Chapter Text
"Huh? But we're still open for the day…"
Reigen sounds more confused than anything else, and it's not until then—as he watches Shigeo stroll out of the office early—that Serizawa thinks maybe he doesn't need to worry so much about losing this job.
It's definitely been an adjustment going from Claw's constant power struggle to this, but he is beginning to get a feel for how Spirits n' Such operates. The most difficult part of his acclimation is behind him—he hopes, at least—now that he doesn't feel like he's crumbling apart every ten seconds.
He still has his moments, of course, and they are still… frequent. He doesn't expect that to go away for a long time, really; but as long as he remembers it's just one day at a time, one foot in front of the next, he thinks he might just make it through as some semblance of 'okay'.
Reigen stretches out where he sits next to Serizawa, hand creeping into his vision and catching his attention. "Ahh," he sighs, "I guess it's a good thing I got you when I did, if he's going to make his own schedule like that. Right?"
He looks down, and Reigen looks up, and something about the angle strikes him as he stands there above him. He can't really place what it is, and they make eye contact long enough for Reigen's expression to shift into guarded confusion before Serizawa remembers he should say something back.
"Right." He nods and offers a small smile, hoping he didn't look judgemental or something. He doesn't want to look judgemental. Or something. "I'll do my best."
Reigen snaps back into his confident self as soon as he agrees, and jumps to his feet with way more energy than Serizawa thinks the movement warrants. He's noticed that that's just sort of how Reigen is sometimes, though. Reigen claps his shoulder then, a touch too forcefully, making the tea Serizawa is holding rattle dangerously on its tray.
"Well, I'm still here if you have any questions," he says. Then he nods confidently to himself, either ignoring or just not noticing how Serizawa fumbles with the sloshing drink, and crosses the room to his desk. He flops into his chair with enough force that Serizawa worries for its integrity, and reaches out to pluck a paper from the top of a stack.
Then he very promptly screams, drops it, and jerks back so fast that his entire chair topples over. He tumbles out of it, legs flying through the air.
Serizawa stands frozen. Nothing he's read has covered what the protocol is for when your boss decides to throw himself.
Reigen scrambles around on the floor for a long moment, making noises like 'hoogh', and 'auergh', and 'ghuh', and then finally he jumps to his feet, shin bashing against the fallen chair with a crack that makes Serizawa wince. He dusts himself off and stands tall, molding himself into the picture of level-headed authority like he wasn't wrestling with the empty air seconds ago.
"Serizawa!" He barks, doing that thing with his hands—pointing in seemingly every direction at once—before they land on Serizawa. "I have your next assignment."
A ghost, then? Serizawa's eyes trail across the desk, and then over Reigen himself, but nothing seems amiss. Well, besides the fact that Reigen had just done a pretty decent imitation of a worm someone had poked.
Reigen continues, moving his emphatically pointing hand from Serizawa to the desk. "That spirit earlier must have sent that… thing, to follow me." His hand goes to his chin next, thoughtful consideration. "I'll leave it to you to fix this."
Serizawa cranes his neck, squinting. He still can't sense anything, but Reigen sounds deadly serious, slowly edging further backwards. He wonders if this is another test, but sweat beads down Reigen's forehead, and surely he can't be that great of an actor. Unless that's what all the flailing had been for?
"What are you waiting for?" Reigen interrupts his musing. "Get rid of it!"
Serizawa jolts. "Oh, um, yes!" The tea, which had finally settled, rattles around once more as he sets the tray down, hoping desperately that this is something he can actually do. Worry sparks up in his chest as he takes a step closer, and then another, still seeing nothing, and then—
"THERE! RIGHT THERE!" Reigen yells, pointing frantically. Serizawa's aura flares, bracing against the threat—
And a small pincher bug scuttles across the desk.
"Oh." He stares dumbly at it for a moment while Reigen backs further away, the blinds on the window crunching beneath his back.
Its wings flutter open and it begins to take to the air. Reigen's elbow slams into the window, and he's surprised it doesn't shatter. He babbles almost nonsensically, and Serizawa catches the words "training" and "low level" as he gently encases the bug with his aura, stopping it before it can lift further than an inch off the desk.
He turns to Reigen. "What should I—"
"ACK!" He's in the corner now, almost bouncing off the filing cabinet there. "Don't point it at me! Just—get rid of it!"
"Okay." He considers cracking open the window and letting it out that way, but he thinks Reigen might die on the spot if he tries to float the bug past him. He's not particularly interested in killing his boss on his first week, so he carries it out the door instead, carefully choosing a plant to deposit it on.
It sits calmly on the leaf, staying right where he sets it.
He wonders if saving his boss from a bug means he's a bodyguard again. He kind of likes that thought, just as something to keep to himself.
Reigen is using a pen to poke gingerly at the binders on his desk when Serizawa returns. He peers at him without lifting his head, eyes narrowed. "I trust you eliminated the threat."
Serizawa can't tell if that's supposed to be funny or if Reigen is just being quirky again, so he just nods. Reigen nods back. He gets a feeling of deja-vu as Reigen sits back down, jittery and leaving his chair pushed ever so slightly further out than it normally would be. It's like a movie he's seen before, but shot from all new angles.
"Great job." Reigen is still nodding. "You can never be too safe in our line of work. You never know when and where spiritual forces may be lurking."
He does know, actually, being an esper that can sense said forces. He wonders if he's not supposed to point out that that's something Reigen pretty clearly lacks. He'd thought it was safe enough to assume that that was mostly a ruse for the customers, but it's just them here now. Does he have to keep pretending?
Serizawa decides to pick a different topic, something easier. "You don't like bugs?" he asks.
"Who does!" Reigen all but explodes, hands slamming into his desk. They both jump at the thundering sound. Then Reigen seems to realize what he's touching, and jerks his hands away again.
Yet another difference, Serizawa thinks.
Back at Claw, an aversion like that would be something to be denied and obscured as fiercely as possible. Serizawa had never been good at that, really, but the people around him definitely were, and he didn't miss how it used to make him stick out. Across from him, Reigen returns to picking over his desk as though he's diffusing a bomb.
Reigen has quickly dismantled a great number of things he'd taken for fact, in a very short amount of time. Maybe Serizawa shouldn't listen to him so readily, seeing as the man has already built himself up as someone who isn't afraid to be dishonest about things. For all the delusions he'd held and had imparted upon him, Toichirou wasn't wrong when he'd said that Serizawa had been naive. Those last few words they'd shared come back to him now and then when Reigen is spinning up a story for a customer, grand tales of things that Serizawa knows do not exist.
But Reigen does seem to try to encourage him in the right direction, and Serizawa thinks he's been doing a good job of thinking about where he's placing his trust. He can't deny the fact that he'd briefly held Reigen in a sort of savior-like role, simply replacing his old President in his mind. It luckily hadn't taken long for him to realize what he was doing, and to let that image fall apart.
Serizawa is still deeply, endlessly grateful for the second chance that he's gotten, and has no idea where he would be now without Spirits n' Such, but—even when he seemingly has an answer for everything—Reigen is still just a person. He thought he'd have to work to remember that, but it's been easier than expected.
He realizes then he's done the thing again—the thing where Reigen says something, and he sinks deep into thought, staring openly. He's being watched expectantly, Reigen waiting for an answer. It takes him a second to remember what they were talking about.
He pictures the little bug sitting happily outside, newly freed. "They're not that bad, are they?"
Reigen's face crumples in disgust. " Serizawa ."
"I—well—I mean—" he stammers, thinking that was the wrong answer, but Reigen cuts him off before he really gets anywhere.
"Ah, whatever," Reigen cuts him off. "I guess they'll just be your job to deal with, then." He sags deeply into his chair as he says this, flapping his wrist flippantly towards Serizawa. Then the chair leans too far and wobbles, and Reigen squawks, flailing to right himself again and kicking the inside of his desk. He catches his balance, and then clears his throat, folding his hands primly and looking at Serizawa very coolly.
And he can't help it. He laughs.
It only bursts out of him for a second before he claps a hand over his mouth, still shaking, because this is his boss now, huh? This bug-fearing, gravity-dueling man. Reigen, uncharacteristically, stares at him with wide eyes. Serizawa thinks he might have embarrassed him by reacting like that.
He swallows down the last of his laughter, searching for an excuse. "Uh, sorry. I just…"
Reigen clears his throat. "No, it's okay, you—yeah."
Serizawa decides to busy himself to keep from staring again. Maybe Reigen will feel better if he acts distracted. He finds a rag, and starts wiping down the already-clean table he stands by.
He thinks that that's that, but Reigen's voice rings out across the office. "Great initiative!"
Serizawa jumps at the sudden announcement. "Um, thank you."
"Yes, of course." Reigen appears to be winding himself back up. "This is the kind of growth we encourage at Spirits & Such. I knew you would be a good fit, my intuition never fails about these things, you know. Of course, it's still good to—"
He once again gets a sense of deja-vu as he decides to cut off whatever speech Reigen is brewing. "How is your shin?"
"—make sure—huh?" he breaks off.
"You hit your leg earlier." Serizawa points at the desk, in the vague direction he thinks Reigen's leg might be.
"Oh." He stills. "Yeah. It's fine."
"That's good." Serizawa means it.
"Uh-huh." Reigen looks caught off guard again, and Serizawa's beginning to get the feeling that he has no idea how to make small talk. Or maybe he just doesn't know how to talk to his boss, yet. Shigeo is much easier to talk to; Reigen really makes him feel like he's scrambling to hold on to anything about him, sometimes.
Especially when he goes flying out of chairs.
At the very least, he's pretty sure he's developing a staring problem, as Reigen clears his throat and he realizes he's doing it again.
"There are more important things to look at, you know. Like the table you're cleaning."
"Oh—" He looks down and realizes he's been cleaning the same spot for a minute now. The paint is starting to rub off. Oops. "I'm—I'll fix that, sorry—"
Reigen sighs. "Don't worry about it. You can loosen up, you know. I won't bite your head off."
Serizawa blinks, and resists the urge to apologize again. "Thank you," he says instead.
"You don't need to thank me for that, geez." Reigen sort of waves him off and starts typing on his laptop. He seems to have recovered from his shock earlier, finally treating his desk as a desk again, and not some kind of hazardous waste.
Serizawa turns his attention back down to the table, and the corner he'd just polished the paint clean off of.
He's glad he accepted that job offer.