Chapter Text
Staring again.
Mob chews on his onigiri, teeth clacking as he puts too much force into it. The food tastes of nothing. His fingers drum idly over the faded green plastic of the cafeteria table. It’s most uncharacteristic of him, he’s never been the fidgety type.
The scene before him is nothing new, certainly. Crowded school cafeteria is drowning in greys and blacks, meager sunlight filtering in, swathing the room in a pale haze. At their favorite table by the window Salt High’s most popular students are holding court.
Reigen is telling some kind of story, gesturing wildly with his chopsticks, making the girls around him titter in all the right places, lean in like flowers to the sun, green grass in the swaying wind. His head is lit up from behind, flaring outwards into a messy crown. Golden hair, golden buttons, golden tongue. Just from the effortless way he rolls his shoulders, fluid like a receding tide, Mob can tell that he’s probably lying.
Tsubomi is smiling at him indulgently, incredulously, carefully sifting through her own meal, picking out bits of pork and slipping them into Reigen’s bento while he talks. Mob can’t see it from where he’s seated, but he knows that her eyes are as blue as the bottomless ocean, as beautiful as the starry sky. She leans closer to Reigen mid-sentence, wipes the corner of his mouth with a napkin. He stutters for a moment, catches her hand in a gentle hold.
Mob accidentally bites the inside of his cheek, tastes salt and iron.
It’s the first day of the new semester, cold winds and biting air ushering in the beginning of January. Every lesson today has started with their teachers giving the students stern lectures on the importance of end-of-the-year exams and the need to start preparing for them straight away. Mob sweated profusely through their speeches, his nerves twisting into knots, the classes passing in a stressed daze. He doesn’t think he learned a single thing.
Is it too presumptuous to ask Reigen to study with him again? He offered it himself last time, but Mob thinks he also might have had an ulterior motive for it, so he’s uncertain, worrying endlessly.
It doesn’t help that Reigen hasn’t spoken to him all day. They’ve exchanged a brief smile at the start of the first period (well. Reigen smiled and winked before turning back to the teacher, and Mob just blinked at the back of his head, feeling slow and a little dumb), but then Reigen has been swept away by the chatter of their classmates, endless ebb and flow of greetings, news and friendly exchanges. Everybody has something to share, something to ask, something new to joke about. Everybody wants something of him, and Reigen always shares himself so easily, grandiose exaggerations, honeyed lies and precious scattering of truths given away like meaningless commodities. Rusty arcade quarters, their true value unknown to outside observers.
Mob doesn’t really know why he expected things to be different now. Of course, Reigen is still Reigen, and Mob is still the same too. One night of painful honesty isn’t going to change that. But, but–
(Reigen was quiet on the train ride back. He rested his forehead against the window, swaying back and forth with the rhythmic movement of the train. His eyes were half-lidded, gazing in the middle distance, indifferent to the changing scenery outside.
The silence wasn’t uncomfortable. It was relaxing, nice – sitting side by side with a friend, for once not worrying about how it all could be ripped away, crash and burn around them. Mob was subdued, too, exhausted after staying up well past midnight, whispering secrets in the dark.
“I think my family is afraid of me,” Mob had said, lying back on his futon, eyes trained on the low ceiling. “Sometimes Ritsu looks like he wants to get away from me, and I don’t– I don’t know what to do.”
“Mob,” Reigen’s voice had sounded so soft, trying not to disturb the hushed moment between them. “You caused a few accidents. It could have happened to anyone… I’ve been an accident since I was born.”
Mob had turned to look at him, even though he could only see a faint shape of the bundled blanket. The only source of light had been the glowing snow outside.
“What do you mean?”
He had been afraid that Reigen wouldn’t answer, would close off like he had before, but he had only huffed softly, a muffled dejected laugh.
“You’ve seen my family,” Reigen had whispered. “I look nothing like–… They say I have my mother’s eyes, but that’s hardly helpful, all things considered.”
“Oh.”
“Well… One way or another, I’m still the sole male heir,” he’d chuckled again, bitter, and Mob’s heart had constricted painfully. “Can you imagine the disappointment?”
Mob had wanted to reach out then, to touch his hand again, but it had seemed too forward, the narrow strip between their futons uncrossable.
The train lurched, and Mob’s shoulder bumped into Reigen’s. Reigen glanced at him, turning away from the window, nudged him back playfully. His smile was a small thing, barely a quirk of lips, yet it seemed to lodge into Mob’s chest, settle in his bones.
Long after they parted ways on a crowded train platform back in Seasoning City, he could feel its warm glow, spreading through him like a secret he could barely contain.)
Mob glances up again, against his better judgement. Tsubomi and Reigen are rising from their seats, waving at their friends. Reigen’s arm comes around her waist, casual, confident, and he leans in to whisper something in her ear. Tsubomi laughs, throws him a meaningful look. Mob’s stomach churns.
He can’t look away, that is nothing new, and yet watching them like this is becoming unbearable. Because something has changed. Mob has spent all day yesterday mulling over it, all night agonizing, trying to rearrange the pieces to make the picture make sense. Today, sullen, on the sidelines, he thinks he finally understands.
Mob is still Mob. He knows that he is nothing special. (The truth is, Mob, I’m nothing special. I know that.) But then, neither is Reigen. And, if Mob lets go for a moment of the bright-eyed wonder that has gripped him ever since he was a child, he might admit to himself that Tsubomi isn’t special either. She isn’t an unattainable dream, a distant cold star – just a person… a person Mob doesn’t know very well.
But if all of that is true, if Reigen and Tsubomi aren’t special, in a unique class of their own far outside Mob’s reach, then… that means there is no special reason for them being together, no reason for Tsubomi to choose Reigen, for Reigen to be with her. And if Mob is just as ordinary, if he isn’t off-putting, and disconcerting, and terrible, then there’s no reason why he should be here – quiet and miserable in his lonely corner of the cafeteria, foul emotions growing over his thoughts like green mold – instead of sharing jokes over lunch with the person he… likes.
Tsubomi raises up on her toes to press a kiss to Reigen’s cheek, a playful smile dancing on her lips. The sunlight catches on her hair, makes it glimmer and shine, Reigen’s uniform buttons winking gold. There’s a great wind rushing through the cafeteria, roaring in Mob’s ears like wildfire. It knocks over juice boxes, sends the girls’ skirts aflutter, eliciting gasps and embarrassed giggles.
Reigen’s eyes snap to Mob’s over Tsubomi’s shoulder, his eyebrows rising to his hairline in surprise. Mob stuffs it all down hastily, slamming the lid on the writhing nastiness inside him, finishes his milk in one gulp. He has to get out of here before he does something unforgivable, something stupid like pushing Reigen and Tsubomi five feet apart.
&&&
Jealousy is by no means a pretty thing. Mob spends the rest of the day contemplating it, trying to excise it where it sits heavy and hideous in his chest. He is well aware that he has no right to be feeling this way, no claim on other people’s time or who they choose to spend it with.
Still it won’t budge, pressing on his lungs with enough weight to suffocate, squirming unpleasantly every time he catches Reigen’s questioning looks. For better or worse, he doesn’t come over, still caught up in selling smiles to their classmates, making small talk. How was your holiday? Oh did you see this new movie? Look at what I bought with New Year money! How much can people possibly talk? They’d have to get sick of pointless chatter eventually, right? Ugly thoughts wriggle in Mob’s head like worms, disgusting, sickly green slime, and by the time lessons finally let out for the day, he is about ready to claw through his skull.
He has no business feeling this way, he tells himself firmly, opening his locker with more force than necessary, almost dropping his school bag in his clumsiness. He has been entrusted with something precious, something deeply private, and here he goes immediately taking it too far, acting like he is owed something.
“Heya, Mob!”
Mob’s hand stills where he was pulling out his boots. He takes a slow measured breath, trying to compose himself.
“…hello,” he turns to find Reigen’s carefree face beaming at him.
“What’s up?” Reigen asks making his way to his own locker. “Haven’t seen much of you today.”
And whose fault is that? that nasty writhing thing niggles in Mob’s mind, and he clenches his fist around the straps of his bag. Shut up, shut up!
“Anyways, I figured we should get some ramen,” Reigen continues, changing his shoes, oblivious to Mob’s internal struggle, or maybe tactfully ignoring it, given that there must be an obvious storm cloud gathering over Mob’s head. “It could be our tradition!”
Foreboding, dark and creeping, winds itself around Mob’s throat, squeezing. This is such a bad idea. He is still on edge, angry and confused, and Reigen doesn’t know – or worse yet he’s beginning to guess. Mob can’t let him figure it out, he needs some time to process it, to lock it in a box somewhere and throw away the key.
Reigen shrugs on his jacket and walks to the exit. Mob follows, helpless, feeling like he’s watching a horror scene that he can’t stop from happening.
“How was your day? The teachers really laid it on thick with the exam preparations, didn’t they?”
Yes. It would be nice if you helped me with that. Mob runs his tongue over the part of his cheek he bit earlier, probing the tender flesh, trying to focus. Now is not the time for this.
It’s a windy day outside, the air harsh and stinging. The students huddle together in the school yard, burrow their noses in their scarves. A few crows fly overhead, stark black against the pale sky, and Mob counts them idly, trying to get his racing thoughts under control – one, two, three.
Reigen throws him another strange look passing through the school gate. He seems uncertain, maybe a little worried, and Mob realizes belatedly that he still hasn’t answered him.
“Um,” he says intelligently, and then, before he can snap his teeth around it, “How was Tsubomi’s holiday?”
Reigen frowns. His eyes run up and down Mob’s face, quick, chasing expressions that Mob is desperate not to show. Why did he say that?
“Um,” Mob says again, praying for a change of topic. His mind resonates with white noise, and nothing more comes to his lips.
“She had cram school the whole time, so not much fun,” Reigen replies, still frowning. At least he starts walking again, so maybe he’ll let it slide. “Why are you asking me that anyway? You could have just – talked to her.”
He glances at Mob again, out of the corner of his eye. He says it like it’s so damn easy, and for a moment Mob’s vision swims with green.
They turn into a busy street, advertisements and shop windows a lot less festive now that the holiday season is over, but still gaudy, screaming slogans at them. Anything you want! One-time only! Don’t miss your chance! Mob buries his hands deeper into his pockets, tries to shut it all out.
“Tsubomi and I, we don’t really talk much. Anymore.”
Mob makes the mistake of looking at Reigen. His frown is smoothing out, giving way to a blank look of surprise, but his eyes – oh no, this is bad – they are so clear, so sharp, scanning over Mob’s like he’s reading an open book.
“Why not?” he asks, but it sounds like he’s asking something else.
And Mob, he feels raw, naked, so sure that Reigen sees right under his skin, where all the awful things inside him are writhing green. He knows he is blushing terribly, obviously, tries fruitlessly to maintain poker face. He is normally so good at appearing deadpan, nobody can understand his emotions even when they are screaming to be recognized, how can Reigen pierce through him so easily?
“We-we just don’t,” he stammers, and it comes out pathetic, thick with longing. “We haven’t since we were kids.”
Immediately he wishes the snowy ground would open up and swallow him whole, because Reigen – he stops walking, feet rooted to the spot, mouth hanging slightly open.
“Mob…” he says very carefully, “do you like her?”
Mob runs.