile. Mob asked next:

"Do you have any eights?"

She sighed like he was ever-so-clever and passed him the eight of hearts. Mob nodded and placed his full set of eights on the table. He went again:

"Do you have any twos?"

"Go fish."

Reigen paused reading his newspaper to watch the game momentarily. Mob had an expression more akin to someone playing poker, while his mother couldn't help but break her false seriousness and smile. She was enjoying her third round of Go Fish, at least.

Reigen shook his head at his mother's utter willingness to do anything Mob wanted. She was like putty. She was a Grandma.

Reigen engrossed himself back into his reading to forget all that entailed. He kicked back the chair, turned the page, and—

He sneezed. Loudly. It came so sudden that the force knocked him forward, his nose mere centimeters from the crease in the newspaper. He muttered something about that hateful woman from a block over talking bad of him before settling again into his chair, the newspaper a comfortable distance away.

"Arataka!"

Reigen lowered his newspaper. Across the room, his mother beamed at him like he had done something spectacular, and he made a funny face in his confusion.

"What?"

"You Dad Sneezed!"

Now Mob was confused too. He glanced between the two adults: one who was over-spilling with happiness, the other who looked as if he realized he had missed part of the wall while painting.

"I… What?"

"Oh, Arataka, I'm so proud of you!" his mother cheered. "You've finally come around to fatherhood!"

She left her cards to go give him a hug. And if Mob were not psychic, he would have sworn he saw Reigen's soul leave his body right then and there.

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Reigen made a noise in his throat like he had forgotten something.

"Oh, and Mob—don't go into the graveyard today."

That was interesting: he had never been told that before. It was a Sunday, so he did not have to worry about Ritsu coming by to watch him bend spoons or make frogs float, but he still maybe could have gone and seen Tome-san if he wanted to. He also liked to do his homework under the big maple tree when it was warm.

"Why?"

"One of the families is having a funeral."

That would be an expected occurrence in a graveyard. Mob respected that and agreed without further questions.

"Okay."

He finished his waffles and put his plate in the sink. Not seeing much point in getting dressed, he folded up his futon and did his homework in the comfort of his pajamas. Even the workday was slow, and while Reigen insisted he had to organize his emails and stay for any sudden call, Mob was content to curl up with a blanket and watch TV.

Like anything relaxing he wanted to do, that did not last long.

A white figure pulled from the glass of the television. If Mob were any less numb to the peculiar, or any jumpier, he may have moved, but there was no need. It was only Tome-san.

"Mob!"

The area around her feet was always a weird half-image of something white and formed like sandals, and it made her look like she floated more than walked over to the couch. However, despite the cold color of her figure, her face and smile were as warm as any living mother's.

"You should come to the graveyard! Right now!"

Mob poked his little nose out from under the blanket. He gave Tome-san an inquisitive gaze before shaking his head regretfully.

"Shishou told me not to go there today. There's a funeral."

"Oh, it'll be fine." Tome-san waved her hand like her grandson did not know what he is talking about. "Arataka is just following the directions his uncle gave him. But, if you enter through the side gate, it shouldn't be a problem."

Ah, yes: the side gate. Maybe in some time past it had been a direct access from the groundkeeper's house to the graveyard, but now it was so overgrown with trees and vines that Mob had only found it by mistake. It remained unlocked, for it had no real need to be with all the foliage hiding it; and it couldn't be, for Reigen had no knowledge of the whereabouts of its key. The side gate endured sort of as their little secret, and Mob was comfortable to keep it that way.

Mob deliberated the ethics of going to the graveyard anyway. If Tome-san said he should, it was okay, right?

"Okay."

Mob told Reigen he was going to be in the backyard—which wasn't a lie; he just wasn't going to stay in the backyard. And Reigen hardly said a word in response, simply motioning his hand much like Tome-san had done and instructing Mob to not get caught up in roots or nettles. (God knows how nettles sting.)

The side gate gave way with a rusty crackle. Mob rutted it in the dirt and had to duck under the tree cover, whilst Tome-san was right behind, passing through the material objects with her miraged form. She met Mob as he broke into the sunlight and cool breeze among the gravestones, a conspiratorial smirk on her face.

"You know what happens in life and death," she explained finally her reason for having him come. "But, I think it is important to know a little of what happens between that."

She turned towards the open expanse of the graveyard. Across the way, a few rows of gravestones down but close enough to see, was a group of five or so adults in mourning attire. Their backs were to Mob, and their heads were bowed, one with arms akimbo and a photo frame in their grasp. Mob recognized the man with light brown hair apart from the mourners as Reigen's uncle: the official curator of the graveyard. He was the one to call to put an urn in a crypt.

"Funerals are as much about the living as the dead," Tome-san expounded further. "They help in dealing with grief, because loss is neither pretty nor easy. Look! Even he knows. That's why he is here now."

A flickering outline of someone who might have been an old man appeared beside the mourners. He lifted his head sadly and dropped it again, his after-image growing fainter and darker with the passage of time. Mob felt his spark of energy ebbing away.

"He is going; he realizes the truth," Tome-san said in a small, heartfelt voice he had never heard her use before. "This world is for the living. It is not for the dead."

She gazed back, and Mob saw the old, wet look in her eyes, so much unexplainable emotion in them that it made his chest hurt.

"Life is the greatest loss you will ever face, and it is so utterly terrible."

Mob stood motionless. The man-shape ahead flickered his last dying vison, and then he was gone in the wind, like a flame on a candle. The breeze crossed over the family and the graveyard and the street, blowing to wherever the winds of the world traveled and came from. Like that, he was gone. And like that, one day Mob would be too.

Mob clutched his face. Little pin-prick tears slipped from his eyes, and he all at once knew something very, very human:

Empathy.

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Reigen honestly should have given his mother more credit when he was younger.

Between parent-teacher meetings, planning for events, working his own job, and keeping Mob clothed and fed and happy, he was constantly kept busy. (As much as he did not want to admit it, he was parenting, and it was not easy. He was adult enough to admit that much.)

Likewise, on the day of the school sports festival, he even closed his office for the day to go and support Mob. That was his job too, after all: to be encouraging as he could.

And poor Mob needed all he could get. No matter what event he was in, he always tripped over himself and flopped to the ground like a ragdoll, or ran out of stamina so quickly he could not complete the event. His weakness was most prominent in the last running event, when he was one of the final people dragging his heaving and shaking body over the finish line. Reigen thought he might collapse from fatigue, but suddenly his demeanor changed, to something more enclosed and upright and formal.

A girl with long hair was running towards him. A pretty smile graced her face, and she waved with her whole arm, seemingly going to Mob to say something nice to him.

Except… She ran right past him.

Mob deflated woefully as she instead went to the winner of the race, admiration practically enveloping her. Mob fell to the ground, and Reigen took that as his cue to step in.

"Hey!" he called down to the shrunken Mob. "You did great out there!"

Mob rolled over a smidgen to view Reigen above him. Reigen offered a smile and a suave hand gesture only he could pull off.

"Don't get caught up on succeeding," he advised in a wise tone. "You tried, and that is much more important than being good at anything."

A little life returned to Mob's eyes. Reigen knelt and helped him stand up from the dirt.

"Let's go home, alright? We can get you a hot bath and fresh clothes. I'll even cut up that watermelon in the fridge."

"… Okay."

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Mob wrapped up in a blanket and would not speak.

He also would not leave the security of his guardian's company, so that led to the situation of him being curled up under the kitchen table while Reigen cubed the watermelon. He was like a little washed-and-preened cocoon of melancholy, and Reigen felt awful for him. Rarely was Mob ever moved enough to be upset.

Did the opinion of that girl mean so much to him?

Eventually, Reigen was presented a breakthrough in Mob's standoff of silence, with a soft and weak summon of, "Shishou…"

Reigen halted his knife in the rind. He turned and looked under the table, seeing a pale nose peeping out from the blanket.

"Yes, Mob?"

"I was thinking… Maybe I should have just used my psychic powers."

Reigen could not confront him harshly about his new attitude; not in Mob's venerable state. He would have to be delicate with his words, and that was something Reigen considered himself an expert on.

"You know what I've told you about using your powers against other people," he began quite strictly. "And how they are not something that makes you special."

Mob gave no reply. He did know.

Reigen wagged his index finger. "Using your powers for your own advantage is much the same."

He plucked the knife from the melon and held out the two halves (although he could not be sure Mob saw).

"Think of it like cutting this melon. Someone could work tirelessly for days on end just to learn how to open it. While you have a knife. Is it fair to ask someone to open it the same way you did without one? Is it fair to say you did it better when they do not have the same tools as you have? And what happens when you don't have a knife? The other person will have an open melon, and know how to open melons, while you will be left nothing at all."

Reigen allowed his words to soak in. He meant the conviction in his wisdom, and Mob knew that better than anyone.

Reigen always tried so desperately to help Mob be a good person.

Mob inched his face out of the blanket. Whatever sadness that plagued him had dissolved almost totally, and determination was its place.

"I'm sorry, Shishou," Mob said in more of his normal voice while looking like a cute blanket sausage (it was oddly fitting, really). "I won't try to rely so much on my powers."

Reigen quirked his mouth in a satisfied smirk. He nodded and returned to his melon chopping, his voice extremely authoritative to mask choking up on how proud he was and how sweet Mob looked in his blanket tube.

"Good. Psychics like us should not allow our powers—merely one thing—to define us."

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A/N: Do you think Reigen would be creeped out if he knew his dead grandma was just chilling around his house.