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Reigen Arataka is an emotional man, driven primarily by feeling - though whether or not the main one is fear is another question entirely, a question to which the answer is yes, undoubtedly . The other top contender competing for that top spot, and just barely losing, however, is love.
He has been in love before. Yes, the puppy-love of childhood, and the hormone-fueled love of teenage years, and shortly on the heels of that, unrequited love - and recently, it’s been that tender kind of parental love, a love that ached in his ribs and made him do embarrassingly dumb things like calling Mob “ sport” sometimes.
But not love like this:
Staticky love, adrenaline love, stomach-dropping love. Love ringing in his eardrums at all times, a current beneath the surface of his daily life, his every inhale, exhale, inhale. Love buzzing steadily on the electric pulse of some psychic battery.
Sometimes, his hands shake with the overwhelming force of it.
Then again, Reigen muses, in a rare moment alone in the Spirits & Such office, maybe that’s just what it’s like to be a real psychic.
Like all rare moments are doomed to, the brief solitude ends.
“Shishou,” Mob says from the doorway, “are you okay?”
Reigen slides his trembling hand into the pocket of his slightly wrinkled suit pants. “Of course.” He turns. “Are you?”
Mob is quiet, observing Reigen. Reigen observes him right back and sees a straight nose, straight back, dark hair, dark eyes, dark uniform - a young man. Reigen does not know how much Mob sees in return but he’s sure sweaty must be on the list of attributes.
“I’m doing better,” Mob’s mouth forms the words, rounding them carefully. “Are you?”
Reigen cracks a grin at how his deflection has been deflected back onto him. “I’m handling things,” he says, relenting to his recently ex-student. “Mostly thanks to Serizawa and Tome-chan.”
Mob’s eyes sharpen with humor. “Wouldn’t that mean they’re handling it?”
“Well, they’re helping me handle it.”
Mob begins to angle his body down the hallway. “Okay. I just came by to see.”
“Wait, Mob. Wanna get some ramen?”
A small smile emerges from Mob, shy but present. “As long as it isn’t coming out of my paycheck.”
For the first time in several weeks - for the first time since Reigen had realized he was neck deep in love, or newfound psychic powers, or both, or something - he throws his head back and laughs. Then he ushers Mob out, locks the door behind them, and they clatter down the stairs to their early dinner.
“Say, Mob,” Reigen asks when they’re sitting down, sipping on glasses of water so cold that there’s condensation forming on the outside, “is there anything different about me lately?”
Mob’s dark eyes burn over the rim of his cold glass. His glass sweats onto his fingers. Reigen’s glass sweats onto the table. Reigen just sweats.
“I’d say so,” Mob says, finally.
Two large bowls of ramen are placed in front of them. Reigen barely notices, leaning forward, directly into the steam wafting out of his bowl. “What would you say is different?”
Mob’s eyes drift towards the ceiling of the ramen restaurant. When he looks down, it’s to pick up his spoon and say, “Energy.”
“Energy, huh.”
Mob slurps some noodles, eyes staying trained on Reigen for a moment. Reigen looks down, and gives his bowl a single stir.
“I have two theories.”
“What are they, shishou?”
“Theory one,” Reigen flourishes a finger into the air, “is that I’m in love. Theory two,” he flourishes a second finger, “is that I’ve finally awoken to my long and well buried psychic powers.” Reigen drops his hand and fills his mouth with delicious, salty broth and meat, and continues with his mouth full. “What’s your professional opinion, Mob?”
Mob smiles a small, unreadable smile.
“I couldn’t say, shishou.”
If it’s psychic power, it’s all Reigen Arataka, rising star of the twenty-first century, one-hundred-percent. But of course, if it’s love, then Reigen knows it’s Serizawa Katsuya. Also one-hundred-percent.
Because if Reigen is in love with anyone in this new, unnamable way, it could only be Serizawa Katsuya.
Reigen tries to watch him without watching him, and finds that his memory is cataloguing information with far more accuracy and width than he’d previously thought possible. For instance, the smell of Serizawa’s shampoo; Reigen had caught a whiff of it while tidying up the back of Serizawa’s neck with the electric razor after-hours last week. Or the small creases at the edges of Serizawa’s eyes (light, small, still forming) and the one between his eyebrows (pronounced, practiced) - and how these creases had traded off in prominence while he alternated math problems with conversations with Tome. And his different laughs, not long ago few, now numerous (ranging from nervous to bold).
Reigen had unwittingly memorized it all.
“You’re gawking again,” a bored voice drawls near Reigen’s ear, and he nearly leaps out of his skin.
“Dimple!” Reigen hisses lowly, turning on him, and the bastard’s floating face looks all too smug for Reigen’s liking. “I am not gawking!”
“So why are you whispering like it’s a secret, hm?”
“Because we are on a job , a job which we do not need you for, thank you very much!”
“You mean Serizawa is doing your job for you, and you’re gawking at him,” Dimple retorts, easily dodging Reigen’s annoyed, flapping hands.
“That is not what I mean,” Reigen denies.
“Maybe Serizawa will have something to say about this,” Dimple muses, floating threateningly towards where Serizawa is speaking to the day’s client as they approach her apartment.
Reigen takes two quick steps after him. “Don’t you dare .”
“So you admit to gawking?”
“No.”
“How about ogling?”
“No. He’s literally walking ahead of me with the client, I’m not ogling anybody or gawking at anything.” Reigen has to tamp his voice back down to a hushed level at the end of his small rant.
Dimple’s grin grows from smug to shit-eating in a second, having incensed Reigen properly. “Alright, alright, guess I’ll leave you to it for now,” he says, sounding far too amused for Reigen’s liking, “just remember stick your eyeballs back in their sockets before Serizawa really does catch on.”
He zips from existence as Serizawa glances back at Reigen, catching him leaving. His dark eyes connect with Reigen’s - eyebrows up slightly - and Reigen rolls his eyes with a shrug, mouthing, ‘Dimple.’
Serizawa smiles, shakes his head slightly, and turns back as they arrive at the client’s door. As the client unlocks it, Reigen feels a low hum in the air - feels it more than hears it. The three of them enter and the client babbles on about her cursed object, going to retrieve it.
Serizawa steps into Reigen’s personal bubble (not that Reigen has a very big personal bubble to begin with, and not that he’d even dream of enforcing any bubble between himself and Serizawa). Reigen feels only slightly more electrified than before.
“Reigen-san?” Serizawa says softly.
Reigen turns on a smile as if he hadn’t just been arguing with Dimple moments ago, and then distracted by the still-new presence of psychic energy in his environment. “Yes?”
“It seems to be a pretty small spirit. We’ll see for sure, but I can take care of it.”
Reigen snaps his fingers, noticing the subtle confidence Serizawa has gained as the weeks have flashed by before their eyes, and smeared into months - when Reigen has first hired Serizawa, hearing him say confidently that he can take care of something (no stutter, no ‘I think’ to soften the blow, nothing) had been an alien concept. “Yeah, of course you can. Do what you need to and I’ll do my spiel.”
Serizawa’s eyes squint with his smile this time, crinkling at the corners. “Sounds good.”
Reigen isn’t sure what he did to earn such a warm smile just now, but it warms his stomach in response.
The client returns with a jewelry box, and places it gingerly on her kitchen table.
“Ah, yes, I can feel a strong presence coming from this box,” Reigen steps forward, bending at the waist to inspect it close up. The box does seem to emanate waves of frustration, strong enough that Reigen’s throat tightens. He shakes that off as he peers at the box. “Do you have the key?”
“Yes, right here,” the client replies slowly, holding it out - small and silver. Reigen takes the key and clicks the box’s small lock open, and pushes the lid up.
Inside lays a gold ring - a thick, fat, twisted loop of metal. Definitely cursed.
“Definitely cursed,” Reigen says. “You say you received this from your grandfather?”
“Yes, he left it to me in his will.” The woman twists her hands together in front of her. “I used to wear it but it brought me terrible luck… I lost my job, and then I was forced to move out of my old apartment… I realized it was the ring because of an awful red rash that began on my finger and spread over the back of my hand, which didn’t go away until I locked it away in that box it had come in...”
Reigen nods along as she reiterates some of the details she’d told them in the office. Then, feeling bold, he picks up the ring with two fingers. It feels staticky against his fingertips, as though they’ve gone to sleep and been awoken to pins-and-needles.
The woman goes silent, and Reigen tests the ring’s significant weight. Besides the pins-and-needles sensation, it’s a normal, if not hefty, ring. “Serizawa,” he says, “catch.”
He tosses it and Serizawa fumbles, but catches it nonetheless. “Reigen-san?” He asks, confused. Then he pauses, and holds the ring up to his eye, squinting. “This ring…”
“Exactly,” Reigen turns back to the jewelry box. “It’s not the ring.”
“It’s not?” The woman asks quietly.
“Nope. I think your bad luck stems from this artifact.” He knocks his knuckle on the wood. The sound it makes is unexpectedly loud. “Except for the rash. You might be allergic to the ring, but that’s it. This box, however… Let’s just say it wasn’t too happy to have its precious cargo taken from it.”
“But you can exorcise it, right? Or remove the curse?”
“Oh, certainly, but the cost of exorcising an artifact this size is significantly higher than the cost for a ring.” Reigen steps back and flourishes a pricing list from his breast pocket, explaining. From the corner of his eye, he sees Serizawa fill in Reigen’s vacated spot at the table.
Serizawa holds the client’s ring in one hand, and extends the other to the jewelry box. It’s bathed in a light blue white - just barely visible - and lifts several inches from the table. Their client falls silent, eyes round, as the jewelry box begins to shudder and rattle in the air. Serizawa’s outstretched hand curls into a fist - tightly - and then opens again suddenly; there’s a screech, more light. Reigen throws his arm out to shield the client, but the exorcism is over as suddenly as it began, and the box drops back onto the table with a thud in the silence that stretches in the wake of it.
Serizawa places the gold ring in the center of the box, and then closes it quietly.
“Sorry, Reigen-san. The spirit was targeting you.”
“Ah,” Reigen says, dropping his arm back to his side. “I see. Underestimated it, didn’t I?”
“Only slightly.” Serizawa smiles a little. He looks to the client. “It’s gone, Sato-san. You can use this jewelry box as you’re meant to now. The ring too.”
The woman holds herself stiffly, shocked - and then the rigidness melts into relief. “Oh, thank you so much,” she says, bowing to Serizawa, and before she can delve too far into it, Reigen clears his throat.
“Shall we discuss the pricing, then?”
Once they’ve been paid, they leave the apartment. Reigen splits the money as they walk, and passes Serizawa’s half to him. “In and out in a split second, huh,” he comments, nonchalant. “It’s too bad we don’t get more jobs that are such a breeze, isn’t it? We could be living like kings.”
Serizawa, however, doesn’t reply to that. He folds the bills and slides them into his wallet, and says, “What did you do to the ring?”
“The ring?” Reigen blinks at him as he pockets his own bills. “Nothing.”
“But….”
“You said it yourself, the curse was on the jewelry box. I just took the ring out of it.”
“No, the… the curse was on the ring,” Serizawa replies, confused. “There was a spirit in the box. The one that cursed the ring in the first place.”
Reigen feels, quite suddenly, very sweaty. “Oh, that’s what you meant.”
Serizawa bites his lip. Reigen knows that Serizawa knows that Reigen’s psychic powers are nothing more than an advertising tagline. (Everyone who matters knows this now, in fact; but the tagline wouldn’t be effective if customers didn’t buy in.) “So how did you remove the curse?”
Reigen shrugs nervously. “Guess it just happened.” He isn’t looking at Serizawa, but instead to somewhere off in the middle distance. When Serizawa chuckles, Reigen looks at him with a start, caught off-guard.
Serizawa is looking at Reigen with more tenderness, more warmth, than even his earlier smile. “You never cease to amaze me, Reigen-san,” he says.
Reigen’s ears burn. “Is that so?”
“Yes,” Serizawa says, without hesitation.
Serizawa’s voice sounds small and far away through the cell phone. Unconsciously, Reigen pushes it harder against his ear, as if that will help him hear better.
“And there’s been a rockslide,” Serizawa is saying, “so we’re stuck on the side of the highway until they can clear it up - ”
“I can’t pick you up, then?”
“No, it’s totally blocked, it’s not just the bus…”
Reigen sighs, slightly, regretting his decision to stay in the office today for massages and paperwork while sending Serizawa and Tome off to deal with a minor disturbance a client called about. Serizawa hears Reigen’s sigh.
“Don’t worry about it, Reigen-san, nothing would have changed if you were here.”
“And you know what I’m worrying about how?”
“I think I know you.” There might be a small smile on his face. There’s certainly a smile on Reigen’s. He thinks he can hear Tome complaining to Serizawa in the background. “Besides,” Serizawa continues, “I’ll help the clean-up crew with my powers. We shouldn’t be delayed more than an hour.”
“Well, don’t worry about coming back to the office. We might as well close up early without two-thirds of the staff, you know?”
“So you’re going to start paying Tome-chan?” Serizawa jokes. Reigen hears her voice pick up excitedly in the background.
“No,” Reigen says, playing at disapproval as he leans back in his desk chair and props up his feet. “Serizawa, look what you’ve done, she’s never going to stop pestering me about her pay now.”
Serizawa chuckles. Reigen’s heart tugs, as if it wants to pull him in Serizawa’s direction - wherever that is from here.
“I kinda feel like you deserve that. I mean, you paid Mob-kun, even if that was only a matter of pennies,” Serizawa is saying, but Reigen is too caught up with his hand on his chest to quell his heart’s leaping.
“...yeah,” Reigen says after a moment. Then, because Reigen Arataka is a man fueled by emotions (fear and love primarily), he says, “Say, Serizawa, when you get back in town this evening, how about I treat you to dinner?”
“We were talking about Tome-chan’s pay, not mine.” Serizawa sounds amused.
“No, no, no, no, that’s not what this is about,” Reigen backpedals (that pesky primary motivator, fear, quickly taking over). “It’s about…. congratulating you. Hasn’t it been a while since you started working here? Almost a year? I was just thinking about how far you’ve come. Doesn’t have to be dinner tonight. Just, perhaps. You know. Sometime.”
“I...I’d like that,” Serizawa replies, voice soft, but still all too far away. “Um. I - I’ve got to go - start helping out with the road.”
“Of course, of course,” Reigen replies, feeling like perhaps his excuse hasn’t worked, and that Serizawa has seen through him. “Be safe. I mean, I know you will. Keep the others safe. Keep Tome-chan safe.”
“I will,” Serizawa says, sounding - if possible - more distant than before. “See you tomorrow, Reigen-san.”
“Bye, Serizawa,” Reigen says, and the distance of Serizawa’s phone line drops into silence. He takes the phone away from his ear, and sets it down on his desk. He feels like he’s just run several kilometers.
With a shaky breath, he hovers his hand above his phone, wills it to hover the three inches off the desk and into his palm, with this excess of energy coursing through his veins.
Predictably, nothing happens. Reigen drops his hand onto the wood of his desk.
He decides to close up early after all.
The next day, Tome-chan arrives after school, because of course she does, pay or no pay. Serizawa is out on an errand and Reigen is attempting to teach himself how to juggle with several pens (not an ideal object to learn with, but he’s bored enough to give it a go). Tome-chan’s noisy entrance startles the pens out of his hands.
“Agh, look what you’ve done, Tome-chan!” He complains, turning on her. “Now I have to start over.”
Tome gives him a deadpan look as she drops her backpack behind Mob’s old desk, now hers. “Start over with what, exactly?”
“With juggling, obviously. I had a rhythm going and everything.”
Tome snorts, “Not from what I saw.”
“Hah? Hasn’t anybody ever taught you not to be rude to your boss?”
“You’re hardly my boss,” Tome replies. “Especially if you keep refusing to pay me!”
“Hey, I pay for all those snacks you eat here! Isn’t that enough?”
Tome plops into her seat and pretends to consider that. Eventually she says, “No,” with a cheeky grin, “but if you start buying melon sodas and putting them in the fridge, I’ll consider it a fair arrangement. For now.”
Reigen makes a show of giving her a put-upon sigh, but he’s smiling. “You drive a hard bargain. That’s gonna be a good skill later in life. But not here, Tome-chan. You get what you get here.”
He knows he’s going to start stocking the office up on her favorite sodas anyway. Based on her smug look, she knows it too.
They fall into companionable silence for a while. Reigen abandons juggling and takes up trying to spin the pens around his fingers, while Tome scratches away at some homework between scrolling idly on her phone. Eventually, she speaks up.
“Say, Serizawa-san said you broke a curse last week. By yourself.”
Reigen fumbles with his spinning pen and it skitters across the surface of his desk. When he grabs it and looks up, Tome has her head tilted to the side as she looks at him.
“Well? Did you?”
“That’s the word on the street.”
“Serizawa-san is terrible at lying.”
“So you believe him?”
Tome lifts an eyebrow, as much of a reply as she’s currently going to give. Reigen sweats and notices the pencil she’s holding has neon green alien faces on it.
When Reigen offers nothing, Tome slumps over her math book. “Geeze! And you made such a huge deal over not having psychic powers back when I started here, too!”
“I still don’t have psychic powers.”
“So how’d you get rid of a curse then, huh?”
Reigen’s eyes skitter between Tome and the shadow of Serizawa forming behind the door’s fogged glass window before it opens and Serizawa emerges with a grocery bag dangling from one hand.
“I don’t know,” Reigen rushes to say as the subtle psychic hum in his eardrums becomes just a little bit louder. “Sometimes things just happen.”
“Sure , like pop quizzes in history class,” Tome complains dramatically. “Not breaking curses ! I wish I’d been there! It must have been so cool! Or - maybe not. Serizawa-san,” she suddenly addresses his presence, not sitting up in the slightest but managing to catch Serizawa’s eye as he sets the shopping down on the coffee table. “You have to tell me. Did he looked shocked he’d done it? Or smug? Or was he shocked and covering it up with a smug look?”
“Actually, I don’t think Reigen-san even noticed,” Serizawa fills her in, glances somewhat nervously to Reigen, before busying himself with emptying his shopping bag. “I asked him the same thing when we left, and it was news to him.”
Tome is now looking at Reigen like he’s grown a second head.
Reigen crosses his arms defensively. “Like I said, sometimes things just happen.”
“Are you sure?” Tome asks suspiciously. “Because if you figured out a way to gain psychic abilities…”
“Nah, nah. Pretty sure those guys at the Awakening Lab or whatever would have figured it out first, years before me .” Reigen waves a hand around. “Whatever this is, it’s nothing.”
Tome glances at Serizawa, who’s now busily storing his purchases in their proper spots. Skeptically, she says, “If you say so.”
Dinner with Serizawa is, as Reigen hoped (and feared), very good.
The food was good, of course, but the company was better (though Reigen isn’t certain he qualifies as good company himself when he’s half-distracted by Serizawa’s deep laugh in the middle of a story about one of his teachers, and when the other half of his attention is devoted solely to remembering to wipe his sweaty palms on his thighs before he does anything else with his hands, which breaks down to be about a dozen times throughout the entire meal). Reigen finds himself running high on energy that might as well be half-psychic and half-love.
It’s late when they’ve finished up. Reigen is paying the bill, as promised, when Serizawa says, conversationally, “I talked to Mob-kun the other day.”
“Oh, nice. You know, he came by the office last week and we got ramen.”
“He mentioned that!” Serizawa is grinning, and Reigen notices something sly in it only a moment before Serizawa says, “He mentioned something else, too.”
Reigen lifts an eyebrow. “Which was…?”
“Your two theories on your newfound curse-breaking abilities.” Serizawa leans forward, playing the part of a conspirator, complete with an impish grin tugging at half his mouth.
The pose, the grin, the topic - they all make Reigen nervous. He supposes Serizawa could have theorized about Reigen’s newfound psychic abilities on his own, but if Mob had told him Reigen’s second theory - and this was Mob, so Reigen had no reason to assume he’d have hidden this from Serizawa - well. Well.
“Well, now, I wouldn’t put it like that. I hadn’t exactly broken any curses yet when I talked to Mob… I’d even argue that I’ve hardly broken any curses now. Like I was telling Tome-chan, sometimes things just happen.” Reigen waves his hand around. “I wouldn’t give any substance to my own theories. You know me, Serizawa. I love to hear myself talk.”
“Even so,” Serizawa is amused. “I was just thinking we could try to prove one of your theories. Or disprove one of them, or prove one and disprove the other, or…” He becomes more nervous as Reigen watches him talk. Eventually, Serizawa trails off, and then clears his throat. “If you’d like.”
A sharp knot forms in Reigen’s stomach - something like anticipation spiked with adrenaline. “Now there’s an interesting idea.”
“Y-yeah?”
Reigen nods, tapping his chin with his fingers. “What exactly are you suggesting?”
Serizawa twines his fingers together in front of him, ducking his head for a moment. “A-ah, I was thinking… I’ve already seen you break a curse, but you could try using psychic powers in a different way - see if it’s repeatable, you know, the scientific method and everything…”
Reigen shakes his head. “I’ve tried that. Can’t even levitate a pen.” He twirls the one he’d used to sign their bill moments ago, tosses and catches it. “See, there’s nothing special about - ” The pen goes flying off the side of the table. Reigen startles to catch it again but it clatters to the floor.
Serizawa floats it back onto the table and Reigen watches with amusement.
“See? Other than what seems to be a bit of extrasensory perception, I can’t do shit.”
Serizawa relaces his fingers and anxiously presses his thumbs together. “Well, have you tested your other theory?”
Reigen leans back in his seat. “It’s a bit harder to test that one.”
Serizawa is looking at him, eyes wide. That familiar crease has reappeared between his eyebrows, and Reigen is taken back to Serizawa’s first day at the office, if only for a moment. “Why?”
Reigen waves a hand around once again. “Oh, you know, emotions, love, it’s all very complicated, and who truly knows their own heart, eh? And certainly, it’s near impossible to know the heart of another - ”
“Not if you ask, and they answer.”
“Weren’t you listening? Even if I asked, and they answered, how reliable is that? Their perception of their own self?”
Serizawa snorts. “It’s a lot better than nothing.”
Reigen waves his hand more frantically. “It’s inconsequential.”
“I promise you it’s not.”
Reigen attempts to avoid looking directly at Serizawa, and fails, completely. How earnest his face is, how open - it makes Reigen’s breath catch as he inhales. “Why does this matter so much to you, Serizawa?”
“You’re my friend. I want you to be happy.”
“And you think figuring out all this psychic powers or love stuff is gonna do that?”
“It might.”
“I think it might just make my life more complicated.”
“And I think you’re being a bit stubborn.”
Reigen can’t deny that, and their conversation lapses into silence for a moment. He looks away, heart squeezing for all of Serizawa’s goodness .
“Reigen-san,” Serizawa leans in, over their empty dishes and cups of slowly melting ice. The table is small; Reigen knows he’s close without having to turn back. “Who - ”
Reigen swallows, but it’s useless. Love-fear-psychic-energy has its fingers knotted tight into his chest, tangled up in his ribs. His armpits feel helplessly damp. “You.”
“Me?” Serizawa looks thrown off.
“That’s what I just said Serizawa. You.”
“Me what?”
“Who… who I love .” He swallows thickly. “If it’s love. I don’t know if it’s love. But if it is, then it’s you. Obviously.” He runs a sweaty, damp hand through his sweaty, damp hair, and then tries to surreptitiously wipe his hands on his thighs.
Serizawa is quiet. Reigen glances anxiously towards him, and finds Serizawa looking at him with such a gentle, open expression. The only thing that betrays surprise is the hinge of his open mouth.
“I - I don’t understand,” Serizawa leans back, running a hand through his own short hair (growing out again, always growing out, that man’s unruly hair). “Me? Really?”
“Yes,” Reigen says with bluffed confidence. “How could I not fall in love with you?”
“Because I was in Claw . We destroyed the city.”
Reigen brushes that off. “So did Mob, and more recently, at that.”
“I’m horribly socially inept.”
Reigen raises an eyebrow. “Not recently. You’re a fast learner.”
“I don’t even have a highschool diploma.”
“You’ve got a steady job and income despite that. Besides, you’re working on it now. I don’t think I’ve met a better student, besides Ritsu-kun.”
Serizawa grins at Reigen, red-faced and absolutely happy. Reigen can’t resist the honest smile he gives him in return, but then has to look away again, feeling like his throat is closing up a bit.
“Anyway, there’s nothing to test,” Reigen says, stretching his arms above his head to feign ease, trying to dispel the overpowering feeling in his throat. “You don’t have to do or say anything. That’s not why I told you.”
“Then why?”
Reigen shoots Serizawa an unamused glance for the sly tone he’d used. “Because you were cornering me,” he declares. “I had no choice.”
“What, have you finally found somebody you can’t talk circles around?” Serizawa asks, amused.
Reigen snorts and dodges an answer, pushes his chair back, and pulls his suit coat over his arm. “Let’s head out, eh?”
Serizawa stands and grabs his jacket from the back of his chair. “Reigen,” he says as Reigen begins to brush past him, towards the exit, towards fresh air and space to process. “Wait.”
“What?”
Serizawa steps in quite close. “I’m glad,” he says, then pauses. Reigen waits. When Serizawa continues, his voice is much softer, “that you love me.”
“Like I said,” Reigen replies, all that love tangled and beating in his chest seeping into his voice, “I’m not sure how I couldn’t.”
Serizawa smiles and ducks his head, face glowing red. Reigen gestures to the door and Serizawa nods. It’s only once they’re outside in the cool evening air that Reigen realizes how loud the restaurant was, and how warm; he can feel the noise and humidity at his back, against his neck, until the door shuts behind them and the interior is muted.
Reigen pulls on his jacket and leads the way down the road to the bus stop, Serizawa only a half-step behind. Telling Serizawa that he loves him had gone - surprisingly well, he reflects. Unnervingly well. He has to find a way to quit while he’s ahead; otherwise, he knows he’ll wind up sticking his foot in it, and screwing something up. Royally. (Because Reigen has never been known to half-ass anything, especially getting himself in trouble.)
He sits at the bus stop, attempting to look casual with an arm over the back of the bench, and clears his throat, eyes cast down the road. “Serizawa,” he says as the bus turns the corner - a small mercy. He stands again, and rushes to say, “I meant it earlier, that you don’t have to do anything about… this. It doesn’t have to change anything.”
Serizawa has his hands clasped in front of him, jacket over them. Reigen is sure he’s fiddling, even if he can’t see it. “I know,” he says. “And when I said I’m glad, I meant that. And - ”
“Well, would you look at that, this is my bus,” Reigen interrupts, “I’ll see you at the office, hm? Just like normal. The normal, every-day office. For normal, every-day work.”
Reigen is certain he could power any number of electronics right now, running high and fast on fear-psychic-love energy. It had gone well. It had gone well, and he needs Serizawa to let him leave it here, because he’s not equipped to face the unknown any more than he already has in the past ten minutes. Maybe they can discuss love and psychic powers again another day, but not now.
Serizawa is a little thrown. “I wouldn’t call Spirits & Such that normal, unless you compare it to Claw.”
“That’s what I meant.” Reigen brandishes his bus pass from his pocket as the bus stops in front of them, noisily. A few people disembark and Reigen pushes passed them. “Goodnight, Serizawa.”
He steps onto the bus and swipes his card. He quickly begins to make his way to a seat.
“Wait!”
Reigen twitches, and can’t resist turning at the burst of Serizawa’s voice. Serizawa is on the bus, fumbling through his coat pockets. Reigen goes back.
“This bus doesn’t go by your place, Serizawa.”
“I know. It’s fine. Where’s my pass… ”
Reigen, still holding his, swipes for Serizawa, who looks immensely relieved. As they find two seats together - Serizawa against the window and his knees up a bit to make up for the lack of adequate leg room - Reigen is anything but immensely relieved. He is, in fact, immensely anxious, and sweating bullets, and he thinks he’s failing to conceal that fact. He may have been failing to conceal it all night.
“Why did you get on this bus, Serizawa?”
“I - I need to say one last thing.”
“And it couldn’t wait until tomorrow? You’re going to have to get off and wait for a different bus, you know. You won’t get home ‘til it’s late. And I expect you to pay me back for that swipe. These cards don’t refill themselves, you know. Maybe I’ll take it out of your next paycheck.”
“Okay,” Serizawa wilts a little bit, but only for a moment, his gaze peeking over to Reigen, sharp and serious. “But this is important.”
“Alright, fine, what is it then? Just spit it out.”
“I’m - I’m glad you love me, not just because you see all the good things in me when I don’t,” Serizawa says, his voice soft in the quiet interior of the bus, just over the rumble of the engine, “but also because I love you, too.”
Reigen jolts. “What?”
Serizawa’s face is flushed. “Yeah.”
“No, I mean,” Reigen stutters, fumbles at the air. “What?”
“I - I said I lo- ”
“Don’t say it again !” Reigen clutches at his heart, beating wildly.
Serizawa looks hurt, eyes flickering down to his hands, curled tightly on his knees. “Oh, okay…”
“Don’t look like that, stop that,” Reigen feels guilty. “I just mean - I wasn’t expecting that. Repeating yourself is going to give me a heart attack. Are you sure ?”
“I’m sure,” Serizawa says quietly.
“I wasn’t expecting that,” Reigen replies, just as quiet.
“Clearly,” Serizawa teases him, fondly. “I had to jump on a bus I never take just to tell you.”
Reigen bats him on the arm and Serizawa snorts. Some of the tension melts away, along with the fear making Reigen’s heart pound sickly, leaving him awash in only relief, love, and a low psychic hum.
They don’t talk about it the rest of the way to Reigen’s stop - they don’t talk about anything, in fact. They sit quietly, occasionally catching eyes and grinning, before glancing away. It makes Reigen feel young again, and supercharged. When Reigen’s stop comes, he stands, and Serizawa waves.
“Do you want to come to my place for some tea?” Reigen blurts. “Instead of riding all the way down to the end of the line, or whatever your nonexistent plan is?”
Serizawa looks up at Reigen, head tilted back, for a moment. Then he nods.
Upstairs at his apartment, Reigen bites his tongue on any disclaimers that may have otherwise spilled out ( it’s not much , or sorry for the mess ), instead unlocking the door quietly and flicking on the light with an offer of, “Make yourself at home.”
“Sorry for intruding,” Serizawa murmurs as they both toe off their shoes. Reigen leaves his in a pile and goes to the kitchen to start the kettle, while Serizawa pushes his neatly against the wall before following him. From the kitchen doorway, he says, all at once, “Reigen, I’ve never been in a relationship before, so I don’t really know… anything. About how it’s supposed to go.”
Reigen shuts off the tap, the kettle full. “Well, all relationships are different, so that’s fine,” he says. “But - just to be clear, I mean, do you want a relationship? We didn’t talk about that, so much as just… love.” He turns. “And people can love each other, or even be in love without dating, and…there’s a lot of wiggle room.”
Serizawa nods once, face serious and red. “If you’ll have me,” Serizawa says, “I think I would like to date you.” He seems to be restraining himself from bowing formally.
Reigen smiles, a tug in his chest unlike anything he’s felt before, and he can’t resist teasing. “Dating your boss is a pretty tricky thing to start with right out the gate, you know. Think you can handle that?”
“I - I’ll do my best!”
Reigen laughs at his serious, rigid posture. “Serizawa… Katsuya-kun?” He toes the line, and continues when Serizawa’s face lights up. “Really, a relationship between two people is whatever those two people choose it to be. There’s no rules or obligations unless we make them. We could go on like we normally do, or we could go out on dates, or we could do… this. Staying in together for tea. I’ll go at whatever pace you’re comfortable with.”
“What about the pace you’re comfortable with?”
“To be completely honest with you, this pace is already far beyond my comfort zone,” Reigen states flatly. “I’m not sure all the logical parts of my brain are keeping up with what’s happening, so I’d say my sense of pacing is shot.” When Serizawa looks worried, Reigen says, “I certainly wasn’t planning to confess to you tonight, and not in my wildest dreams did you ever return any feelings, so I suppose you can imagine what I’m going through.”
Serizawa laughs, charming and bold. “Fair enough. I suppose there’s no rush to figure everything out.”
“Of course there isn’t! Now, what kind of tea do you want? Black tea? Green tea? Oolong? If none of those, there’s a corner store we could walk to, and...”
“No, no. Green tea is fine, please.” He hesitates, but only momentarily. “Arataka-kun.”
As Reigen turns to the cupboard to pull down mugs and tea, he feels like a fully charged battery, the current still running through. With no more storage space for all that energy, it’s warming his stomach, loosening the knot in his throat, buzzing into his fingertips. As he starts the kettle, he realizes an unconscious grin his splitting his face.
He sits down with two mismatched mugs of green tea, the steam curling lazily towards the ceiling as he and Serizawa warm their hands around the ceramic. They drink in silence for a few moments, repeating their giddy behaviour from the latter half of their bus ride - glances, red faces, bashful and wondering grins, even a giggle. They talk in low tones of nothing much until they’ve finished their drinks, and Reigen offers to walk Serizawa back down to the bus stop.
“I knew you were a gentleman, but it’s different to be the one on the receiving end of your charm,” Serizawa bashfully gathers his coat and takes his mug to the counter. “I - I think I can make it to the stop, though.”
Reigen’s stomach flutters when Serizawa calls him charming. Charming . Not Reigen’s first descriptor of himself, but one he can accept when it comes from Serizawa. “If only to preserve your pride, I’ll just walk you to the door.”
Reigen leaves his mug on the table, and they go to the door. Reigen stands in his socks as Serizawa pulls on his shoes (shiny, cared for; he must pay careful attention to them as part of his professional uniform). When Reigen steps close to him under the guise of reaching for the door, their eyes connect like magnets, and Reigen can smell the green tea on both of their breaths. He just barely catches Serizawa glancing down to his mouth, and had Reigen not been so electrified already, he’d surely have been sparking now.
“Arataka-kun….” Serizawa ventures, softly - his name just a warm breath.
“Yes?” Reigen responds just as soft. The moment feels delicate.
“Can I….?”
“Yes,” Reigen replies without needing Serizawa to finish his question. He exhales - shakily, he realizes, distantly, and waits through several quick heartbeats. Serizawa is hesitating, face betraying more nerves than before.
“I’ve never…”
“It’s okay.”
“But it might…”
“It’s okay.”
“I’m not…”
“Katsuya.”
Serizawa’s eyes flicker quickly up to Reigen’s, and Reigen decides that he’s got nothing more to lose in this moment - Serizawa has accepted Reigen’s new form of love, his newfound temperamental extrasensory perception. Hell, he’s even returned that very love in a move that had smacked Reigen upside the head and nearly given him whiplash. Serizawa welcomed the idea of a relationship (asked for it, even) and the least Reigen could do - the very, very least - was place a steadying hand on Serizawa’s arm, push himself up onto his toes, and kiss the man.
It was a warm press of lips that lasted only a moment, a short kiss. But the moment of connection was an opening of floodgates. A familiar static buzzed rushed into Reigen’s senses, filling his ears and sinuses, and alighting just under the surface of every square centimeter of skin. Short hairs stood straight up, all over his body, and gooseflesh broke out along his arms.
With a gasp, he falls back onto his heels.
Serizawa’s eyes are round as he touches two fingertips to his bottom lip. “Is that… normal?”
Reigen’s fingers tighten around Serizawa’s bicep. “Not in my experience.”
Serizawa’s expression begins to tighten and close in on itself, “I’m sorry-”
“Who said it was bad?” Reigen interrupts.
“It…wasn’t?”
“The word I might use is exciting ,” Reigen admits, and then his eyes round out, comically fast, to match Serizawa’s initial reaction. “Wait, do you know what this means for my two theories?”
Serizawa looks as if he’s trying to keep up with the sudden topic change and failing to do so satisfactorily. “Uh, what?”
Reigen leans up on his toes, nose close to Serizawa’s once again. “I think it means that it’s not a question of psychic energy or love, but a question of and ,” he says, “ And , I do think we’ve found the answer - the answer being yes .”
“Yes?” Serizawa repeats, that crease between his brows betraying slight confusion, but his grin showing only amusement.
“Yes,” Reigen says eagerly, and kisses Serizawa again.
The second kiss is just as electrifying as the first, and the third the same; as the kisses get longer and deeper, the feeling concentrates in Reigen’s stomach, a twisting ball of excitement and heat as he presses himself against Serizawa - broad, tall, inviting Serizawa who kisses him back, at first tentative and uncertain. In the face of Reigen’s overjoyed eagerness, he soon melts, his wide hands coming to rest on Reigen’s slim waist and then staying there as he begins to pick up the rhythm of their lips. Reigen is only proven right about Serizawa being a fast learner.
Though Reigen has had some experience with kissing - and yes, sex - that doesn’t mean he’s exactly in practice. His time over the past few years has been rather consumer by his business, his expenses, and his student. But a few of his old dirty tricks come back to him with ease: a nibble on Serizawa’s lower lip brings forth a sharp inhale, and Reigen’s tongue, sliding over the same spot in the next moment earns Reigen the treat of hearing Serizawa make a rather low noise on his exhale. Serizawa loses his balance slightly, and the two of them stumble backwards, Serizawa’s shoulders hitting the wall of the small entryway first, before he flattens himself there, partially due to Reigen pushing him there with his entire body - chest to chest, Reigen’s stomach to Serizawa’s hip.
In the moment between kisses, backed against the wall, Serizawa says, “You taste like tea.”
Reigen kisses him (because he thinks that he’d like to never stop, now that he’s had a glimpse at how good this could be, and a reminder of how long it’s been since he’s been touched like this - or touched at all). “So do you.”
Serizawa laughs breathlessly, red-faced. “It’s - I mean, I guess I never thought about how that would - would happen,” he stutters a bit. “If you kissed someone who - who had just eaten something, or…”
Reigen nods, aware of an ache in his calves from staying on his toes. Falling to flat feet, he pulls Serizawa down a few inches with him by a grip on his jacket lapel. “Funny, that,” he mumbles in agreement. “I suppose we’ll have to eat less onion and garlic if we’re going to make a habit of making out just inside the door of my apartment.”
“Or - or anywhere, for that matter,” Serizawa says.
Reigen grins. “Are you suggesting we take this elsewhere?”
“We…. could.” Serizawa’s gaze takes a downwards tilt. “I mean, if we stay here, you’ve been standing on your tiptoes…”
“Only a little bit,” Reigen banters.
“Only a little bit,” Serizawa concedes, “but we could - sit? On the couch?”
“Sure, sure, in a minute,” Reigen breathes, eyes falling lidded, and Serizawa understands the message, closing the gap between their mouths once more.
Truth be told, Reigen enjoys the height Serizawa has over him quite a bit - it’s something he’d noticed during exorcism jobs in the early days of Serizawa’s employment, when he’d still hung behind Reigen’s shoulder with an uncertain air, primarily watching Reigen’s showboating, and only acting when a spirit posed a real threat. It had taken Reigen some time to adjust - he was used to having a small shadow with a bowl cut, after all, not a large one with dark bristly hair at the back of his neck and on his cheeks. But once Serizawa had become a given at Spirits & Such, Reigen - while slim, not small - had realized that Serizawa’s broad shoulders and height made Reigen feel safe.
One of Serizawa’s hands moves from Reigen’s waist to the dip at the small of his back - a small change, testing the waters. Reigen hums contentedly to let him know he approves of being touched more, and Serizawa takes the encouragement to heart, wrapping his arms fully around Reigen, time with the first careful flick of his tongue.
It’s hot against Reigen’s upper lip, and it sparks the electricity that had settled hot in Reigen’s stomach, wrenching a whimper out of Reigen’s throat. Serizawa hesitates, pulling back slightly, feeling it too. All Reigen can do with the breath of air between their lips is whisper, “Katsuya-kun…”
“A- Arataka-kun? Is that … okay?”
“It’s more than okay,” Reigen reassures him. “It’s fucking wonderful .” He glances to the still-locked front door beside them, then to the couch in the front room. Then the door again. “How about that couch now, hm?”
Serizawa nods, and Reigen steps back slightly. It’s as though Serizawa has magnetized the warmth and electricity inside Reigen, as the warmth in his gut urges him to step back in, to be circled in Serizawa’s arms again.
“Though,” Reigen says, willing himself to stay where he is - not an inch closer, not an inch further - “you’ll probably miss the bus if we do that.”
“Oh? The time…” Serizawa mumbles, fumbling his phone out of his pocket to check it. “...You’re right. They stop running in half an hour...”
“You could… spend the night.”
Reigen watches as several emotions flicker across Serizawa’s open face in such quick succession that if Reigen had to name it, he’d likely call it reliefexcitementfear .
“There’s the couch,” Reigen goes on, tentative, “which I’d be happy to take, since it’s kind of small, or, of course, we could… do this again sometime soon, when it’s not…..” He glances down at Serizawa’s phone. “Nearly eleven.”
“I - I’d like that,” Serizawa agrees.
“Think you can still find your way down to the bus stop?” Reigen asks, a bit of a joke to cover up unwarranted disappointment - after all, he’d acknowledged himself that this was all very fast, for both of them.
“I think so,” Serizawa says, looking a bit bashful. He moves to the door, before hesitating. Then, boldly, he steps back in and kisses Reigen one last time - short and soft. “Goodnight, Arataka-kun.”
Reigen feels warm all over, and so, so impossibly happy. “Night, Katsuya-kun.”