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It had been a few weeks before Shou saw Ritsu’s older brother in school, entirely due to the fact he was avoiding him.
Avoiding Mob was extremely easy, in that there was no way Shou could possibly not know where he was at all times. Where Shou could feel the latent, indistinguishable presence of every single person near him, something soft and subtle and superficial in the non-espers and varying in intensity in those like him, Ritsu’s brother was something else entirely. He was a beacon. He could feel his brother’s very existence from miles away. It’s like a pressure behind his eyes, a slight ringing in his ear, his hair constantly standing on end. Sometimes he can forget about it, like a sore muscle or a headache, but it’s always present.
It takes actual, conscious effort to ignore Ritsu’s brother. He’d gotten good at it, to the point he could forget Mob was even in the same building. He can listen to boring lectures or jog around the track during gym class or poke at Ritsu during lunch. But then sometimes something else will grab his attention and that raw feeling of power so close by surges in and clogs his senses. It makes his shoulders tense and his heart beat harsh and his breath solidifies in his throat before he remembers it’s just Ritsu’s brother. It helps to focus on that specifically, the link between the torrential well of raw power and that of his best friend.
But it’s Monday morning when Ritsu doesn’t show up to class.
Shou is (almost) always the first one in, usually waking up early or sometimes not sleeping at all and getting bored and slipping into the school through one of the back doors by the staff parking lot. Ritsu is never tardy; he doesn’t show up too early, but he never shows up late either, always seeming to be so perfectly on time that there’s never any time for anyone to ever talk to him. Shou knows this is purposeful, considering the time Shou thought it would be fun to find him before one of his early student council meetings and bother him, which led to Ritsu trying to telekinetically shove him into a paste on the road.
But he’s late on Monday; the morning bell rang and the teacher tells everyone to quiet down and the door is closed and Ritsu’s desk is empty. He glares at Ritsu’s chair like it’s somehow the reason for Ritsu’s absence. He turns back to the front of class at the sound of his name barked out but his mind is sitting on Ritsu’s desk.
There’s that twisted feeling in the pit of his stomach because Ritsu’s never late--but he chokes that thought down and frowns at his own worry. Rationally, he doesn’t actually know if Ritsu’s absence is all that unusual. Sure, he had a strict schedule he obeyed, but Shou had only been here two weeks now.
(He knew Ritsu, though, even as he bit his nails and constantly glanced back at his desk every two seconds. He knew the weirdest details about Ritsu and how his brain ticked and his little habits. Ritsu absolutely was a stickler for punctuation. But that feeling of not knowing him enough, that strange worry that maybe he doesn’t know Ritsu at all pointed out how Shou convinced him to skip last week, ignoring how he had to console him for nearly an hour after that skipping that one time wasn’t going to ruin his attendance record.)
He sketches out a crude game plan over what should be his notes for class, but he figures that fuck it, this is more important. He draws out some sort of escape plan, Mission Impossible style, where he escapes through the school hallways undetected and takes the most convoluted route to Ritsu’s house to shake off any pursuers. But he struggles to draw out the roads accurately, then realizes he could just go invisible anyways and crosses it out. He sketches himself creating small bursts of energy near the fire alarms, his drawing of himself grinning, but then he hears Ritsu’s voice scolding him in the back of his head and crosses that out too. He gets distracted and starts drawing little figures of Ritsu or his profile on his notes before the sound of the bell makes him jump and remember Ritsu’s enormous absence.
In between classes, while other students go to their friends or clubs or whatever, Shou takes the most logical option and seeks out Ritsu’s brother.
It’s easier to find him than it is to ignore him; all Shou does is hesitantly give in to that hair-raising, anxious feeling Mob’s presence gives him and he follows that. Goosebumps break out across his skin and his hair feels like it’s laden with static and his stomach is doing flips until it feels like he’s floating through the halls. He stops in front of a door and looks up to see the sign reading ‘Body Improvement Club’ and rolls his eyes despite that fight or flight feeling in his bones.
He doesn’t bother knocking, not knowing if he’s even supposed to, just shoving the door open. He walks in and lets it shut beside him, one hand in his pocket and trying his best to appear like he is supposed to be here.
Weights and sports equipment line the walls, stacked in the corners or piled high in bins, everything he had expected. There’s a table in the center of the room, shoved towards the back room a bit, which is a little surprising; there’s a few kids sat there holding handheld consoles, some snacks and pop cans littered over the table, haphazardly placed around what looks like a forgotten pokemon card game. (Shou’s eyes catch for a few seconds too long on a holographic blaziken, letting himself see who sits by it and committing that kid to memory so he can steal it later.) Everyone is looking at him, especially the group of students who were talking or going through their equipment and are wearing their gym uniforms.
“Aye, is Ritsu’s big bro here?” Shou says loudly, even though it’s completely unnecessary. He can see Mob through the faceless heads, the one who is looking at him with a different kind of recognition in his eyes. Some people mumble, Shou hears a few questions of why is he here? And isn’t that that strange American kid? The younger kids look at Mob with questions, but Mob just carefully picks through them. “Oh, Suzuki-kun. What are you doing here?”
The other Body Improvement Club members seem to take this as a hint to go back to whatever they were doing, the sound of conversation and clattering equipment filling the room. The three kids sitting around the table still blatantly stare, glancing between Shou and their games. Shou stares violently back at them but it doesn’t seem to rattle them like he’d hoped. Mob just stops in front of him, quickly glancing at Shou’s school uniform. “You… go to school here?”
Shou frowned a moment before trying for the aloof approach, snorting and chuckling at him. “Uh, yeah? Been here like two weeks or something. Even in Ritsu’s class! C’mon Ritsu’s bro, keep up.” He laughed weakly, trying to act like it was on Mob for not knowing despite the pit of realization growing in Shou’s stomach. Mob rubbed his chin, still just looking at him. “Huh, Ritsu didn’t tell me,” Mob said, pointing out what was unsaid. Shou just shrugged and shoved his hands deep in his pockets and looked out the window. “So, what are you doing here?” Mob asked again.
“Ah,” Shou turned back to Ritsu’s brother. Ritsu’s aura is like water, sometimes cold and icy and sometimes coiled in tight under his skin, sometimes flowing down across the ground or reaching to Shou-- Mob’s is completely different. The room itself feels muggy, clogging his throat and condensing on the walls and windows. His aura feels like fog, or steam, filling in the entire volume of whatever space it occupies. Shou unconsciously creates a small, indistinguishable barrier around himself.
“Suzuki-kun?” Shou jumps and realizes Mob is right in front of him, his expression not visibly changing when Shou accidentally flickers out of view. “Are you okay? You spaced out.”
“Ritsu didn’t come to class this morning.” He ignores him, because it’s easier. Shou wants to leave. “Where is he?” Mob frowns ever so slightly, just the downturn of his eyebrows. It felt kind of like it was more for Shou’s benefit than an actual display of Mob’s feelings. “He’s sick today. Ritsu woke up with a really bad fever so he stayed home. Didn’t he text you this?”
Shou opens his mouth but then snaps it shut, weighing how to respond. Mob had that almost uncanny way of never breaking eye contact, making Shou sweat as he glanced away every second. His gaze felt heavy. “Psh, no.” Shou opts to lie, “he never texts me. He’s shit at responding too, will leave me on read for days-- what are you doing?”
Ritsu’s brother had his own flip phone in his hand now, clicking through his contacts before showing it to Shou, Ritsu’s number on display. His name was listed as the weirdly formal ‘Kageyama Ritsu’ with the note ‘little brother’ underneath as if Mob would forget. “Here’s his number,” Mob says plainly, seeing right through Shou. “I can write it down if you want, I don’t have any paper though.”
Shou bit his cheek, wondering if somehow Mob saw through his lie, or if he’d misunderstood him or something. “I mean.” Shou paused a little too long, before huffing and shrugging and pulling out a pen he stole from the principal’s desk. “Maybe I have his number wrong. Or something.” He said it weakly, not looking up as he drew shaking numbers on the back of his hand. His skin burned where blue ink scratched over his skin, pooling slightly in his pores and the lines of his skin as it dried.
He shoved his hands back in his pocket, clicking his tongue as he dug the toe of his shoe into the ground. The air felt suffocating. “Well, I’ll see if he even bothers to respond. Maybe if I entice him with homework. Which the teacher told me to give him, of course. I mean I don’t know why me as if I talk to him I mean he’s just the teacher’s pet-- I’m gonna leave bye.”
Shou burst back into the hall without another word, the door slamming shut just a bit too loud. There was the slightest pause in every other conversation in the room, going back to normal as Mob stared at the door.
“That was weird.” Mob looked over his shoulder, seeing the remaining telepathy club members still looking towards the door. Or at least, Surata kept glancing up from his Gameboy as he spoke. “What’s the new kid want with your brother, Kageyama-kun?”
“You know Suzuki-kun?”
“Well, kinda ya,” Inukawa interjected, his words muffled as his mouth is stuffed full of chips. He leans back dangerously in his chair, Mob telekinetically holding it up to keep him from falling. “I mean, I always hear all these rumours about this mysterious American kid with the spikey hair. All these crazy, stupid things, like him being a spy or a cryptid.”
“He’s really popular!” Mob blinked, looking around and towards the weightrack. One of the new body improvement club members stared back, mouth in a thin line and shoulders hunched like he didn’t mean to speak aloud. He was one of the younger students, too. Maybe in Ritsu’s grade or one below. Masaki, if Mob remembers right, stutters out “sorry! I-it’s just, ah. A lot of people think he’s cool and always try to talk to him and see what he’s doing but he practically vanishes into thin air during lunch and any break! I’ve never seen him hanging out with any one, honestly. I don’t know why he would seek out Kageyama-san. I mean, I can’t imagine those two getting along.”
“They’re best friends.”
They stopped and stared at Mob like he’d grown a third head. “You’re… you’re joking, right?” Inukawa laughed, but Mob just shook his head. His smile was slight. “Suzuki-kun is Ritsu’s best friend. He comes over sometimes, but I haven’t seen him in a while.”
In the hall, Shou breathed like he was gasping for fresh air. Mob’s aura was seeping under the door, around the hinges and the doorframe like it was trying to infect the rest of the school. Shou put all of his mind into blocked it out, burying the overwhelming feeling of his unfiltered power to the far recesses of his mind.
Shou grabbed his own palm, digging the nail of his thumb into the skin of the back of his hand, right over the line of numbers inked onto his skin. “Shit,” he sighed to himself, “guess Riichan isn’t coming to class.”
He didn’t return to class that day.
The after school body improvement club had to be cut short, the sky breaking open and pouring rain. Shigeo had planned for them to run their usual route, and last year they would’ve just done some weightlifting inside their club room when the weather took a turn. But there were far more members this year, making it impossible to really do much inside without interrupting the girl’s volleyball practice in the gym. Shigeo hoped everyone would do some workouts at home like he’d recommended.
When he walked into his front door, a loud bang! sounded out before he could even take off his shoes. Mob didn’t think anything of it, until he heard his mother call out his name. “Shigeo? Is that you home now? You’re awfully early.”
“We couldn’t run in the rain, so we called it off.” Mob put his shoes against the wall, holding his bag off his shoulder as he walked through the dining room to the kitchen. His mother was scrubbing away at some dishes in the sink. “Is Ritsu feeling better?”
“HIs fever has gone down, at the least. He’s been in bed all day. Oh! Now that you’re here.” she peeled away from the sink, wiping her hands on a rag and grabbing a glass from the fridge. “Could you bring him a glass of water and some ibuprofen? I can’t even go into his room without him floating me up to the ceiling.” She tutted, clicking her tongue as if Ritsu was just being a typical rowdy teenager. “I swear! If he wasn’t so sick that young man would be in a lot of trouble! Anyways, could you take this to him?”
Shigeo just nodded and grabbed the glass and bottle from his mother’s hands, hearing her thanks as he walked out of the room and up the stairs. As he got closer to his brother’s door, he could hear the formerly unnoticed sounds of clattering, banging, things hitting the walls and the floor and the ceiling. Shigeo went to open the door, pausing a moment as he heard something slam harsh into the door from inside the room, then pushing it open slightly and peeking his head in.
The room was dark, but Shigeo could see a book on the floor right in front of the door, splayed open to show topographical maps of Japan. A pencil sharply flung overhead, flipping and spinning wildly. There were books, pencils, pens, one of Ritsu’s pillows, clothing and pieces of paper and a desk lamp still lit, all floating around Ritsu’s room. The purple-blue of Ritsu’s aura surrounded them, flickering and stuttering intermittently. Shigeo called out Ritsu’s name, not really thinking about it as he walked in, narrowly ducking under a pencil wildly twirling through the air.
There was a sniffle and a harsh cough, a head of spiked hair peeking out from under the lump of Ritsu’s blankets. “Oh, hey Shige,” Ritsu yawned out, his voice nasally. “You’re home early. How was school?”
“It was fine. Had to cancel the workout after school, though. I brought you water and ibuprofen.” He stood by Ritsu’s bed, waiting as Ritsu sat up before giving it to him. Ritsu thanked him profusely, not seeming to notice how his pillow started to lift up and spin around above his head.
There was a moment of silence, Shigeo passively watching the stuttering and shaking items twirling around the room as Ritsu placed a now empty glass of water on his bedside dresser. Shigeo spoke without really thinking; “I saw Suzuki-kun today.”
The room suddenly stilled, objects once twitching and jerking uncontrollably now completely still in the air before suddenly all plummeting to the floor with a loud CRASH all at once. Ritsu’s face was sweaty, hair matted to his forehead. He stared at Shigeo. “O-oh, you… did?”
“He asked me where you were,” Shigeo said, not paying any mind to the pencils and books and objects skittering across the floor around his feet like animals. “During break. You didn’t tell me he is in your class.”
Ritsu’s face was red, probably with his fever. Ritsu grabbed his pillow and pinned it to the bed with one hand. “He… yeah. He uh, is. In my class now.” Ritsu gulped, “he kind of… just. Showed up, one day. In my class specifically”
There was a pause, Shigeo taking the time to mull over his own words in his head, Ritsu sweating and festering in his bed from something other than his cold this time. Then Shigeo smiled at him, backing towards the door. “Did he try to get into your class with you? That’s nice of him.”
“I wouldn’t call any of him nice,” Ritsu muttered, staring blankly at the wall. His skin felt impossibly warm.
Technically, Serizawa is off work at 6pm, cutting it shorter on the weekends. But during the weekdays, his house is still empty until around 10, sometimes earlier and sometimes later, depending on if his night classes are taking up his time or going out for dinner with Reigen. That day, it was because of his night class; Shou knew that meant he’d be out until very late.
Before, Shou would break in through a window that was always suspiciously cracked open. Or he’d psychically fiddle with the inner lock mechanism of his front door. When he’d thought he could lockpick it like a normal person and subsequently broke Serizawa’s door by shoving over a dozen bobby pins in it, Serizawa had gotten a new lock and started leaving a key under one of the loose rocks decorating his first attempt at a flower garden.
Shou hadn’t turned any of the lights on. He liked sitting in the dark and in the quiet in a house that had that familiar residual psychic energy permeating on every single object. He sat in the living room staring at his phone and it felt like the many times his pops would drag Shou with him as his psychic tracking dog and Serizawa as his bodyguard, leaving Shou and Serizawa awkwardly alone in whatever expensive penthouse suite they’d stay in. Minus his father, of course, and Serizawa’s hourly awkward attempts and conversation.
The master bedroom was technically Shou’s, for when he didn’t want to go home. The smallest room, an office that was practically the size of a closet, was Serizawa’s. Shou was in ‘his’ room, pacing back and forth. His phone was clenched so tight in his hand the screen could shatter. He kept stopping to squint at the back of his hand.
He had Ritsu’s phone number, once. When his life’s greatest mission was completed by some middle schooler with a complex, Ritsu had told him his number. Then he’d written it on a scrap piece of newspaper when he thought Shou would forget.
(Looking at the numbers now, Shou realizes he’d never forgotten his phone number. He’d just avoided thinking about it at all. But he could have recited it perfectly before Ritsu’s brother hand showed him it.)
When Shou had gone rogue against his father, he had multiple burner phones he’d traded out, as if his dad would have bothered to track him. It wouldn’t have mattered anyways, considering how Hatori could’ve probably found him anywhere. But even once his dad was arrested he couldn’t stand to keep a cell phone for longer than a week, smashing them or throwing them as far as he could and getting another. The only contacts he had were the ones he could remember; his mother, Serizawa, and his ‘lackeys’ Higashio, Otsuki, and Fukuda. He would put Ritsu’s number in the first few times, eventually not bothering.
Shou threw himself down on the bed, staring at his phone. He hadn’t broken and bought a new one in a few months now. His fingers twitch to throw it against the wall, maybe out the window. The back of his hand burns.
Instead, Shou puts Ritsu into his contacts. He puts his number under the name ‘Riichan’ and clicks to send a message and freezes. He stares at his screen, holding his phone above his head so long his arms start to hurt, until he finally sends a message:
Hey whyd you get sick today ur gonna fail now. What happened to being a good student
It takes every ounce of his willpower not to throw his phone into a wall, placing it on his bed and slamming his door shut. He tries to distract himself with one of Serizawa’s Street Fighter games but still ends up getting up to go to his room and check his phone every ten minutes. It takes exactly 43 minutes and 12 seconds before Ritsu responds:
Who is this?
Shou feels like some peppy schoolgirl, laying on his stomach on his bed just like in the movies as he stares at Ritsu’s three word message.
Dont be sick tomorrow
Shou i literally cant control that
Yes u can just say no and get better
Thats what i did before
If u feel sick just dont
Did you skip today shou.
He decides not to respond, not just because he doesn’t want to tell Ritsu he spent the whole day throwing psychic energy at trees in the forest. But also because of how strangely overwhelming he is. He has Ritsu at his fingertips now. Something about that makes him want to never text Ritsu again and to never put his phone down at the same time.
Instead he dodges the topic, asking why Ritsu never told his older brother about Shou being in his class. Ritsu dodges that question, too, scolding Shou for (obviously) skipping, then asking what he missed in class. Shou calls him an idiot for thinking he knew what was going on in class.
They end up in some weird conversation about if Mob could take on a million lions in a fight when Shou hears Serizawa’s front door open, and finally peels himself away from the screen.
Ritsu is still sick, the next day. But he makes Shou promise to attend class, using the excuse that Shou needs to give him the work he’s missed. It works, marginally; Shou just texts Ritsu all day, even during hour long periods of silence on Ritsu’s end when he falls asleep. Neither of them even mention schoolwork once.