Archive of Our Own ^beta

"Serizawa, you know a lot about video games, right?"

Serizawa starts and looks at him from his little desk, dropping his pencil in the process. "What? Y-yes, why?"

The points of Reigen's knuckles press into his cheek as he mindlessly scrolls through an urban legends wiki. Work has been slow today--three no-shows, and only two walk-ins. It's two in the afternoon and Reigen is quickly losing steam. If he doesn't find a gig soon he'll lose all remaining motivation to work today.

"Have you heard of that arcade game no one can beat? In that more dated suburb off of Sugar Street?"

Serizawa squints, like he's trying to parse why Reigen would be asking. "Yeah, but that's more of an urban legend than anything. I don't think it's actually true, every game can be beaten in some way, they don't last forever," he muses. "Why, do you want to try and beat it?"

"Well, this site says it's actually got a dead guy's soul stuck in it and that's why it's unbeatable," Reigen hums, mousing his cursor over the words. "Says that he killed himself in an old warehouse surrounded by his cabinet collection and his soul fused with one of the games. And now he drives kids insane by making them play until their hands bleed."

Serizawa makes a noise of understanding, and then a small but beleaguered huff, like a dog you've pestered into getting off its bed even though it really would rather not be bothered. "You want to exorcise it," he murmurs, returning to his homework. His exhaustion carries an air of playfulness that Reigen easily accepts, proud that Serizawa is less nervous about maintaining a subordinate attitude and more comfortable with Reigen's presence.

"I don't see why we can't!" Reigen says cheerily. "It'd give us something to do at least. Take the metro down to the arcade, check it out, see if it isn't just buggy, and fix it if we can. If not, we can exorcise it."

Serizawa scribbles down an annotation. "What's in it for us? You're not usually keen on taking on jobs that nobody hired you for, especially not on whims like this."

Reigen taps his chin. "I'm sure someone would be willing to donate. Or we break into our cabinet and steal the coins. I know how."

Serizawa shoots him a look of alarm under soft curls that are beginning to get long again (with encouragement from Reigen, of course, but only because it looks nicer) and his pencil stills. "Why do you know how to break into arcade cabinets?" he asks, incredulous, which quickly morphs into more comfortable amusement. "Am I working for a delinquent?"

Reigen barks a laugh and rolls his hand around his wrist with a flamboyant little snap of the fingers. "I wouldn't call my past self a delinquent necessarily," he drawls, speaking more out of the side of his mouth, "but yours truly did engage in some more troublesome activities in his youth. No one ever found out because I got such good grades."

(Not completely true, but not really a lie either.)

Serizawa just shakes his head. "I think the gratification of keeping kids from getting hurt by an evil video game would be payment enough for me. You can do the breaking and entering."

Reigen beams at him, giving him his most brilliant smile, and Serizawa gives him a small one in return. "Let's go check it out then. If it takes a while I'll buy you dinner."

"Thank you."

It's a humid day. Hasn't rained yet, but dark black clouds hang low in the sky, heavy, filled to bursting with water, allowing only a thin stripe of bright yellow afternoon light to shine over the horizon, occasionally interrupted by the distinct grey smudge that indicates rain falling in the far distance. The moisture in the atmosphere frizzes Reigen's already bleach-tortured hair, sending coarse little squiggles off their intended path of setting neatly and smoothly upon his head. It has much the same effect on Serizawa, though it's much less annoying to look at. His hair just looks bigger and a little wilder, and a couple stray strands plaster themselves to his forehead by way of sweat.

Reigen hates days like this.

He's a naturally very sweaty man–he was before he started on hrt, and getting testosterone shots in the ass every month only made him sweatier–and once the weather gets hot and muggy like this he starts looking less and less like a clean-cut businessman and more and more like a greasy used car salesman who lives off fast food and lives in his parents' basement. Not like Reigen himself doesn't live off fast food or have the ability to sell someone a shitty car for an exorbitant price (though he feels that's morally beneath him), but the point is he looks very gross when it's hot and humid, and while he does want to look dignified in front of everyone, especially in a work setting, he's finding more and more that he wants Serizawa to think he looks nice and put together.

Reigen wipes his sleeve across his forehead and shrugs his jacket off. "God. Nasty day, huh?"

Serizawa has been mouth-breathing for the past five minutes, slouching a little, looking altogether like a wilted flower on a windowsill, or perhaps a large, thick-coated dog with sizable jowls whose owners have neglected to shave him for summer. "Yeah," he breathes, miserably. "Wouldn't it have been easier to take the train? You said we were going to."

Normally Reigen would argue and assert that walking was ultimately better and to trust me I know what I'm doing , but today…

"I forgot to renew my rail pass," Reigen admits with a sigh, just as miserably. "And I don't have cash on me for a cab. Just my card. I didn't realize till right before we left."

Serizawa considers him for a moment, and out of the corner of his eye Reigen thinks he might be smiling.

"Reigen, I could've gotten one for us."

Reigen balks and almost drops his jacket in the process of trying to tie it around his (softer than he'd like to admit) waist, sweaty hands on cheap fabric and clammy underarms adhering to off-white sleeves creating an altogether unpleasant sensory experience. "Wh—no, no, you don't have to do that, Serizawa, just because I forgot my things—"

"Reigen," Serizawa tries again, a mite more exasperated (but only a mite, because he's so sweet, he really is), "you want me to be an adult and think for myself and make decisions based off of what I want to do. And I really, really want to be in an air conditioned taxi right now. I know you do, too."

Reigen can't argue with that. He can't argue with Serizawa at all really, anyway. He always makes good points, and being in a cab sounds a lot better than working up a sweat and walking an hour.

He smiles with one side of his mouth and gently elbows Serizawa. "Okay, big guy. You got me there. A cab it is."

The sky is completely dark grey by the time they arrive at the arcade. The temperature has dropped to a more manageable state, and the wind sends old newspapers and leaves flicking through the air. A small twig breaks off a tree and goes on a collision course with Reigen's face, till Serizawa puts up a simple barrier around the two of them and it bounces off harmlessly.

Reigen puts his hands on his hips, looking up at the arcade, coat whipping and snapping where he's still got it tied around his waist.

"Real bad vibes here," he comments simply, and glances at Serizawa. "Getting anything from this?" 

Serizawa looks grim. Never a good sign. "Yeah." He fails to elaborate.

Reigen raises his eyebrows. "Is it something you can explain?"

Serizawa frowns deeper and shakes his head, loosening his tie a little. "It just feels very bad," he says softly, and Reigen sighs.

"Good to know we agree on that at least. Come on. Shouldn't take us too long."

The door opens with a little jingle and the sounds of games idling on title screens and demo reels suddenly hits Reigen's ears like finally surfacing in a body of water, though muffled by the roar of an AC unit lined against the back wall. It's on way too high, and Reigen shivers in the unwelcome chill, pulling his hands up to his biceps as he stares into the dark cavernous depths of the arcade, past neon LCDs and old support pillars lined with nearly the same material as the ceiling panels. The place is dungeon-esque and dated , and the once colorful patterned carpet is crunchy and faded and stained through, but less with disuse and more with years and years of bustling business. The ghosts of whatever lively patronage the place may have had in years past seep through the walls like water stains and Reigen pulls in on himself tighter. Eerie.

"Um, can I help you?"

Reigen nearly jumps out of his skin, curled in a defensive fighting pose against Serizawa, who starts slightly but mostly looks lost in the moment. The source of the voice is a young man in his late teens or early twenties hunched awkwardly in front of a cash register behind the prize and snack counter. His hair is long and wavy, and he's a little bit thick and somewhat greasy, with snakebites and industrial piercings and a nose ring, but overall looks extremely kind and anxious, fiddling with his hands and rubbing them against his colorful employee shirt.

Reigen relaxes. The kid's nametag reads "Jiro," with a little orange felt marker smiley face at the end. It's an extremely casual way of referring to someone providing a service to you, but then again kids are typically the main demographic of places like this and providing as much of a fun and informal atmosphere as possible makes sense.

"Hey, uh, Jiro," Reigen greets, nodding and waving at the nametag when Jiro looks alarmed at having been named correctly. "We're looking for a haunted arcade cabinet?"

Serizawa jolts and stiffens beside him as if struck, and Reigen doesn't have time to ask him what he felt because Jiro goes a sickly white immediately as the words set in.

"I'm—I'm afraid you'll have to leave," he stammers. "I can't—I can't let anyone else get hurt by that thing. I'm sorry. You have to go."

Reigen reaches behind to gently pat Serizawa's back, shooting him an appraising look—to which Serizawa responds with a somehow more grim expression than he'd been wearing moments earlier—and flaps a hand dismissively at Jiro. "Oh, no, we're not here to beat it," he explains. "We're here to exorcise it. I'm Reigen Arataka, greatest psychic of the 21st century, and this is my valued business partner, Serizawa Katsuya."

Jiro looks vaguely skeptical, and then awed as Serizawa levitates a nearby box of candy bars to prove their legitimacy, and then positively awash with relief. On the verge of tears, even.

"Oh my god," he wavers, "thank you so, so much. This game—my dad started up this arcade and he brought that thing in in the eighties cuz it seemed like a niche game and thought it'd be a hit, right? And, and for a long time it was, cuz no one could beat it, and people would come from all over to try and win, and no one ever could. They'd be at it for hours like they were in a trance. They wouldn't stop to eat or drink or anything. One guy was in here for a week straight without anyone realizing, trying to beat it. They had to physically pull him out and by that point his hands were worn to the bone."

Reigen nudges Serizawa knowingly, in an attempt to lighten the mood. Serizawa just looks considerably more unhappy. "Hey, now we know the urban legend has some truth to it, eh?"

Serizawa's eyes are vacant in the way he gets when he's verging on a panic attack. He's not hearing Reigen, so he grips the bigger man's wrist and rubs circles into it.

It doesn't seem to do much.

Jiro glances toward the back of the building. "We finally started losing traction in the nineties when the first hand-held consoles started coming out and people forgot about it for a while? But, um. Then the stories started getting popular on urban legend forums? And in the late 2000s some guy broke in to see if he could get into the game's hardware and see what made it tick, and… he found fleshy organs inside. Like it was alive. Had a mental breakdown right on the floor. Had to call an ambulance and they locked him away in a psych ward. My dad never believed him because the game looked like it hadn't even been touched and he didn't wanna bother to look."

Serizawa is growing increasingly more tense next to Reigen, and good god Jiro should turn that AC off, it's freezing in here.

"A-anyway, people heard that story and just treated the arcade like a sick house," Jiro continues, fiddling with his tag. "We have a few occasional customers looking to check it out, but every time they get worse and worse psychological damage from it. One of the most recent kids went home in shock with burst blood vessels in his eye. And, um." Jiro's shaking, he looks sick. "It—it fucking. Ate a maintenance man. I don't—I don't know how to explain it other than it ate him. I came in just the other night to see it unhinge and shove this poor guy into its… its mouth? With huge fleshy tentacles. And then it locked back up and didn't move."

Reigen is beginning to think they've bitten off more than they can chew, but he puts on a confident and reassuring face. "We'll handle it. Why have you been coming in still?"

Jiro looks miserable, sniffling and trembling. "My dad still owns the place and—and he said I'm imagining things and that I need to get back to work," he babbles, beginning to cry a little. "We don't have any business and I think it's angry and I can feel it watching me. Please, please, I don't care what it takes, or how much it costs, I just—I can't keep letting this happen I can't keep working until it's gone!"

Reigen holds out his hands gently. "Relax, Jiro. You can leave. These things can sometimes get real messy so it's safer for you to be off the premises. Go home where it's safe. We'll handle the rest. We can discuss the cost later."

Jiro nods hard, bows to both of them, and rushes out the door with a watery "Thank you," leaving Reigen and Serizawa alone in the arcade.

Serizawa shifts his weight. "You should go too, Reigen," he murmurs, jaw clenched. "You're not safe here."

"Like I'm leaving my business partner behind, absolutely not," Reigen scoffs reproachfully.

Serizawa looks pained and makes as if to argue when a bright light flashes on in the very back, and they both snap their heads towards it, startled. It's flashing, red, yellow, blue, white, all in quick succession, and some discordant synth is steadily growing louder. The temperature drops even further. Something is rattling violently against the back wall.

Reigen grips onto Serizawa's arm. "Y'know what, yeah, I hate this, we should go."

Serizawa does not budge, purple aura beginning to emanate off of him. "Go without me," he says again, and Reigen groans, antsy, dancing in place like a spooked horse on a lead, bouncing off his toes energetically.

"No, Serizawa, you listen to me, either we stay here together or we leave together, but I'm not doing anything here on my own."

The synth is louder. There's scraping noises accompanying it as well as the rattling now, sounds of metal rending apart and grating together. Serizawa lets out a shaky breath and pulls Reigen behind himself. "Don't..."

"Don't…?"

He sets his jaw and lets out a forcibly even breath through his nose, and Reigen nods and pats Serizawa's back.

"Got it. Don't do any of the stupid shit I normally do. I read ya loud and clear, big guy."

Serizawa almost laughs. It's the only even vaguely comforting thing about this entire situation.

As they weave their way cautiously through rows and rows of cabinets, the unspoken understanding that they're the only ones who can do this and they have to do it now becomes increasingly clear. 

Who else would? Something absolutely feral and volatile is back there, and Reigen's an overconfident everyman with a desire to live an exciting life far outweighing his sense of preservation over said life, backed up by the world's single most socially awkward thirty year old with powers akin to that of a small atomic bomb. They're the only motherfuckers stupid enough and unlucky enough to be here to fix this.

Well. Reigen's stupid. Serizawa's unlucky by proxy.

The machine they're closing in on is screeching, flashing, playing radio static and reversed and sped up voices, chanting, howling, blasting horns of rapture and rumbling infrasound that makes Reigen nearly sick to his stomach with anxiety, causing tears to prick at the corners of his eyes reflexively as he grips onto Serizawa for some form of a lifeline.

The light and the cacophony nearly become too much for Reigen to bear as they come around to the back wall, and then it stops. And god, that's worse.

They're looking at a perfectly normal arcade cabinet.

It's playing a cutesy little sixteen-bit title screen, challenging you to beat the top score. The top score is an unending series of nines that is looping across the screen, the only indication that something is not right with the game.

Serizawa reaches back to touch Reigen's arm. "You okay back there, boss?"

Reigen pulls himself up—he'd been weak-kneed and draping off of him—and nods. "Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna be okay."

They stand there in silence for a moment, watching the screen. Reigen stares at the loop of nines.

They're red in color, a black rectangle underlaying them, and they flicker a little like they're broken assets, glitching in and out of where they need to be. Reigen tilts his head. That's an easy fix, right?

His feet carry him a few steps closer. What if it's supposed to look glitchy? A catch to draw in more and more players? He's never seen this game before but a scammer knows a scammer and this certainly feels like a scam. Yeah, he can do it.

He could beat that.

It's just a simple programming trick.

Just a loophole.

He's beaten video game-based urban legends before by running exploits and using backdoors. This should be a piece of cake. It's just a game.

"—gen, don't touch the— ! !"

As soon as his hands touch the controls, hot electricity shoots into his palms and glues him to the console, and the thing rears up onto bleeding, fleshy, tentacle-like limbs, wrapping tendrils around him to stick him to the cabinet, screeching and laughing in a way that's almost human but is ultimately not, some blasphemous, horrific beast beyond Reigen's comprehension.

Looking down and behind himself, Serizawa seems to be comprehending it just fine, a little too well in fact, as he's started looking hauntingly similar to how Mob does when he reaches his limit. His fists are balled and his eyes have begun to glow and his hair whips around wildly, his whole being haloed in a purple glow. It's causing property damage, shards of glass and metal paneling from surrounding cabinets swirling around in a tornado of video game carnage, every basement-dwelling nerd's worst nightmare.

Reigen squirms and angles to yell at Serizawa, "I think I fucked up!!!"

Serizawa doesn't respond, but his eyes soften a tiny bit, and Reigen can almost feel the annoyance fueled by care for him coming off of the man. It's a little reassuring, though there's not much to be reassured of when several large and oozing meat worms have strapped you to an incredibly fucked up and haunted arcade cabinet after luring you in hypnotically like an anglerfish. 

The cabinet roars and screams at Serizawa, who blasts it as hard as he can while (presumably) doing his best to avoid hurting Reigen. The first shot stuns it a little, and the second sends it reeling, dazed enough to drop Reigen twelve feet to the floor. He lands hard and collapses onto his knees and it hurts but he manages to catch his breath, and stand, wobbly, dizzily, and start running toward Serizawa, who has an arm out to grab him.

Then something wet attaches itself to his back, locking him in place and jarring him backward like a dog violently meeting the end of a leash, preventing him from getting closer to Serizawa, followed by a sharp, piercing pain that shoots up and down his spine, through his shoulders, and down into his fingertips. The cabinet crashes to the ground with only the sounds of heavy metal crunching and breaking but no inhuman screeching behind him, and it feels like whatever was in it is trying to crawl into him instead.

Reigen wobbles upright when nothing happens beyond a head-cold pressure behind his eyes. He pats himself down, finding himself in one piece, if a little sore in his arms like carpal tunnel. His back feels damp where the spirit attached to him, but it's also clammy like when he's sweaty, so he can't be sure.

He looks up at Serizawa, about ten feet from him. Serizawa's face is slack and almost devastated, explosion slowing. "Reigen… you're–" 

And then Reigen's body stiffens of its own accord. A distinct sense of loss of control takes over him, and immediately he begins to panic. If there's anything he's really, truly terrified of, it's not being in control. If he's not behind the wheel something bad could happen (ironically, this is why he gave up driving), but he's beyond not being in the driver's seat now, he's been tied up and tossed in the trunk, and whoever or whatever has hijacked his car is fumbling around for a weapon in the front seat. Serizawa watches, swirling storm of anger and sharp debris halted, frozen with terror at the sight, and Reigen figures he looks ghastly, the beast that once was in the cabinet bending his body at odd, painful angles and painting his face with a grotesque sneer.

"Reigen–?"

Reigen's elbow snaps, backward, too far backward. It's broken and it hurts and he wants to scream but he can't, vocal cords under the control of a being significantly more powerful than him. The thing inside him screams for him, but it isn't his voice, and it isn't pained, it's hungry. There's another voice Reigen's distantly aware of beyond the searing white pain that rings in his ears, Serizawa's, yelling, angry, scared, and Reigen's heart plummets. The spirit cackles with glee. It raises his arms, uncaring of the damage to his left elbow, and starts swinging at Serizawa, punching and scrabbling with a strength Reigen certainly couldn't pull off on his own, which takes Serizawa off guard, allowing several blows to land before he realizes what's happening. 

And he isn't fighting back. He's blocking, defending, yelling, but he's not hurting Reigen, no matter how much Reigen wants to plead for him to, because that's the only thing that'd shake the spirit enough to get it to drop its barrier, the only thing that'd make up for the bruises and thin red lines Reigen's hands are currently branding him with. He doesn't want to hurt Serizawa. He can't hurt Serizawa. Some wiser part of him knows Serizawa can't hurt him either, and the rest of him–or maybe the thing in his brain–tells him he deserves it.

Perhaps it is the intruder. Reigen can feel it rooting around through his memories and thoughts. His eyes roll back in his head from the disorientation of it, things becoming disorganized and out of place in his psyche as it's ransacked like a burglarized home, before it finally seems to find something it wants that Reigen can't make out the shape of.

He doesn't want you , the spirit hisses at Serizawa, through Reigen's mouth, tongue thick and heavy, copper tang mixing with his saliva and sliding through his teeth and over his lips. It's not true. Where'd that even come from? What did it pull from deep within Reigen's mind? What did it see in Serizawa's eyes? I don't want you , it snarls, forcing Reigen's voice to make the sound, and Serizawa looks kicked. Shattered. 

What does it fucking mean. The spirit pulled this from Reigen's own mind, pulled out something clearly Serizawa is aware of, but what is it? What's happening. It's like the spirit and Serizawa had agreed on a secret that it's now decided to reveal to Reigen in spite, like some kind of cruel inside joke, and the context is lost on him but clearly not on Serizawa, who suddenly looks very weak and very small.

I'm not the one saying it, use your goddamn head!

The spirit is distracted a moment in victory, and Reigen decides to take this opportunity to wrest some control back, even for just a moment, and slams his head into one of the drywalled columns holding up the ceiling, quickly discovering that the core is solid metal. Serizawa startles, the impact rings through the cavernous arcade hall like some sort of sick bell toll, and Reigen spits blood and curses with the harsh, cold pain. He's distantly aware of something warm and wet seeping into his hair and down into his right ear, distantly aware of the evil presence having been knocked unconscious, temporarily. Reigen presses his hand to his head to stop the blood, but it quickly covers his palm in viscous red.

"I–I do want you," he tells Serizawa, breathlessly, choked tight. Serizawa blinks back at him, shaking, whole being glowing purple, afraid, Reigen realizes, afraid of him . "It's not true. I don't… I don't know what that means. But–Serizawa, you have to listen to me, you have to, you have to hurt me." Serizawa trembles harder, hair whipping in the wind his power creates. Reigen makes an abortive strangled noise of desperation, wiping the blood away from his eye. "You have to make it count, it's not gone, it won't–"

The spirit awakens and takes control of Reigen's body once more, stiffening his limbs, and its tentacles shoot from the fleshy mass on Reigen's back to pick him up and throw him into the wall. Something cracks like a flash of lightning across his closed eyes. He falls to the floor, breath wet and gurgling and burning hot, and he knows his ribs are broken. Serizawa is–he's silent, Reigen faintly realizes, there's no sound except for the squealing and roaring in his mind and out of his own mouth, but he's trying to whip the spirit into shape, wrangling it with psychic energy, typically soft arms flexing and straining against his dress shirt as he pulls on the spirit crowding Reigen's very being (and hey, when did he lose his jacket, he looks really very cool like this… not muscular by much means but still very big, and wow his shirt seems like it's struggling to stay buttoned with his effort).

Reigen blinks, for a brief second of clarity, because this is very much not the time to be thinking about that, and then Serizawa yanks and the spirit digs claws into Reigen's brain and his knees buckle with the pain as his hands scrabble at his scalp and he sobs wretchedly till his throat goes raw.

It likes this struggle, he realizes, Serizawa's attacks are powerful and could kill it, but it's seeing this as a challenge. An unnatural grin curls and spreads over Reigen's face. It's not his smile. Nothing about this is real, is him. He tries one last mental shove against the spirit, but it throws him back.

Time to knock you out , it tells him, loud and echoing in his head, and it grabs a stray shard of metal from Serizawa's initial explosion, and drives it hard into the meat of Reigen's shoulder, right under his collarbone. He can feel it grind against bone and sever muscle, and then he can feel it hurt, and this time he does manage to scream, but he's fading, and then he's out.

—

Serizawa watches in horror as the spirit stabs its own host, and then in sheer absolute panic when something bright and faintly yellow shoots out of Reigen's body as it nearly crumples, but sways back into standing, angles too sharp, stance too unnatural. The shining yellow blob hits the floor and bounces, and rolls, and stops, and the thing inside Reigen, the thing that arguably was more formidable in cabinet form, cackles and suddenly it–stolen body included–is gone. The arcade suddenly seems dizzyingly vast, repeating rows upon rows of games forever, no end in sight. The front door and prize desk are no longer visible, it's just the ceiling and the cabinets and the ominous black, shadowy void where no light reaches in between for as far as he can strain his eyes to see. Serizawa knows this sensation. A parallel world. And the spirit has hidden Reigen's broken, mangled body somewhere deep within.

He turns to the yellow blob. It sits up, looking at him, the extension he presumes to be its head narrow and angular like a fox, but mostly amorphous and hard to comprehend in 3D. And yet. He knows it's Reigen.

Non-espers aren't able to project, lucid dream, or otherwise consciously have out of body experiences. But if possessed strongly enough their souls can be forcibly ejected from their bodies, and Reigen's no exception, his vaguely-canine shaped soul ambling over to Serizawa to rub on his legs. Like a cat. Maybe it's more catlike than fox? The proportions keep shifting.

Serizawa picks it up. It weighs nothing and so much all at once. Serizawa can feel him in there, Serizawa can feel the dull, fuzzy edges of something heavy and dark trapped deep within the soul.

That's not like Reigen. And yet it's so intricately woven into the fiber of his soul that it has to be part of him, no matter how out of place. Serizawa frowns, and the soul relaxes into his arms and loses any shape it may have had before so that it almost appears to be dripping thickly over his elbows and between his fingers. Serizawa gathers it up as best he can, relief seeping from it into his skin.

It's strange. Like it–like Reigen–wants this. Wants to be detached from his body and melt into Serizawa's embrace.

Serizawa frowns further. "We're finding your body, Reigen."

Something like childish petulance radiates out of the soul in waves and it manages to seep further into Serizawa's chest.

"You may be the boss, but I'm the only one with a body right now," Serizawa reasons. "I call the shots until we find your body. And then we're having a talk about why you'd rather not be in it."

It vibrates slightly, like a heavy, stubborn groan. 

Serizawa straightens and holds it close, trying to get his bearings. Or something resembling that. "Yeah, I know. It might take a while so please try not to get too used to this."

Another little vibration.

"I know you're happy like this," Serizawa sighs, "but you're better off in one piece. That… that monster really messed your body up. I'm worried you'll die if you're separated from it for too long."

The soul doesn't physically respond this time, but a cold shockwave rumbles through Serizawa nonetheless, stopping him in his tracks. It's not communicating with words so much as it's communicating with concepts and feelings, nebulous things that are just part of Reigen's everyday life, things he apparently ignores, refuses to acknowledge, and lets float unhindered just under the surface of his subconscious. The relief of being bodiless, the desire to lay listless in Serizawa's arms and not leave, the laziness of knowing what must be done and putting it off anyway for even a few more precious moments without burden.

And the icy, heavy, dreadful lack of care over whether he makes it out of here alive.

Serizawa's throat is tight, burning. The soul lets it seep into him, lacking the agency to be able to realize what it's doing to him and stop the flow of dooming apathy that shouldn't be there, that shouldn't be part of Reigen, because he's like a beam of sunshine on a cloudy day, because he's energetic and friendly and personable, because he's such a coward in the best way possible, and yet is so so deeply ingrained into even the most innate parts of his psyche, so much so that it feels like maybe all the lighter, warmer things were built on top of it like a pearl around a grain of sand in the flesh of an oyster, or perhaps more like a shiny new condo built upon soft, waterlogged earth, just waiting to collapse.

Serizawa feels all of it, everything the soul leeches into him. He feels desperately lonely. He feels inadequate and hollow and socially inept and shameful, and he sinks to sit on the floor and starts rocking back and forth with the soul in his arms, the world spinning around him, breaths coming short, hot, heavy tears building up in his eyes and pouring out onto the ground.

The worst part of this is he knows this all too well. He's felt all of this before. It gripped him and chained him and slowly killed him for fifteen years alone in his room and even now it still sometimes overtakes him and Reigen knows this. Reigen's sat and touched his back and his shoulders and his arms and curled his fingers into the soft hair at the nape of his neck, not quite holding him, but not quite out of obligation either, listening when Serizawa told him every dark inch of his heart and soul and being, giving him objects with distinct and jarring textures when he was spiralling into a panic attack to help ground him and keep his emotions and powers in check. Reigen knows what Serizawa feels. And clearly he's experienced it himself.

So why… didn't he say anything?

How come he's been silent? Is Serizawa not good enough of a friend for him to want to open up? Or is he just unable to?

Serizawa tries to get his breathing under control. His chest shudders and heaves, throat rough from sobbing, wiping his tears back as best he can. The soul finally seems to have picked up on their shared anguish, or perhaps it's just moving on to happier thoughts, because while Serizawa is still reeling from reliving the lowest point of his life all over again, something warm and incredibly soft and tentative spreads through him, starting at his heart.

It's so much love. It's all encompassing. Serizawa can't tell who it's for but it's scared and it's raw and it's honest, it's the most honest thing to ever come from Reigen, regardless of the circumstances. He loves so hard and so desperately and Serizawa's nerves feel alight with it.

The soul sends waves of contentment through Serizawa, and then peace, like it's fallen asleep. Serizawa himself feels like he's been hit by several trains in quick succession, tired like he's just had the best cry of his whole life (which, he almost has), and so very lost except for two objectives.

Objective number one: find Reigen as fast as possible.

Objective number two: get him to talk.

The second objective is arguably more difficult than the first, as finding Reigen is more a test of Serizawa's psychic abilities and less a test of his interpersonal skills, which are currently undergoing constant development despite having started being needed again nearly two years ago now. Plus, Reigen is infamously averse to genuine pity and sincerity (Serizawa had once tried to tell Reigen over dinner how thankful he was to have him in his life and how he was glad to call him his friend, and Reigen became teary and had had to stammer and bluster his way through his approximation of a normal response to that sort of thing before telling him in a weirdly strangled voice not to ever say anything like that over food again because food made him vulnerable–a genuinely endearing experience) so reaching out to tell him he cares and he wants to hear Reigen out is going to be like cracking a safe that's also a matryoshka doll in that it has more and more smaller and smaller safes inside that each need to be cracked in succession.

In other words, even if Reigen does accept his help, getting everything out of him is going to take a very long time.

Serizawa wrinkles up his nose as he stands once more to continue his journey into the depths of the arcade maze. Reigen's whole job, his whole life , has been built on deception. Not necessarily outright lies (though there is a place for those in what he does, like telling his mom over the phone that he might come home for whatever holiday, knowing good and well he's going to come up with an excuse to avoid it), but never often complete truths. There have been a few. Telling Serizawa he's his own man, opening up about wanting to be for someone else what Mob was for Tsubomi and vice versa (even though that never worked out), getting wine drunk and holding back miserable little sobs as he confessed to lying about being an esper, which, to be honest, wasn't much of a surprise, but clearly a truth that burdened him immensely that Serizawa had to reassure him for. Everything else he obscures and twists and hides away expertly, like vulnerability is something he'd rather never deal with.

He supposes it's no wonder Reigen's never said anything, and that it's somehow fitting that he's only now finding out after Reigen's gotten himself into yet another life threatening scenario and is experiencing being out of body for the first time.

He's not exactly revealing this information of his own accord either. The soul doesn't seem sentient enough to retain any memory of what's currently happening and pass it off to the rest of its being, so this feels… like he's overstepping boundaries. Nonconsensual. He needs to talk to Reigen, he knows this, but god what an invasion of privacy it seems. Reigen would be mortified.

This is so wrong. Serizawa hates this. It's bad enough, the circumstances that they're in, cabinets extending into the darkness for miles, but the anxiety and the need to find Reigen as fast as possible to save his life and tactfully talk about what's going on with him is far more present and pressing.

Serizawa finds he's actually kind of grateful for the near-immediate onslaught of negativity from Reigen's soul, because, while very triggering, it got the panic attack out of his system faster and made it about something that wasn't his current problem–what an interesting loophole that is. His mind is clear, now, for the most part, and he wipes his nose and turns down his tenth corner. Stay alive, find Reigen. Stay alive, find Reigen. Stay alive, find Reigen. And exorcise that goddamn cabinet spirit.

Serizawa pets the soul, both for his own sake and for Reigen's. This spirit, the Cabinet Man, he remembers it's called, dubbed this by the kids spreading rumors about it, seemed to know they were coming. Maybe it sensed Serizawa. That's not unusual. It knew, and it was smug, confident in its power, and Serizawa recalls feeling intimidated upon arrival. But as soon as Reigen announced their intentions, what feels like hours ago, it became irate, offended almost. It hadn't said anything to Serizawa but the general message seemed to be something along the lines of you will not beat me, which was, of course, extremely comforting. And it had become more and more enraged the longer Jiro and Reigen spoke, drastically lowering the temperature in the building. Reigen had almost been shivering at that point.

Serizawa's stomach drops with dread. He can feel the chill, but, being an esper, it has little effect on him due to its supernatural origin. He knows it's very very cold in here, he can see his breath, but he feels fine.

But Reigen is a dead-weight meat puppet right now. The cold will kill him faster, slowing his heart and giving him hypothermia so he begins to strip and freezes to death even quicker, and he'll be so hungry, he'll die a slow and miserable death–

The soul adjusts to get more comfortable in its 'nap' and releases a sleepy burst of pleasant energy into Serizawa, who stops to take a deep breath and calm down again.

His time constraints are tighter now, but he can do it. He has to do it. There's no other way, no more time to putz about and think about what happens after they get out, just pushing ever toward when they get out.

—

Reigen blinks his eyes open. His vision swims and his right eye sticks for a moment, crusted over with–something. He tries to lift his arm to rub at it, but it won't budge. His limbs staunchly refuse to obey, but luckily his lungs and heart seem to be in a more cooperative mood, even if the former are starting to hurt really very badly with every breath he takes, and his right eye finally breaks free of whatever held it down, and he blinks a few more times to clear his sight.

His head hurts so fucking bad. It's radiating from a hot, stinging epicenter near the right and top of his skull, but is also deep behind his eyes and in his cheeks. It doesn't take long for him to put together that some of that is because something is still in his head with him.

Oh, you're still here , it says, sounding genuinely surprised. But I kicked you out…

Reigen has half a mind (literally and figuratively) to snap back with something clever, but even thinking about it is a monumental effort, and his eyelids flutter with the strain, knocking him out for a split second and bringing him back again like microsleep. The spirit just laughs.

There's barely any of you left, I wouldn't try to do anything more than you are right now, it teases. This last chunk of you is pretty stubborn. It's like you've superglued it in here. But it's damaged now, since I ripped the rest of you out. That part's lounging in your friend's arms as he ambles through here hopelessly. Bet you wish that was you right now.

Serizawa. Serizawa. Reigen's heart drops into his stomach and then swings back up, pounding hard, fresh wet heat building up somewhere near his right shoulder–he can't turn his head to look.

The spirit makes a noise of surprise before laughing harder. Tell me about you and Serizawa, then, hm? You obviously like him a lot. You've got a big old crush on him, don't you?

Reigen's throat feels thick, hot. He realizes, dully, it's because his body's trying to cry. He can't.

You didn't know till I pointed it out, did you? Sad. You won't even get a chance to make it real. If you did, would you even take it? You seem like a coward. There's not much here for me to look through but I can tell you'd never pour your heart out to him.

Reigen's chest spasms. He chokes. He wants to yell at it to get out of his head, he wants to stand up and run away, he wants Serizawa, he wants Serizawa—

Really? You know you'd never tell him what happened here. You'd just give him a pat on the shoulder and brush yourself off and tell him "Good work." What are you even afraid of?

His chest heaves harder and god it hurts so much but he can't stop it, his tongue feels too big in his mouth, his throat too small, and raspy, otherwise soundless sobs start escaping his grimacing mouth, tears blurring his vision once more.

Yeah, let it out. You're such a loser. You never should've come here. Should've just let me eat that kid at the prize counter. But no, you had to show up and bring your esper boyfriend and complicate things. I could've stayed in my cabinet, yknow. I wanted to eat you and get it over with. But then Serizawa got scary and I knew he wouldn't have any qualms about beating the shit out of me. But you… he wouldn't bear to hurt you. He'd die before he allowed that to happen. And since you have absolutely nothing going for you and a rather gloomy interior I figured I'd take you for a test drive. Pretty flexible, durable body you got here. Had to hit you hard to really hurt you.

Reigen's still trembling, hot tears rapidly cooling in the freezing air of the… wherever they are. He wheezes a breath through his teeth and cringes at how broken he sounds. He's shivering.

And then… you had to try and cheat. I wouldn't have gone this far if you didn't. You knocked me out. Not very sportsmanlike. Don't you know the point of the game is that you can't beat me? Not even like that? You can't win. You're just gonna fade away and die in here eventually. I've made an infinite expanse of the arcade. Serizawa can't find you. I'll let him go till every last particle of your soul fades out, and then I'll send him home. Y'know it's only been a few seconds in the real world? Time's different here. Even for you and Serizawa. I'm gonna make this as long for you as I possibly can.

Reigen's heart rate speeds up again, and finally, with all the strength he can muster, he thinks, Why?

You're cocky. Overconfident. Egotistical. And for what? Avoiding opening up to those who have opened up to you? Being a whiny little coward and having your esper bodyguard handle all your problems for you? Please. You're everything I hate.

Reigen sniffles. It drags rough over his throat and smells like copper.

Seems you're everything you hate too. Perhaps what I'm doing is a mercy then, putting you out of your misery. But you still deserve to be punished.

No, no, Reigen wants to live , he wants to get out of here, he wants to figure out where he stands with Serizawa, he wants to see Mob's next birthday, he wants to watch him graduate, he wants to hand the business off to him, he wants to live humbly and see the world at the same time, he wants to get better . God he wants to get better. He wants to stop throwing himself into suicide missions and convincing himself it's because it's what must be done and not him almost hoping he won't make it out. He wants to stop lying to his sister about how he's doing and feeling guilty every time he gives Serizawa advice he refuses to follow himself. He wants–

Stop crying and sit up.

Reigen's body lurches upward, with far less of his own agency and far more pain than he'd like. At this angle he can finally see his right shoulder, and cold dread turns his stomach. He'd thought he'd imagined the metal shard being stabbed through him, but it's as real as he is, scraping against the underside of his scapula and clavicle every time he breathes, rending and sawing muscle in between. He's just lucky it missed an artery.

When he gets this fixed he's going to be out of commission for massages for a while. It probably won't ever be as limber as it had been ever again. Same for his left elbow, hanging limp and unnaturally bent at his side. Somehow this pisses him off more than anything else that's happened to him. His hands are one of the biggest parts of his identity. They explore and they mend and they gesticulate, long and thin and rough with callouses from years of hard work, strong enough to pull a knot loose from the taut muscles of a client's back, dexterous enough to open up a computer and put it back together again, gentle enough to hold Mob's tiny hands and talk him down from going on a rampage. They're his tools, his most intimate extension of himself, and if the injuries to his arms reduce their usefulness significantly…

He doesn't know what he'll do.

God, that really is the most miserable part of this. Most miserable and pathetic realization he's had. Not knowing. Not knowing if his hands will fail him when he's out of this. They might even fail him now. The only reason he can move any part of him at all is because the spirit is calling the shots.

You really can't stop thinking about yourself even in the worst of circumstances, can you? Embarrassing. Stand up.

Reigen's arms push him off the ground and searing pain cramps up his shoulders and neck, until his feet take the lead and carry him up the rest of the way. He sways a little, blacking out for a second, and his head throbs and blood roars in his ears. He's distantly aware of soreness in his knees and ankles, probably from being dropped back during the fight. That feels like days ago now.

Yeah, it's been a bit. Start walking. I'll tell you when to turn.

The spirit sounds casual enough that Reigen can almost imagine it's someone he asked for directions in an unfamiliar part of town. Instead it's holding his body and part of his soul hostage and marching him down an unending path, and he dreads what he may come across.

Weakly, he thinks, Where are you taking me?

It's silent for a moment. I suppose you'll find out soon enough anyway, I guess I can spare you the suspense. I need food.

For a split second Reigen's hopeful it's a weird parallel world vending machine. He's starving. But the spirit wouldn't be that merciful. He's not an idiot.

I've stashed him around here somewhere… I know the general direction but I always forget which side of me he's on when I get to him.

Reigen's head hurts even worse with the strain of trying to parse what's being said to him. Him… stashed him… what is it–

His stomach drops and he can feel waves of nausea beginning to thrum through him. The maintenance man it ate…

Oh, calm down. I'm not gonna make you chew on him or anything. I could, but do you realize how inefficient that is at absorbing nutrients? I'm just gonna draw it out of him a bit. Like sucking something up through a straw. You do have to touch him for this though.

That doesn't make Reigen feel much better. He's never been okay with the sight of death, and having to get up close and touch a dead body at the whim of an evil being controlling him makes it even worse.

Oh, no, he's not dead. Just asleep. This has been one big nap for him.

Reigen tries desperately to keep his legs from moving. He's not gonna be responsible for this. He's not gonna kill someone for no reason. He can't.

The effort nearly knocks him out again, and the spirit scoffs with exasperation. We're only taking a little at a time to sustain me. You might as well let it happen. You can't get out of this without killing yourself and I know you're too much of a coward for that. Help me eat and maybe I'll shorten your time here.

Reigen blinks dizzily, watching his feet carry him autonomously between the infinite rows of cabinets, clearly having more of a sense of direction in here than he does. He can't use landmarks of any sort, he's noted the same cabinet multiple times already, and so he can only hope that wherever they end up, he can outsmart the spirit and avoid hurting this poor unconscious maintenance man.

He closes his eyes to block out the motion sickness-inducing repeated cabinets. Because his body is no longer being controlled by himself he can almost tune out the sensation of movement. It eases his nausea. And the Cabinet Man knows where they're going regardless of whether or not Reigen can see, so resting his eyes can't be that big of a deal, right? He's so tired now. He wants nothing more than to go to bed.

God. Bed. His sweatshirt and a big blanket. A shitty b-movie. A hard seltzer. Perhaps the warmth of a companion, soft, bigger than him, holding him in his lap.

Reigen forces his eyes back open. His body's stopped moving. Wakey wakey! the spirit croons. Some nap you took there.

Reigen feels more exhausted than before. I barely closed my eyes.

You were out for a full day and a half.

Reigen's not sure he believes this. He can't have been. Did the spirit really stash its food this far away? They'd only been walking for about half an hour…

I'm not lying to you. You got to nap while I piloted your shitty injured body around for almost two days.

Reigen's not sure if the trembling in his limbs is from anger or exhaustion. It could easily be both. He wants to sit down so bad.

Almost , the spirit tells him, forcing him onward. In just a few more steps here you get to help me get my lunch.

Reigen desperately pushes back against the spirit, but he can barely think straight anymore, exhausted and weak, and his stomach sinks as he approaches the peaceful, prone body of a maintenance man laying in between rows of cabinets.

I don't want to .

You're going to.

The spirit curls Reigen's right hand into a contorted claw, and directs him to kneel next to the man.

Find an artery. You know where they are.

Reigen's hand drifts toward the underside of the man's left arm, shaking and sweating.

Good. Now hold still.

Reigen grits his teeth and heaves in a dry, shuddering noise through his nose, clenching at the soft, clammy meat of the man's arm. Dark fleshy tendrils extend from his palm and knuckles and wrist to latch onto and pierce into the skin, like some horrible writhing mass of leeches. A small amount of blood seeps out from where they've hooked into the man, but Reigen's smart enough to guess the majority of that blood is going into the spirit's tendrils and, by extension, his own body.

The notion makes him sick, but simultaneously revitalized, as the spirit regains the energy it lost fighting off Serizawa.

It's like being a vampire, the spirit explains. I need access to the arteries to feed. He won't wake up unless I decide I want to torture him. You're getting an assist from this too.

Reigen reels back and tries to pull his hand free, but it clamps down harder, the wormy, oozing tendrils pulling tight against his wrist. He hates how his own veins throb under his skin as the spirit feeds, how he can feel the extent of its dark, web-like tissue netting and weaving over and through his muscle and bones, wriggling just beneath the dermis. His shoulder grinds against its socket from the effort of both parties trying to maintain control, but the spirit's increasing energy means his body is supernaturally far stronger than the part of his brain that's still him, and so the spirit wins, keeping Reigen's hand in place to finish what it came here for. 

Let go. I'm going to clot it so I don't waste a single drop. You're being a very good boy, all things considered.

Reigen's hand finally releases and the tendrils snap back up under his skin like elastic, making him shudder and gag at the sensation. There are no holes in the man's arm, just faint red rings, and only a small amount of his blood has made it onto Reigen's palm, but even so the sight wrings his stomach and tries to plant necrotic little seeds into the fragile remnants of his psyche.

Your fault. Could've stopped this.

His consciousness quivers, fighting between giving up and staying strong until he can get out. His eyes dance with black spots. He vaguely recalls some National Geographic article about a fungus that intercepts the neural functions of ants and marches them toward the best sites for food and spore dispersal. He feels like one of those ants.

He wipes the blood off on his pants, and the Cabinet Man walks him several rows away and collapses him unceremoniously on the floor against one of the games, legs not quite crossed, palms upturned so he can stare into them.

The one time he wants to be unconscious most of all, his body refuses to let him rest.

That's good. I bet you wanna stay awake anyway to make sure I don't do anything bad with your body without your permission.

Reigen leans his head back and closes his eyes. Maybe at least with them closed he can pretend he's somewhere else.

Somewhere warm, soft. The luxurious, seductive comfort of his duvet under beams of sunlight through his window. A cafe Hanazawa introduced him to that was far out of his price range. The ramen house down the street from the original Spirits and Such office at five in the evening on a late fall day, warm and savory and padded out by the fuzzy murmur of dinnertime patrons, Mob smiling at him from across the table with a little rice stuck to his face.

That one night at the bar with Serizawa at the beginning of summer, a Friday night, and they'd had a hard day–a customer who was sure his pipes were haunted when really it was a complicated plumbing issue that Reigen had to put some elbow grease into fixing, unaware that the man's fridge instead was in fact haunted, which Serizawa had to physically wrestle with for a good ten minutes before the unruly spirit could be exorcised–and Reigen was drunk, and Serizawa was drunk, and they were really close, and Serizawa's tie was loose and the first few buttons of his shirt were undone, and Reigen had stared a lot that night, and Serizawa had been really touchy, held Reigen's thin wrists in his large hands, thrown a soft arm over his shoulder, knocked their foreheads together, got closer to his ear than he needed to to tell him a secret, the secret being that 'M really havin fun with you, Taka.

Serizawa had not remembered the events of that night when he came into work the next Monday–neither of them are heavyweights by any means when it comes to drinking, but Reigen at least has the benefit (or detriment, he supposes) of experience. And so that was fine. Reigen wasn't sure how he'd handle it if the other man had remembered. Some uncomfortable but not unfamiliar feeling had been gnawing away at him that whole weekend, and the relief at not having to face it when work started up again had made him confident that that had just been a one-off.

But that hadn't changed that the night had been special. He recalls it fondly, often, and especially now, cold and hurting and alone save for the creature in his head, curling in on himself and yearning for the smell of alcohol near his lips and cheap cologne against his ear and day-old cotton sleeves slung around his neck.

—

Serizawa stops to catch his breath. The repeating rows of games are making him dizzy and winded even though the soul is pointing him in the right direction. It's subtle, the way it helps, and Serizawa doesn't think it's actively helping him out given its reluctance to want to return to its body and significantly weaker cognitive functions, but it ever so slightly oozes in a certain direction like ferrofluid to a magnet, growing stronger and stronger the closer Serizawa becomes.

Still, it's disorienting. His eyes are strained from the lack of diversity in his surrounding scenery. He's hungry, and he's tired, and he's sweaty, which is causing the cold to finally start to get to him as his sweat evaporates.

He slumps against a cabinet and holds up the soul. Its head is distinctly more foxlike this time, like a kitsune mask, complete with narrow markings like eyes and a thin little snout. The eye marks flicker, like it's blinking at him tiredly and grumpily, woken from its nap.

"What's Arataka's problem?"

It comes out fast, out of frustration, and Reigen's given name feels foreign on his tongue, but it's been hours, and he's too tired to care much.

"Why is he so lonely? Why is he so averse to the idea of just being himself when that's all he ever encourages anyone else to do?"

The soul just stares at him.

Serizawa lets out a sigh and leans his head back. "You're so kind. You're so supportive. You're more obvious than you think you are when you're annoyed. You have a nice smile."

The soul thrums, pleased at this.

"Oh, so you can respond, you're just picky."

A wave of amusement rolls through him and he laughs once.

"You like compliments, obviously. Does Reigen?" 

There's more of an uncomfortable feeling now, that's hard to decipher without words telling him what it is. But Serizawa thinks he gets it.

"I have to be strategic about it then," he murmurs, staring up into the ceiling. "Or he won't believe me."

His body begins heating up with contentment. Depictions of comfort, of warm homemade food and the decadent laziness of an afternoon nap under a huge blanket. 

"No, I'm aware he likes a good meal. The napping I didn't know about though. But it makes sense. He seems awfully tired. Are you?"

The soul curls up in his arms and oozes again.

"I'll take that as a yes." 

It's not like Reigen hasn't slept around Serizawa. He snoozed on the train pretty hard on the way to and from that one onsen, and there are a lot of slow days where he sits down with the intention of reading through some papers and instead falls asleep sitting up, but those have always felt like naps of necessity versus napping just to nap. The hardest Serizawa can recall him sleeping however is in the hospital after talking Mob down from his city-destroying breakdown (he'd sustained a mild concussion and many lacerations and broken bones, and practically had to be hogtied to be dragged to the hospital because the thought of covering his own hospital bill was more scary than what had just happened to him), and after Mob helped him back to the office when he'd shouldered that curse from Tome. Serizawa himself had been injured pretty thoroughly at the time, but he'd woken up enough to experience Reigen exhaustedly calling an ambulance and accompanying him to the hospital, and passing out in the chair next to his bed for several long hours. He'd looked so drained. And he'd dodged Serizawa's questions about what happened, but Mob and Tome had relayed it to him anyway.

Serizawa thinks about this as he and the soul make their way further into the maze. Both times Reigen had made significant growth in how he handled himself and how he treated others. Both times he'd nearly killed himself without really caring that he had. Is that what this is now? An effort to throw himself in and sacrifice himself to help? Maybe not. After all it'd been by chance that the spirit singled out Reigen, this wasn't some last desperate attempt to save Serizawa. It was an accident, and according to the soul maybe Reigen felt his good luck had finally run out, his karma had finally caught up to him.

Dimple makes comments like that about him a lot. One Reigen mentioned he found particularly amusing was "I can't believe this insane lucky streak you're on lately. You're gonna die a horrible death." 

Serizawa frowns. This feels way too applicable to Reigen's current circumstances. He hopes Reigen hasn't figured that out too. Especially because this is not something Reigen had coming. 

"Taka is a good person," Serizawa murmurs. Shortening his name comes easier than saying his given name for the first time, somehow. It feels like a little secret, some privilege he's allowed himself, as his worry takes hold and tightens his stomach. "Taka wants–he needs me." He holds up Reigen's soul. "You need me."

The soul blinks at him, its narrow little eyes widening beyond sleepiness for the first time since it came out of Reigen's chest. They're dark brown, orange glow underneath making them warmer, and they feel trusting, affectionate.

Serizawa brings it closer and presses his head to its own. " You need me ."

The soul vibrates, thrumming something soft and heavy through Serizawa's very being. Hands in close proximity, drunken lips too close to Reigen's ear, an offer of this being a temporary job, it's okay if he finds something better. The dreamlike fear of wanting and not being wanted in return, dull warmth underneath ribs at the sight of a smile.

And he understands, then.

Serizawa rubs its little ear. "I know," he tells it, "I'll make sure he knows too. I'm not leaving him behind." 

—

Reigen shivers. It's more instinct than feeling. He's empty. It's been weeks. He keeps his eyes closed most days, catches up on sleep whenever the Cabinet Man decides to leave his mind alone. He can feel himself losing weight. His wounds are mostly healed, now, but in the contorted way medical negligence leaves things healed. His left arm doesn't bend well, and the metal in his shoulder might as well be part of him. The spirit either leaves him alone or talks amicably about its life as a video game, recalling fondly the many patrons it traumatized. Sometimes it psychoanalyzes him. Reigen's always hated people who try to understand how his brain works, maybe because he never really understood himself. Tome suggested ADHD. Told him she has an older brother with it who thinks similarly to Reigen. He wasn't so sure, and he still isn't, but this same aversion to psychoanalysis has led him to avoid diagnosis, so who knows. The point is he doesn't really want to know what happens up there, same way he watches TV and YouTube to avoid being left alone with his thoughts. And now all he has are his thoughts. His, and the spirit's, currently turning him over and around like an odd little rock, inspecting the details.

What is the shape of your soul? the spirit wonders, poking and prodding at him just beneath his skin. Reigen doesn't know what that means. Well, maybe he does. He's seen Mob's soul. It looked like an axolotl. It was kinda cute. Most humans have a shape. But you… don't seem to know who you are. Or at least, you don't know who you want to be but don't like who you are right now. Your soul is malleable. A pause. Reigen wants to say something witty in return, but his jaw aches, his head pounds, his eyes swim. This body is no longer his. Hasn't been for some time. I like that. It means I can play with it.

Reigen sighs and slumps in on himself, and the spirit inside him takes the lead, moving his body far too quickly for his own comfort.

Some part of him thinks this could be his comeuppance, the culmination of years and years of lies and cover-ups, years and years of him saying rude things to Mob in the heat of the moment and getting upset with his mother for badgering him to come home. He hasn't been the best of sons. He has a duty to his family to celebrate and bond and he's knocked that all aside.

But his sister supports him, though. Maybe she doesn't agree with his work but she understands why he stays away. "They were hard on you again today, Arataka," she'd said over the phone. "I stood up for you but I think they're at the age that makes it harder and harder to break them of their misconceptions."

He'd been a delinquent teen they never understood. Good grades, star student, who took up smoking at fifteen and started bleaching his hair and sneaking out at night. He also wasn't their daughter anymore, which no doubt confused them further, because his sister had always been a girl. Suddenly they had a son and while they weren't bigoted in that sense Reigen knows they had set timelines and plans for their children and he'd started ruining them as soon as he got his first whiff of freedom.

He wasn't what they expected. His parents woke up one night to the cops dropping him off at their doorstep and the next day he scored top marks on his exam. Graduated near the top of his class, tried college, dropped out, tried massage school, got kicked out because he was better than the instructor, got a job at a telemarketing center, quit, became a con artist. Their worst nightmare. Every day they do something to remind him how disappointed they are in him, and every day guilt nags at the back of his mind because the client he's helping thinks he's a psychic and he isn't.

And yet they love him, right? His mother sounds so genuine when she says she misses her son. His father took him to buy him his first items of masculine clothing with some confusion but mostly support. When his first boyfriend dumped him right out of college and he holed up in his room his mother brought him tea and kissed his hair and told him that boy was a piece of trash anyway and that he'd find someone or something better, he always did.

Maybe Reigen is the problem. Things are complicated. He hates his parents. He loves his parents. He hates his life. He loves his life. Would his loved ones be disappointed in him right now? It's his fault he's here after all. Is Serizawa still looking for him? Would Mob come looking for him like he did back in the forest, or would this be his last straw? Would his parents worry? Or would they get the context for his disappearance and leave him to wither and die in here because we told him he'd eventually bite off more than he could chew, he's so impulsive.

The corners of Reigen's mouth ache in a tight grimace. His throat burns and closes around his tongue. What is the shape of him? Is he soft welcoming edges or hostile thorns around a vulnerable center? Does he know what he is and what he wants to be?

He wants to be a better brother, a better son, a better boss, a better teacher, a better friend. But right now he's just Reigen.

Not even that. He's ten percent Reigen and ninety percent disgusting monster piloting his body like a fucking mech aimlessly in the void.

… Yeah. Yeah, that's what he is. The rest of him is missing. Are these thoughts the real him or has this weed spread into his brain? Wouldn't the real Reigen get dramatic about this, be endlessly hopeful for salvation despite how little he felt he deserved it? If he were the real him he'd make a joke about how this pathetic form was more accurate. If he were the real him he'd be fucking pissed right now and deal with the heavy stuff later once he was safe. And Mob, no matter when he came, would be just as gracious as he always was and grip his hand and offer him a little smile as if to say he was proud of him. Tome would punch his arm and make some crack about how she totally could've saved his ass in minutes but her chin would quiver and she'd avoid eye contact. His parents would embrace him like they did after Mob's ??? incident and kiss his head and tell him they were so happy he was okay and that now he'd have some cool scars with cool stories. Dimple would act uncaring but would ruffle his hair and float somewhere nearby to keep an eye on him. And Serizawa…

Serizawa would get a little teary and crush him in a big bear hug. Serizawa would pat him down until he was certain Reigen was alright. Serizawa would make him sit down and he would run his hands through his hair and eventually tell him I'm glad you're okay, Reigen-san , even though he'd long since learned to drop the formality, because he did that after he was released from the hospital, cupped his face and felt his hair and then strained to keep his hands to himself, tired brown eyes shining with worry and water.

Reigen has to get out. He has to find the rest of himself. He doesn't deserve to be here despite what niggling little part of him says otherwise. He needs to see Mob again, he needs to apologize to his parents, he needs to tell Serizawa–

Tell him what, exactly?

That–that he loves him? Just like that? That's hard. That's a vulnerability he hasn't even extended to Mob, at least not verbally. And if Serizawa didn't reciprocate, then what? Would he take it platonically? Reigen could work with that. Regardless of what his below-average self worth tells him, Serizawa would stick around no matter what Reigen told him. That's how he is. He's constant and reliable and loyal to a fault and if Reigen told him he loved him he'd stay even if he only saw him as a friend, and Reigen is nothing if not adaptable. He could ween himself off of romantic (and admittedly sexual) desire and turn it into a robust friendship instead.

Reigen isn't sure if the Cabinet Man is listening. If it is it doesn't seem to care.

Reigen yawns to himself. It's not a physical action, purely emotional, but it helps him settle himself enough to slip into a long nap. He can be patient.

—

Serizawa is tired.

He always is anymore (Reigen says it's because now he's living a much more relaxing life than before and years of stress are sloughing off him, but Serizawa thinks it might just be that he's over thirty and has night school), but this is different. It's like being on a trip to the grocery store with his mother, an overstimulating task on his own but a downright exhausting one with her. She talks a lot, to him and to others, and can turn a ten minute milk run into a three hour apocalypse stockpile, and he loves her dearly, but he much prefers to pop in on his own with his head low and his gait purposeful, grab what he wants, and leave.

This is what this rescue mission is feeling like. It's probably upwards of seven hours now, and he's hungry and thirsty and so extremely bored and dizzy from the endless rows of arcade cabinets. The soul seems to be echoing this sentiment, restlessly climbing up his arms to his head and back down again, which he supposes isn't surprising considering how much Reigen moves. Everything is fluid for him, he's never fully sitting still. Some part of him is always in motion, his mouth, his hands, his feet. He can never stay in one position at his desk for more than five minutes, leaning and bouncing his knee and swivelling his chair around. Serizawa once walked in on him attempting a handstand against one wall instead of filling out important paperwork. He hadn't noticed him, and so Serizawa just watched, traced the crisp lines of his slacks to the rumpled, rushed, tucked-in hem of his dress shirt around his narrow waist, all the way to the long, exposed curve of his neck and soft bangs flipped upside down.

His tie was in his face. He was sweating.

And then he'd noticed Serizawa and fallen over and broken a potted plant.

Serizawa snorts to himself. That had been one of the first times he really consciously thought to himself that he loved Reigen. And then he'd felt embarrassed thinking it and became just as stammery as Reigen was in that moment. A mess , Dimple had told him. You two are a mess.

But now the thought that he loves Reigen comes easily. There was a time when it was a more idolic love, because Reigen had given him a second chance and the reins to his own life, but Reigen's just a man, a good man, and Serizawa has grown to see him less as a savior and more as a close companion, an equal, and he's not sure Reigen realizes that yet, because he's always posturing, always trying to impress Serizawa with the same kind of hidden desperation he has when trying to sell something.

He's clueless, he's kind, he's funny, he's going through so much more than Serizawa realized, and Serizawa loves him very much and wants to just get him out of here and bring him home and patch him up and put on one of the crappy movies Reigen likes until he decides to open up. This goose chase is getting old and is frankly, in Reigen's terms, fucking bullshit.

The soul chirps. It seems to agree.

Serizawa sighs, heavily, and pauses to catch his breath. "Can we sit down?"

Another chirp. Serizawa comes down like a sack of flour, solid, maybe a little too hard, wincing at the toll on his tailbone. He's a big guy. This isn't even a matter of whether or not saying so is offensive, it's just true. Years of sitting in his room playing video games and eating junk food made him reasonably chubby and even without that he's just under six and a half feet tall, so yeah, he's big . He's heavy and he comes down conspicuously, especially when he's worn out.

According to the flashes of concepts and images the soul has provided him to the end of communication, Reigen likes that about him. Reigen likes how big he is. And Serizawa absolutely cannot let that go to his head (because Reigen despite his complicated self image has enough overconfidence for the both of them) but the temptation is there.

"Long day," Serizawa yawns. The soul yawns back and nestles in his hair.

Dimple does that sometimes.

Serizawa's starting to miss Dimple. He would've been a lot of help today.

They remain there in silence for a long moment before the soul perks up like it's listening for something, body thrumming with something Serizawa can only describe as dread. He's about to ask what it is when he feels a pressure like two equally charged magnets through his whole body, starting on his left and slowly rolling through to his right.

"He's there, isn't he? We're close?"

The soul oozes much more dramatically than before in the direction of the pressure, and Serizawa stands resolutely.

"We're coming, Taka." 

—

Reigen has never felt so jaded and exhausted in his entire life. For a while the record-holder was his first time in an infinite parallel world where he'd starved on a train and written out his will on a tourist brochure (terrible moment of weakness, he's not proud of the apology to his parents nor the way he kicked it under a chair when Ritsu pointed it out), but now this second infinite parallel world certainly has that first one beat, especially considering his festering, poorly healed injuries on top of constant hunger and headaches and nausea. And the looming knowledge that he might have been here for a month. He was able to keep track of days on the train, but the Cabinet Man barely lets him rest to scrawl out a tally mark on the floor or a neighboring game, and so time seems to blend together and stretch on infinitely.

Not like it would matter, of course, the spirit keeps him trudging forward. The only times they backtrack are to find the maintenance man and make him bleed a little so the spirit can feed.

Reigen's desire to make it out has somehow held strong, and while he's determined to hold onto the more sentimental aspects of it, a bitter sense of spite has risen up to take the forefront of his motivation and now he's just pissed. If he were a younger version of himself he would've gotten angry a lot sooner, quickly burning, like alcohol under a lit match, and it would've fizzled out on the second or third day. He would've forced the five stages of grief upon himself, denial making up the first day or so and anger the second, and then felt bargaining and depression within mere hours of each other (though depression would last a very long time), and then finally maybe acceptance. But now that he's older and the world revolves a little less around him he's gotten the depression and bargaining out of the way first and is merging denial and anger into the same step. Acceptance is out of the question. 

He's fucking tired of seeing the same stuff every few hours. He's tired of walking and stopping and walking and stopping and walking and stopping in dead silence except for when the Cabinet Man wants to converse. It's not like it ever has anything interesting to say.

Reigen glares at the cabinets he passes by. Do any of these work? At least give me something to do.

The spirit doesn't answer for a long enough time that Reigen almost thinks it's abandoned him, but then some of the games flicker on. I don't like other games , it tells him in return, but I suppose it can't hurt to let you play. Just make it fast.

Reigen keeps walking until he finds one he wants, and moves his sore, improperly-healed arms to grasp at the controls. His hands are weak from disuse, but he splays them over the buttons anyway, and begins to play. It's the first real relief he's felt in a long time, because for a moment, watching the poorly rendered graphics, he can pretend he's in the real world again.

God, who knew Action Motorcycle Racers 23 would move him to tears?

The spirit suddenly begins to seem restless and anxious inside him. No more games, we're going.

Reigen scoffs but can't protest as the spirit starts moving him away from the game. What, are the graphics that bad?

The spirit doesn't respond, but Reigen senses a new presence, something that's upsetting the balance of the dimension they're in.

He may not be spiritually inclined but he's not an idiot. He knows what's coming.

Oh, Katsuya's gonna kick your ass. He's really strong, yknow. Maybe not with his muscles cuz he stayed inside for half his life but his powers are really strong. You're dead meat, pal, he's gonna–

Shut up, the Cabinet Man hisses, and then the game just behind Reigen explodes. He collapses to the ground, curling into a ball to shield himself from the blast and the purple light that accompanies it, the spirit temporarily losing control of him in its sudden panic. He can feel it trying to regain its hold, but Serizawa's already hooked it with his own power, and Reigen feels like he's being drawn and quartered. Half his body feels like it's being rent from the other and like vines are being pulled out from the very fibers of his muscles and it hurts but it hurts like pulling off a hangnail hurts, stinging, intense, but undercut by relief.

Relief. Immense, all consuming relief. Like he's just gotten off work for the weekend after a rough day and can go nap. And Serizawa is there. God, he's there , it doesn't feel real, he's here and he's silent and angry and he's not backing down for anything and what in the world is that yellowy-orange thing on his head–

The spirit shrieks and leaves Reigen's body of its own accord in some final desperate attempt at escape and Reigen feels numb and limp in the wake of it, collapsing to his side on the floor. He takes a shuddering breath in place of a laugh, and blacks out. It only lasts a moment, because the cacophony is insane , and he desperately wants to see what's happening, weakly pulling himself into a better position to watch.

Serizawa looks intense. Not wild like he would've imagined, but very righteously angry in an authoritative stance, arms flexing against his rolled-up sleeves as he manhandles the spirit, a deep frown on his face, eyes glowing bright white.

It's very sexy, Reigen decides.

He blacks out again.

The ground shuddering and heaving underneath him wakes him up again. It's cracking and quaking, and glass pops and shatters all around them as the cabinets in their immediate vicinity overload with power and discharge. Serizawa looks a little more harried than before, sweating, teeth gnashing as the Cabinet Man squeals and writhes in his hold. A gooey red tendril grips a cabinet and launches it at Serizawa, who catches it with his power just in time and sends it flying back at his attacker. The hit lands, and the Cabinet Man screeches. Reigen can't tell if the sound is rage or pain.

He lurches and his eyes roll into his head. He tries to push himself up and watch Serizawa, he tries. Serizawa is his lifeline. Serizawa is the only thing he's sure of right now. The only thing he's ever been sure of, he realizes, and he's straining against the spirit's sheer stubbornness like he's trying to tame some legendary beast. Not yelling, just intensely focused, that strange yellow being floating around him like a guardian. It seems to be fortifying him.

Reigen's arms give out on him and he hits the ground cheek first. His lids fall heavy and his eyes cross and he can't do it anymore, he's so tired, maybe he'll give Serizawa a raise after this.

The last thing he really registers is an excruciatingly loud noise, in tandem with instant blinding light and the burning smell of ozone.

—

Finding Reigen is easy once that pressure engulfs Serizawa. It's like a beacon, and he crushes cabinets and throws them out of the way as the pressure increases, drawn ever toward his target. He can't believe it, after so long, he's found him, and he's gonna exorcize the shit out of this goddamn spirit.

That was something Reigen had said to him once. He finds it fitting now.

He accidentally explodes a cabinet in his charge, and there he is. There's Reigen, cowering from the blast, looking significantly worse than he had when Serizawa first lost him. He's smaller and weaker and the blood staining his head and limbs looks suspiciously old, and he's hiding behind limbs that shouldn't even be able to move.

This doesn't matter yet. What matters is Serizawa digging his energy into the meat of the spirit and ripping it out of Reigen.

For a couple long moments Reigen and the spirit scream in tandem as Serizawa wrestles with it, trying to pull it up like a stubborn weed in his mother's garden. It begins to separate from Reigen's left side, ghostly face contorted and infuriated and afraid, but it holds on tighter, refusing to budge. Serizawa yanks, and Reigen lurches forward, and the spirit tugs backwards, but it's losing.

It then slides out of Reigen on its own terms, leaving red and black ooze in its wake from Reigen's eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. It grows to its full size and begins to attack. Serizawa sees Reigen crawl closer to watch.

And then he sees only red, zeroing in on the Cabinet Man and digging his own tendrils of energy into it to rip it apart. It fights back with equal fervor, but Serizawa lands blow after blow with increasing cruelty. Chunks of the beast fly off in a spray of blood, and it staggers before righting itself and flinging a cabinet at him.

Serizawa can't have this. He returns the volley easily and the metal and glass shred its body, removing several tentacles on the way. It lunges for him, wraps him in its disgusting limbs, and Serizawa slices through them cleanly and easily, getting himself covered in rank black blood. The spirit wails again in outrage and pain, stumbling back and collapsing. Serizawa stalks forward and ties down two tentacles with his energy, but the others have regenerated and they wrap him up again, tighter this time, trying to squeeze the life out of him.

A rib pops.

And then Serizawa hits a hundred percent.

Purple fire races up the spirit's limbs and it shrieks in pain as every cabinet in the dimension shatters and explodes, creating the loudest noise and brightest light Serizawa's ever experienced. He has to close his eyes and cover his ears. He can feel the ground shake harder and harder, knocking him over, and a nearby cabinet topples over him, but he can't do anything to stop it, the world is imploding, the Cabinet Man is burning and writhing into an ever smaller mass, before it too explodes.

There's a loud noise and a bright flash, and then Serizawa is on solid, cold ground. He opens his eyes, and nearly sobs with relief.

They're back in the arcade. It's still windy outside. Not much darker than when they first entered, but rain has started to fall.

He looks down at himself. His shirt is less sweaty, clean of supernatural blood. His nose and neck sting fresh from where Reigen's body had clawed at him.

Reigen's body.

Reigen.

He quickly whips around to see him laying curled up on the floor, looking altogether like a corpse and much less like an unconscious human than Serizawa thinks he should be. He's at least back to a normal looking weight, looks more healthy overall, but his left arm is back to being bent strangely, and new blood spurts from his shoulder, drips down his forehead.

They've been reset physically to before the spirit sucked them in. That could be good. Or it could be bad.

"Reigen!!" Serizawa yelps, frantic, scrambling over to him to turn him onto his back and look him over, fumbling to dial an emergency line in the process. He's far too pale, soft mouth parted slightly, chest rising and falling only very faintly. God, he's almost dead. Serizawa grabs for his soul and holds it over Reigen's body, desperately, tears burning in his eyes. "Go back," he commands it, "Go back!! "

The soul blinks at him and wiggles uncomfortably, and Serizawa sputters a sob.

"Please, please , go back!! I can't–I can't live without him, not after all we did to get him back, please!! "

The soul considers him for one agonizing moment, and then slips into Reigen's chest.

—

Warmth, life, seeps into him from somewhere around his stomach and then into his heart and from there, to his limbs, reviving every nerve ending, every cell, turning on his brain again like an engine on a full tank of gas. It feels good. He feels real again–and then he feels real again . Hot pain spears through his right shoulder and throbs in his left elbow and what had initially been meant as a peaceful first breath back into the land of the living becomes thorns in place of ribs and he gasps out a tender sound, coughs hard and wet, dull pain thrumming from the right side of his head.

He coughs harder, tears welling up and sliding through his closed eyelids at the needle-like feeling in his lungs, head spinning like he's going to pass out again, a worried voice distantly calling for him. Warm hands, big hands, are on his arms then, and the voice is suddenly right there, rumbling through his whole body.

"Reigen!" the voice calls, panicked. "Arataka!"

Reigen furrows his brow hard and then opens his eyes, light forcing him to squint. All he can see is black and white–a silhouette hovering over him, and harsh fuzzy glow from somewhere above the silhouette. He blinks a few more times, and the light slowly eases into a soft, faint grey glow, and the black silhouette becomes Serizawa, concerned, harried, relief just beginning to soften the deep lines on his face. Reigen stares at him, scanning every inch of his face–he has a small scab over his nose, and red lines down his neck from fingernails that never broke the skin, but other than that he's unscathed, at least physically.

Serizawa reaches to wipe Reigen's eyes, cupping his face in his big hands. He didn't even realize he was crying, and tries to say "Oh," but the sound doesn't come out. Serizawa smiles a tiny bit and pulls a hand back to wipe his own eyes. He looks like he's trying to think of something to say.

Reigen beats him to it, raspy at first. "'S real? This 's real, right, Katsuya?" 

That makes Serizawa tear up again. "It's real, I promise," he murmurs. "I'm real."

Reigen's chest spasms then, and he brings his right hand up to cover his face–the shard of metal in his shoulder hurts, but somehow less than his broken elbow. Serizawa doesn't seem to know where to put his hands, brushing them over Reigen's arms and chest and face. His movements slow when Reigen tries to choke back a sob and lifts his hand to cup Serizawa's cheek, and the latter tilts his head into it with a shaky sigh.

"Taka," Serizawa says. "Taka." He covers Reigen's hand on his cheek with his own, eyes wet. Reigen's throat fails him. His chest burns. The sob he was holding down scrapes out of him, wrecked, and he sits up as much as cracked ribs will allow and he kisses Serizawa on the mouth. And Serizawa kisses back.

He doesn't know if it's a heat of the moment thing. He doesn't know if this is truly reciprocated or if he's just happy to have found Reigen. But Serizawa holds him steady, firmly, careful of his injuries, and he kisses him soundly, and Reigen will take it even if it doesn't count in the long run. He breaks for air, and leans in for another, but only achieves a brush of his lips over Serizawa's before the other stops him.

"Taka, he says softly, guiding him down to the ground, "you have to lay back down. You're in bad shape."

Reigen almost sobs again at that, knotting his hand in Serizawa's sleeve. "Don't leave me," he begs, and he feels deeply ashamed for it, but he's afraid, and he can't let Serizawa out of his sight. "Please stay. I don't–what if it–"

Serizawa gently pets his head, careful of the bleeding wound. "It won't. It's dead. I'm sorry I couldn't exorcise it immediately, this is my fault."

Reigen shakes his head weakly, but Serizawa just shushes him and kisses his forehead.

"Emergency services are on their way, I called them," he whispers, rubbing Reigen's wrist. "We were looking for you for hours."

Reigen blinks, frowning. "Hours?"

"Yeah."

"Se–Katsuya… I was there for about a month."

Serizawa looks suddenly alarmed, and checks his watch. "It's only been ten minutes out here… I knew that sort of thing could mess with time but not for two different people." He cups Reigen's face again. "I'm so sorry. We went as fast as we could."

Reigen closes his eyes. It hurts to look at things. "It's not your fault. Stop apologizing." He takes another moment, brow furrowing in pain and thought. "...We?"

"O-oh, yeah. Me, and… me and your soul. When you got possessed your soul got forced out. I thought for sure that meant you were dead. Uh, figuratively. Like if didn't get to you in time… and, it… it sorta told me how you feel."

Reigen's heart drops. "About…?"

Serizawa rubs his neck. "Everything?" He looks away. "It was reluctant to go back to your body because, um. It–you didn't care whether you made it out. Alive."

His stomach hurts. Twists like he's eaten something raw. Out of everyone he wanted to know about his mental problems he wanted Serizawa to know the least. 

"M getting better," he croaks, and Serizawa frowns. "I wanted to get outta there. I wanted to live. That's not… m not like that all the time anymore."

"Why haven't you said anything?" Serizawa murmurs in a tone far more heartbreakingly gentle than Reigen thinks he can handle right now, sirens beginning to wail in the distance. "It takes a lot but. You should talk to someone."

Reigen doesn't look at him. "What else did my soul narc on me about?"

"You like good food and good naps. And you love your friends more than anything in the world."

This makes Reigen laugh a little bit, as the ambulance pulls up to the front of the arcade and the paramedics start getting ready. Serizawa traces the lines of Reigen's jaw and neck with his thumb.

"It told me you love me."

Reigen's jaw clenches and he swallows. "Fuckin–fucking traitor ."

Serizawa then says something Reigen does not understand, regardless of the kiss: "I love you too."

Reigen looks up at him. His eyes are wide, he feels scared, but Serizawa just smiles back, teary, happy.

"I love you. I don't know what I would've… if I didn't get you out, Arataka, I never would've forgiven myself. I know it may not have mattered to you, but. It mattered to me. You matter to me. I love you."

Reigen chokes a little. He can't keep sobbing like this. Serizawa rubs his chest gently, trying to help soothe him, leaning over to press their heads together.

"Promise me, Taka, that you'll talk to someone. I can't… I don't like knowing you're going through what I have."

"I'll get on it," he promises Serizawa, snivelling. "Um. Talking to someone."

Serizawa looks immensely relieved. "Thank you."

Reigen shakily tries to kiss him again, and Serizawa meets it with much more softness than Reigen feels he deserves, but he lets that notion fall to the wayside, just for now, just for Serizawa. When they break apart, Reign swallows thickly. "I still owe you dinner."

Serizawa laughs, then, a small thing, and brushes his hair out of the way. "Let's do a rain check on that, Taka." 

Reigen tries to smile for him, because he really loves Serizawa very much right now, and that nickname does so very many things to him, but he's very tired, and he starts slipping away again as Serizawa relinquishes his desperate but gentle grip on him and he's hoisted onto a stretcher.

—

Mob is the first to visit Reigen in the recovery room. Well, aside from Serizawa. But he was there when everything happened, he said, so it makes sense that he's already there. His old shishou is deep asleep in his hospital bed, bandaged on both arms and his head as far as Mob can tell, and Serizawa is equally as unconscious, but sort of half leaning on Reigen, their hands intertwined. Mob smiles a little to himself and quietly sets a bouquet of flowers and a get-well-soon card on the little side table. He tries to make the resultant shuffling unobtrusive, but Serizawa cracks an eye open at the sound. Mob offers him a small wave, and Serizawa waves back, an exhausted smile on his face.

"Hi, Shigeo," he whispers, and Mob comes closer.

"Hi Serizawa. Are you and Master Reigen doing alright?"

Serizawa nods, and when he looks at Reigen, his expression softens considerably. "He had it worse than me. He's gonna need a lot of help. But he's better now that we're out of there."

Mob looks between both of them, and cocks his head. "Are things okay between the two of you?"

Serizawa blinks, and then blushes a little. "Yeah. Things are really good."

"That's good to hear," Mob tells him, genuinely. "Please get more rest. And tell him I'll come to see him again, and that I want to catch up with him. I miss him."

Serizawa smiles and nods. "Will do. Thank you for coming by."

Mob waves, and gives Reigen's hand a little pat before leaving.

He might have to come back in to help around the office. He doesn't expect anything in the way of pay, except maybe a nice bowl of ramen they can share together.

It's been a while.