Archive of Our Own ^beta

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree:

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea.

He has this nightmare where he’s trapped in a cave.

Darkness seeps from the walls, thick and black, snuffing out the brightness that gleams from the droplets on Reigen’s skin, reflecting the tiny opening of the sky high above in a pinhole pierced through the roof of solid rock.

Then, darkness eclipses the opening and he’s plunged into nothing. The abalone shells that surround him wink in the dark, cold against his limbs as he takes a deep breath and becomes silent as his flesh softens and their edges open him up from the outside going in, slowly separating his soul from his body and easing it out to sea.

The tide rises with each shallow breath. It fills in the cavern’s gaps, the crevices where seaweed has lingered, limp and alone, and Reigen, formless, dissolves into the current, a phantom in the tide, a pollutant that tastes of dried cigarettes and whitens the coral he passes through. His body remains suspended, floating and still, in the cavern walls.

Lighter than air, utterly alone, Reigen’s soul, the fragments of it, press into an ocean current thousands of feet below where the ocean breaks to clean, dry air and rises to meet the walls of darkened cliffs. He has no voice, no senses, save for the cold rush of water flushing into water.

It’s not an unfamiliar sensation. Not an unfamiliar dream.

The water he’s made up of becomes lukewarm and he hears the plastic click of a switch. The phantom coolness of a mug is pressed in his hands as he returns to a body, something hopelessly gangly and thin and numb. Slowed, garbled voices swim around him as Reigen stares into his distorted reflection in the tinted plastic of a water cooler.

His eyes always seem darker, the bags below them deeper. He’ll try to step away, avert his gaze. Then it ends.

Reigen wakes up alone in his small bed, dragging his tongue across his teeth and tasting sour sleep and nicotine.

Nights that follow the first are the same. Over, and over, until memory feels almost indistinguishable from the things he sees in his sleep.

The office he’s opened up is doing poorly and he’s smoking more than ever. The nightmares persist.

Days drift away. One month, then two. His mother sends him another email. Another,

Arataka,

You are better than this. God only knows the sort of man you could be if you’d give this up.

If you would just –

“Listen,” Reigen says, frowning. His toolbox is tucked away beneath his desk. This will be fine. “I’ll take care of it, sir. It’s a sink spirit, but I have the necessary skills for this. Don’t fret.”

– and it’s not as if you aren’t smart, or willing to –

“ - change your routine,” Reigen finishes with a flourish. His plastic smile is wearing at the edges. The man in front of him glows, awestruck. “I think that’s the best thing to do. Sleep earlier, eat better.”

– and give it a chance. That’s all I ask. Just –

“ - try this.” He presses a pack of supplements into the young woman’s hand. The sharpie he’d scrawled over the pills lingers in the air, sharp in his nose, but she doesn’t notice. She just nods, eyes red, and manages a shaky smile. Reigen continues while handing her a sticky note, “My services today will be discounted, of course. Please refer to this specialist if your symptoms persist.”

Try a normal life. Give it a chance.

We miss you. Me and your father.

There’s a place here for you, even if it doesn’t seem like it. Come home soon.

Love,

Mom.

;

When Reigen is eight, he decides that he’d like a dog. He tells the class that it’s his dream birthday present, and presents a colored pencil drawing he made in art class of him and a puppy to his mother just as the winter holidays started.

She’d patted his head and placed it on the kitchen counter, folding it in half to stand like a card. He and the dog are on either side of the creased paper, and now the colored pencil dog’s tail is somewhat folded inwards, but he’s quiet about it. He doesn’t know why she didn’t hang it on the fridge with his other drawings and high test scores.

“Taka.” His sister studies him. “We don’t have nearly enough land for the kind of dog you want.”

A shepherd is what he’d had his eyes set on – a big dog to protect him. To print a photo of and brag about to the other kids at school. He tries not to frown at the too-gentle tone of her voice, but it’s hard.

“Not even a small one would be happy here.” She worries the flesh inside her cheek with her teeth. “Besides. You hear mom and dad arguing all the time, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” Reigen supplies defensively. “But I could…I dunno.” Reigen nestles his forehead into his kneecaps, feeling the weight of Yori’s gaze still fixed upon him. “I could train it. Then it won’t do anything bad, and they wouldn’t have a reason to be mad.”

“Taka,” Yori says again, voice low. She slides off her bed, settling beside him on the hardwood. “It’s not about that.”

“Then what?” He rests his cheek on his knee. “What’s it about, then?”

“They’re just angry sometimes. And they just…don’t want a pet to stress about.” Sighing, she tugs him into a side hug, and he nestles into the crook of her neck where her sweater has started to fade and fray. She speaks into his mop of hair. “Everyone wants a dog. I asked for one, too. But they won’t budge, and that’s not your fault or mine.”

“Okay,” Reigen whispers. Yori shifts, and tugs her blanket down from her bed to cover them both. In front of them, blocky and small, sits their shared DVD player propped on a red stool. She reaches over to the binder where all of their burned DVDs and movies removed from their plastic cases rest behind glossy wax sleeves, offering it to her younger brother.

He flips to the back, where his favorite movie with ghost hunters rests, and removes it from its sleeve with reverent fingers. With an approving look, Yori places it into the player. They readjust their blanket as the movie begins.

Yori is six years older and a lifetime smarter. Regardless of how often they may or may not get along, she’s here for Reigen when it matters. In the moments, at least, when their parent’s alleged favoritism and grades and bickering over menial things don’t cut into their rare memories where it’s just them – just the two of them – wishing and praying for the same things.

Sometimes it’s a dog. Sometimes it’s a way to run away.

More often than not, it’s for quiet.

;

College is a blur for him. There are a few things Reigen remembers only from flashes of memory, and at that, the sensations he felt with them. But, a few things stick out, like driftwood half-raised in the sand of a receding tide.

He still remembers the process of moving out of his parent’s house and hauling his boxes into the cramped room he’d be sharing with a boy he only knew from the mailed room assignment. His mother had been there every step of the way, fretting over what he’d eat, where his classes were, and the sort of people he’d meet in the business track. Visiting him in his dorm and sitting beside him on his bed, quiet after she explained that his father would not be coming.

“He’s busy.” The calluses of her fingers have whitened and cracked open, bone dry when they make contact with Reigen’s wrists. He closes his eyes briefly, the tree rings of her fingertips alighting across his skin. “You know how it is with him.”

“No, I know.” Reigen raises his head, casting her a sidelong smile. It doesn’t reach his eyes. She doesn’t mention it. “I understand.”

And in truth, he thinks he does. Maybe a little. Their relationship is too fragile and taut to examine too closely without the risk of snapping the string. If his father doesn’t want to see him, then Reigen will return such sentiments. It’s simple, really: it doesn’t matter. It never will.

Reigen’s mother continues to massage his inner wrist. The scratch of her fingertips near his palm is warm.

Outside the open door, the dorm bustles with the quiet sounds of summer ending – lacquered shoes going up and down the halls, the plastic wrap of textbooks and cardboard boxes being torn open, and the soft plops of mattresses and beds being readjusted by the deft hands of students and their parents. The bustle raises into a hum that Reigen thinks he’ll grow to be tired of; it’s nothing more than the rhythm of unremarkable people with hopes of being more than what they are.

As it is, Reigen’s own space is nothing special to behold – it's just the right side of the small matchbox room he’s claimed with boxes pressed against the low frame. The popcorn walls are bare. This may change when Reigen’s roommate moves in, but for now, there are no posters and no photos of high school friends. Just a simple, resolute blankness. He doesn’t imagine this will change.

At some point, his mother relinquishes his hand, gives it a single pat, and helps him unload the rest of his clothes.

Reigen plugs his laptop into the wall, and looks up, quiet as he watches his mother kneeling beside an open dresser cupboard drawer. Carefully, she folds his button-downs into clean squares before tucking them away. With a reverence he’d only seen once before, at his grandmother’s funeral, he watches her straighten out the wrinkles of the new white shirt she’d bought for him up to the collar with her thumbs, a bitter smile raised upon her lips like a flag.

The sun has set, dousing the room in a dark blue shadow. But even in its dimness, Reigen can still catch her crow’s feet deep at the edges of her eyes. The wrinkles have grown and stretched across the map of her face like telephone lines before fading into the soft tresses of her hair.

When she rises to her feet to leave, there’s a sharp ache between his ribs as she steps into the threshold of his doorway. His new home away from a place he’s not sure is still a home.

“Call me, Arataka,” she says severely, hugging him tightly.

He’s been a practiced liar since he was fifteen. His heart rate doesn’t betray him to her. Doesn’t skip or race or stop.

It will be three months before she thinks she’ll see Reigen again, this time with his father. If he plays his cards right, it might be longer.

“I will,” he murmurs into her hair. “I promise.”

A few minutes later, he’ll let the door swing shut. He’ll close the windows, flick on his cheap lamp, and feel nothing as the world continues turning from the outside.

;

He’s twenty-four when he first moves into his dinghy excuse of an apartment. Anxiety gnaws at him, curdling in his stomach, and he tries to call Yori. It goes straight to voicemail.

There’s a chance it’s a fluke. This is what Reigen chooses to believe after the first time he fails, and then the second.

A week goes by. He gives it another shot.

It’s late, and his apartment is completely dark. His lamp’s bulb died recently and his paltry excuse for living room light is on the verge of kicking the bucket, too. With a click, Reigen taps his sister’s contact and lets the pulse ring as he rests his phone on his desk. He gets up to open the first half of his balcony door to let in the moonlight when, at long last, the pulses stop.

There’s a buzz of static, the sound of a silent room on the other line of the phone before someone speaks.

“Arataka.”

The grating quality of it. The low melody of her voice. Nothing has changed.

Reigen closes his eyes for a moment, steeling himself before picking up his phone, and pressing it flush against his ear. “Yori-chan.”

“I looked up your business.” Clipped and neutral, straight to the point. Just like their father. “Spirits and Such Consultations. You need to find yourself a web developer, Arataka. A programmer, really, or … anyone. It’s hideous.”

“Ah.” With one hand, Reigen turns the handle on his screen door and steps outside. The balcony’s slanted concrete is cool beneath his bare feet as he starts pacing back and forth. “So you’ve only called me back to mock me.”

He can practically see her eyes rolling. “No. Not mock.”

“Sounds like it.”

“It’s not.” She’s quiet for a moment. Then, a little more gently, “They’re still mad at you.”

Even though he knows she can’t see it, Reigen can’t help wagging a finger into the air out of reflex. His pacing quickens. “No, no. Not them. It’s just him.”

Yori inhales sharply. “Fine. If you really want specifics, then yes. Dad’s still mad at you.” It’s hard to tell, but it sounds like she’s suppressing something that shudders across the speaker. For Reigen, it only takes a split second to identify it for what it is - a tired laugh.

“Mom still believes in you, for some reason. She thinks you’ll come back home and decide to have a normal job like they want. A small government position where they can keep tabs on you. She won’t stop talking about it. But Dad is already acting like you don’t even exist.”

Reigen examines his cuticles, feigning coolness as always, even over the phone, but his fingers tremble. “I don’t think that would change very much.”

“Don’t say that,” Yori says, frowning. “He doesn’t hate you.”

Reigen almost smiles. “I’m pretty sure he does.”

“Well, with this pantomime of yours, I wouldn’t blame him. His reputation is at stake.”

“Sorry about that,” Reigen snaps. “My apologies for not taking that into consideration. I’m torn up about it, you have no idea.”

“Your…” Yori’s voice starts to crack as her words surge forward, tripping over one another. “Your old job was stable. You made decent money and, granted, I only knew the basics of it, but it seemed like you were good at it. Water coolers aren’t impressive or interesting. Of course they aren’t. And I know that, that sometimes the thing you’re doing with your life won’t always make you happy. But.”

Her breathing grows ragged. Reigen says nothing.

“A psychic business. You’re no exorcist, Arataka. You’re serving these people lies, day after day, and they don’t even know it.”

“It’s not,” and Reigen stops when he hears how much anger seeps through. He inhales. Exhales. “It’s not like that. Not entirely.”

The line falls silent, and he tries, just for a second, to understand what she’s been through. She no longer lives with their parents, and lives on the outskirts of a city that’s two trains away. But of the two, she’s the easiest one to contact by a long shot.

Their father, ever harsh, ever angry, would try and pin the blame on her first for not being a better example. For letting Arataka think this behavior is okay just because they started talking to one another like normal people once he graduated. And then, he would demand her to remind him - his moron of a son - to stop living in a fantasy and please, get a life.

Their mother, ever persistent, ever worried, would probably call Yori every other day to hear about how things are with her and, inevitably, Reigen, asking over and over if he’s going to come home.

Yori doesn’t have the answers. And deep down, Reigen knows that his sister probably won’t understand him, even if he tries to explain.

I have a kid working for me. A real psychic. And I’m…paying him next to nothing. My own salary is in the dirt. And I’m a plumber. A handyman. A masseuse, a therapist, a life coach. Thirty different jobs in one, and it’s tiring, but I’m helping people. And it works.

He’s thought about telling her before.

I’m free.

But she wouldn’t understand.

I’m happier.

She wouldn’t believe him.

“I like it here,” Reigen says. Before him, the low roofs of other apartments stack against one another before rising into skyscrapers, their tips blinking in the night. He rests his arms on the railing. “It’s different. It’s…interesting.”

The itch for a cigarette starts, and he gnashes his teeth, a subconscious action.

“I know you disagree with it. Everything about it. But it’s what I want to do.”

And there goes, as such, the unspoken: I’m not coming back.

They still call sometimes, once every six months. Sometimes, it’s longer.

It’s hard to navigate this new rift between them in a way that makes sense.

;

It’s been three weeks since the last time Reigen smoked. His cigarettes have begun to burn a hole in his suit pocket.

The last time he’d crushed a stub into his ashtray, he’d renewed the lease for the Spirits & Such office. Mob had helped him exorcise a library poltergeist that day and almost passed out from running too fast down the stairs from the fourth floor. Reigen had dutifully compensated him with a sandwich and cookie and walked him back to his house, hand on his shoulder the whole way. That evening, Reigen had touched his pen to the paperwork, signed every flagged line with his typical flourishes, and proceeded to have a panic attack in the bathroom. He’d shoved two ice cubes in his mouth to cease the palpitations, did a breathing exercise to stop dry heaving, and then, like clockwork, fumbled for a cigarette on the coffee table.

The following day, Mob asked why the bathroom smelled like smoke. Reigen bit his tongue and told him it was a spirit he’d melted.

It’s been three weeks. His cigarette box has remained closed, the messy tear in the lid softening in his jacket, pulpy to the touch. His fingers brush it sometimes, a silent sin he’s been reprimanding himself for. But the urge returns in those quiet moments when Mob’s not there, in the early morning and late evening in the absence of the sun.

Days at the office together fall into a rhythm. Mob becomes a familiar fixture. He pops in consistently after school, clutching his backpack straps between small hands that he deposits behind a small desk Reigen had found on sale. With time, Mob will learn to make tea. Talk to customers in a voice that doesn’t tremor or break. Look Reigen in the eye and maintain steadiness when he has something on his mind.

“Shishou,” Mob says one afternoon, talking down at the grass. There’s an idle fidget in his hands. “I found a cigarette in your trash can.”

They’re sitting side by side in the park, a tray of takoyaki between them in Reigen’s lap. It’s leaking into his pants, staining the wrinkled fabric. Reigen pays it no heed as he stares at his student.

“A - a what?”

Mob lifts his gaze, frowning. “A cigarette.” He tries not to blink - eye contact is important, Reigen had admonished lightly - and continues, “I went to throw away my chips yesterday and saw it inside.”

Reigen slowly nods. “Ah.” There’s no use lying to him. Mob’s not stupid. But to explain it, why it’s there, is something else entirely.

He twists his mouth for a second, pondering, before shoving a whole takoyaki ball in his mouth and chewing, shuddering at how the too-hot steam fills his senses. He pretends not to see Mob’s mouth twitch in distaste at the sight and swallows, loudly.

“Well, Mob, I’m trying to kick a bad habit. Everyone’s got one. For some people, it’s biting their nails, watching too much tv, or not getting enough sleep. For me, it’s smoking.”

A vice of five years and counting. But Mob doesn’t need to know that.

“My dad smokes,” Mob remarks. It’s not said with admiration or admonishment. Just a simple, neutral observation he’s willing to divulge. “My mom doesn’t like it.”

“I bet she doesn’t.” Reigen nudges him with his elbow, smiling gently. Mob returns it.

“That cigarette you saw. I didn’t…smoke it or anything,” Reigen says. His voice softens. “But I thought about it. And then, I stopped myself. Told myself that it wasn’t worth it. And that, really, is the core of it all.” Reigen raises his index finger to his temple, tapping his forehead. “It’s hard work, but one day, I’m going to reach a point where I don’t even think about ‘em anymore. Mind over matter. That’s important, Mob.”

A half-truth spun from thin air and wrapped in a glossy silver veneer. He’s not sure where this shit even comes from. But, it might mean something. His words always seem to mean something to Mob.

With that in mind, Reigen watches Mob mouth mind over matter, soaking in the words before nodding and reaching over for the last takoyaki ball. “That’s really wise. Thank you, shishou.”

Shishou.

It’s been a month. He’s still not used to it. Doesn’t know when he will be.

“Of course, kid.” Reigen turns away to look at a leashed dog, pushing a little smile to the side of his mouth where he knows Mob can’t see. “It’s what I’m here for.”

When they return to the office, Mob returns to a manga he’d been reading, curling into the sofa with his jacket as a makeshift blanket. Reigen settles behind his desk and pauses.

He brings a hand into his pocket, feeling the softened cardboard, and throws the cigarette box into the trash with a muffled plop. Only then does he release a low exhale before turning his laptop on.

;

His office has shifted, bit by bit, as the years have drawn on.

The ashtray is gone. Instead of cheap energy drinks, the office’s small fridge is now stocked with juice packs and ice cream bars. There’s a little drawer in the kitchen that rattles with pencils, erasers, and a cheap sharpener. Reigen bought crayons and markers from the store to keep on hand for Mob and his school projects and starts taking note of Mob’s favorite snacks, the manga he reads on the sofa.

Inside Reigen’s desk is a dusty lighter and a plastic container of wooden toothpicks, for those rare occasions when his breathing grows ragged and the temptation to buy cigarettes flickers back. It doesn’t hurt that the toothpicks between his teeth make him look a tad cooler.

There’s a blanket folded up neatly in the closet for when Mob needs to nap. A plush on the couch in the shape of a frog that the boy will settle next to his homework as he works, patting it for comfort when he stumbles across questions he doesn’t understand. It’s not much, but it’s comforting. It belongs to him just as much as it does to Reigen. With time, their office grows into something resembling a second home where Mob can go when he has nowhere else to turn.

Mob’s desk is later joined by another, where Serizawa begins his time in the office with wringing hands, a soft voice, difficulty with raising his head, and maintaining eye contact. In a lot of ways, Mob is reminded of himself. But Serizawa, too, adjusts and paces himself with his new chapter of life, soon filling the spaces he occupies with a sturdy anchored warmth.

On some level, Reigen misses the way things used to be. But the years don’t stop. Mob gets older.

The blanket and frog plush disappear after he takes them home one day, where they’re now folded together on the bookshelf in his room. The juice boxes remain in the fridge, but Mob gets busier. They’re taken out less and less. The measured cadence of his voice from the kitchenette becomes a rare, welcomed sound.

In the umbrella stand near the door, a clear umbrella joins Reigen’s cheap blue one with the opening switch that doesn’t work and Mob’s green one he’d bought after one of their exorcisms that he kept around, just in case. And there, too, came a day that Reigen went to lock the office door shut and realized that the blue and clear umbrellas sagged into one another, the green one nowhere in sight.

It shocks him at how casual it becomes so quickly, but he and Serizawa develop a comfortable rapport. As the weeks have gone on, it’s been easy to gauge what Serizawa is really into. Reigen will broach certain topics just to see Serizawa’s face light up and be content, for once, to let someone else do all the talking.

Reigen comes to enjoy the quiet moments between client appointments and conbini trips, too. Before, he would’ve found them unbearable. But now, Serizawa will simply look at him out of the corner of his eye, smile, and return to his night school work, while Reigen sits at his desk, fingers tapping nothing into his laptop.

Lengthy silences being interrupted only by pen scratches and clacking keyboard keys are tolerable with his new coworker around.

Reigen pops the fridge door open, leaning against it and studying the inside. On the top shelf is a half-eaten apple salad that Serizawa had wanted to try, an almost empty frozen mocha from three days prior Reigen had bought and was determined to finish because it was too expensive to just ditch, and canned frappes to satisfy both of their caffeine fixes on busy mornings.

On the bottom shelf is an almost full box of Capri-Sun.

“Serizawa,” Reigen says. “Do you like fruit punch?”

“Hmm.” Serizawa taps his pen against his desk and considers. “I think I did when I was younger. My mom wouldn’t let me drink too much of it since she was scared it would stain my teeth.”

Reigen cracks a smile. “My mom had that same worry.” He crouches down, messing with the crooked cardboard flap until his fingers find chilled foil wrapping.

He tosses a Capri-Sun to Serizawa, who fumbles with it for a moment before catching it. “Here. You can share them with me. These are gonna expire soon.”

“Oh, thanks.” Making a small sound of recognition, Serizawa pricks the opening with his straw. After taking a sip, he smiles, nodding. “I like it. It’s just as good as before. Maybe better.”

Reigen rifles through the box and extracts one for himself. He swings the fridge door shut, and the sound of crinkling plastic and a light pinch of plastic being pierced accompany his contented hums. He finds himself in agreement.

;

He’s well aware that Serizawa’s busy tonight. But it doesn’t stop Reigen from turning to him after he’s locked the office door shut and asking, voice low, “Got any plans?”

Serizawa lifts his shoulders, smiling. “Yeah, I do. My friends from school invited me to karaoke downtown.” He rolls his eyes, but the warmth on his face remains. “I don’t think I’ll be very good, but it should be fun. I’ve never sung in front of anyone before.”

“Ah.” Reigen nods, even though he already knows all of this. For the past two days, Serizawa has been scribbling different songs he knows on small sticky notes from his night school bag. He hadn’t said anything; just smothered his fondness so Serizawa couldn't see.

Reigen swallows, bringing his palm to the back of his neck. “It can be a little scary at first, but once you really get into it and just focus on having fun, that fear leaves.”

Reigen looks down at his scuffed-up shoes. Focuses on how Serizawa’s are less than a few inches away. “You’ll be great,” Reigen says to Serizawa’s shoes. “Enjoy yourself.”

Serizawa’s loafers shift, a soft scraping of leather against concrete.

“Thank you, Reigen-san.”

“Of course.”

Reigen looks up, meeting his gaze with a small smile. Serizawa returns it, eyes crinkling.

They part ways at the bus stop and Reigen lingers, listening to the click and flap of an umbrella being opened; the chatter of a mother and son on the bench; the gentle taps of evening rain, growing louder each minute.

He fishes his phone out of his pocket. Watches the flickering message of 0 texts / 0 calls pop up, and bites the inside of his cheek, hard.

It’s been a while since it’s happened - years, at best. But Reigen remembers it just like this. Affection, when it blooms, is always this lonely.

;

They go drinking sometimes. At the end of the night, Serizawa will make the whole walk back from the cramped bar to Reigen’s even more cramped apartment.

He doesn’t have to. Sometimes when he’s drunk, Reigen will laugh and say, in a spurt of lucidity, that Serizawa doesn’t have to look after him. It’s a ready-made sentence that lingers in the back of his mouth, so solidified in his vernacular that sobriety doesn’t matter and has no effect on its words.

But Serizawa will just look down and adjust his grip around Reigen. Even when he’s drunk, he seems to be the stronger of the two, tougher to sway.

“Of course I don’t have to,” he says gently, often with a loose shrug. “But you’re my friend. And I want to.”

Then he’ll tuck Reigen’s phone and keys into his own pockets, wrap his arm around the shorter man’s waist, and start walking, traversing through the city’s murmurs of life and flashing crosswalk lights.

Reigen will speak in sentences that are half-strung together by bits of flowery yarn, thoughts that are only somewhat baked through and weeping at the edges while laughing too loud, and smile to the sound and feel of Serizawa humming in agreement until he pushes Reigen’s keys into the apartment lock, clicks it open, and eases him into the small bed in the corner of the box room, telling him to sleep everything off.

Most of the time, if he’s not too drunk to forget, Serizawa leaves a glass of water below the nightstand chair. The first night he’d seen it with its sagging middle, a plastic crater with an alarm clock blinking weakly in the middle, he’d done a double take. Then, with a small sigh and a brief pinch of fingers to the bridge of his nose, he’d ducked into the narrow kitchenette, pulled out a plate from a mostly empty cupboard, and rested that on top of the clock to act as a coaster for a plastic cup he’d found with a faded ink print of a boat on the waves. Most of the boat has been chipped away, scrubbed into faded colored fractals by tough hands and a stiff sponge.

Now, he simply places it below. It’s easier for Reigen to flail for in the morning with a lessened chance of knocking it over. Lends an easier rest of mind for Serizawa that he did a kind and responsible thing.

In their way here, everybody wins. They have their routine, as clumsy as it tends to be, and don’t push for more beyond it. Stasis can be good. Stasis is safe.

Tonight, Serizawa musters his courage for something more. Reigen kicks off his shoes, mumbling about nothing of coherency or importance and tucking himself into his blanket, when Serizawa kneels beside him, tilts his head towards him, and connects his lips to Reigen’s forehead.

One moment is all it takes up, but it’s tender. Gentle. The sensation lingers after the contact disappears, and Reigen’s already bleary eyes fall shut for the final time that night. He hums, content.

“See you on Monday,” Serizawa murmured. Then he’d departed, loafers clicking away, and pressing the door shut with a slow and careful hand.

Reigen fell asleep within seconds of hearing the lock click.

Monday comes, and they don’t talk about it. Serizawa makes them tea, as usual. Clients come in and out, and to each of them, Reigen introduces him as “his partner” with a flourish, as usual. But when meeting Serizawa’s sidelong glances, he does so with a variety of smiles that lose their frigid customer service shine for a split second before getting dialed back up.

On their lunch break, Reigen leans against Serizawa’s desk, twirling his keys on his finger and inviting him out for coffee.

“Or anything, really,” Reigen says, a hand making circles above his head. “It’s on me. Whatever you want.”

Serizawa looks up from his papers, an amused set to his brows. “Whatever I want?”

Reigen nods, ever gracious. “Oh, yeah.”

“Huh. That’s very generous of you.”

“It’s the least I can do. You’re a good coworker.” Reigen coughs into his fist, hard. “And, uh. A friend. A good…friend.”

His neck and ears are starting to color, badly. Serizawa’s gaze flickers to their redness before meeting his gaze again.

They stare at each other for a beat too long.

Then, Serizawa starts laughing, loud and genuine. Reigen’s expression softens on instinct.

He’s long since forgotten to restrain himself in these moments that have become more common. Before, he’d wanted nothing more than to hide from the prospect of something fragile like simple happiness with another person like this; it would’ve felt like too much of a risk.

Reigen’s not sure he cares much about doing that anymore.

Things are easy with Serizawa. Comfortable and warm, effortlessly so.

“Thanks,” Serizawa says, palming the back of his neck. A small smile graces his lips. “I’d like that. I…I think you’re a good friend, too.”

;

Reigen is skilled in many areas, particularly with his hands. Scrubbing, massaging, gesturing, pointing; making contact with skin in a soothing, softening way that uncurls tight fists and ceases tremors in shaking shoulders with a simple touch that disarms as easily as it could hurt. He’s good with those. An expert in his field.

But making a home from the ground up on his own is a mighty feat.

He presses his key into the lock of his apartment, cursing until it gives, stepping into a familiar gloom. As follows, he removes his shoes, shrugging off his coat and tie and placing them on his sofa, unbuttoning his shirt before checking on his sole plant affixed in the notch inside his window.

It’s familiar to make ramen for one with his kettle he’d scored at an estate sale and nudge his thumb into the water cooler that streams lukewarm water into a mug with the remains of a design that he no longer can identify.

Familiar to lean forwards on his sofa to reach his bowl and flick on the television, seeing and listening but not taking in anything anybody is saying because it’s just good, sometimes, to feel like there’s noise in his house.

House. Not home. Home, he thinks, would be too generous.

;

He still remembers the moment things started to change.

“It’s okay,” Mob had told him warmly. “I figured it out on my own.”

The culture festival, the costume he’d encouraged his classmates to make.

Pride simmers on low oven heat in Reigen’s stomach when he walks through the darkened tarp display, a bowl of cheap salt in his hands. The yokai monster juts out from the wall, all cardboard teeth and painted features, mechanical in its movements.

“It’s impressive,” he’d murmured to himself, nodding. “It really is something else.”

;

The moment Reigen catches sight of the images on Serizawa’s phone, his heart stops.

Quality-wise, the photos are shit. Most photos on social media are. But the uniform, the flowers. The fizzling black static raising messy hair upwards.

It’s not hard to see who it is.

Their eyes connect like magnets, the same fear reflected back to each other, the taut tension in their shoulders.

Immediately, the office door is flung open and slams shut. The walls groan as the books on the shelves finally give way to the ground, pages and thick covers flapping.

The umbrella stand only has one frail blue companion left.

;

There are a lot of stories about men at the end of the world. Reigen has read a few of them, mainly to satisfy his literature credits in college. But in a small cavity below his clavicle, they still linger with a hiccuping pulse of their own, as all good stories do.

King Arthur, doomed from the start by the wiles of stars and destiny, promised to fall from the moment he was conceived. Vainglorious and majestic, king of the ages. Slain at the hand of someone he once called a son.

A poem he remembered annotating in the silent hours before dawn broke through his dorm window, about dreams. Visions of a world where the lights, one by one, were snuffed out by the magnitude of sin, where man lost his passion for living and loving and descended into darkness. Midnight and brimstone, Reigen had scrawled into his notebook. The end of all things, where a world born from the flame was fated to extinguish from it, the smoke of it marring the sky.

Death befell the dogs curled around their fallen masters, the plants blossoming in the land and sea, and the last standing men who could not tell their nights from days. Death befell homes, big and small, and the ships that sank into the windless, motionless sea, mighty masts slipping into a frozen silken stillness, their flags raised for no one.

Death, a force of nature, had spared nothing and no one.

Reigen wonders dimly if this is it, now, as the sky opens upwards and buildings are leveled, the dust of their broken bodies fractured in the roads, the sidewalks. Blood trickles from his feet into the concrete as he takes one step at a time, alone, his arms thin and pale as he holds them in front of himself.

Steadiness, Mob, he’d used to say, smiling confidently. That’s the key to most things.

Right foot, left foot. The wind roars, cold against his dried skin.

The static of Mob’s form flickers and crackles, rising to a hum that rumbles and sends vibrations up his legs into the rawness of his muscles.

The wind strengthens in force and a piece of metal catches in the gaping flesh above his eye. Reigen’s mouth opens in a scream that melts in the rapid vortex of wind sharpened and hot against his skin.

Mob, Reigen tries to say. His teeth release the familiar vowel, the roundness of the ‘o,’ but he hears nothing. His knees tremble.

The silhouette tilts its head, calculating and slow.

Dimple blips back and pushes him onwards as the world bleeds black and blue and storm clouds crack and bellow, lightning lashing downwards like knives.

Somewhere inside, Mob – not yet a man, just a boy – is crying.

;

He can’t feel any part of his body except for the heat collecting in his eyes and slipping down his cheeks, hot and wet.

Stuttering breaths rack his body, the frail frame that feels like more than anything, it’s built to be broken. Reigen’s not particularly strong, not mighty, not extraordinary.

Mob’s static gaze doesn’t waver.

Reigen’s heart clenches, and he knows — has long since accepted — that he doesn’t amount to much. There are greater individuals out there. Better ones.

But he cares about people. About Mob.

He swallows thickly.

The figure in front of him is … Mob. It’s undeniable. Reigen doesn’t dare to close his eyes, not now, and he watches the tendrils of shadow and knows these same hands of lightning and smoke hold chopsticks oddly when they’re tired. These skinny arms and legs used to be weak, but they’re getting stronger.

He knows these eyes, their flatness that has, more and more recently, grown to harbor glimmers of a genuine joy gleaned from the bounties of a life that’s coming along just fine.

Maybe this will mean something, this small comfort of his. Reigen is lacking so, so much. Always has and always will.

But here, at the world’s end, at least he’s somebody’s friend.

“I didn’t know!” he shrieks.

A whistle of wind pierces his ears.

Mob says nothing.

Reigen plants his feet into broken concrete, swaying. “I didn’t…” he croaks, head pounding. “Is this what you’ve been dealing with? Something this big?”

There’s a detectable shift in the air. The weather, almighty as it is, seems to hesitate. The gale winds falter.

Perhaps it’s a trick of the light, but Mob’s eyes seem to lose their ghastly whiteness for a moment, and a pupil flickers into view before blipping out.

Just as soon as it ceases, the turbulence returns with a vengeance. Thunder claps over them once, twice. Lightning tears over their city, flattened and abandoned.

Reigen starts to cry.

“I didn’t know!”

The wind stops.

“I’m sorry!”

Mob is motionless, the grip of the bouquet in his fist unflinching.

Then the sky explodes into an unbroken beacon of iridescent purple light.

;

The truth isn’t always a pretty, dainty thing.

More often than not, it’s ugly, twisted, wrenched out of shape into a wretched thing warped by the acid touch of the wrong string of words. A foundation at the bottom of a series of lies after lies after lies that, once the layers are stripped away, is a pulsing fretful thing that’s terrible, simple, unbearably small, and yet looming all the same.

But once released – set up into the stagnant air like a disc and accepted as is – it allows Reigen to watch a storm melt back into a boy.

Mob’s hair is unkempt, and his eyes are wild, and wide. But his shoulders sag with fatigue now. A stuttering calm ripples across his body, his eyes never leaving Reigen.

Reigen thinks he would do it all over again.

;

Three psychics find themselves near the epicenter of a tornado.

They emerge a boy, weary and shaking, a wilted sunflower held close to his chest; the first man in a tattered suit, umbrella ravaged by the storm, his knuckles aching, bleeding, torn; and a second man littered with drying wounds, staring upwards, barefoot and slow as he stumbles forward, born again beneath a searing evening sun.

;

Mob departs to go look for Ritsu. Meanwhile, Serizawa half-carries Reigen to the hospital.

As they sit in the waiting zone, side by side, Serizawa is quiet, letting Reigen rest his head against his shoulder. A television blares in the background, streaming back-to-back news footage as journalists begin to sift through the remains of the city. PAs assess victims one by one, near the small chair area where Serizawa and Reigen are.

Abruptly, Serizawa straightens up.

First, he sets down his umbrella, battered beyond repair, leaning it against the empty chair next to him. Then, he sets down the dress shoes he’d been carrying for the duration of their walk over, letting them click against the pale linoleum floor.

The laces are loose, miserably askew, and the smooth leather of the tips is coated in a fine coat of silt. The lip is entirely undone, flipped almost out.

Reigen studies them, throat tight, before cautioning a look at Serizawa. His eyes seem darker beneath the harshness of the hospital lights, the lines around them deep and pronounced. Stranded bits of rubble are snagged in the roots of his curls.

It takes considerable willpower for Reigen to still his hands in his lap and not draw his fingers upwards to brush them all away.

“Serizawa,” he begins, but his partner raises a palm, face hardening. Reigen falls silent.

“After you ran off, I found them.” In front of them, a woman with a clipboard and a monotone voice tilts the face of a small girl closer to her for examination. An elderly man makes a strained sobbing sound, holding his head in his hands, as a young nurse whispers soothing words to him. Serizawa squeezes his eyes shut. “Near the bank. I found them laying there when nobody else was around. And I just. Knew they were yours somehow.”

Reigen presses his nails into his thighs until it hurts. This is not the time for jokes. This is not the time for Reigen to remark how, after being around him for so long, it’s no wonder he’d recognize them at first glance.

That would be unfair, to play at being so dense. And he’d be missing the point that Serizawa is trying, so gently, to lead him into talking about.

Instead, Reigen just nods. Serizawa fixes his eyes on the ground.

“Yeah,” Reigen says hoarsely. “They’re mine.”

The silence returns, heavier. Embarrassingly aware of how beaten up he looks, Reigen starts fidgeting with his hands, avoiding any potential eye contact. His nails have begun to rove over his cuticles and get at the dirt stuck beneath them when Serizawa brings his hand over the chair’s armrest and curls it into Reigen’s palm.

Between them, there’s much that could be said. Much that, in time, will be.

“People love you, you know,” Serizawa says, soft. His throat snags at the word love.

A PA with a bob cut flits over to them, approaching Reigen, and at that moment, he hears nothing but static in his head. Before she can inquire about Reigen, he simply regards Serizawa, mouth agape, closing it and opening it like a fish.

Serizawa’s hand is still curved around his. Reigen gives it the strongest squeeze he can muster, which is still, for him, a lot. With a tired smile, Serizawa returns it.

The PA speaks. Reigen draws himself back to weary attention.

Hours pass, and night falls. Reigen is examined, stitched up, and hooked into a bed with fluids and tubes. And Serizawa, every day that he’s here, lets him know in a tenor that rises over the beeps of medical equipment, that he’s loved.

Reigen’s not sure he fully understands why. But for once, he doesn’t combat or deny it. That’s not his place. He knows that now. Maybe he doesn’t need to fully get it for it to be true.

And besides. He thinks he’s starting to believe it.

“Thank you,” is what Reigen says once he’s discharged, adjusting his new crutches outside the hospital. I love you.

With a flick of Serizawa’s wrist, the crutches ease beneath Reigen’s armpits, creasing the cotton of the shirt Ritsu had bought for him at the gift shop, a terribly tacky hot pink thing with boldly garish text that reads MADE IN SEASONING. Then, he places his hand on the small of Reigen’s back, helping him down the steps as the crutches click against the concrete.

“You’re welcome,” Serizawa replies. I love you, too.

;

When summer wanes to fall, there’s an afternoon when Serizawa pops a rental car’s trunk open and starts lugging boxes out one by one. Reigen leans back into his seat – softened gray leather – and looks upwards.

It’s not a big place, this apartment. It’s tucked inside a moderately sized structure with three floors, and one freight elevator. From here, he can see the third-floor landing with the metal stairs that he and Serizawa will make their way down every morning, coffees in hand as the sun crests over the city line, and then back up in the evenings, where Serizawa will wait at the top, patient and laughing as Reigen takes subsequent stops to catch his breath, the inevitable consequence of trying to race his boyfriend and losing his stamina by the second flight.

It’s not a big place, by any means. But it’s theirs.

The air cools around them as the night sky rises and they drag all the boxes to the elevator. Serizawa leans against Reigen’s shoulder. Reigen taps the elevator button to go up.

Lightly, Serizawa bonks his head against Reigen’s. “You’re sweaty,” he observes, but he doesn’t move away. “More than usual.”

“The boxes are heavy,” Reigen replies, shooting him what he hopes is an indignant look. But Serizawa just grins. Reigen wants to kiss him. “You have more clothes than I thought.”

In a familiar motion, Serizawa takes Reigen’s clammy hand into his own. The feel of it stopped fazing him a long time ago. “And you have way less. Don’t tell my mom, though, or she’ll knit you a whole closet’s worth of stuff to compensate.”

Reigen dips his head, smiling at the ground. “I like her stitch work. That wouldn’t be such a bad thing.”

They wait another beat. The elevator light doesn’t blink on.

“Oh, god,” Reigen mutters. “You don’t think we’ll have to carry these all up, do you?”

Serizawa purses his lips for a second before surveying their surroundings. “It’s pretty dark right now, isn’t it?”

It is. Even though it’s not that late, their shadows are eerily long, and streetlights have started to flicker on. The half-moon has begun to rise in the horizon, a softened yellow like a cleanly cut wheel of cheese.

Reigen hums his agreement. Serizawa thinks for a second longer before letting go of his hand and raising a finger upwards.

Seamlessly, the boxes lift from the ground. Serizawa walks across the parking lot and begins to go up the stairs, ferrying all of the boxes from largest to smallest along mid-air as he goes. Scoffing, Reigen takes off after him, feeling the stairs groan beneath his feet as he leers over the railing every so often to make sure nobody is looking.

“If anyone sees this, I’ll kill you.”

The boxes arrange themselves into neat stacks in front of Reigen and Serizawa’s front door.

Serizawa, already at the top, beams down at him. He cups a hand around his mouth. “Why? Because you’re jealous that I’m way cooler than you?”

Reigen’s voice pitches. “That’s no fair! You are!” He means it.

“Are not.” Serizawa means it, too.

“Are, too.”

“Are not!”

Reigen’s nostrils flare. “Katsuya! I promise you are!”

A light near the second floor landing where Reigen is standing flicks on. He scrambles the rest of the way up, the metal stairs creaking. Serizawa can’t stop laughing.

Love is stupid.

;

In November, Reigen receives an email from his mother, imploring him to visit for Christmas.

It’s not an unfamiliar email. Usually, Reigen skims it, spams it, and moves on with his day. But this year, it feels wrong to do that. Before he can dwell on it long enough to regret it, he sends her a reply back, as concise as humanly possible, with no room for misinterpretation:

I’ll come.

December rolls in with colder nights. Serizawa purchases his partner a thick blanket to swath himself in since he doesn’t like wearing socks to sleep, unlike a certain somebody. The socks in bed debate is one of the more useless things they bicker about, with no real heat behind their words.

Again. Love is stupid.

After removing his now clean blanket from the dryer, he takes a moment to bury his face in it and savor its toasty softness. Humming, Reigen drapes it over himself and makes his way into their bedroom, settling onto the sheets beside Serizawa, who’s playing a fast-moving pixel game on his Switch.

There are still a few longer consultation emails Reigen’s been putting off that he needs to get to, so he picks up his laptop from the floor and settles it into his lap. He clicks it awake, logging into his email portal with a few fast clunks of his keys.

A new message flagged as ‘important’ sits at the top above a mess of spam emails and clients.

Reigen is quiet for a moment. He taps it open, taking it in and making strained sounds. Even when he's finished typing his reply, his fingers remain agitated, the tips shaking over the space key. Serizawa pauses his game, curious.

Wordless, Reigen tilts the laptop into Serizawa’s view. His voice is hardly above a crack, the sound of dry leaves brushing dry soil, when he does speak.

“She wrote back.” That’s all he needs to say.

Serizawa’s mouth falls open. Gingerly, he lifts the laptop, scanning the email.

There are a few more exclamation marks than he’d imagined.

Arataka,

Of course there’s room for you!!! Your room is still here, and your sister did ask about you again a few months ago. You can talk to her again, she will be here next Thursday and Friday morning . I will not tell you to be civil, like a child. I think you’re old enough to know better.

I told your father that you’re coming. He’s busy right now, and you know how he is. But he seems less angry than before. I think you will both be okay.

I’m sure you’re sick of eating your conbini meals and stir fry every day. I will be cooking a LOT next week!!!!! You will not go hungry on my watch. You can help me cook, too. I will like that.

Thank you for replying. I’m excited to see you again.

Love,

Mom.

“She seems…excited,” Serizawa begins, but when Reigen just stares at him, eyes blown open wide with his brows lost in his bangs, he breaks into an unrestrained fit of laughter.

“Okay, that -! That might be an understatement!”

“Of the century!” Reigen exclaims.

“Of the century,” Serizawa relents, finding his composure again. He scans the email again, feeling a smile curve into his cheek as he scans the last line again. He huffs a small laugh through his nose before another thought crosses his mind, sobering him a little.

“Are you telling her that you’re planning on bringing me along?”

At that, Reigen nods. “I told her I’m bringing my partner.”

Serizawa shifts to look at him head-on. A teasing note rings in his words. “Your business partner?”

Reigen chuckles, pressing his face into his hands as it reddens. “Romantic, Katsuya. Romantic. But I think she’ll like you. Probably wonder about how a guy like me got such a catch.”

Serizawa swallows a nervous laugh. “Right. After years of her trying to set you up with girls, you now have…” Serizawa gestures at himself with a loose movement. “Me.”

“That’s mean,” Reigen says, batting Serizawa’s arm. “You’re one of the best things that’s ever happened to me. Certainly doesn’t hurt that you’re ruggedly handsome, too, and very nice. If she wants me back in her life, no holds barred, she’s going to have to take me as I am.”

He takes Serizawa’s left hand, massaging circles into the meat of his palm.

“You’re a part of that now.” Of the person I am now.

In response, Serizawa cups Reigen’s cheek with one hand, thumb grazing over the thin nick of a scar that rests there, faded and white.

Reigen’s forehead is warm against his and he relaxes into the touch, the edge of his mouth curling into the callused skin of Serizawa’s palm.

Serizawa tilts his face in closer, closer.

;

Sometimes when Reigen looks over at Mob, stirring his steaming ramen with careful hands, he sees a ten-year-old.

He knows that Mob’s older now, turning sixteen in the spring. But if the slant of the ramen bar light is just so, his eyes seem brighter and his features soften, aging him back by half a decade. When he subtly pushes his stool away to not bump elbows with Reigen, some of the newer details on his face, like the small smile that tugs at his mouth, are harder to see.

And every time, Reigen feels something unbearably small split in his chest, a pressure applied gently before a seam loosens itself and a familiar warmth melts into his blood when he sees a glimpse of the past.

These little snapshots – the fleeting moments where he can taste the cigarettes he used to smoke in his teeth and remember how Mob used to be, reaching up on his tiptoes to get onto the ramen bar and fumbling with his sleeves – are the closest he gets to seeing real ghosts.

He doesn’t need to google what the feeling is. It’s not impossible to guess, when you’ve seen someone grow, struggle tooth and nail through adolescence, waiting on your doorstep and coming right back just the same, even if it’s less than before.

Looking to you when the world’s eating itself alive, relentless and ruthless, for the right thing to do, the right words to say. Searching through the magic spells Reigen casts with every sentence he says aloud with wide, imploring eyes, sifting for the answers between the words until he doesn't have to anymore.

Pride is the imprint of warm, hearty broth that lingers in your stomach long after it’s gone.

If it’s you, Mob…if it’s you, you can do it.

“Shishou?” Mob stares, brows drawing into a wrinkle. “Your noodles are getting cold.”

Oh. Reigen sniffs, letting his nostrils flare for a second as he blinks hard. His eyes feel warmer than they did a moment ago and, upon inspection, his ramen noodles have indeed cooled, tangled bunches swelling against the lip of the bowl. A spot of broth shines on the bar.

“Right,” Reigen manages, voice cracking. As he lifts his hand to grip his chopsticks, his wrist slips, fingers trembling. He takes a deep breath. “Thanks. You’re pretty sharp, kid.”

“Of course.” Mob’s gaze doesn’t waver in intensity, watching Reigen spin his noodles into his spoon. “I was just going to ask about…whatever’s on your mind.”

“What?”

Mob’s brows furrowed deeper. “You were thinking really hard.” It’s just five words, but it’s an observation made with quiet confidence.

Reigen can’t suppress the fond smile that creases his cheeks. He takes a deep breath.

Honesty. He’s getting better with that.

“It’s nothing to worry about. Just adult feelings I need to work through.” He hiccups, scrubbing his used napkin under his nose. “I’m getting old. I’m sentimental now. You know how it is.”

He leans over, ruffling Mob’s hair and grinning at the half-affronted, half-relieved expression that crosses his features.

“I’m fine. And you are, too, which is the most important thing.”

Mob isn’t fully satisfied but he nods, all the same, returning to his bowl and picking around the shallots. “Okay. Just look after yourself, shishou.”

Shishou.

He never did break that habit.

Countless times, Reigen’s thought about insisting against it, telling Mob to just call him Reigen like everybody else. But it always hits him, eventually, that Mob’s always going to be a little different than the others. He’s going to view him in a light that’s angled differently, slanted just a few degrees off-kilter but familiar just the same, and he’s made peace with that.

“You do the same,” he tells Mob, quietly. His hands are steadier now. “You, too.”

There’s a light clink of a spoon and chopsticks being placed at the edge of a bowl. Then, an arm is slung over Reigen’s shoulders, giving him a tight squeeze of a side hug before the moment ends.

Without looking, Reigen knows he will.

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;

And here were forests ancient as the hills,

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

EPILOGUE

ONE YEAR LATER, IN JULY

For three days during the summer holidays, Reigen had taken the liberty of renting out two small beach cabins on the coast of Sea Cucumber Bay for the Spirits and Such: Original Company Reunion Retreat & Get-Together, complete with a color-coded travel guide. One cabin is large enough to accommodate Mob, Ritsu, Teru, and Tome. The other, slightly smaller in dimension, is for Reigen and Serizawa.

Dimple gives him hell the moment he finds out, offering blatant and snide remarks for the duration of the drive to the coast. Serizawa, at the driver’s wheel, shoots him wary looks in the rearview mirror that are stony enough to shut him up for short periods.

But at the one-hour mark, Reigen finally snaps, flapping a hand around and loudly making an excuse about how he, Reigen of all people, snores sometimes and doesn’t want to subject others to it! It’s as simple as that! To make more people than strictly necessary sleep in the same proximity as him would just be inconsiderate, wouldn't it?

Teru rolls his eyes, yanking his tie-dye sleep mask over them once again. Ritsu, who too had been momentarily intrigued by their bickering, lost interest and pulled the noise-canceling headphones that he only played white noise through back up to his ears. Tome just offers her boss a magnanimously unimpressed look, nose wrinkled.

“And why should Serizawa-san be the only one forced to endure your snoring?” Dimple inquired innocently from atop Mob’s sleeping head, just above his bangs.

Mob unconsciously muttered about weights. Reigen flipped off the blob with vigor. Dimple’s lips twisted upwards.

“I don’t mind it,” Serizawa had replied, ever focused on the road. Heaving a sigh, Reigen wiped a stream of sweat from his forehead, sinking deeper into the passenger seat.

Then Serizawa added, “I’ve heard scarier things in the nighttime, though his snores come pretty close. I’m doing the kids a service. Please be quiet, Dimple,” and earned himself an affectionate (though somewhat heated) punch to the arm that felt weirdly intimate to watch given how stupidly and shamelessly Serizawa grinned back at his partner.

Dimple, thoroughly disgusted, shut up.

As the driver, Serizawa is relegated to having radio privileges. The cityscape melts away into lush green fields and endless waves of grain as crackling rock music blasts from the speakers.

Teru rolls a window down to get a photo of the hills that, eventually, give way to the softened slope of the shoreline and the glistening ocean rising and falling behind it.

They unload at the cabins before taking off. Reigen leads them to a local fried seafood restaurant and a kitschy little tourist shop before the teens take turns hitting spots over the course of the next few days.

There’s a local carnival (Mob and Dimple), a maritime museum (Teru), a memorial for a disturbing cryptid said to frequent the area (Tome), and a fishing pier (Ritsu). The last spot of the trip they hit is Serizawa’s pick.

When he and Reigen first started planning the trip, he’d bookmarked it immediately: a preserve at the edge of the beach where, past the sand, a marshland sits nestled against one of the highest cliffs, where fog hangs on good days. Reeds and tall grasses line the freshwater area where hundreds of white pelicans are said to nest. In the distance, past the sea, are the silhouettes of mountains rising, softened and blue.

Entranced, the company simply stops and stares. The water of the marshland curves into a lake, with sand jutting on the other side that acts as a makeshift dock for the birds to land near and walk around without having to be near humans.

Every few minutes, a set of pelicans will stand upright on stubby legs, cluster together, and flap upwards into the sky, cloistered in their groups and rounding the beach and cliff before circling back.

“In a way,” Reigen says, smiling, “it’s kind of messed up how much they look like dinosaurs.”

“What?” Mob squints upwards from beneath the brim of his hat. “The pelicans?”

“Yes, Mob.” Raising a palm flat to the sky, Reigen watches the birds fly in a V formation above his fingers. “The pelicans.”

As if pondering the words in full, Mob nods slowly, then stops.

The pelicans circle back to the water, landing with a bulky gait, beating their wings when an awestruck note slips into his voice. “I see it.”

“Yeah? It takes a second, but it’s there.” Reigen blinks the sun out of his eyes, pointedly ignoring the crick in his neck. “It’s weird, right?”

“Yeah.” Still squinting, Mob turns to Reigen and grins. “Really weird.”

Millions of watts can be stored in someone’s smile. Reigen laughs, messing up Mob’s hair and pulling him into a hug.

Two years ago, Mob would’ve frozen on the spot, arms slack at his sides and at a loss for how to respond.

A lot can change. Has changed. Now, he returns it in full, arms tight around Reigen as he laughs just as hard, loud and bright.

The sun slips beneath the sea. After dinner, beneath the glinting stars with the smell of grill smoke still suspended in the air, the teens tug their beach chairs around the fire they’d made. They’re insistent on staying up, but promise they’ll wake up in time for Serizawa to drive back early to avoid the tourist traffic.

Teru is about to pull out some Shakespeare-worthy theatrics and do a soliloquy on the value of youthful memories with a coconut cup as a substitute skull before Reigen, part bewildered but primarily exhausted, caves. All four of them break into cheers.

At around nine o’clock, Serizawa follows him back into their cabin, and they go through the motions of getting ready for sleep. When Reigen nestles against him in their bed, legs tangled together as he slots himself comfortably against Serizawa’s broad back, an arm hanging over his chest, they can still hear the teens’ rolling laughter through the window, mixing with the crash of distant surf.

His voice is heavy with fatigue, but Serizawa murmurs, “We should do this more often.”

“Yeah,” Reigen replies gently. He presses a kiss to the nape of Serizawa’s neck. “We really should.”

Perhaps it took him longer than it would’ve taken others, but Reigen knows love now. The terrifying breadth of it, the way it feels when you hold it up into the sun and turn it at an angle, watching how it shifts and wriggles in your fingers. How it slots into your lexicon as something that warps but can’t be discarded, shaping itself around your teeth.

The risk, the sadness, the brief, fleeting joy, and the softness it creates beneath your chest. The cycle of it in each form it presents itself as.

It’s not something he’s used to, to care so freely. Not by a long shot. But there’s only one life he gets to live. One man he gets to be. It takes time, as all things do, to reach points he can’t quite see but knows, more than anything, exist. It’s up to him to reach them.

Reigen moves forward and gives it his all.