Chapter Text
“What are you in the mood for, bud?” Reigen asks, somewhat absentminded as he squints at the possibilities on the sheet of paper. “Are you thinking a quick bite, dinner, something sweet?”
“What do you want, Shishou?”
Reigen suddenly covers his eyes, making an obviously fake hissing noise as he flails the little paper menu in a limp hand. “Oh wow ouch, my eyes, I can’t read the menu. Choose something for us, Mob.”
Gingerly, Mob takes the menu. He’s not really sure what he wants. “Takoyaki?” He offers before he even looks at the menu. It’s a quick bite and it’s what they always get.
Eyes suddenly seeming just fine, Reigen drops his hand from his face and looks at him. “Really? You can choose anything. You didn’t even look.” He laughs. “You can choose anything.”
He keeps saying that but it doesn’t give Mob any idea what to choose. He thinks back to what he might say if his mind wasn’t preoccupied, but he realizes that he’s always been difficult with decisions like this. “Okay. Uhm, takoyaki.”
“At least...pretend to look at the menu, kid.” Reigen laughs weakly, crossing his arms and leaning on the table top.
Mob straightens the paper menu, looking through it. “Takoyaki.”
Grinning amusedly, Reigen heaves a small lighthearted sigh. “Alright. Sounds good to me.”
Reigen orders the food and the waiting begins. This particular shop isn’t particularly speedy compared to the one closer to the office, but this place has an exceptional quality, making the wait extremely worth it. Plus...Reigen can use the opportunity to talk to his student about what’s going on.
Mob is looking at the cup of milk Reigen bought him (somewhat forcefully), smiling slightly. He’s never really forgotten how much Mob likes milk, so it’s become an occasional surprise to suddenly buy it for him and ambush him at the office with it. Considering Mob’s recent struggles, it’s the least he could do to help cheer him up. “Hey, Mob?” Reigen is leaning back in his chair, trying to fight the habit of leaning too far back and lifting the front legs unstably. The kid looks up, humming through the sip of milk he’s drinking. “Earlier, were you fighting one of those overpowered meltdowns again?”
His eyes widen ever so slightly. He hadn’t realized it, but now that Reigen mentions it, blacking out and coming back to reality felt eerily similar to those episodes. “Ah...Maybe. I think, yeah. What makes you think so?”
The man’s nose scrunches slightly in amusement as he grins. “Your hair-” He gestures vaguely at his own hair. “It stood up like you were in a little thunder storm.” When Mob’s face goes a little pale, Reigen makes a confused noise. “What? It’s okay, you didn’t do anything. You just stood there.”
“...That’s good. Thanks, Shishou.”
Reigen watches him for a few moments before looking away. He rolls a one yen coin between his fingers, flicking it into the air as his eyes wander. Flicking it into the air with a small clink against his nail, he catches it and repeats until he misses the catch and it bounces and rolls off the table. The sound of it hitting the floor doesn’t reach their ears and it levitates backup to fall in Reigen’s unimpressed but grateful hand. “Thanks.” He snickers. “Looks like you didn’t do that emotional energy thing after all, since you’re able to use your ESP.”
He looks reassured, a small touch of a smile on his face as he sips at the milk. “Oh.” He exclaims suddenly, drawing Reigen’s attention. “We should figure out what to call it when that happens. It’d make it easier to talk about.”
Face lighting up, Reigen makes a nonsensical but overly expressive hand motion, it almost looks like he’s trying to shake a bug off of his hand. “Yeah, that’s a great idea. Beats calling it ‘emotional energy thing’.” Leaning his chin on his hand, his head tilts slightly from the slant of his arm. “Have any ideas? Maybe you can name it after how it feels when it happens?”
“Mm.” Mob looks at his hands, wondering what words could possibly be a catch all for the emotions that make his outbursts happen. “Uh, I...Oh, it feels like. It feels like a meter filling. If that makes sense?”
Reigen tilts his head more, eyes trained on the table in thought, humming. “Hmmm...I think I can imagine? Maybe like when you fill a car with gas?”
Mob scratches at his cheek, nodding hesitantly. “Yeah, I think. I’m used to forcing my emotions down, but when one emotion gets too intense, it kind of feels like I’m spacing out and overfilling a glass of milk.” He lifts up the milk, taking a sizable drink before continuing.
…
“So, you’re saying we should call it overflowing milk or something?”
“...No. No, Shishou.”
Grinning a bit, Reigen chuckles and waves it off. “I know. That’s pretty wild though, Mob. I always sort of figured working with you this long would mean I’d know a lot about you and your powers. Somehow,” Reigen looks slightly tired, but it’s obviously for the dramatics. “Your abilities get even more confusing as time passes.”
“Yeah, I feel the same way.” He sounds surprisingly bitter, making Reigen sit upright, hand falling to rest on the table. “They’re confusing to me too sometimes.”
Before he can offer his student some words of advice or anything really, their takoyaki is done and they’re interrupted momentarily. It doesn’t make much of a difference though, as Reigen throws caution to the wind and jumps right back into it. “Sounds like we have something new to focus on on the side!” Mob hums, quizzically as Reigen picks up a takoyaki ball. He nearly shoves it into his mouth but catches himself before he has to deal with the burn on his tongue that would have followed, content in holding it as he speaks. “It’s not good to just completely disregard your emotions, you know. I mean, it’s helpful when you’re fighting other espers I guess, but it seems like just letting you emotions and powers run wild are making you…” He twirls the hand holding his takoyaki, not noticing as Mob has to levitate it back onto its toothpick when it slips off. “Makes things harder more often than it helps.” He shoves the takoyaki in his mouth, waiting to listen to Mob’s take.
Blowing on his own takoyaki, Mob looks thoughtful. “What am I supposed to do.”
Reigen almost chokes on his takoyaki. “You already sound defeated! Come on, Mob. How about we start with just recording what happens. You said a while back that the emotions you feel make things happen differently, yeah?”
“Yeah, I think. It feels different, anyway.”
Snapping his fingers, Reigen leans back in relaxation, happy with the new lead. “Alright, I guess that’s where we’ll start then. Let’s make a list of emotions and what they do to your powers, sound good?” Abducting another ball, Reigen tosses it into his mouth. “Whenever your emotions and powers go crazy, just write it down or text it to me or something. We’ll figure it out together.”
Smiling a tiny bit more than usual, Mob looks surprisingly content as he munches on takoyaki.
They trail off on other tangents, talking about other job opportunities lined up and stuff going on at school. Before they know it, they’re finishing up and saying goodbye to the staff, promising not to go weeks without coming back next time. As they head home, the sky is even more pink than when they stopped for food, right on the brink of turning a lilac purple. “Shishou, should we call it something like going 100%?”
Having forgotten for a few minutes about their earlier conversation, Reigen makes a confused noise. Quickly it comes back to him and he corrects himself. “Hm?-- Oh- Hey, that’s not too bad. You said it was like a gauge filling, so that sounds pretty good.” He ruffles Mob’s hair, making it stick up in places.
Mob is trying to smooth his hair down as they bid each other farewell, heading their respective ways home. Even though they just talked, the tense lump of unexpressed stress and emotions that have been sitting dormant in him since he was a little kid feels...lighter, somehow.