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"Well," Reigen begins to say, watching the last of the spirit flutter and fade, like smoke, like confetti, a celebration: ascend, go to hell, go fuck yourself. "That was quite the ordeal. Good work, Mob."
It is late, cold, the sky a dark blue dome cracked open and dripping with snowfall. It’s their first real job in a while, an actual spirit waiting to taunt them at their arrival, and their last job together before Mob is due to leave - if Reigen were superstitious, which by all means he should be, he would think it was either fate or karmic retribution that it was so exhausting. Instead he thinks it’s just unlucky, inconvenient.
Mob’s breath comes in white clouds against the cold air. He drops his hand ungracefully, twitching still with expended effort, and turns his head toward Reigen, swaying a little on his feet. He is bent like a wing on a paper crane, finally able to let his concentration shake loose. “Thank you, Shishou.”
“Ramen?” Reigen asks, jerking a thumb back towards town, his other hand tucked neatly into the pocket of his slacks. “You’ll get some of your energy back.”
Mob punctuates his exhaustion with a final heavy sigh, then straightens up, unfurls like smoke, a scroll, a baby bird from its shell. He is taller than Reigen now, older, neck thin and shoulders wide, but his voice is like a child’s when he says, “Yes, please.”
It’s their usual place, the one they’ve been frequenting since Mob only came up to around Reigen’s chest. If he puts effort in he might be able to remember glimpses of the first time they’d come, how Mob’s legs had swung high up off the floor - Reigen had to help him onto one of the stools and the host had mistaken them for father and son, something that had just about scandalized him at twenty-five - and he’d barely finished half his ramen. Now Mob is big and firmly planted and can clear his bowl faster than Reigen can if he is so inclined. Reigen tries not to be impressed because it fills him with nostalgia and he doesn’t want to feel that tonight, not when Mob has been very transparently navigating around it. They sit at the bar and talk about a whole lot of nothing, in Reigen’s opinion, but he knows, inherently, that it’s better that way.
He hasn’t said goodbye to Mob yet.
It hangs between them like a pendulum, a heavy black chandelier, the tightly woven elephant in the room. The thing is, it hasn’t really come up. Even if it had, Reigen has been able to see the nerves surrounding it crawling under Mob’s skin a mile away for months now - and he doesn’t want to make it worse, won’t rub salt into this particular wound. He’s sure it’s the only reason why Mob agreed to take the job, anyway, when he should be packing his final things, making lists, saying his goodbyes. Tonight was one last escape from reality, the final thread to snap on the rope he’s desperately clinging to. Reigen has no qualms about it if Mob wants to pretend that things aren’t changing for a little bit longer. If he’s honest, he doesn’t want to think about it much, either.
“I’m glad we finished earlier than planned,” he says when he finishes his meal - Mob is still working through his, looking at Reigen with a mouth full of boiled egg and broth. Reigen stretches both arms over his head. “I’ll file the check at the office before I take you home, if it makes no difference to you.”
Mob swallows with some difficulty, giving himself a few thumps on the chest. “You don’t have to do that, Shishou.”
“I have to disagree. It would be irresponsible to carry the check around until morning.” Mob just stares at him. Reigen cracks a smile, reaches over and ruffles Mob’s hair. “I’m morbidly aware. You are exactly the last person I’d want to run into in a dark alleyway. Still, it’s the principle of the thing.”
“If you say so,” Mob concedes.
“Besides, Mob,” Reigen says after a beat, swirling some water around in his glass. “I’d like to.”
He doesn’t turn to look at the face Mob is making when he says it. The finality of it is too much.
He makes Mob wait in the hall while he files the check away in the office, knowing it won’t take long and it doesn’t. He locks the safe, steals a discarded pack of cigarettes from the top left drawer of his desk, and makes sure all the lights are off before he locks up. It isn’t terribly late but he should really be getting Mob home now. He’s sitting on the top step outside the door and Reigen gets a small twinge of nostalgia that blooms into something much sadder, much more bittersweet. He realizes vividly, in a way he hadn’t before, how much he’s going to miss Mob, after seeing him almost every day for six and a half years. The kid who could tear a city to shreds, but spent his time over-growing potted plants.
“All set,” he says, only after Mob doesn’t immediately move.
Mob doesn’t look at him. “You really don’t have to take me home,” he argues weakly. “You live on the other end of town.”
“I could use the walk,” Reigen replies falsely, smiles when Mob looks at him in disbelief. “Mob. You can’t win this one.”
Mob must know this, too, because he doesn’t bother arguing anymore. He stands up, lets Reigen walk by and get the door for them both - Reigen is only somewhat surprised.
Some minutes later Mob pauses at a vending machine, a hot-and-cold one, stopping so suddenly Reigen nearly walks right by him without noticing, in all his thoughtfulness. He doesn’t see what Mob punches in, just sees two cans roll into the dispenser and watches Mob extract them. Hot coffee. He hands one to Reigen wordlessly.
Reigen takes it, the can heating his palm through the thin glove he’s wearing. “Since when do you drink coffee?”
“I don’t,” Mob says, and sure enough his face is displeased when he drinks it. It's almost comical, he is so big and brooding now, but he'll probably take glasses of milk over anything else until the day he dies. “I’m just cold.”
Reigen lifts an eyebrow, wondering. “I didn’t say I was cold.”
“You drink coffee,” Mob counters.
Reigen hums his defeat, and cracks the can open. “Well, thanks.”
He is aware of Mob watching him drink it, thinks maybe he wants to say something but can’t find the right words, as would be in-character for someone as frequently tongue-tied as Mob. Or maybe he’s worried Reigen won’t like it, wants to watch him reach a verdict. None of it quite seems to explain away the palpable anxiety in Mob’s eyes as they dart from Reigen’s eyes to his mouth.
“What is it?” Reigen asks at last, turning fully to face him.
Mob doesn’t react much to being confronted, his face neutral as ever. He seems to take a great breath. “I …” he begins, then bites his lip, covers his mouth with the can. He seems to have come to a decision. “I’m ready to go home, now.”
Reigen is sure that this is an admission of something larger, but doesn’t want to ask. They walk and he tries not to let it bother him, the unspoken goodbye and everything that comes with it. He doesn’t know if it’s better or worse for Mob but he knows it would be selfish to tell Mob what he’s really thinking, to burden him with the sadness of it, so he keeps his mouth shut and figures he’ll let Mob decide.
Mob does decide, when they get there. He stands outside of the gate for a long time, staring at the house, working through something private. He whispers, “Shishou.”
“Hm?”
Mob turns to him, his can of coffee long discarded, both hands buried in his scarf. “See you next time.”
Reigen smiles. He can only hope it doesn’t look sad. “I’ll see you next time, Mob.”
“Please don’t call me on such short notice.”
Reigen shrugs grandly. There won’t be any need for him to do that anymore and they both know this, but even now Mob is grasping for normalcy. Reigen won’t shatter it. “I’ll try.”
Neither say anything after this though the silence hangs between them heavily with the knowledge that Mob won’t say goodbye, and neither will Reigen. It doesn’t feel right, after all. They’ll see each other again. Reigen watches Mob rock back on his heels before he turns and unlocks the gate and Reigen just watches him go, out of things to say. He is already imagining this as the next few years, a cycle of watching Mob come and go, seeing some of it coming and other parts not so much, and is okay with it. He was always proud to be a part of Mob’s life before and he’ll continue to be, as long as Mob will have him.
He disappears silently into the house. It is that simple, cruelly so. At one moment he is there and then he is not, the patio light flickering gently, four times, before it goes dark. Sa-yo-na-ra.
The only evidence that Mob was ever here are his footprints in the snow. They both left them, up until a certain point; walking together then walking separately, alone.
Reigen counts ten of them, evenly spaced, then takes one last look at Mob’s front door before he turns in the direction of home.
He can’t really sleep when he gets there. He makes tea and takes a shower and it exhausts him more but his eyes won’t keep shut. He cleans his apartment, then cleans it again, deeper, more thoroughly. When he's done he collapses on the old couch he’d found at a thrift shop and throws his arms over his eyes. Last-ditch effort.
He could keep the shop shut tomorrow, he supposes. Call Serizawa and tell him to take the day off. He doesn’t have any appointments lined up and it’s not like business is exactly booming, anyway. Besides, it might be a good buffer zone between the old normal and the new; he’ll have an empty desk now that he’ll have to figure out what to do with. Maybe he could put an ad in the paper, try and round up some new recruits, but he doubts it’ll be the same and he doesn’t want it to be, anyway. He wants to freeze these last six years and store them away with the feeling they came with, not try to replace or recreate it. No one could ever replace Mob, and he doesn’t want Mob thinking he’d ever even consider trying.
He and Serizawa can handle it. For a little while. In a little while.
Not now.
His doorbell rings.
He’d honestly been as close to sleep as he’s gotten all night so when he lifts his head and blinks away the dreariness he wonders if he’d imagined it. He didn’t - it rings again, twice. Reigen looks at the clock. It’s past midnight.
The doorbell rings a fourth-fifth-sixth time. Reigen hauls himself off the couch and walks to the door, forgoing a jacket to shield himself from the cold, and yanks the door open.
“Mob, what -”
He bolts over the threshold and collides with Reigen, throws his arms around, a flurry breaking into his apartment - Reigen stumbles back, nearly toppling over backwards. He is surprised, aware of Mob slamming the door shut with his powers and the cold of his jacket against his neck, aware of the way he gasps for air like he'd been holding it out in the cold. He had come in so fast that the wind came afterward, a blur of snow settling around them. Reigen tries to find words and fails, his tongue dead weight against his teeth; Mob’s forehead is against his cheek, Mob’s body against his own.
“Did you run here?” he wonders aloud. Mob’s hair is frozen solid.
“Flew,” Mob breathes, leaning into him, pressing his face into his neck. Reigen imagines Mob soaring through the cold night sky and almost doesn’t believe it but the evidence is there, he’s cold as ice and had brought in a storm. Reigen feels snow on his bare feet and Mob’s arms around his shoulders, his good sense flooding back to him. He is about to tell Mob to let go, he’s not much of a hugger and he isn’t very good at it anyway, he can’t remember the last time he’d given anyone a real hug, much less -
He hears Mob stifle a sniffle into his shoulder, feels his chest spasm. The fight drains out of him.
“Oh, Mob,” he whispers, reaching to touch Mob’s elbows instead. Mob’s body ebbs and flows like the tide and then clings to Reigen tighter, desperately, a periwinkle to a stone. His sobs come staccato, messy punctuation, and Reigen thinks of schoolboys with backpacks too big on their backs and mugs of tea and too much ramen, swallowed so greedily, all of it. And all of it is gone now, sand through spread fingers. Mob cries against his sleep shirt, his whole life ahead of him, and Reigen mourns the greatest moments of his own.
After, Mob sits on the old couch and Reigen throws a blanket over him, careful not to knock over the glass of milk he’s been nursing. His eyes are still red from earlier and he looks like he might start crying again at any moment. Reigen sits carefully beside him. He’d let him have as long as he needed to work through the breakdown but now he needs him to talk.
“You remembered where my apartment was,” he points out; he’d only ever brought Mob here once, hastily, on a day where they were supposed to catch a train to another city and Reigen had forgotten his wallet. Mob nods. “Do your parents know you’re here?”
Mob shakes his head. “I snuck out,” he says, without any hesitation.
Reigen scratches at his cheek. “They’ll be worried if they figure out you’re gone.”
“Ritsu knows I left,” Mob mumbles. “He must. He always knows.”
That doesn’t really make Reigen feel any better. He considers the situation, notices how tense Mob is, sitting here, despite how exhausted he must feel. He is so on-guard Reigen feels as though he’s outside looking in at him.
“Mob, relax,” he says, coaxing, easing. “I’m not kicking you out. I wouldn’t make you go home alone this late.”
Mob does sink a bit more into the couch, exhaling. “Thank you, Shishou.”
Reigen hums. “Why don’t you want to be home, Mob?”
“I just …” he pauses, eyes darting to Reigen then away, to the walls, the ceiling, anywhere else. “I’d just rather be here. Just ... just for tonight. I don’t want to have to think about leaving." He adds, very quietly, "I didn’t think it would come so soon.”
Reigen couldn’t agree more. “Well, that makes two of us.”
“Besides,” Mob says quickly, hands fidgeting around the glass. “I have ... I wanted to tell you something.”
Reigen waits. Mob generally isn’t the type to announce when he’s going to say something - he more or less leaves the ostentatious things to Reigen - but he doesn’t say anything right away. He looks at Reigen and Reigen looks back.
“Go ahead,” Reigen prompts.
“I, um,” Mob stutters, averting his gaze once more. It’s a spooky thing, Reigen thinks, watching him withdraw into himself, both physically and mentally take himself somewhere else. Mob speaks about his ability to do it as if it only happens when his emotions reach their fullest potential but he does it all the time, unwittingly - he’s doing it now, disappearing partway. He blurts, “I don’t think I want to go."
Reigen shouldn’t be as surprised to hear it as he is. He’d known Mob was nervous, but he didn’t think it was that bad - he still doesn’t. The of course you do rests heavy on his tongue but he can’t bring himself to say it. Mob will shut down if he does, and while that might make things easier on the conversation, it won’t make either of them feel any better. Least of all Mob, who is clearly having difficulty sharing as much as he has. He still can’t look Reigen in the eye.
So he just leans back, drums his fingers against the arm of the chair. “Alright,” he says. “Why don’t you?”
“I’m so used to everything here,” Mob begins warily, wringing his hands over his lap. Reigen wishes he could take him by the shoulders and physically shake the nerves out of him, but aside from the asininity, they aren’t exactly a physical pair and he’s sure this would just make things worse. “I have friends. People I care about. I have a job with you that I know I’m good at and I wouldn’t have to worry about grades or meeting new people or - starting all over again. Which I’ll have to do if I go.”
Reigen begins to nod. “Is that all?”
“No,” Mob says, screwing his mouth up to one side. “No, I - I feel like ... I have more to do here. That I have a responsibility to stay and keep doing the things I’ve been doing. It feels wrong to leave.”
“Then stay,” Reigen says plainly.
Mob turns to look at him quickly, eyes wide with shock. “What?” he stutters.
“Don’t go,” Reigen dismisses, waving a hand. “Who needs university these days, anyway? As you say, it’s easier to just stay put. There’s no guarantee you’ll do well. There’s not even a guarantee you’ll like it. So stay here and do the same things you’ve been doing. Forget the rest.”
Mob is looking at him like he doesn’t recognize him. “I … but - you helped me so much with the entrance exams, and I studied so hard …”
“Water under the bridge,” Reigen shrugs. “Wouldn’t you rather choose the easy way out? Slum it full-time in the office with me, see your brother off in a year and stay behind? Never put yourself out there?” The shock in Mob’s expression finally starts to break apart. “After all, you can’t be let down if you don’t try.”
“I understand what you’re trying to do,” Mob says after a long pause, craning his neck downward.
“Do you?”
“Yes. You’re trying to tell me I should go.”
“Ah, you got me,” Reigen sighs, shrugging. “You should go. Forget everyone here, forget everything that’s happened. Don’t waste time thinking about any of it. It’s all in the past now - besides, it’s not like anyone you’ve grown to care for could offer you anything worthy. Focus on your future and nothing else. It’s your chance to wipe the slate clean so why don’t you take it?”
Mob just stares at him. He looks as though he’s trying to decide whether he should be annoyed or concerned and in result he just looks confused as ever. He glances down at his empty hands, then back up to Reigen with such vacancy and helplessness that he takes pity and shakes the act completely, elbowing Mob sharply in the side.
“It’s not like you can only have one or the other,” he explains as Mob rubs grumpily at his ribs. “Mob, you’ll do so well in university, I know you will. But if you really don’t want to go, you always can later. Or not - that’s fine. But if you do, Seasoning City will still be here when you get back.” Mob looks at him uneasily and he smiles to parry it. “In any case, I can’t make that decision for you. This one’s too important for your old master. Understand now?”
“Will you?” Mob asks, voice very small. “I mean. Be here, when - when I come back?”
Reigen drops his chin into his hand. He carefully asks, “Why are you so worried about me?”
“Because of how much you’ve done for me,” Mob answers candidly, hands clenching. “Because of ... how much you mean to me.”
And now Reigen understands, at least partway - he is the only relationship of Mob’s that may not feel so permanent. Mob will always have his family, his parents and Ritsu, will always stay connected to friends like Hanazawa and Suzuki because they’re like him, because they are undoubtedly and permanently associated with the very force that drove Mob into his shell in the first place. Reigen is separate, belongs to a different world that only sometimes overlaps with Mob’s more permanent ones. In the grand scheme of things, he should be the first to fade.
“Is that why you came here?” he asks, and Mob gives a stiff nod. “Yes, Mob. I’ll be here. Where else would I go?”
Mob takes a deep breath, some of the tension leaving him. Despite himself, Reigen feels so sad to watch him. “I wasn’t trying to get you to decide for me. I know I have to. And ... I know I’m going.”
“You want to, Mob,” Reigen says quietly, giving into his original inclination. “You’re just scared, and that’s fine. But don’t let it stop you from going. You deserve better than that.”
Mob finishes the last of the milk and leans back laboriously, neck bending over the back of the couch. “I know,” he says. “Thank you, Shishou.”
“You don’t need to feel guilty about leaving anything behind, either.”
Mob blinks at the ceiling. “Do you know who you’re talking to?”
Reigen lifts his brow, then gives a surprised laugh. “You’ve gotten ruthless, Mob. Give me a break.”
“Sorry,” Mob whispers to the open air, closing his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
Reigen wonders if he’s even the one being spoken to anymore. He says nothing for a while, just watches Mob finally sink into the fabric and relax. He has been so on edge for so many weeks that Reigen thinks something might loosen up in his own chest, too, dislodge, disconnect. He’s come to terms with being selfish and he knows he doesn’t want to let Mob go, but he’s not selfish enough to really ask Mob to stay. What good would a little familiarity do Reigen in the long run, anyway? He looks at Mob now, tall and still-skinny but strong, and tries to think of him as the little boy who came knocking all those years ago. In the end he can’t - he wonders if this really is the same Mob, if he’s been growing and changing, really changing, or if the kid he once knew has disappeared completely and been replaced, carved-out, skin and smile and name stolen by someone else entirely.
No, they’re better off parting ways. Even if Mob never does come back - it’s better that way. Reigen has had enough adventures to last him whatever lifetime he’ll continue to live, but Mob hardly got the chance to be a child. He wants him to have the chance to be a stupid young adult, to drink too much beer and fail a few exams and cycle through pretty girls. He doubts Mob’s even noticed but Reigen’s seen the way girls his age look at him now - he’s grown into his awkwardness rather than out of it, owned it, created something endearing from it. He’ll be a knockout. A heartbreaker.
Mob’s breathing slows, the glass slipping out of his hands and into his lap. A few drops of leftover milk dribble onto the blanket laid over him and Reigen carefully snatches it, not wanting to disturb him. He carefully shuts off each of his lights on the way to the sink, leaving on the lamp by the door so that he can move around without jostling anything, uncharacteristically terrified to wake Mob up - but he can’t sleep in that position, Reigen thinks defeatedly, and goes to fetch a pillow.
He places the pillow on the arm of the couch and gently, gently guides Mob to lay on his side. He doesn’t wake up enough to say anything, but must come partway out of it because he lifts his legs onto the couch and pulls the blanket tighter around himself. Reigen was going to get his futon but - Mob looks peaceful, at long last. He can’t bear to wake him. He just wants to let him be.
Exhausted himself, and thinking that maybe now he can find sleep, he shuts off the lamp and carefully feels his way to his bedroom. He leaves the door open, unwilling to shut Mob out. He collapses onto the mattress and doesn’t even bother getting under his blankets - he is out as soon as his head hits the pillow.
Reigen wakes up just as exhausted, if not moreso, but his surroundings have changed - there is light coming through his blinds and the sound of soft footsteps around his kitchen. He thinks: intruder? Then: no - Mob.
He picks himself up from the mattress, skin and mouth feeling sticky with the dry winter air. He stretches, scratches at his hair, then walks out into the living room.
Mob is there, in the same outfit but with his jacket pulled on, and when Reigen steps on a particularly creaky floorboard he turns rapidly to face him, knocking over a countertop plant with his elbow. Reigen’s brain hasn’t really caught up with anything so he only registers what happened after Mob has caught it mid-air with his powers, collecting some of the loose dirt and placing it back in, sliding the pot back onto the counter.
“Good catch,” Reigen says, leaning against the doorframe.
Mob is looking anywhere but at him. Maybe he’s feeling embarrassed about the night prior - Reigen doesn’t see the point, but it would be just like him. “Did I wake you?”
“Probably,” Reigen guesses, but shrugs. “That's alright. Are you leaving?”
“Yeah. I, um, have a lot to do today. I’m leaving in the afternoon.”
“I know,” Reigen says laboriously, mind still foggy. “I know you are. Give me a bit to get ready and I’ll take you home.”
Mob shakes his head, frantic. “No, that’s - it’s okay. I’m flying again.”
“You hate doing that,” Reigen points out, brow furrowed. Once he’d told Mob he could hardly call it flying - it was more like he was levitating quickly. Mob had asked him what the difference was and he couldn’t really answer, but was adamant his point still stood; now he thinks it never did. He has one hand on the doorframe of his bedroom. “It makes you nauseous.”
Mob stares at him like he’s just told him the world was about to burn away. He is bewildered and awed. It makes Reigen self-conscious, itchy. “I - I know. But I should get home quickly.”
“If that’s really what you want,” Reigen says, unsure.
Mob puts his hands in his pockets. “It is,” he says. “And it’s my turn to win this one.”
Reigen cracks half a grin. “That’s not how it works.”
Mob shrugs. He looks around the apartment and begins to frown. “I really didn’t mean to wake you up,” he says.
“I don’t mind, Mob.”
“I know you don’t,” Mob sighs. He looks tired still, but much less anxious than he had last night - it’s a dry breed of triumph that floods Reigen. “I should go.”
“Do you have everything?”
“Yes.”
He follows Mob to the door, watches him get his shoes on, open the door, step outside, menial things, going through careless motions that mean more than he can fathom this early, when he’s this tired. Later, he knows, he’ll barely be able to remember this and maybe he’ll feel sad for it; or maybe it'll be the other way around, he’ll remember it vividly and it’ll haunt him, his last moments of permanence with the first person who ever took him seriously. Backpacks too big. Street food, devoured.
Mob is saying something but he hears none of it. He blinks blearily at him. “Sorry, what?”
Mob smiles. Reigen thinks: oh, there you are - and then Mob steps backward onto nothing and his hair starts to sway. “I’ll—”
“Don’t say you’ll see me next time,” Reigen sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. “Just, have fun, Mob. Study hard. Make friends.”
“Okay,” Mob says, feet still touching the ground, just barely.
“Call me every now and then. Tell me how you’re doing, let me know you’re alive.”
“I will.”
Reigen yawns, crosses his arms over his chest. “We’ll miss you around the office.”
“I—” Mob stops, bites his lips together. All at once he drops fully to his feet, hair falling flat. “Shishou,” he says, then steps forward and looks him in the eye. “Reigen.”
Reigen lifts an eyebrow. “Yes?”
Mob seems to take a deep breath. “I don’t really mind when you call me last minute.”
That startles a chuckle out of Reigen. “Good to know.”
“I’ll miss it. I -” he stops and visibly swallows. “I’ll miss you. I’m going to - miss you, so much.”
Each word feels as though he is squeezing Reigen’s chest between his big pale hands, holding him in place to take bites out of his heart. Reigen is glad it isn’t the other way around - he is so sure Mob would give him cavities. “Mob.”
“I want to tell you something,” Mob says again, an echo from the bleariness of last night. Reigen doesn’t get a chance to give him permission this time - Mob steps forward and takes his hand.
Reigen blinks, flexing his fingers, and indeed, Mob's are there between them. He says, "Mob?"
“I want to see you again,” Mob whispers, hair aflutter again but his body isn’t lifting, which is enough to tell Reigen that it is not on purpose. “So I’m going to tell you. Next time.”
Reigen squints. “What are you -”
“Next time,” Mob repeats, interrupting, letting go of his hand.
Reigen is confused, awe-struck, only understanding partway. He can’t fully do it, cannot take it completely into his hands and feel it - of course not, this is Mob - but maybe, maybe it isn’t, after all this isn’t like him, he is never this forward, never so open -
“Shigeo,” Reigen says, clarity smacking him right between the eyes. Mob is red from hairline to throat, his chest heaving, and Reigen can hardly believe it, can hardly draw a breath.
“I …” Mob starts, then stops. For a second he looks like he really is going to take off into the sky but then he turns on his heel. “Get some more sleep,” he blurts, then takes off on foot, bolting down the steps.
A part of Reigen wants to yell after him but he doesn’t have the voice for it, there isn't enough air in the whole wide world. By the time he thinks he may have caught up enough to give a real performance about it Mob is too far away, has shrunk in the distance and turns a corner and disappears, and Reigen is alone, in his pajamas, bare feet on the glittering snow. He is less tired but also more tired, in a different way, in someplace else besides his mind or his body. He feels separate from himself, in a way, like Mob took a part of him to-go.
He looks down at his hand, the one Mob had grabbed in his own - and he is surprised in quite a stupid way that it isn't stained or burned for all he is feeling inside. He turns it over to be sure, looks at the neat rows of his own knuckles and the jostle of bone, then drops it and stares at the frosted ground. There is nothing there - nothing here - nothing except the empty space before him and footprints in the snow.
And - with the kind of neatness only telekinesis could create, almost invisible in the same crystal-white snow - four indelicate, important characters below them.
It is a bolt to Reigen's heart when he sees it, a sting in his throat. The absolute, insufferable nerve of him, to do this to Reigen at a time like this. He looks up again but of course Mob is long gone. And Reigen is stuck to the floor, amazed. Only he could come up with something this convoluted, this risky, this ... detached. He would like to call it cowardice but no, this is brave, perhaps the bravest and boldest Mob has been in a while. Knockout. Heartbreaker.
Next time, he had said.
It's all Reigen can do to hold him to it.