Work Text:
Reigen absent mindlessly clicked through Youtube videos with no discrimination on what in particular he watched. He was bored out of his mind, scrolling through social media while whatever video he picked played in the background. He knew he should be studying for high school exams, but… groan.
Something on his feed caught his attention: a post about a group chat for Pokémon fans. He stared at the screen for a few seconds longer than usual, toying with the idea of clicking the link. All things considered, he really didn’t have much going on in terms of hobbies or… friends. An upsetting realization to make while watching a Buzzfeed video. With a shrug, he followed the link.
After signing up for an account on the messaging app, he familiarized himself with all the settings and jumped into the chat. It was a relatively small group, about twenty people with only a few ever online at a time. He had tried to join similar groups before but was quickly intimidated by the mass amount of people present. With a determination to stay and interact with this group for at least a week, he wrote an introductory post.
He hadn’t built up the courage to start any conversations, mostly just responding to other’s posts with simple statements of agreement. However, he considered himself somewhat of a connoisseur of Photoshop, and with a new game having just been announced, he figured he would test his skills. With a flourish that no one else would see, he got to work, creating, if he had any say, hilarious images. After perfecting them, he sent them into the chat.
Reigen watched the screen for a moment, a bit more anxious and excited than anyone had the right to be in reaction to such a truly inconsequential thing. After a few minutes, he was greeted with a response.
“bulbasaur rights (serizawa): fdhbsjk oh my GOD”
Even though it was a completely typical response to something like this, Reigen was pretty happy with himself. A few more comments shared the general enthusiasm/hatred for the post, and he finally began making actual conversation with some of the others in the chat.
A few weeks had passed since he first joined, and Reigen spent most of his free time talking to some of the people he’d met in the chat, even about everyday stuff. Naturally, he became closer to the small group that was online the same time he was. They played together, hashed out strategies, and joked about whatever. It felt good to have friends with similar interests. That had never happened before.
An even longer time passed, and Reigen found himself not always talking with the entire group, but often having conversations with one person in particular. He was usually on at the same time as Reigen anyway, and even if he posted something to the main chat, they ended up talking just to each other all the same. They began directly messaging each other, battling one another often in game, and even started calling each other during the game to make things easier.
Reigen was naturally a night owl, staying up much later than he ever intended to on school nights. Although lately, that was due to talking with his friend, Serizawa about anything he could. He stared at the dark ceiling as they chatted, focusing only on the other’s voice. Their conversations were typically pretty light, usually just about school or Pokémon or whatever else it is that teens talk about. Reigen typically ended up leading the conversation, naturally a more talkative guy in general. It didn’t hurt that Serizawa was an excellent listener. Tonight, there was a lull in the conversation, Reigen considering hanging up and calling it a night.
“I don’t actually go to school,” Serizawa sighed, breaking the silence. Reigen furrowed his brows.
“But you’re fourteen, right?” he nervously laughed, afraid to overstep his boundaries. “What do you do if you don’t go to school?”
Pause. Reigen noticed Serizawa liked to compose his words more than Reigen did. He actually cared about what he said.
“I just don’t go,” Reigen could hear the shrug of fabric against the tinny microphone. “I stay home, in my room.”
“Ah, if I’d known that was an option, I wouldn’t have gone through with all this high school crap!” Reigen joked, but he felt a bit uneasy about it. He felt like he was tiptoeing around something much bigger than he knew.
An even longer pause. A shaky breath.
“The world doesn’t want me. I’m sure of that,” Serizawa said, his tone bitter and soft.
“That’s not true, Serizawa,” Reigen asserted, trying to summon the right words to say. “I’m part of the world, and I enjoy you quite a bit.”
Reigen could hear the other huff a puff of air from his nose. He tried to imagine his small smile.
“You mean that?” he said in the smallest voice Reigen had even hear, struggling to hear it at all.
“Of course I do,” he didn’t need to consider this response. “Your presence in my life has… meant a lot to me lately, if I’m being honest. I’ve felt a bit… less alone.”
“You know what, Reigen?”
“What’s that?”
“I feel the exact same.”
--
Reigen struggled to put on his best customer-service smile on, barely surviving the morning coffee rush. He punched orders into the register, noting every little change and request the customers had. It was agony. Barely looking up, he greeted the next in line with the generic line.
“One coffee please, room for milk, please,” the man said, one of the more polite customers so far.
Reigen bunched his brows together slightly, something about the order striking him as… odd.
“Name?”
“Serizawa.”
Reigen tore his eyes away from the register and onto the man at the counter, his mouth falling open. His functions broke down for a moment before he shook himself back into reality. His face flashed through a thousand different emotions at once before he settled on a stupid smile. Serizawa looked puzzled by the reaction by his barista. Reigen tapped his name tag.
“Remember me?” he said, hoping to God the answer was yes.
Pure confusion faded quickly into complete surprise as Serizawa met Reigen’s gaze the same way Reigen had moments before.
“Oh my God, no way! Reigen!” Serizawa gasped, goofy grin on his face. Reigen began to laugh until he was reminded of the enormous line building up behind the other man. He whipped a napkin from the counter and scrawled a note onto it, thrusting it at Serizawa.
“Promise me you’ll call me. Today,” Reigen asserted, looking at Serizawa with a deep stare. Serizawa laughed.
“I promise, Arataka,” Serizawa said, his grin shifting into something softer. Reigen reacted to the use of his first name. Had he really remembered? After all this time?
“Okay, I’ll um,” Reigen had lost all his tact. “I’ll get you that coffee. I’m off in two hours, by the way.”
“I’ll be ready, then,” Serizawa smiled as he payed for his drink and walked off. “Talk in a bit!”
Reigen was in a remarkably better mood the rest of the day, anxiously awaiting the end of his shift.