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Even if it didn’t show on his face, Shigeo was unnerved by the dark, little bag Reigen gave him with the ribbon handles and the gold trimming. It was a gift, he said. It was to help with your look, he added. He had straightened the front of his turtleneck a bit at that, suddenly self-conscious in the face of such frank criticism from his eleven-year-old apprentice (assistant? student?).
It wouldn’t be a problem if not for the gold kanji printed elegantly on the bag. Shigeo only ever saw it on TV or when he was out with Teruki-kun, who was in the mood to window shop. Even in his frankly limited knowledge of anything, he knew this was a luxury brand. Something high-end.
He swallowed a little and opened the bag, taking out a dark and elegant coat with soft, velvety fabric and tiny, gold, handmade stitching at the hem. For a moment, Shigeo considered that the thread was real gold before tossing that thought completely. That was far too much as a thank you gift for him.
“My mom told me to give this to you,” Reigen had explained as he haphazardly swung the bag on his wrist. “It’s some gift, or whatever, for taking care of me after school and, I don’t know, distracting me? Personally, I think it would help out with the whole thing you’ve got going on.” He then gestured at his clothes with a distasteful wave of his hand and raised eyebrows. He then placed the bag on his desk and turned to leave, waving with a bright grin as he went.
It was sweet at the time, even if Shigeo knew he ought to feel offended. Though as he looked at the ridiculous brand with the ridiculous gold trimming and the, undoubtedly, ridiculous price tag, Shigeo couldn’t help but sweat. Just a bit.
20%… 35%.
Just a bit.
Shigeo carefully tucked the coat back into its bag, folding it back inside, careful to not crease the fabric. He stowed it near the back and away from the prying eyes of customers. He was not a prude to luxury brands. His boyfriend did fashion for a living. His brother’s boyfriend was a trust fund kid set to inherit Touichirou Suzuki’s fortune. For Shigeo, having clothes and items above his means had become a norm.
What really startled Shigeo was… everything else about the scenario. Perhaps it was the startling realization that Reigen was… rich.
It was frankly disorienting, but he probably should have expected it.
When Reigen first started coming into the office, he didn’t really think much of how he left the office. Usually, he left around the time the sky went dark, and then he’d leave with the usual wave of his hand and skip in his step. Shigeo was mostly disinterested with much else regarding Reigen’s personal life outside the office. He didn’t think much of it outside the occasional story his apprentice was willing to share. That was it, really.
This is why he never noticed that Reigen somehow always left the office at exactly the same time. That he only left when his phone beeped a cheerful sound in his pocket.
It only really occurred to him when they stayed out too late for an exorcism, and the reason for Reigen’s punctuality came rolling down the street with its sleek and imposing body and the gentle purr of its engine. It was a nice car and a recent model to boot. It also only occurred to him then that Reigen’s cheerful little beeping cell phone was missing—probably out of battery in the wake of their exorcism. Shigeo suddenly realized just how irresponsible it was for him to keep an eleven-year-old out for this long.
“Oh crap,” Reigen muttered, looking at the car sheepishly. He pat his clothes for a moment and sighed. “Right. My phone died.”
The car stopped, and a man’s voice called out, “Reigen-sama! Reigen-sama!”
Shigeo looked at his student, more than a little baffled, but he wasn’t of much help either. He just shrugged helplessly with a crooked smile. He picked up his school bag and ran to the car door, waving as he left, “Bye Shishou! See you tomorrow!!” He climbed into the car without saying anything more, and it drove off.
In hindsight, that should have been Shigeo’s first clue.
It’s famously known that Reigen got into scrapes. More often than not, it came from a fight he picked at school, but it could have easily been he tripped over his own two feet. Either way worked, but the bottom line was that Shigeo often looked up from his laptop to see his student strolling in with his knees scraped or his hands bloody. He never cried, maybe winced a little at the antiseptic, but he never outright bawled. It just happened that often.
However, today, Shigeo found that Reigen must have fallen off some stairs, maybe his school, because his entire left sleeve was gone, and his right sleeve wasn’t faring much better. Thankfully, he wasn’t very hurt, but it was still concerning.
“It was nothing,” he mumbled into his takoyaki. “I just fell again.”
Shigeo doubted that, and it must have shown on his face because Reigen turned away, petulant. He hummed, “Well, at least you aren’t that hurt. But you’ll have to tell your mom what happened.”
Reigen waved his hand, then winced as it exacerbated his injury, and he grit his teeth. “It’s fine,” he said with a shrug. “Mom'll just buy another uniform.”
Shigeo didn’t say anything more as he continued to patch him up, placing the cute little bandaids with the animals and colors he knew they both liked the best. It was good that they didn’t have to worry about something as trivial as a uniform and then thought nothing more about it afterward.
He didn’t think much of it even as Reigen arrived the next day with a pristine new uniform, perfectly fit down to the cut of the hem and newly pressed. The row of bright, white bandages up his arm and the smattering of little band-aids that dotted some scrapes on his face was Shigeo's only sign that he hadn't been dreaming yesterday.
Then it happened again. And again. Ripped up uniform, with or without injuries to take care of, and then a pristine one the next day. Like nothing happened. A clean slate. Shigeo should’ve realized that this was his second clue. No one could possibly be able to buy a new uniform every three days like nothing. Of course, at the time, he just thought that Reigen had many extras hidden away in his closet just in case. His parents had them in their closet too. His psychic powers tended to get a bit destructive with his clothes sometimes, after all.
The third and most damning evidence came after a client came in with a haunted vase. It looked to have once been broken, and its cracks had since been inlaid with gold. She explained that the vase had been possessed and haunted by a spirit. The vase wasn’t an heirloom, but she still didn’t want to throw it.
“It’s expensive, you see,” she explained, fingers twiddling on her lap. “It would be a shame to throw it away now…”
“How much is it?” Reigen suddenly asked, looking at the vase with curious brown eyes. He was standing on his tiptoes and leaning further in to inspect it. The customer was startled, and Reigen smiled, sheepish. “Ah, I’m sorry. I’m the assistant. 21st Century’s Greatest Psychic, Reigen Arataka!”
She blinked at Reigen, clearly a little caught off-guard but also very endeared. Shigeo couldn’t really blame her there. “It’s about 50 000 yen,” she finally replied, and Shigeo winced. Yeah, that’s no small amou—
“What, only?” Reigen said, crass as ever. Then his eyes widened, hand slapping over his mouth as he flushed. “Sorry. That just came out.”
Ah, right. Shigeo almost forgot Reigen’s weird relationship with money. While most kids had no clue how money actually worked, they still had a clear idea of what was generally considered expensive and not. Reigen was only eleven-years-old, but his price blindness was a bit skewed. Shigeo didn’t know why then. He just knew that it existed.
“Shishou! Shishou, look!” Reigen came barrelling into the office like he owned the place, as usual, and dropped his bag at the entryway in his haste to show him whatever got him this excited. Shigeo met the bright, beaming face of his student, holding up his lunch box that was wrapped in a bright orange fabric with cartoony potted plants. Though that was not what was different. What was was that it was much bigger than the usual bento he had. “I saw my lunch today and immediately knew I wanted to share it with you!”
“Ah, Reigen-kun,” he said, blinking in surprise. “That’s very kind. But did you eat?”
He waved his hand as he dragged his chair to sit in front of him at his desk. “Does it matter?” He said as he nudged some of his papers away so he could put his lunchbox down with a proud grin. He plopped down on his seat and unspooled the knot at the top. “I’m going to be eating now, anyway!”
“That’s not a good habit to have, Reigen—-“
“Yes, Shishou, I’m aware,” he said with a roll of his eyes, taking out his chopsticks from his pocket. “But this is important!! Now get your chopsticks out—-the wooden one from the ramen store across the street!!—-and let’s eat!”
Shigeo took out the chopsticks from his bottom desk drawer. Reigen dubbed it their ‘Take-Out Recycle Bin’ full of unopened packets of sauce, take-out menus, plastic bags, and, yes, chopsticks. He took it out and closed the drawer with his foot. He almost missed the big reveal of Reigen’s packed lunch.
It was an assortment of sushi. A cool mist came out of the box in soft tendrils like it had come fresh from the fridge. It was a wonder how it survived in Reigen’s locker this whole time, but Shigeo wasn’t one to turn his nose up at free food.
“Sushi,” he breathed, smiling at the assorted rows of fish and rice. “This was your lunch?”
Reigen nodded, picking at some of the morsels. “Mhm, just some leftovers from last night’s dinner. But they packed in the spicy ones too, and I can’t handle that! I decided to share then.”
It was a bit of a lie and a bit of the truth. Shigeo blinked, dumbfounded, but nonetheless, he ended up smiling anyway. He took a piece with unmistakably bright red dots of pepper sprinkled on top and popped it in his mouth. It was good. He hummed, smiling wide enough that his eyes crinkled.
“It’s good, right?” Reigen asked—or demanded—with a smile on his face.
Shigeo nodded, reaching in to take another piece. “Some of the best sushi I’ve had.”
Reigen’s eyes sparkled, and he knew then, at that moment, that Reigen made these last night. Likely he had helped, making them just to show him what he did and share them with him. That just made him smile wider, chest warm.
He was so distracted by that realization that he didn’t notice the shocked gasp Reigen elicited. “You’re wearing the coat!” He said as he pointed excitedly at his sleeve, or the threaded on gold cats that were artfully styled onto the sleeve and more inside of it.
Oh, right, he almost forgot. He decided to wear the coat today. Without the brand on the bag and the tag, it was hard to tell that it was so expensive. It fit seamlessly into his wardrobe and boggled at how Reigen’s mother would have known that he liked this kind of clothing. Or even approved of how whimsical it looked with the inside being little tasteful brown cats.
“Do you like it?”
A little slow on the uptake, he realized that Reigen had chosen this coat for him. It was less a flimsy thank you gift given to him as an afterthought but a thoughtful one of gratitude that made Shigeo almost tear up into his sushi. Of course, Shigeo didn’t do it. He was a grown man, and he never really had much tendency to cry.
“Yeah,” he said, voice soft.
Reigen beamed at that, bright and brilliant. And if the house plants in the office perked just a smidge, that was something between him and god.