A/N: Mob is ornery: a chapter.
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Mob looked down from his window nook.
"Shishou?"
Reigen leaned back in his chair to indicate he was listening. "Hum?"
"Why didn't you use your psychic powers against Hanazawa-kun?"
Miraculously, Reigen's pen somehow flipped out of his hand in a way that suggested he actually did have psychic powers. He stammered, and he shivered in his seat like spiders were crawling up his spine, the display extinguished with a loud cough and the placement of his pen back onto the desk via Mob floating it there.
"He caught me off guard!" Reigen ruffled through excuses like a deck of cards. "And, like I taught you, it's not good to use your psychic powers against other people! I didn't want to hurt him! At my level, sometimes it's hard to control how much you put out! Like a champagne bottle, alright?"
Mob let Reigen ramble on. He turned back to the window, a small smile touching his lips.
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Mob yawned, rubbed under his eye, and used the railing to guide him down the stairs. He instinctively turned towards the kitchen to go searching for his waffles and milk, but the sound of a warm voice stopped him and drew him the other way.
"I can have them put you into extra consideration, if you'd like."
He would know the voice of Reigen's mother anywhere. Even in his early-morning lethargy, he pattered towards the office to greet her, and he heard the deeper voice of Reigen reply to her statement.
"When are they planning on moving?"
Mob halted outside the doorway. Reigen's mother sat before the desk in a customer's chair, her purse much too large for her needs (but very fashionable!) hooked over the back. To Mob (and most) she always had looked almost frighteningly young, like she was secretly Reigen's sister instead of his mother, and her childish way of illuminating when she spoke highlighted the discrepancy.
"Very soon!" She fanned out her perfectly oval, red nails in a more effeminate version of her son's quick and unnecessary hand gestures. "They already found a house, I believe. And they are due to have the baby in a few weeks! The older children are very excited about it."
Reigen nodded like he was listening to his mother fawn over the cuteness of the children, making a quick note in his pad of paper.
"I'll give them a call to check out the apartment."
"It really is a great place, Arataka!"
Warning piqued in Mob rigidly. He felted excluded, and betrayed, for reasons he did not yet know.
"Shishou?"
Reigen's mother reacted faster than Reigen casually raising his head. She whipped around in her chair, her eyes bright and aglow as if stars hung in them.
She threw out her arms for a hug. "My dear, sweet Mob!"
A wall of mistrust and misunderstanding buffeted the doorway. Mob did not move, although he may have wanted to. Reigen's mother's expression fell as she read his mood, and he felt awful about hurting her, but he had to know:
"What were you talking about?"
Reigen and his mother shared the briefest of glances. She looked as if she had anticipated something like this to come of their conversation from Mob, and Reigen sighed at her foresight, tucking his pen into the loop in the paper pad and folding his hands atop.
"Mob," he began, chillingly calm compared to his usual self. "You know we did not plan on staying here forever. And now I don't think it's safe for you anymore. I think it's best if we consider moving."
A clock ticked in the hollow silence. A terrible feeling engulfed Mob as suddenly as a car crash.
Panic.
"No!" Mob shouted so unexpectedly loud that Reigen winced. "No, we can't move!"
Something like ice and needles seared his nerves and clouded his brain. The umbrella bucket in the entry way flipped upside-down, the door to the closet swinging open violently and startling Reigen and his mother. Mob balled his hands and clutched at his chest, small and scared and powerless against circumstances he could not control.
How could Reigen say that? This was it: this house was his home. Reigen spoke as if the place was not his home, as if he thought they once had plans to leave for the same reason. Reigen years ago had wanted to work his way up the corporate ladder and find a fancier space, while Mob had the expectation to leave once he found his birth family: his true home. But now, after so long, everything had changed: the house was home because it had the memory of Tome-san and the graveyard he wanted to protect; it had Ritsu and their time together; and it had… Reigen. If he had to leave Reigen just like that—just like his other family—he wouldn't be able to take it.
An abrupt sob welled in Mob's throat. Reigen's mother moved with such quick and practiced fluidity that the chair she rose from did not make a sound, and she already had Mob scooped close to her chest when he started to cry. He was almost too big for her to pick up now, but she made due by kneeling to his level. She shot her son a rather nasty look, and Reigen went stiff as he had unwelcome flashbacks from childhood.
"I told you that you should have asked him first," she scolded Reigen like he was in elementary school once again.
"I want to protect him!" Reigen defended his actions. "Having the graveyard around seems to put him at risk, but God—I guess I should have."
Mob tried to shush his sniveling so he could stop staining the pretty blouse of Reigen's mother. She rubbed across his back soothingly, and Reigen came around from the desk wanting to apologize, but not really knowing how to go about it.
"Sorry, Mob." He figured that was a start. "I just don't want something happening to you because bad spirits and bad people come around."
"Then you would not run the business you do," his mother had to add in something smart. Reigen nearly collapsed and tripped over nothing, puffing up a moment later to confront her.
"Mom— "
"It's okay, Shishou."
Mob finally pulled away from Reigen's mother. He took a quivering breath to steady himself and wiped under his eyes to brush away the last of his tears.
"I know you want to keep me safe. But, I like living here, because I can use my psychic powers for good protecting the graveyard like Tome-san did. And like the dead in the graveyard, some people need me to help them, too. I like using my powers for that as well."
He looked at the rug and laced his fingers together.
"I… don't want to leave here like I did my other home."
Mob rubbed his thumbs together, hoping he vocalized his feelings properly. The atmosphere tangibly mellowed, and Reigen's posture with it, nodding in full understanding of what Mob needed.
"If that is what you want, then we won't move."
Mob nodded in response but once and stopped twiddling his thumbs. Reigen's mother smoothed down his bed-mussed hair as her last comfort, her voice equally as gentle.
"If Katsuya could handle it, I think Mob can too."
Reigen sputtered, "You didn't have that attitude a second ago!"
"Don't criticize your mother, Arataka!"
Reigen opened his mouth to counter, but another deadly glare shut him up and caused him to flush. Reigen's mother broke the persona as soon as he did and laughed. Mob smiled as Reigen flustered again and covered the offending upturn of his lips with his joined hands.
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"Ritsu, this is Hanazawa-kun. He is a psychic like I am."
Teru waved, and Ritsu returned the gesture—smiled, and played the part. Mob looked pleased that they got along so readily.
"Hanazawa-kun wants to go to the movies with us. Is that okay, Ritsu?"
Of course—of course it was okay! There was no reason it wouldn't be. Mob's eyes got a little sparkle in them as Ritsu agreed. He could not see how dark Ritsu felt inside.
For as long as they had known each other, Mob had tried to teach Ritsu how to harness the psychic powers he knew by now he did not have. And, out of nowhere, there was another? Like it meant nothing?
It wasn't fair.
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A/N: Poor Mob, associating leaving a house with leaving people.
