A/N: inspired by a tumblr post by user fuck-kirk, here's an au where mob and reigen never make up after separation arc - and where they stand four years later :'] (ft trans/nb mob at the end)
this was a unique thing to write for me, so i hope you all like it ^.^ reposted from ao3, originally posted 9/8/23.
"Self-proclaimed psychic."
Reigen's sick and tired of those words.
The magazine covers, the interview offers, the tabloid articles, even the people who stop him on the street for pictures.
It started as a legal thing: you don't put names in headlines unless they're ten-yachts-made-out-of-gold-household-name famous, and for all Reigen's struggles, he was, at the very least, grateful to not be that famous.
But, these days, it's all they call him, and he's thinking of maybe getting a trademark on it, making them fork over a million yen if they want to use it in their stupid articles, their stupid books, their stupid TV segments.
There's the humanity a title like that deprives you of, and it's something Reigen's no stranger to. There's no Arataka Reigen in those headlines - no face to tie the name to.
…or, rather, a face that's been blasted in the news, in websites, in forums, so hard that it doesn't register as one anymore.
There are days he resents looking in the mirror - a fancier thing than he would've been able to afford at 28. Ornate carvings along the frames, like an old vanity. Gems dug into its cracks, glimmering like an oil slick. The mirror itself smudges - it's neglected far more than its price tag warrants. Holes burnt into his pockets - as reparations, he blows smoke into it every morning and watches the beautiful bronze-colored carvings chip over the years.
If you'd handed this mirror to him back then, he would have turned up his nose at it. Some chintzy piece of ornate crap - in Arataka Reigen's house? His dinky apartment, paid for with a meager exorcists' salary? When he had a middle schooler tugging on his sleeve, and good values to instill - on materialism, on smart spending, on less-is-more? Surely not.
Yet, as time passes, Reigen finds he didn't know himself as well as he thought he did - and there that impulse purchase sits, square in the center of his bathroom wall.
He made good money, once - TV spots. More like Supernatural Detective - and worse. Trashier, louder. A laughing stock on and off-set - but Reigen bore it. Let them throw their tomatoes, make their headlines, dig up more old photos, whenever necessary. It wasn't like he didn't deserve their scorn - every time he bit back, feebly attempting to shield his wounded pride, he remembered the boy at the press conference - the one who hadn't listened for his message, and frankly, had no reason to.
Are you watching, Mob, he'd asked himself - at the press conference, and then the follow-up press conference, and the livestream, and the paparazzi… yet, no matter how many times he asked, from Supernatural Detective and beyond… there came no answer.
Not like the kid was glued to the TV like he'd been as a youth. Mob was smarter than that - so perhaps it was a silver lining, in a way. "Completely out of the loop", Dimple called him, once, and a selfish part of Reigen hoped he'd stay that way…
…yet, another, perhaps more selfish part, wished the boy would watch, and there he'd come trudging back into Spirits and Such's empty office, and he'd ask his troubled questions, and they'd slip back into their routine, no harm done. Didn't matter if Reigen was a monster to the world, so long as he was somebody to that kid, right?
Now, though, the mirror long-smudged, bronze-colored ashtray next to the faucet long-piled up… that's a fantasy, and he knows it.
He doesn't make much money anymore. The world moves on, as it's ought to do.
And he should be grateful, right? Use this chance to become the New-New-Arataka-Reigen - reinvent himself yet again, latch onto some other purpose, some he simply hasn't found just yet. Take the lull in virality as an opening - an opportunity to shine that megawatt smile, wash off some of that rusty old charisma. Render all of it his underdog story. An early tab on his Mobipedia page.
…but he's not 28 anymore, and the vomit in his sink only sears his throat.
There are only so many chances, so many cut-and-paste apologies, that Mom, Dad, Akiko, would be willing to give him - and he burned through them like cigarettes and bar snacks. The smell of them still lingers on his breath, when he scrolls through his contacts, to find even his family hasn't been opening his sparse texts.
But hell, he thinks, what do they expect him to do? What self-respecting company would hire that famous scam psychic - the face burned into the retinas of anyone who'd turned on a TV in the past four years? Shaggy blond wigs and cheap suits of Halloween costumes, comedic impersonators… he keeps his hands stuck to his sides when he talks, for that detail is their favorite.
Daily, he searches Mobtter for his name. Sometimes, there are white knights - people who argue he was set up by the media - but, more frequently, there are name-callers. The same memes, JPEG-ed to hell and back, tossed from hand to hand. The shitty headshot they picked for the news outlets, neatly cropped under 2012s nostalgia posts.
Two years ago, he turned 30, and the only celebration was a brief burst of headlines when he drank too much of Akiko's fancy beer, then lurched over his apartment's balcony and vomited. Then, a day later, he flipped off the press.
It's funny - celebrities who make tabloids are usually famous for something, right? You hate 'em, but at least there was some skill they had, before their names became synonymous with trainwreck. They sang a few songs, starred in a TV spot as a kid - or maybe they were just blessed with a spotlight from the start.
Spirits and Such was big, of course. He was the Bro of Seasoning City, he'd defeated the Dragger, Pete's sake - yet, no one talks about that part, do they?
A pettiness he can never really shake - the pettiness that had started driving him down this path to begin with.
Part of him hoping a stray spark will set the worn drywall ablaze, he lights a cigarette, props himself against the toilet - creaking minimally under his weight - and extracts his phone from the pocket of his pajamas.
He has a routine with these things, Mobtter, (or, Xob, these days…) advanced search, Arataka, Reigen, "Bro of" Seasoning City, lang:jp near:"Seasoning City, JP", within, past week…
…truthfully, as he scrolls, he doesn't know why he does this - or why it aches to see the numbers dwindle, week after week. It should be a relief, shouldn't it?
Yet…
…in the end, Arataka Reigen couldn't become anybody less than a villain.
Yet…
…what's left for him, when even that disappears?
Between sparse text posts, bot-generated engagement-mines pulling random hashtags, one-or-two nostalgia-bait GIFs, one-or-two outdated memes, there's one link that catches Reigen's eye - and it makes him sit up, digging his teeth into his cigarette's edge.
- EXCLUSIVE ! Street Interview With 2012's Scam Psychic, Former Star of Supernatural Detective, Arataka Reigen's Former Middle School Student - What He Told Us Will Shock You !
Bit-crunched, at the text's side, is a dull-eyed, dark-haired boy Reigen couldn't forget, even four years later.
He's aged, by the thumbnail alone - end of high school, start of college, by now, Reigen reckons. A short-sleeved shirt, with a generic star-shaped graphic, faded from years of wear - yet, Reigen doesn't recognize the pattern in the least. His bangs fan into his eyes - his eyes, themselves, bored into dark circles, staring numbly down at the microphone outstretched beneath his chin.
He still looks like a kid.
Reigen's thumb trembles, hovering over the article's link. A generic tabloid site he can't pin.
What are the odds it's just some clickbait nonsense, right?
That they didn't even get a word out of him, just snapped a picture as he turned and went on his way?
But - what are the odds it's not?
For that reason, Reigen doesn't click.
And for another reason, an impulse from a rusted, sun-seared old switch in the back of his mind, one he can't fully place, even now, but is grateful still exists in some form…
… he opens his contacts list, scrolls down to the oldest number, and dials.
Punctual as ever, Mob picks up after two rings.
The boy's voice betrays little emotion - except a nervous note, when he insists Reigen doesn't need to meet him in public. He knows how 'they' can be.
Reigen isn't sure how to feel about that - but he can't complain about the consideration.
Besides, it gives him the drive to clean up his apartment for the first time in months, anticipatory of a guest, and one he cared about the opinion of, for once. He flips through an old cookbook - one Akiko gave him when he moved out of their parents' house, passed on from her to him.
It's… a reminder.
He cringes, to note what shogayaki recipe she'd underlined for him, years ago - how dusty the page is.
How he hasn't cooked anything, in…
…
…too long.
He remembers Mob doesn't like too many toppings on his food - and feels an almost guilt, picking the bits of onion from his already-prepped plate. Nudging them into a sad pile, by the chopped pork, they gather into a meager piece of the plate's rim.
Because he knows Mob - but he hadn't known the boy in the article, or the one who'd flatly agreed to be at his apartment by 8:30, tonight.
What is he, brown-nosing a 14-year-old? Or - not that, but a memory of one?
Reigen coughs over his stove, realizing only now he'd been smoking in the kitchen.
The shogayaki turns out adequate, by Reigen's standards - and as he's setting out rice, there's a knock on his door.
His face is muddied, by its reflection in the fried sesame oil sitting in a loose pan. Thick, like the canvas of some old painting - he can barely register a shape in it, but the vague colors are enough.
His hair is still a shaggy blond. His sclera are still white - the irises, still dark. His skin, still hex code #ebd3bb. The magazine covers know that one well.
All of the pieces of him are where they should be - roughly. There are days he feels like a jigsaw puzzle with its pieces broken in transit - but the resulting picture is legible enough.
Maybe one eye sags. Maybe his smile's gone.
But any household could recognize him, still, even now, as the man who'd performed a botched exorcism on live TV, October 2012.
…that's enough for Mob, right?
Reigen swallows, and goes for the door before it can rattle again. He turns the handle before Mob can turn it for him, and it creaks on its hinges before either of them can rethink this arrangement.
The boy - the teenager - startles, slightly, at Reigen's intensity in slamming the door open. Okay - bad start, now he thinks about it. Yet, the little gasp Mob lets out earns an internal chuckle, for it, just like on the phone, really does sound like Mob's as he knew it, if pitched down a touch in register.
He's taller, Reigen notes first. Not by much, but Reigen has to retrain his eyes to drift a bit higher than usual. No muscle's to be seen - he still bears a face full of baby fat, and there's an odd pang in Reigen's chest at the thought he might have stopped running with his old club… before wondering why he cares about something like that.
There's the shirt from the interview thumbnail, beneath a thin, pale yellow jacket. That one, Reigen remembers.
And, like the day they met, he's clinging to the straps of his backpack.
Yet - his eyes are firm, sagged with dark circles. Looking his old Master up and down, studying him, with a mouth drawn into a miniscule line.
This is no teary-eyed reunion, Reigen realizes.
Sure, he raised this kid, someone more optimistic might note.
But Mob's last memory of him… his last memory of Mob…
The smile he instinctively puts on for paparazzi - more of a crude, smarmy, self-aware smirk, now he thinks about it - fades, into the expression he knows Mob is waiting for, and the one they can share.
Apprehension.
"Uh. C-come on in." Reigen gives a little nod. "I'll have dinner out in a sec."
Mob blinks, then lightly dips his head in agreement.
…as he turns for the kitchen, Mob's footsteps scuffing behind him, the door nudging shut as the boy stops to peel his shoes off, Reigen asks himself for the fiftieth time what the hell he thinks he's doing.
This kid - this teenager, Arataka - has to have a life of his own by this point. It's a Friday evening, and by the backpack, the general air of him, he's in school by now. Odds were, he had homework due tonight - sure as hell couldn't be spending those hours dropping everything to have dinner with someone who…
…
…well, he's here now. Not worth fretting about it, right? Right - Reigen tells himself, as he sets the table, while Mob stands in the entryway like that hyper-dense ten-year-old waiting for instructions.
"How's…" Reigen begins, designating the table's rudimentary far edge Mob's as he places down the bowl of rice, and the neatly-divided plate of shogayaki. …life? He wants to ask, but that's too tall an order. "Your brother?"
Safe topic. One the - teenager - likes.
Finally loosening the iron grip on his backpack straps, Mob's shoulders relax.
"He's graduating valedictorian this year." He answers, to no change in expression. "Everyone's really proud."
"Oh, yeah?" Reigen prompts, unable to glean a tone from the other's answer - and he shakes his head at himself, for just four years ago, he could read the dumb kid like a book.
"He was nervous about his grades, but they were better than mine when I graduated."
"And I figure yours were better than mine." Reigen snickers, only a little offput to find Mob not laughing in turn, before he remembers who he's talking to - not an interviewer, or some stranger he has to win over, but someone he'd watched over for four years straight.
…but, still, he reckons, Mob deserves hesitance. No overfamiliar arms around the shoulder, no hair ruffles, and sure as hell nothing past a stilted joke.
Overfamiliarity was what… did this to them.
And, as the lonely laughter at his own poor joke winds down, as he pulls out a chair for his silent guest, the light outside catches a sliver of Mob's bowl - steam still rising from the pork and onions on his plate, and the bowl at its side.
The light catches things in a way Reigen never thought before - and it's that he's about to sit across his dining table for dinner with the kid who'd ruined his entire life.
Sure, he was no Jodo - but he was the first domino, and a selfish part of Reigen stills, before he can properly sit down.
That… kid, that teenager, that brat, is the reason for every tabloid, from 2012 to now. And with that interview, there'll come more, won't there?
Oh, he can see it now - the self-proclaimed psychic's poor, poor old student, paid 300 yen an hour, was that even legal?
Like gunshots to a veteran, he can still hear the camera flashes - and he can hear the camera flashes yet to come, all because of the boy sitting at his dining table right now.
Reigen's gaze falters, from Mob's dull eyes, to his own plate of shogayaki. Soy sauce, and two types of cooking sake, the latter of which Akiko thought to underline twice in her cookbook. He'd made the seasoning thinner for Mob's plate, sensitive as the boy's palate was - an olive branch to extend.
Is that what this is? A nicetie after that interview, a band-aid on a stab wound - yet another bowl of ramen in place of real payment, any real lessons?
…is that what Mob thinks this is?
"I dunno how you like your pork," Reigen babbles, before he can think on it further, "but I know you don't eat stuff too rich. So I did what I could - took off the onions and everything."
Mob only blinks, peers from his plate to Reigen's, and his chopsticks click together.
"Okay."
"Lemme know if it's good or not."
"Okay."
Reigen settles into his chair, finally, baffled to find he's made his mouth water at his own cooking. Truthfully, it wasn't a skill he thought he had.
"Thank you for the food," Mob finally says, as Reigen begins to lean in for a clump of pork and onion beneath his chopsticks, over a handful of rice - and he knows it's yet another nicetie, but Reigen nods at it.
"…anytime, Mob."
He hopes it'll nudge the other into saying his name in turn - try and gauge what level of familiarity they're on, but such social cues are beyond Mob as always, and the boy only nods, raises his cutlery.
The ginger gives it all a nice kick, and Reigen's, admittedly, pretty impressed with himself for it being the first time he's cooked for a guest - or, if nothing else, put thought into doing so - in recent memory.
It's more rewarding than another round of cup noodles, or a TV dinner, would've been, if nothing else.
And… showering earlier, and cleaning up the place, for Mob's arrival…
Reigen lifts his head momentarily - knickknacks are dusted off, and the floor is vacuumed, even that pesky spot under his coffee table he'd been meaning to get at for months, now.
It doesn't register to Mob, most likely, who's nudging around his plate like the side vegetables will grow legs and attack him, but…
…for once, Reigen's apartment feels livable. He can breathe the air - he can feel steam on his tongue, rather than smoke. A sensation he didn't think he'd missed.
Yet, in a way, it only makes him feel worse - like taking a power washer to a rotted building, and seeing how deep the dirt had set in, between the grooves of bricks, and there, in some pores, fungus had grown, like an infected wound…
…wait, he's eating, he shouldn't be thinking about tha-
"M…" Mob begins, jostling Reigen from his spiral. "…Reigen-san?"
Mouth full of rice, Reigen takes a second to swallow. "Mmhm?"
Mob blinks, in that slow, deliberate way Reigen remembers - when something's on his mind. Something like that Tsubomi girl, or the nature of evil spirits, and for a moment, Reigen wonders where Dimple's gone these past four years, if he's still nagging in Mob's ear like always.
But he knows it's no time to wonder about those things, when Mob finally begins,
"…when I was walking to school this morning, some newspeople stopped me on the street."
His eyes, murky, dark, are set into his untouched shogayaki.
"That's what this is about." He says - states, rather. Commands, just as he had that day in the alleyway.
Reigen falters, trills out some air from his lips, as he sets down his chopsticks. Runs a hand through his hair - a touch greasy, even when he took the time to condition it earlier.
Yes, Rome wasn't built in a day. "…kind of," Reigen half-confirms, and raises a hand to halt Mob, before continuing, "I didn't read it - or watch it, or whatever - 'cause it's not my business what you think about me anymore. You're, what, a college kid, now?" He shrugs, eyes shut some moments and firmly down on his food in others - anywhere but his student's gaze. "But it made me wanna reach out. Just seein' you again."
He clicks his chopsticks together, gesturing out to the younger boy.
"Four years of radio silence isn't fair."
He smiles - yet, the other doesn't return it.
Rather, Mob only sinks into his seat.
His bangs fall into his face - obscuring his eyes, leaving only a thin frown.
"So you didn't listen to me." Mob bites, and here, Reigen freezes.
I…
"You called me over without hearing what I had to say."
That glare, one Reigen imagines behind Mob's hair, is familiar - the smell of cobwebs in a dingy alleyway.
"So what do I give you?"
Validation?
Something to grasp onto?
Neither answers are satisfactory, and Reigen's almost frightened by his former student's nerve.
Yet - telling him to his face his friends didn't care, that only his Master knew what was best for him - then spending four years becoming the most hated man in Seasoning City…
"If you just want to talk, and you just want me to listen… that was my problem with you." Mob says, then punctuates, "Master."
A 28-year-old Reigen would've gotten wound up at the boy's attitude, barked a reminder into his face of who was the teacher and who was the student - yet, all a 32-year-old Reigen can do is exhale, letting the steam from his plate dissipate.
"I'm sorry," he manages, and he holds his tongue from saying more.
There's no room for justifications - not when this is the boy whose childhood he ruined.
Mob sits, stock-still, soaking in the apology - eighteen years old, what was once a blank-slate stare comparable to a wide-eyed cat, now resembles a tired glower.
Or, perhaps, that's just the expression Reigen warrants.
Until, finally, the boy blinks, then frowns a little, a nervous bead of sweat appearing on his cheek.
"N-no. I'm sorry. That was uncalled for."
"Nah. Pretty called for." Reigen shrugs. "Didn't even think you'd pick up when I called. Figured you'd've gotten rid of that phone."
"I kept it in my backpack when I upgraded, actually. I was wondering what the hell that noise was, the ringing coming from my closet." Mob exhales through his nose, but the tension's not all gone. "…r-really, though, that interview."
"You can tell me all about it." Reigen leans forward, rolling a chopstick between his fingers. "I just wanted to lend you some privacy."
"Well, it's all over the Internet now, so…"
Welcome to my life, Reigen resists the urge to comment.
"I answered their questions about you. What you taught me and what you paid me." Idly, he folds the pieces of onion over one another - still not eating any of it. "I never watched the TV shows. But everyone knew about you." Fold, fold - just take a bite of it, already. "Including my classmates."
His gaze is muddy.
"They told me the news stories. I told them that wasn't right. That you were my Master and it was all your plan."
The onion, limp as a worm.
"When I got home, Ritsu sat me down. He told me it wasn't right. It wasn't right, how little you paid me. How much you lied." The chopstick's ends, pushed together so tightly, threatening to snip the string of onion in two. "You lied about everything. From the beginning. You thought I was stupid."
"But the worst part was Ritsu's eyes. They were scared." Mob says. "He thought I would be mad about it. That I'd hurt him. Because he said a bad word about you."
"I don't know how to feel about you, Master." Mob's voice cracks - yet, his tone remains steady. "I don't…" his eyes shimmer. "I don't know how to feel about anything."
A part of Reigen wants the boy to start crying - so he could grab him some water, wipe his tears, and wrap an arm around his shoulder, holding him close.
But Mob doesn't cry.
He only sparsely had, in the four years he was under Reigen's care, yet most were a case of ten-year-old tantrums. For Reigen wasn't a child psychologist - Mob went to him for advice, but he was no shoulder to weep on. Not after the day with the ghost family, and not after the day at the Asagiri mansion.
Now, another four years later, Reigen knows, just by looking at him, Mob hadn't cried since.
It wasn't Reigen's place to comfort him - for the damage he caused.
"I'm sorry, Mob," he repeats, and it's feeble, yet it's three words Mob never would've heard from him at 28. "I… really am, for what it's worth. And not just for me."
Mob only nods, taking in a sharp inhale, shutting his eyes tight - and like that, any tears are gone.
"I've had a rough go of it, too." Reigen manages to crack a smile. "So at least you know I'm getting karma."
"I wish I could say you didn't deserve it." Mob deadpans, and Reigen can only cackle at the boy's bluntness.
Yet… it's real, isn't it? Someone as kind as Mob - wishing, desperately, that he could look at the pain of someone he cared about, trusted, bought the pitch of, hook, line, and sinker, and silence the nagging voice telling him to clap at it.
"Come on, yell at me some more." Reigen's half-smile turns to a beam. "Get it out of your system."
…yet, predictably, he's 0-for-2 on Mob getting his jokes tonight.
"I'm not doing that." The teenager says. "You've had people yell at you for four years. I don't want to be one of them." Finally, he scrapes the piece of onion off his chopsticks, and takes a thin slice of pork into his mouth. "This food is nice, though."
"Really?" Reigen quirks an eyebrow, internally trying not to cry a little. "My sister always said I'd find a way to burn juice."
"I don't cook." Mob shrugs. "I only know how to make rice balls."
"Eh, it's a pretty easy recipe, if you have everything." Reigen waves a hand. "Trust me, even if you're shit at it, it feels way better to make something with your hands than it does to just heat up some cup noodles."
"I don't know what I'd make." Mob blinks, twirling onions around his chopsticks. "I don't eat much new food."
"Your brother never take you to a restaurant?"
"We don't…" Mob starts, then stops - then continues, voice lower, "…talk much. Since I started college, I mean."
"Distance?"
Mob stays silent for longer than is appropriate.
Reigen fills it with another clump of rice, not feeling keen on pushing the matter.
It's surreal.
All of it.
Mob - the same, yet so different.
And he's sure Mob looks at him and thinks that, too.
They eat in silence - soon, Reigen's finished his rice, left only with the pork and vegetables. The sun, through the blinds, has since begun to set, dimming the world just a touch.
There's so much Reigen wants to ask about - and one hundred apologies he wants to give.
For all he talks, though, he's not infallible with his words. Mob himself knows that better than anyone.
The only thing, at this point, that will do anything for Mob, is tangible change. Action.
Cleaning up your apartment for a guest.
Dusting off an old cookbook.
Nothing that'll keep the wolves from nipping at your heels, or tip your ashtray into the trash can for good this time.
But… something that makes you feel alive.
Something as simple as feeding a stray cat on your way home from school - it's not yours, and it never will be, and maybe it will die a day, a week, two, from now.
But, for a moment, you can offer it something - and you can do the same for yourself.
When he stands, plate clean, to take his cutlery to the sink, Reigen catches Mob's backpack, pooled on the floor beside his chair.
It's a dull, practical thing - but there are touches of personality, of color, even if not Mob himself's. There's a little clip-on plush alien on the smallest pocket's zipper. There are pencils, spilling out from either pocket, and Reigen reminds himself to nudge Mob to not forget them on his way out. There are crumpled tissues, in the other pocket - faded scribbled stars, hearts on the fabric, and pressed against his nametag, there's a tiny carnival-booth-looking picture of him and that Tome girl and her friends. There's even a hand-cut sticker, on the corner of a binder poking out from its spot - one shaped, colored, a bit crudely, like Dimple.
And, a plastic pin, right beside the clip-on alien - pale blue, pink, white, in stripes, with a little gender symbol emblazoned on its center…
…ah.
Ah.
Shit… shit, would it be weird to ask? Or would it be weirder not to ask? Has it been weird, this whole time?
Reigen clears his throat, and Mob pokes - their? - head up.
"Your, uh, your pin." Reigen motions towards it with the empty rice bowl. "Is there anything you want to be called?"
Mob blinks - astonishment, the clearest emotion that's been expressed tonight.
"I didn't think you knew what that was." A flustered finger sprouts up, rubbing the nose's bridge. A moment of fumbling - surely, Mob's not used to being asked so directly, and Reigen winces in embarrassment. Sorry, kiddo. "Tome-san taught me a lot. I figured it out in high school. Um - they-them."
Blinking rapidly, before curling in on themself, they fumble, again, and at this point the tablecloth starts to float - "it's okay if not, though, I know it can be hard to get used to-"
"Mob." Reigen stops them - sending all the extra silverware caught in their aura clattering back down to the floor. "I'd - uh, I'd give you a good supportive Master-Student Shoulder Touch, but my hands are full."
Eight years later, their eyes brim with hope, just like before, and here Reigen thinks he might cry a little.
"Remember what I said? Protagonist of your own life." He winks, in place of a flashy hand-flourish that'd surely send the plate he's holding flying. "Glad you're figuring yourself out. Can I go ahead and take your plate?"
"Okay."
"Awesome."
He's happy for the kid - really he is.
Yet - as he washes the dishes, wiping down the blade of the knife he'd used to cut chunks of pork… there's a new feeling sprouting in Reigen's chest - one he can't shake.
It's one that doesn't have anything to do with him - with the odd tabloid headlines, or the cruel TV spots, or the paparazzi, or the streams, or the press conferences, or… anything like that.
Eight years ago, he had told the kid at his dining table about knives. What to do with them - or, more precisely, what not to do with them.
Now, he regrets it - and he sees the ripples of it, still.
The way they fold in on themself, their posture boxy and hair straight, bangs grown out over the past four years, hanging lower than before, obscuring even the top ridge of their eyelids in favor of shadowing their face even further… it's all a desire to keep that knife sheathed. Like declawing a cat, or wrapping someone in a straitjacket.
Reigen cringes.
He hadn't known a damn thing about spiritual or psychic powers.
Yet, the advice he gave… It shaped that kid's entire being.
Don't point your psychic powers at another person.
Don't defend yourself.
Don't take up space.
Don't question anything.
Don't exist.
If you don't exist - don't let anyone, anything, in - you won't hurt anyone.
Only then, will you be happy.
What was that - that railroading, that control - but just what Reigen's parents had done to him?
The box they put him in - building frustration, inadequacy, until it all exploded, into a scam psychic business, then, worse, into public breakdowns, into becoming Japan's laughing stock?
Mob couldn't even let themself yell at Reigen - for taking their childhood away, paying them pennies all the while, for molding their head, inside-and-out, into someone who couldn't raise their voice against another person, even at eighteen?
Give me shit, damn it. Show me I didn't fuck you up beyond repair.
…yet, when he pokes his head back into the dining room, Mob is only looking down at their phone, tapping out a text. The sun has long since dipped under the horizon.
Reigen shuts his eyes, exhales.
He thinks about the interview article.
"Why didn't you correct them, Mob?"
They blink, from their phone, to Reigen.
"What?"
"The article. The title, it…" Reigen gestures vaguely. "It called you 'he'. They could see your backpack, right?"
Bringing their arms together, tightening their posture, Mob thinks on it.
"I'm used to people not saying it." They finally answer. "Nobody really asks."
"No reason not to tell them." Reigen shrugs. "It's an important thing for you, yeah?"
"I worry it's an inconvenience."
"Well-" he starts, and something catches behind his tongue, and he knows he's talking about more than a pin on a backpack, "-sometimes you need to inconvenience people. Your feelings matter. The inconvenient ones, too."
Mob's gaze doesn't reach their old Master.
For a moment, he's hurt, but he knows he's lost the grip on them he once had.
They're not a moldable ten-year-old, fearing their own power, toddling into whatever pair of hands would first take them.
They're a legal adult - with more pairs of hands guiding them than one.
He hurt them - he really did.
But they've got the brains to not listen to him anymore. If nothing else, to ask around for a second opinion.
And…
…he wants to be sad at that, a selfish part of him does. He wants to bury himself in smoke, in tabloid headlines, in booze, and cry that the last thread to his old life's been broken. That boo-hoo, the kid he burned it all down for has grown too old for his bullshit.
But he cooked his own dinner tonight - and he doesn't want to leave that delicious shogayaki as a bitter memory.
He doesn't want to let Mob down - yet again.
The sun's down, and they startle at their phone, and murmur that they should get going.
They gather their backpack, the spilled pencils, the binder poking out from the top zipper, and bow a goodbye in the doorway for their Master like they always have.
He doesn't want to leave it here. He feels weary - yet, not the weary he's felt the past four years. Tired, but as if the words keep coming - like there's so much to say, even when the night draws to a close.
Reigen's never been good at being concise.
"Hey, Mob." He calls.
They stop, mid-stride, hand reaching for the handle, and turn. He doesn't know if it will be, but he's prepared for it to be the last time they do - and he takes them in, how they've grown, blossoming in some places and shrinking in others, the fan of their bangs, the tenor of their voice. He wants to commit them to memory - this kid he raised, and he wonders if they'll do the same for him.
He wants to ask about school - what they're studying, for all the connections Reigen's made, surely he can find a back-alley tutor for every major imaginable.
He wants to ask about Ritsu - about Tome, about Teru, about Dimple.
He wants to tell them he's proud - that they've made something of themself, despite it all.
Despite him.
(Or, in hand… because of him - as impossible as that feels to think, sitting in the wreckage of his apartment, bad decision after bad decision… he's made at least one good decision tonight, right?)
There's so much to say - but the sun is going down and the moon is coming up, and Spirits and Such is long gone.
"Take care out there, yeah?" He finally asks. "Don't go letting yourself get walked on by people like me again."
Mob blinks.
Then, a smile crosses their face - muscles Reigen reckons they haven't used in years, and now, now, they really look like an adult.
"I will." They answer, simply, with such conviction Reigen can start to believe them - with such conviction that the tabloids, that Supernatural Detective, that all of it, now feels so, so far away. "But you don't need to worry."
Even in the night, their eyes shine - and there's that smile, not the cute, naive little crescent of a young boy who doesn't know better, but the small, sincere grin, of someone who's stared abandonment, manipulation, all of it, right in the face, and chosen to smile at it anyway.
"I know my Master was a good person."
…
"Thank you for dinner."
And just like that, with the click of the door, with the scuff of their boots, Mob is gone.