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“It’s been awhile since we’ve had weather like this.” Reigen gazes warily at the sky, which simmers in tendrils of burnt gray. “The city is angry you’re leaving, Mob.”
Mob glances up at the ominous clouds draped over them. He hopes it won’t rain before they reach the bus stop.
“I don’t think the city cares very much, Shishou.”
“Now, Mob.” Reigen furrows his brow, eyeing Mob. “I’m sure everyone’s sad that you’re leaving. What about Ritsu? And Hanazawa-san?”
“Yes...” Mob looks over at his Shishou, who had insisted on carrying Mob’s duffle bag. It’s strange, seeing something of his own clutched in Reigen’s hand. “But you said the city, not Ritsu or Hanazawa-san.”
“Must we really argue about this right now?”
“Sorry, Shishou.”
Mob watches his duffle bag swing back, forth, back, forth, a little pendulum in his Shishou’s hand.
“You know, maybe you should call me something else. Now that you’re...you know.”
“What would I call you?”
Reigen pauses, then puffs out a breath. “I don’t know. Nevermind. Forget I said anything.”
“Do you...not like me calling you Shishou anymore?”
“No! No, it’s only...” Reigen clears his throat, like the words were painful to get out. “I’m not going to be your master for much longer.”
Mob frowns.
“Won’t you always be? At least, in a way?”
“Mob...”
“What, Shishou?”
“So stubborn.”
“Well, won’t you be?”
Back, forth. Back, forth.
Reigen switches the duffle bag to his other hand and says nothing.
Spat!
A raindrop hits Mob’s forehead, then trickles down the bridge of his nose. His Shishou holds out his free hand, looking up.
“Look what you did, Mob.” Another drop spatters onto Reigen’s cheek.
“Is it the “city” again?”
A brief smile tugs at Reigen’s mouth before disappearing again.
“You really are stubborn.”
“I learned it from you.”
“You did not!”
Back, forth. Back, forth.
Mob watches his Shishou out of the corner of his eye. The man is a vision, striding along under a charcoal sky in his suit like he has a business meeting with the oncoming storm.
“I mean it, you know.” Reigen’s hair dances as it’s caught up in the wind. “I think the... city ...really hates to see you to go.”
“The...?” Mob turns to Reigen again, but his Shishou’s eyes are fixed on the roiling sky. Mob’s heart is suddenly in his throat when he notices the smear of pink blooming high on his Shishou’s cheeks. “It does?”
“Well, it’s seen you grow up, Mob. It’s been with you for a long time.”
Little bubbles of something sharp and warm and wonderful burst inside Mob’s chest, and he swallows hard to keep them at bay.
“I think...” Reigen smiles a little, just the corners of his mouth. “I think the city will miss you.”
Mob feels like crying.
“Really?”
“Yes, really, Mob.” Reigen’s eyes look like they want to look at Mob, but Reigen won’t let them. “I think the city might not have shown exactly how much it’ll miss you. But it will, trust me. It’ll miss you...a lot.”
The swish of his Shishou’s pants is such a familiar sound, yet it seems so foreign as Mob contemplates what to say.
“I think I’m going to miss him too.” Reigen skips a step. “It. The city, I mean.”
“Yes, of course.”
Spat! Spat!
The rain is coming down evenly now, making dark dots on Reigen’s gray jacket.
“Sometimes,” Mob continues, “I’m scared to be away from it.” Tall, yellowing grass swishes into the path, reassuringly cool against his fingers. “What if I can’t control my powers when I’m away? What if it’s changed when I come back? What if...” Mob can’t bear to look at his Shishou, whose eyes he can feel examining the side of his face. “...what if it doesn’t want me anymore?”
“Mob.” Reigen’s voice is firm as he grasps Mob’s arm to stop him. “It... I will always be here. For you. I won’t ever turn my back. And if you need me...you should never hesitate to call. Do you understand?”
Mob meets his Shishou’s eyes. They’re level in stature now, with Mob gaining height by the day.
He nods shakily, feeling a rise in the pink and red waves threatening to overtake him; his ribs feel like they are elastic and moving of their own accord. Reigen’s gaze travels up past Mob’s brow where he reaches out to touch the top of Mob’s head.
“Your...”
All at once, Mob becomes aware of the absence of hair against his skin.
“Oh,” he says, eyes and bangs dropping. “Sorry.”
Gravel crunches under Reigen’s feet as he begins walking again.
“Don’t be sorry.”
The sky is crying big, fat, crocodile tears when they reach the cover of the bus station. Mob’s hair hangs in wet clumps and Reigen has long since removed his sodden jacket, stopping to lean against the cover in his white button-up and tie.
Mob scowls as his Shishou lights a cigarette.
“You shouldn’t smoke.”
“I know, Mob. Spare me, please. For today at least.”
Mob crosses his arms all the same, but holds his tongue. This is a very old routine and yet one that never seems to cease, even after all this time.
“Fine.”
Mob hazards a glance at his Shishou. He doesn’t remember Reigen ever looking so good , like that with his coat slung over one shoulder, shirt sticking to the skin underneath, scowl gathering at his features as he puffs away at his cigarette.
The idea that Mob will never see his Shishou this way again tickles at his thoughts. Not as his master, not as his. Mob will leave and come back and things will never be as they have been.
This notion frightens him, and as panic is just beginning to strike at the deep well of his throat, he finds a question launching itself from the cavern that sits in his chest.
“Should I call you Reigen?”
Reigen stops mid-drag and then coughs, letting go of a stream of smoke.
“Mob...”
“Or...” Mob swallows, weighing his options. His voice, when it comes, is very small. “Arataka?”
Reigen stares at him in earnest. He takes a breath as if to say something but then lets that go too.
“You can call me whatever you’d like, Mob.”
“But what if I want to call you that?” Mob’s heart is making a shape in his ribs, he’s sure of it. “Arataka.”
The look on his Shishou’s face is nothing like he has ever seen. His forgotten cigarette is getting drenched in the rain where he sticks his hand out; his eyebrows are knitted together with something like confusion and his lips are parted with something else entirely that Mob recognizes but refuses to believe.
He says, “Mob,” but it comes out tight, choked. Like he’s in great pain. The hand holding the cigarette flicks it onto the ground, where it is absently put it out with a foot.
“What?”
“I...you shouldn’t...” Reigen seizes the bridge of his nose. “We can’t. We can’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“ Mob, ” Desperation rings clear in Reigen’s voice. “Now is not the time for games. I know what you’re thinking and it--it just can’t...” A sigh escapes from Reigen’s mouth. “We just can’t.”
“Why not?”
Reigen scoffs.
“Why not? How old do you think I am, Mob?”
“So you do want to, then.”
“What?”
Mob takes a second, listening to the rain.
“You said we can’t do this...but it’s not because you don’t want to, right?”
“Of course I want--” Reigen’s mouth turns down, frustrated. “Mob, I--”
“Just once.” Mob grabs his Shishou’s sleeve. “Please.”
“Mob...”
“Please.”
The half-warm wetness of Reigen’s damp shirt is not unpleasant under Mob’s fingers as they latch onto its front. Reigen will not look at him; his eyelashes shield whatever he’s thinking.
“Arataka,” Mob murmurs. The shields are hesitantly lifted, although the steady line of Reigen’s mouth remains unbroken.
Mob kisses it and his breath is gone.
He feels air stutter its way into his lungs after he breaks away but already he is craving more, so he leans in again to catch Reigen’s lips. This time they are less unyielding, softening as if they aren’t quite ready to give in yet, but almost. Almost.
Mob keeps carefully silent in fear that if he speaks he will be pushed away. Instead, he puts his hand gingerly, gingerly, on top of Reigen’s, guiding it to his waist.
Reigen makes a sound akin to a strangled whimper and digs his fingers into the flesh at Mob’s hips as he pulls back.
“That’s enough,” he says, quietly. “That’s enough, Mob.”
“Just--”
The remaining words drop from Mob’s mouth as he hears the bus approaching. He jumps away from Reigen, face hot and lips hotter still. Once more, Reigen will not look at him.
Mob watches as the bus draws near, shaking as though there is an atom bomb nestled in his ribcage. His teeth are close to chattering and he wills them to be still as the bus stops in front of the cover.
Reigen turns to him.
“Well, I suppose this is goodbye.”
Tears well in Mob’s eyes and he forces those away too, determined to keep his disaster inside.
“Yes.”
Reigen holds out a hand to shake and it’s too much, it isn’t real, Mob can’t take it. He feels a small noise escape from the back of his throat as he all but flings himself at his Shishou, arms gathering the sodden man into an embrace, and Reigen is still for a moment but then returns the gesture like he feels everything and all of it is bursting out.
It feels achingly right, standing there in the rain on the very last day with Reigen’s arms holding him at bay from the rest of the world.
At last, Reigen takes Mob by the shoulders and pushes him gently back. He nods, and Mob nods in return, and in a fog Mob climbs the steps up into the bus.
He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but when he wakes up he’s crying and the city--oh, God, the city --feels so very far away.