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"Hey."
"Hey, Master. Thanks for picking me up."
"No problem."
Reigen had the decency not to slam the car door as he slouched on the passenger seat. Sighing, he kicked his backpack to the floor and gave it a little tap with his shoe, not making eye contact with Mob.
"Seatbelt, please" Mob said with no inflection whatsoever. He didn't skip a beat before asking, "wanna talk about what happened today at school?"
"Not really," Reigen answered, finally putting on the seatbelt and leaning against the window. He didn't expect the teacher to go ahead and actually keep him in detention for so long. It was getting dark and chillier and his mother was going to kill him for getting into trouble again.
Mob started the car. "Well," he shifted his sight to the road ahead, "your teacher wasn't happy when she called me."
"It's her fault I had to stop those kids from being jerks in the first place" Reigen mumbled, "if she did her job right they wouldn't be saying stuff they didn't know anything about."
Mob took a turn very carefully and was silent for a bit. Reigen normally didn’t need so much probing to get into his rants. "This 'stuff' being...?"
"They keep making fun of Serizawa-kun for being older than us," his pitch got higher and his hands started talking as well, being kept immobile for one too many minutes. "And they say he shouldn't be allowed to go to our school because he is 'dangerous' or whatever. What kind of things is our education system teaching kids if we're saying stuff like that, anyway!? Aren't we supposed to be the future of this country!?"
Mob made a noncommittal noise. It was just better to let Reigen unwind, and he did his job of opening the floodgates quite well.
"And I know he left school for a while to join a gang or something, but we all make mistakes, right?" He gesticulated to both of them. "I cheated on a test when I was thirteen, you blew up an office building. What else do they want him to do?!"
"People deserve second chances" Mob agreed, stopping just in time for the yellow light to turn red. He took pride in being an excellent driver.
"Exactly! And he's trying to do better! Can't we appreciate someone who's, like, trying to get back on track?" Reigen rested his hands on the panel before finally realizing they were very, very close to his home. "Ahm, Master..." he felt his hands getting clammer and moisture on his forehead. "Can we get some Mobdonald's?"
"Your mother probably wants to talk to you, Reigen-kun."
"Yeah, but she won't be home until eight" he waved his hand, going for dismissive but reaching too far and ending up desperate. "I heard they are doing the two for one promotion and the milkshakes there are super -"
"Reigen-kun, you need to go home."
"I'm a kid, I need nourishment! We're learning about the food pyramid in school and did you know that milkshakes contain -"
"Reigen-kun. We're not getting Mobdonald's."
---
They ended up getting Mobdonald's.
The drive-through was fast enough and Mob managed to pay in cash without losing his change and using his powers to find loose coins on the car's floor. Reigen decided at the last minute to order some fries and dripped them on ketchup. He was not a pick eater nor a neat one.
They ate in relative silence parked across from Reigen's house. Reigen asked some questions about the business and looked very upset that he lost his afternoon of work to help catalog missing books from the library and vacuum brooms. Mob reassured him nothing too exciting happened and that no demons showed up at Spirit & Such to try to possess him, but he would be lying if he said he wasn't worried one day it might happen to teenagers with little to none sense of self preservation. Despite him swearing he had "unawakened ESPer abilities just waiting to be activated" - "my great-uncle said that it happened to him when he fell down a tree, Master, I have it in my DNA, you just have to teach me!" -, from the very first time he saw Reigen Mob knew he had no powers. And yet for some reason the kid was a spirit magnet. Even when he wasn't actively getting into dangerous situations Reigen would find himself in the middle of paranormal phenomena like it was trailing after him. Maybe he had something in his DNA after all, but whatever it was it would make Darwin question his views on natural selection.
Good thing Mob decided to start using his powers to help people instead of trying to repress them. Before he knew it, the kid convinced him to use his savings to open his own business and he was the first emergency contact on Reigen's school - Reigen's mom being the second one and his weird great-uncle the third.
"Do you have a napkin, Master?" Reigen tried to clean his greasy hands on his school uniform. "I think I left mine at school."
"Here," Mob produced some paper napkins from his pocket. "You better be presentable before you see your mother. She will be very upset that you punched someone's face."
"I barely touched the guy's face. Now, the stomach, that was a punch" Reigen started to sound a little too proud of himself.
"That will really hold in court, Arataka."
The woman standing in front of the car jumpscared both of them to varying degrees: while Mob stayed completely static and felt his heart jump out of his ribcage, Reigen quite literally jumped out of the passenger seat, almost dripping the still untouched milkshake onto his backpack and shoes.
"I raised you much better than this, son" she had her arms crossed and fingernails so pointy that Mob imagined they could be considered weapons. Mitsuko Reigen was quite known in her field for being very good with words, so it was no surprise her son managed to emulate some of her mannerisms and jargons when convincing people he was very knowledgeable about things he had no knowledge of.
"I thought you were working late today, mother" Reigen calmed down and dragged himself out of the car, his backpack almost forgotten.
Mitsuko circled the car to make sure Reigen wasn't going to run away, the click-click-click of her heels on the pavement loud and determined. "I was. However, I had to have a very unfortunate talk with a very unfortunate teacher about my unfortunate son and some intervention is in order." She turned to Mob, a softer expression on her face. The usual gratitude that showed up everytime someone other than her took care of Reigen. "Thank you for picking him up. You are very good to my son." She bowed.
Mob never knew what to do in these situations, so he just bowed back, lightly tipping his head. "No problem. He's a good kid. And a good employee."
"See, mom?" Reigen asked from the unlocked entrance door to his home, already taking off his shoes. "Master says I'm sensible and trustworthy!"
"That's not what I said" Mob sighed, gripping the wheel. "Good night, Reigen-san."
"Good night, Kageyama-san."
---
Two hours later Mob received a text.
Mom told me to thank you again. She said I had really bad timing and she almost had to drop a client that she was really looking forward to defending.
Mob smiled the littlest smile.
Tell her she's welcome. And good luck with the case.
Will do. But her clients never go to jail. She's the best.
I agree.
I explained to her why I punched some kids and she agreed with me. But she thinks I shouldn't fight hard, but fight smart. Does it make sense to you?
Hmm.
Yeah, well. I don't know. Maybe I should tell Serizawa-kun to sue those guys. Or record them doing bad stuff to present as evidence.
Uhum.
Anyway, Master. Thank you again. We deeply appreciate your help. And you need to teach me how to levitate coins from the floor. You promised!
Good night, Reigen-kun.