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It’s more than just spilled milk, but the unbearable weight of his sudden powerlessness.
Mob knows he’s not particularly special, or strong or smart, but there’s a comfort in knowing he can protect himself. He could carry sadness between his teeth easily, because nobody could ever force it down his throat. As much as he hates violence—he knows his body will step up in times of pure terror, and draw that line in the sand.
Mogami slipped inside of him, and forced corners of his mind open—making him endure a six month long fear he didn’t know existed.
“Please,” the words get caught in his throat, and Asagiri angles her knife towards his heart. Standing in front of a moving blade draws out the animal in him, scrambling back like a post-beaten dog rather than a middle school boy. His powers are normally second nature, flying out of his body like a reflex, but the only thing dripping from his palms right now are little beads of anxiety induced sweat.
“Just stop it!” He yelps, and in the dream Asagiri switches from the solid shape of a girl to a pile of sickness—gore and teeth and horrible horrible things that he can’t help but to see behind the whites of his eyes. Toichiro’s bones turning to jelly—Mob losing control—he’s never killed anyone, but if he got angry enough, or more likely, frightened—
“Stop!” His body flings upwards, and his head drops between his knees.
His bedsheets. His bangs. The gentle bend of his own back.
Right.
Ah. Right.
Mob sniffs to himself, leaning back on his palms, and curling back down onto his blanket.
Asagiri. The school bell. Ah.
He sees blood, and teeth, and his own body feet above the ground, but cries over the spilled milk every time.
“You look so sleepy,” Ritsu puts a hand on his forehead, and Mob leans into it. He’s not getting sick, but getting fussed over never hurt anyone. “Are you doing okay?”
“I think so,” Mob softens, wishing he could psychically transfer every thought in his head directly into his brother’s. “I think I’ve been really worried over nothing.”
He reaches down to spread a bit of jam on his breakfast toast, and Ritsu reaches over the table for it.
“Let me get that for you,” the bread makes a soft crackling noise with every swipe of the knife. Mob frowns.
“Eat all of this—and afterwards,” Ritsu drops one of his sunny side eggs on Mob’s plate, “are you working today? You should call out.”
“I was thinking it might be good to see Reigen,” Mob murmurs, staring down at the plate slid in front of him. Ritsu drew cat ears with ketchup on the tip of the eggs. “Thank you so much, Ritsu.”
Ritsu wrinkles his nose at the mention of Reigen’s name, but of course, doesn’t say anything bad. “Have Reigen take you to dinner, you’re probably feeling bad because you haven’t been eating much.”
“It’s been hard,” Mob plays with his fork, it doesn’t melt or bend, but it struggles to lift pieces of egg into his mouth. Guilt, unease, nervousness.
“Yeah?” Ritsu taps his ankle under the table, putting his chin in the palm of his hand. “Is this uh—cause of your club? Like an image thing?”
“No, the clubs good for me,” Mob answers, honestly, before swallowing the lump in his throat. “It’s just—bad stuff. Scary stuff.”
“House fire stuff?” Ritsu piques, and Mob shudders.
“I try not to even think about that one.”
“Your little brother’s been pretty entertaining today,” Reigen says, before Mob even steps through the door. He loves to talk, and Mob loves to listen. “I didn’t make him mad, did I? At least not recently?”
“What happened?” Mob asks, setting down his bag on the counter and curling up on the corner of the couch. Reigen blinks down at him.
“You okay?”
“What?” Mob surveys himself, hugging his own knees tightly, like he could squeeze into a little ball and disappear. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
“You sure?” Reigen swipes a hand under his bangs, like he did when he was little and sneaking inside from the rain. “You look like you might be getting sick. Why are you sitting like that? Are you cold?”
“I didn’t have a very good night last night,” Mob murmurs, and Reigen crouches down in front of him.
“Yeah? What’s up?”
Just the tender notion of concern makes Mob’s chest flutter. He is loved now even if at one point he wasn’t. Milk. Moths. Cats. Knives.
“I just wish—“ he intends to start off vaguely, so he can keep it together, but his mouth leaks words like an open wound. “I wish I never met Asagiri. I’m glad I did but I wish I didn’t. I don’t think I was ready to—to—“ to know? What a privilege. There are kids—younger and weaker who deserve naivety more than him but get to keep less. And here he is: sitting and complaining.
“Woah, hey,” Reigen drops his hands down to his shoulders, preparing a pair of arms for Mob to fall into. “Ready to what?”
“To—go through that, I guess,” he finishes. It was like an endurance test—a mark of devotion. How…. Devastating.
Reigen lets go of his shoulders, and stands, swiping the coffee table with his ankle to pull it forward, presumably to sit with their knees touching. “It’s been a really hard month, I mean, with the damage in the city and Shou, and the—the fire, you know? Now that it’s all over do you think you’re hitting your threshold?”
“I don’t know,” Mob doesn’t want to disappoint Reigen, and he honestly…. Doesn’t want to disappoint himself, either. He’s not great at much, but he can regulate himself alright enough. “I—I don’t know.”
“What are you thinking about?” Reigen asks, and Mob struggles to put his feelings into words, now and forever. Simple terms. What am I thinking about?
“What happened with Asagiri—it—it really, really hurt my feelings.” Understatement of the century, but the second Reigen nods in reply Mob feels a twang of pride at his communication. Please, understand me, he searches Reigen’s face for answers. Mob doesn’t know much, but getting the point of his pain across to someone feels like the most important thing in the whole world.
“Right, and I can see that,” Reigen reaches forward and pats Mob on the knee. “Hurt you how?”
“When I was—fighting it,” Mob starts, “it was like a really long dream, and everything was different, and Mogami made this—this place? Except it was like here? But with bad things, and bad people, and I couldn’t remember anything else,” he puts a hand on his mouth and bites it gently when Reigen’s keyboard starts hovering above his desk. Keep a lid on it. “Anything else from before I was stuck there, I mean. Does that make sense?”
“It does. It does make sense,” Mob can tell he’s trying to get them to make eye contact, but it’s not going to happen. One wrong move and he’ll blow the office to pieces. “And in this place—the people in it hurt you?”
Mob averts his eyes to the painting he made when he was ten, pinned on Reigen’s wall. To Ritsu’s pin on his backpack and to his water bottle in the sink. He never needed to look for proof that people loved him before.
“Ritsu wasn’t there, or he wasn’t my brother, at least. You weren’t there either, or my powers,” Mob murmurs, “just me and—kids from school. They made fun of me a lot. My teacher hit me.”
“Hit you?” Mob loves how Reigen still looks reliable when he’s upset, “people were hitting you?”
“I got stabbed,” the air goes all quiet, like right before he did get stabbed, when everything is scary and slow, “master Reigen—“
Mob just buries his face in his hands.
The clock on the wall ticks, and Reigen wraps his suit jacket around Mob’s shoulders, with enough gentleness to reach into his body and detangle the six months of pain. Mob is pulled gently, against his chest, lots of things have changed since he was little, but Reigen’s heartbeat still fills his ears sometimes.
Mob’s nose burns, and for the first time in a really, really long time, he feels like he could cry without forcing the sobs out of his throat. Reigen is both warmer than the sun, and occasionally the strongest person in the world.
“I’ve got you,” he promises. Mob is a teenager now, and the incident with Mogami poked a hole in his blind belief of goodness, but sometimes Reigen makes him feel like a little kid throwing trust around like flat skipping stones. He smushes his cheek against his chest, wide eyed, letting himself buy what Reigen’s selling, for the millionth time.
“You’ve got me?” He repeats, fingers curled into Reigen’s button up.
“Always. And you don’t have anything to be scared of. Ever,” Mob has a Reigen-typical moment of doubt, because there’s plenty to be afraid of, but he lets the disbelief wash over him and go away: even when powerless, and presented with the world’s angriest backlogged psyche, Reigen chased after him with nothing but a gun. He has nothing to be scared of. If Reigen has proved anything, anything at all, it’s that he really, truly, has Mob.
His arms reach around Reigen’s center and he tries to match their breathing; he feels sad and safe and safe enough to be nothing but sad. Reigen puts his cheek on top of his head, squeezing Mob with enough earnesty and compassion to render him defenseless. Mob pictures a cat getting scruffed by its mother, body going limp at the epitome of surrender and trust. In the back of his head, he pictures Mogami dropping him slowly into the mouth of a junkyard dog.
Mob sobs, and buries himself into Reigen’s chest.
“What else happened?” Reigen asks, and Mob starts shaking all over again. It’s like he’s still in that world. A pang of fear runs through him, like no matter how much time he puts between then and now, he’ll always be in those shoes. Down that street. Behind those flying hands.
“I would get mugged walking home, or beat up at school, or—just—the way they would talk to me, I didn’t have anyone, and I felt so horrible about who I was—who—who I am, still.”
“Okay, okay,” Reigen rhythmically smooths a hand down his spine, “well, there’s nothing wrong with you. That’s all them, okay? Nothings wrong with you,” he puts a hand on the back of Mob’s neck, “what else happened? Did your parents hurt you? Anyone touch you?”
“I didn’t have parents,” Mob answers, and retracts his hands from around Reigen’s middle to clasp them against his chest, curling up in a little ball and nearly collapsing in his lap. “And just hitting. I wasn’t used to—the yelling, and just—everywhere I went wasn’t safe. Sometimes I still feel like I’m not safe.”
Except for right here, right now.
Reigen holds his shaking, crying body no matter how many pieces it tries to fall into. “You’re safe. I’m so sorry, you’re safe now. It’s all over,” he’s doing more listening than talking—unusual but sends a flood of warmth through Mob’s heart. He’s talking about it. About something so tormenting and horrific, and he’s being held in response.
He lets out a few sobs, into his hands and into Reigen’s chest and shoulder, Mob loves to maintain his adjustedness—his strength and regulation—and here he is, crying like he isn’t a middle schooler.
“It’s alright, kiddo,” Reigen murmurs, “let it out,” and Mob lets himself disregard the vibrato around the office for once, the floating pens and papers and psychically poisoned air. “Oh, sweetheart. It’s alright Mob.”
Kiddo, sweetheart, Mob repeats in his head, starved for any sort of validation—any sort of love and care. Going six months devoid of any compassion left him burning away at the edges.
“I felt so helpless,” he admits, which is harder than anything he’s ever confessed before—especially to Reigen, his master, someone who's supposed to wax and wane about how much Mob’s grown up over the television speakers. “And I used to be so—good. Like I believed so much deep down that everyone was good, and I—“ he swallows, remembering painfully shrill laughter at his expense, lamentations of wishing to take over the world just because you can. “I don’t know what to think anymore.”
Reigen pulls away, and cups Mob’s face in his hands. It’s so familiar, and so warm, and every thumb stroke beneath his waterline feels like an affirmation of pride.
“The fact that you still want to believe that everyone is good—that you’re feeling guilty for doubting it—“ Reigen puts a hand on top of his head. “After what you’ve seen in this year alone—“ he looks close to tears, and Mob wishes he had the ability to read minds.
“What I'm saying is that sometimes, what we want to believe, or what we want the world to be like, is more telling of who we are than what we actually know,” Reigen picks back up with his usual finger wave, seeming to toss any sentimentality to the side “you know that unfortunately, not all people are good. But you want to have this faith that everyone is capable deep down. That’s good. You’re encouraging the idea that everyone can change, without invalidating the people that they’ve hurt.”
“I think that people can change, but that doesn’t mean they will.” Mob nods, and Reigen gives him a thumbs up.
“And it’s okay if you think some people are awful. Or if you think they’re unforgivable. You can be a hopeful, and nonjudgmental person without sacrificing your moral standards, you know?”
“Like how I don’t really forgive Toichiro?” Or Asagiri. For now, at least. Mob offers, nearly trembling with relief.
“Exactly,” Reigen leans in, pointing his hand ramrod straight like he’s sharing a secret, even though they’re the only two people around, “I don’t forgive him either, personally.”
“Why?” Mob laughs lightly, recognizing Reigen’s sudden playfulness. He doesn’t really poke at Mob’s sides like he used to, since they’re both getting older, but Mob still lets him treat him like a ten year old every once and a while.
“Because he caused you all that trouble,” Reigen winks, “anyone comes for you—they’re immediately on my shitlist.”
Mob can’t decide if he wants to laugh or cry, so his face settles on smiling, soft and bittersweet.
“Same for me,” he answers, feeling a sudden burst of loyalty. There’s no casual way to say it, but if Reigen was walking to the end of the earth and back, Mob would go grab his shoes. “For if someone bothers you, I mean. I don’t like it.”
“Thanks, Mob,” Reigen finally stands, jokingly using Mob’s head as a hand rest. “I think you need a very well deserved day off. Care if I walk you home?”
Mob shrugs off Reigen’s jacket, placing it on their shared office coatrack, before, in more ways than one, following him out the door.