Chapter Text
“Your website looks like crap.”
“Excuse me?” Reigen said, looking up from the massive spread of government forms scattered across his desk, confused at his young coworker’s rude interruption.
Or perhaps co-worker wasn’t exactly the right word. Unlike Serizawa, Reigen never actually hired Tome. She had just started showing up at the office one day with Mob, blabbering on about finding aliens and wanting to learn more about the supernatural. Reigen would have tried harder to kick her out, but well, she was one of Mob’s closest friends, and he didn’t want to make the boy sad by offending her too badly.
That, and Tome happened to very loud and... persuasive. The one time and only time he and Serizawa actually did make good on Reigen’s threats to physically drag her out of the office, she clung hard enough to the doorway that they risked breaking the frame if they pulled any harder. So for now, it seemed that she was staying. She was very smug about this.
However– and Reigen would never admit this out loud– Tome wasn’t actually that bad of worker, even if she was extremely annoying at times.
“Your website,” Tome said, pulling Reigen back into the present, “It’s just the worst.” Tome made a face while Reigen began to doubt his earlier brief defense of her role in his company.
“No, like I’m not even kidding,” she said, kicking her rolling chair towards Reigen’s desk. “It looks super sketchy; I feel like I’m gonna get like five new computer viruses every time I open it.”
“It’s not that bad!” Reigen said, offended. “I mean, maybe it’s not the most professional, but I didn’t exactly have the money to hire someone else to make it at the time,” he said, pursing his lips. “Besides, I think it looks nice! All the colors really draw people in,” he grinned.
Tome stared at Reigen, unconvinced. “Oh come on,” he said. “It looks fine! And it’s not like I went into web development blind; after all, I did take a few graphic design courses in college.”
“Did you sleep through them or something?” Dimple asked, hovering over Tome’s shoulder to look at her laptop. “Because if not, I’m not so sure what your excuse is.”
“Wha–what’s that supposed to mean?” Reigen asked, sputtering.
“He means that this is a pink, sparkly, headache-inducing mess,” Tome said, massaging her temples. “I bet it scares off customers.”
“It’s definitely scaring me off,” Dimple said, floating away from the computer.
“I– well for one, Dimple, you’re not a customer, so that doesn’t matter!” Reigen snapped. “Actually, you don’t even work here, so I’m not really sure what business you have participating in a very serious Spirits and Such Consultation meeting in the first place,” he huffed.
“Tome doesn’t officially work here either,” Dimple pointed out.
“Yes I do!” she yelled. “I’m even gonna start getting paid soon!”
“Is that really where we ended that conversation?” Reigen asked with an arched eyebrow.
“It is if you want me to finish this paper work from your last exorcism.”
“Serizawa can do that,” Reigen said, waving her off. “He’s good at that stuff.” He wasn’t, really, but he was definitely improving.
“Bet he can’t fix your website,” Tome taunted.
“Yeah, he can’t, because it’s not broken,” Reigen said, standing his ground.
Tome threw her hands in the air, and then shoved her chair back to stand. She took a deep breath to compose herself. “Okay, whatever. Fine. I’m taking my lunch break, and yes I’ll get you some noodles too because I’m a wonderful employee who only wants what’s best for this company, and my boss,” she sniffed, “even if he is ungrateful.”
“Make sure you get the noodles with pork, not chicken.”
“You’ll get whatever I have enough money for, unless you wanna pay me back for this lunch in advance,” she said curtly.
Reigen groaned, and made a big show of dragging out his wallet from his back pocket, and slowly dropping a handful of yen into Tome’s open palm.
“Thanks old man,” she said cheekily. “I’ll be back in twenty. Don’t get indicted for tax fraud while I’m out.”
“That was one time!” he yelled as she walked through the door.
“One time that she knows of,” Dimple said.
“Yeah, in retrospect there was no way claiming Serizawa as a dependent was going to work out for me,” he mused. It had mostly been a joke at the time, but still, the possibility. Reigen sighed, and then, thinking out loud, said, “I’d probably have had better luck with Shou, Tome, or Teru.” Reigan grumbled, leaning back in his chair. Dimple was just about to pester him further until the other man’s eyes suddenly snapped open wide.
“I don’t trust that look on your face,” Dimple said warily.
“Wait, Dimple, holy crap,” Reigen said. “Do you think I should try and claim one of the kids as a dependent on my taxes?”
Dimple made a face. “Reigen–”
“Obviously not Mob; he has a family so he’s already listed as a dependent,” Reigen said, beginning to ramble. “Also, Ritsu would kill me for suggesting it; he’d probably gouge my eyes out with spoons or something. Tome lives with her aunt, so she’s out too. Shou’s dad tried to take over the world, so I know he’s not living with him– wait a second, where is Shou living?” Reigen said, interrupting his own spiel.
“How should I know?” Dimple said, annoyed.
“That was obviously rhetorical,” Reigen said, waving the question away. Dimple looked unconvinced. “But seriously, where does Shou live? Is he– does he have any family left to stay with? A mother, or maybe an estranged relative, perhaps?”
Reigen had never given much thought to the boy’s life, or really the boy at all. He was like a stray cat, dipping in and out of Reigen’s life, always on the periphery. He didn’t even realize Shou was Toichiro’s son until talking to a very annoyed Ritsu on the way to the school gym after the battle.
“Who knows; kid’s weird as hell. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s holed himself up in some old Claw safe house if I’m being honest,” Dimple said with a shrug. “I’m not even sure Shou goes to school.”
“What the hell?!” Reigen squeaked. This was worse than he thought. “Shit, have we just been letting a possibly homeless, incredibly gifted, psychic tween truant hang around Mob’s younger brother this whole time with no oversight?”
“Well, it’s not like they’re weren’t red flags,” Dimple pointed out. “A kid whose immediate solution to any problem is arson probably doesn’t have an abundance of great role models or social skills.”
“Teenagers who are technically homeless usually don’t have a lot of people to look up to,” Reigen mumbled to himself.
“Yeah, teenagers that are technically homeless usually don’t have a lot of different things,” Dimple affirmed.
“Well fuck,” Reigen said, leaning back in his chair. “Any other homeless teen espers I should know about?”
“Well,” Dimple started, “Teru isn’t homeless, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have parents or something. Kid lives completely alone.”
“What?!” Reigen yelled. “Why did nobody tell me this?!”
Dimple shrugged. “Truthfully, I thought everyone knew and just decided that the two of them would be fine on their own. After all, they made it this far.”
“Jesus! I was joking about that tax-dependent thing earlier, but damn. Maybe I was onto something.”
“Do I even want to know?” Dimple asked suspiciously.
“Yes!” Reigen proclaimed without a single idea about what he would say next. “I, Reigen Arataka, am going to–”
“Um, excuse me sir,” Serizawa said from the doorway. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but I saw Tome when I walked in, and she said you needed help revamping the website?”
Dimple burst out laughing while Reigen seethed. Serizawa, now confused and anxious, began to trip over his words. “It’s just– everything I know was just some coding I learned before the uh, before the Claw, and I– I’m not so sure how much I remember? Or how helpful I can actually be? When it comes to website design?”
“Never mind that,” Reigen said. “Is Shou homeless? And is Teru like, an orphan or something?”
“Um,” Serizawa started, “I’m not sure? About either of those things?” he said. “I know Shou sees his mom sometimes, but I’m not sure how uh, how often that is,” he admitted. “Now that I think about it, I’m not even sure what their relationship is.”
Reigen scrunched his eyebrows, thinking. “Well, that’s not good. As far as we know, two out of four of our teen espers don’t have any meaningful adult supervision, and one might possibly not be enrolled in middle school.”
“Oh God,” Dimple said in realization, turning to Reigen in a panic. “Imagine if you two are the only adults in their lives! You’re horrible role models!”
“Hey!” Reigen said, insulted. “We’re not that bad! I run a local, independent business, and Serizawa is going back to school!” Serizawa smiled softly at the compliment, still sweaty from his earlier bout of neurosis. “We’re great role models!”
Dimple narrowed his eyes. “You were just about to commit tax fraud and Serizawa spent five years as part of an international terrorist organization until he got his ass kicked by a fourteen year old.”
“Didn’t your character growth also begin when you got your ass kicked by that same fourteen year old?” Serizawa said squinting. Reigen snorted.
“Unimportant,” Dimple said, rolling his eyes. “I’m nobody’s role model, so it doesn’t matter what I do. I just hang out here now that I’ve decided not to become god, or take over the world or whatever.”
“That’s not true,” Reigen said. “Mob and Tome look up to you.”
“That’s their problem,” the ghost grumbled, slightly embarrassed. Reigen grinned, arching his eyebrows at his coworker. Serizawa flushed slightly at the attention.
Reigen looked back towards Dimple, and continued. “And yeah, okay, maybe we’re not the best role models per say, but we’re certainly not the worst! Serizawa left the Claw, and now he helps Mob with his math homework whenever he comes in, and I recently started feeding the stray cat the hangs out outside my apartment,” he said proudly.
“Do you have a picture of the cat?” Serizawa said with a gasp.
“Of course! Here, let me find my phone–”
“Reigen! Serizawa!” Dimple interrupted. “Back to the topic of Shou and Teru!”
“Right!” Reigen said, snapping his fingers. “We need to do some investigation, figure out what’s going on with these two. I’m in contact with Mob and Tome’s guardians because the two of them work for me, and it would be weird if I never talked to them about it, right? But since Shou and Teru just kind of hang around the kids, it never occurred to me to ask about their parents,” he said, drifting off into thought. “Damn.”
“And what do we do after investigating?” Serizawa asked.
Reigen shrugged. “Play it by ear, I guess. We need more details before we can make any real plans,” he said, picking up a notepad to jot some ideas down. “We should get Tome to help too; she can work a different angle than us.”
“Are you sure we should get her involved?” Serizawa questioned, concerned. “It might be awkward for her, going behind her friends’ backs like that.”
“I don’t know Serizawa; why don’t you just ask me?” Tome said, annoyed, as she leaned against the door way. She was gripping a soggy bag of takeout in one hand, and had the other braced against her hip.
“Tome!” Reigen gasped. “When did you get back?”
“A few minutes ago,” she said with a shrug. “But I overheard enough of your conversation, and I want to help!” she said, excited. “This way I can finally show Mezato that I can do investigative work too!”
“So you don’t care about Shou and Teru possibly being homeless?” Dimple questioned, confused.
”Oh, I do,” Tome said, “But I also think that whatever’s going on with them, they’re probably fine. They’ve made it this far after all, and they seem pretty well adjusted.” Dimple gestured from Reigen to Tome as if to say, See? Don’t you see what I mean?
Both Reigen and Serizawa ignored him. “Why would you want to prove yourself to Mezato?” Serizawa asked, genuinely interested.
Tome rolled her eyes, annoyed. “Because,” she said, “I’ve been trying for ages to get her to let me have a column in her news paper about investigating spirits and cryptids and such, but the only supernatural stuff she’s interested in is psychics!” she complained.
“Huh,” Serizawa said. “That’s actually really cool, Tome. I hope that works out for you.”
“Oh!” Tome said, surprised. “Uh, thank you, Serizawa. That’s very kind of you to say.” She smiled at her co-worker, who smiled back.
“Guys,” Reigen whined, “Get over here! Let’s figure out how we’re going to do this,” he said. “I still need to finish making headway on my taxes after we’re done planning.”
“Yeah, and fix your website,” Tome said smugly.
“For the last time Tome, the website is fine!”
“Oh. Are you– are you sure about that, Reigen?” Serizawa asked, suddenly anxious again.
“Serizawa!” Reigen cried. “Not you too!”
“I’m sorry! I just think it might look nice if it were updated!”
“Whatever,” Reigen grumbled. “Let’s just get started.”