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Six years and ten months.
That is the amount of time that has passed since one Serizawa Katsuya has entered Reigen's life.
Since Reigen has gained a partner his own age in the office, and eventually a friend. Since Reigen has started sliding down an unpredictable, exhilarating slope, of which he has crashed to the bottom.
He leans back in his chair, gaze landing somewhere between himself and the far wall, and allows himself to reminisce.
It's Reigen's first day back to work.
They haven't told Tome yet. She's been raring to weasel her way into a job or two as soon as possible, clearly missing the thrill of watching Serizawa in action while Reigen shouts unnecessary instructions from the sidelines. They'll let her know soon, but they want a few less-excitable days to settle into routine first.
Reigen is all the more grateful for their under-the-radar return when he finds himself flustering over nothing all day long. He hadn't anticipated how overwhelming it would be, being in the office again with the knowledge that this is now their indefinite future.
This being Serizawa dropping tea off at his desk, Reigen thanking him with a lingering touch on the back of his hand; the two of them gliding so quickly and synchronously into their roles when a client enters; the ease with which they operate.
They already worked smoothly together before, but it's something that's fully theirs now, in a way that is difficult to comprehend. The thought colors his face each time he dares to touch it.
Though it will be difficult to get good at the being open thing, as Reigen soon learns.
By the end of that first week, Reigen finds that he's been masking his fatigue. At the end of the second week, he's only just tackled coming clean about that when he comes to realize that he's looking forward to Monday, so that he can put his suit back on, go back to work, and dance away from delicate conversations once more. At the end of the third week he has to sit down and admit to himself that he might have a small problem.
It hasn't even been a month, and he's already failing at the basics of this.
He can't have that. Can't let himself ruin this, can't shove Serizawa away as they're just barely stepping foot into their relationship.
He's started therapy already—has been to a few different sessions—but he's bullshitted his way through each and every one, which, as he's known for a long time, is his primary defense mechanism. A bitter part of him swells up at that, angry at the idea that he has to change and has to work for it, and he deliberately stands back and waits for the wave to pass.
He's not going to do this again; is not going to let his cagey disposition place a rift between them once more.
He'll unbox his feelings, slow and methodical and uncomfortable, and throw them on the ground where he can see them fully, dissect them for what they are. And he'll let go of his self-imposed roles, of the idea that he has to be something, rather than just be. He'll let himself in, let himself admit that he doesn't have his shit even remotely together, and he'll let himself be honest about it.
Reigen can do that for Serizawa—for himself, for the both of them; can stop pretending.
Three months pass. Three months of settling in, of learning to be himself, of learning to be with Serizawa. Of slowly and meticulously deconstructing his walls, no matter how slow and often demoralizing the process.
They go out for drinks one night. Something that they used to do often, something that they haven't done for a while. Something that had been another casualty of Reigen's impromptu throat-garden, that they can now resume again, now that the alcohol won't light him on fire from the inside out.
They maybe go overboard with it—get a little bit messy, get a little bit loud—but they end the night leaving of their own volition rather than being kicked out, so Reigen counts it as a success. They catch a few dirty side-eyes on their way out, but he doesn't regret the indulgence at all.
It's all worth it for the time together, even if that's something they have plenty of nowadays. It'd been fun to see Serizawa go loose and clumsy under the influence, even if Reigen's sure he hadn't fared any better himself.
He cranes his neck up once they've stumbled a few streets away, staring at the way the street lamps glitter off of Serizawa's eyes, and he imagines he can see fate itself there. The thought had wormed itself unbidden into his mind, sentimentality sprouting under his clumsy feet before shooting straight to his heart. Serizawa looks down, warm and fuzzy around the edges, and asks what he's looking at.
Reigen gives him a loose grin and a simple, "You."
Serizawa kisses his forehead, and says he loves him. Reigen says it back as fast as he can manage with his fumbling, drunken tongue, and doesn't recall much past that.
He wakes with a start at four am and flounders for a second before realizing where he is. Serizawa's arm is curled comfortably around him, warm breath disturbing the hair on the top of his head. His limbs are no longer flush with intoxication, but being pressed against the heat of Serizawa has kept him from going cold.
He takes Serizawa's hand—the one resting over his own stomach—and pulls it up to where he can see it. He looks at their hands together, their fingers, and finds himself overwhelmed by some cresting feeling. One that seems to flood the entirety of him.
He might be getting ahead of himself, but he thinks he could spend the rest of his life like this.
One year.
That night—so like all the others, but still so memorable—is burned into his mind, even if the details he can recall are hazy.
He's been hopeful since then.
Has fully stretched the legs of his optimism, for the first time in as long as he can remember. Settled against the solid and reliable presence in his life. He doesn't have to make the decision to allow himself; it just happens.
It would have scared him not long ago, to love so fully and so easily, like it's instinct. It did scare him, so much so that he was nearly eaten alive over it; that he nearly let himself be eaten alive, all over the belief that he couldn't be loved in return.
But he's grown to see the undeniable, that Serizawa means it when he says he wants to stay.
Because there's no way he's lying, when they lay on the sofa late one night watching probably one of the shittiest movies known to man—no way that he's lying when Reigen chokes on his popcorn, and then flips the bowl off, and Serizawa laughs openly before leaning in and whispering that he thinks he'd like to marry him someday.
Reigen, of course, chokes again after that, and Serizawa rubs his back soothingly until he swallows and catches his breath, like a time not too long past. Once he's ready, Reigen leans back into his side, and whispers back that Serizawa has always had great ideas.
It's easy to trust even more deeply when they grow into domesticity.
When sleeping through the night alone becomes a rarity, and there's a second toothbrush in his bathroom, a second pair of slippers by his door. There's a sort of ease that follows them around now, and it takes Reigen longer than it should to place what it is.
It strikes him when he wakes up one morning and finds Serizawa already awake, mildly scruffy and stretched leisurely across the couch. Instead of greeting him, or wishing him a good morning, Serizawa says he'd read online that there's a big sale at their usual grocer, and that they should go today instead of tomorrow.
He nods, and as he appreciates the stubble on Serizawa's jaw he realizes that this feeling is contentment; they're content together. He smiles, and Serizawa quirks an eyebrow, and Reigen just tells him he sounds like an old man.
At the three year mark, they've faced their trials and tribulations.
They've had real arguments, experienced fissures that they'd had to really sit down and work through, candidly sharing their demons to figure out what had made them clash. It's difficult, and uncomfortable, but it's necessary if they're serious about spending their lives together.
They always bounce back, and severity is never a real issue once they've learned they can talk like that; that the solution lies in terrifying honesty, exposing sides of themselves that they'd previously kept quiet about.
They've faced real emergencies—the more day-to-day kind than they're used to, but still every ounce as frightening, if not more. Things like Serizawa's appendix bursting in the dead of night, and the rush to the hospital after. Things like an unexpected phone call from a ragged sounding Teruki, who tells them he's facing sudden eviction—his parents had ended the lease, and apparently not told him—and that he doesn't have anyone else to ask for help.
They've faced the plain uncomfortable: Family reunions run too long, questions grown too sharp; the ordeal of holidays, and of overlapping plans, and who to delegate what time to; of regular old sickness, passed back and forth between the two of them like candy until they'd finally given up and separated for a week to end the cycle.
It only makes them all the stronger, he thinks, to have overcome these things together.
Six years and one month into knowing each other, they plan what must be their trillionth outing together.
A day down at the beach with as many of the office-goers that will agree to join them—which means Mob, Tome, Teruki, and a performatively grumbling Ritsu and Dimple.
Reigen plans to propose to Serizawa that evening as the sun sets, and he's terrified.
It's not that he thinks Serizawa will say no. They've discussed this before, after all. It's just… a big event. A shift in tides. Something a lot more permanent than just talk.
He's put Mob in charge of making sure he can catch a halfway-secluded moment with Serizawa, and Dimple in charge of reigning his commentary in for one night. It all seems like it should be easy enough, Reigen's fears aside.
Nothing ever goes to plan though, which he really should have accounted for.
The hour grows near, and Reigen grows tense. Still, he steels himself once he finds an opening and smoothly pulls Serizawa aside as the sun begins to dip low. They walk hand-in-hand a short way down the shore until the sky begins to bounce off of the ocean just right, exactly how he'd hoped it would, and Reigen stops.
Then he turns, hand pulling out of Serizawa's and going to his pocket—and he freezes.
The reds and oranges from the sunset cast a warm and moody glow on Serizawa's skin, shadows curling underneath his jaw and his deep set eyes. He looks about as ready to combust as Reigen feels, mouth wobbling a little bit while they stare at each other.
Their unforeseen standoff continues as Reigen's lips work soundlessly around words he can't quite manage to spit out—and then Serizawa's eyes stray to the right before widening dramatically.
"Look out!" he yelps, and Reigen finds himself being flung telekinetically aside.
He whips around immediately to see what's going on, and of course, of course there's a spirit rising from the ocean, water swelling and cascading around it. Because, as established, nothing ever goes to plan. Serizawa takes off sprinting into the sea, and Reigen tails him without a second thought.
The spirit puts up somewhat of a fight, and while it's no sweat for Serizawa, Reigen still manages to get his ankles tangled up in seaweed amid the excitement, sending him splashing down into the shin-deep water—which is mostly his own fault for chasing Serizawa out in the first place.
Twilight deepens by the time the brief scuffle is over, and Serizawa turns around again as Reigen finishes picking himself back up.
"You're soaked," he says.
"I'm fine," Reigen says back, turning and sloshing towards the shore. The rest of their group is waiting there for them, having come running as the fight had started. They're all unusually still and alert.
"One of you go get a towel please," Serizawa calls to their audience, audibly splashing as he follows behind Reigen.
Tome spins and takes off running. "Get two!" Reigen shouts after her.
"Two?" Serizawa asks, fingers landing on Reigen's elbow as they step onto the sand.
"You need one too," Reigen says back, all too aware of the way everyone else is hawkishly watching them—aside from Dimple, who looks carefully aloof. Reigen gets the feeling they've been gossiping between themselves through the evening.
Serizawa doesn't seem bothered by the tense air, which is lucky, because Reigen isn't sure how he'd explain it away. "I'm only wet to my knees," Serizawa says.
Reigen faces him again and lays a hand over his shoulder. "They're important knees."
Tome comes running back then, kicking up sand, and Reigen takes the offered towel, scrubbing himself as dry as he can while she and Ritsu take turns poking fun at him. Once he deems the job well enough done he drapes the towel around his shoulders, and when he looks up Mob catches his eye with an encouraging smile.
He turns to face Serizawa again, who is also smiling, his expression loving and almost faraway. Reigen clears his throat and waits until Serizawa appears to focus again.
"Um," he starts, and then his tongue sort of sticks in place. "Katsuya."
"Yes," Serizawa says like an agreement, a touch teasing. Reigen continues to stare blankly, and Serizawa's eyebrows pinch in just barely. "Is everything okay? You didn't get hurt, did you?"
Reigen clears his throat. "Katsuya," he says again, voice warbling this time.
Serizawa's hands rise like he's going to grab him and check for injuries, and Reigen very unceremoniously drops to one knee, thumping against the wet sand and fumbling for the soggy box in his pocket (which, thank god it'd stayed there).
Serizawa's eyes go huge. Reigen cracks it open, presenting the ring inside with trembling fingers.
"I wish I—I wish I had something more touching to say," Reigen says, and an icy breeze cuts across the cooling beach. "I had this whole thing prepared, and I—then the water, and the stupid ghost—" he cuts off when Serizawa's eyes begin to well up. "I'm… going to stop rambling." A deep breath. "Will you stay with me? For life?"
"Arataka…" Serizawa says, choked and full of emotion. "Did… is this on purpose?"
Reigen laughs, nervous and similarly tearful. "Uh, yeah?" he says, high and unsure. "I am proposing on purpose, yes. I didn't trip down here."
Then Serizawa's hand is in his own pocket, and he pulls out a small box and kneels.
"Oh my god," Reigen exclaims before he can help himself, mouth hanging open after.
Serizawa laughs this time, through the tears now falling down his face. "Is this enough of a yes?"
"YES!" Tome shrieks, followed immediately by Teruki yelling at her to be quiet.
Reigen isn't sure who tackles who, but the only thing that keeps the both of them upright is Serizawa's aura catching and cradling them. He doesn't seem to be able to reel it back in afterwards, as it remains swirling, leaving their hair and their clothes to drift. They press so tightly together that Reigen thinks they're threatening to mash into one person.
There's three sets of whooping and cheering, one sarcastic 'finally', and when Reigen peeks out to the side again Mob is positively beaming.
And now, six years and ten months since the first day Serizawa had walked through the door of Spirits n' Such, Reigen sits at his desk, admiring the way his wedding band sits in place like it was always meant to be there. And the thing, the person that his mind works over, sits right across the room from him with his cheek pillowed on one hand, looking right back at Reigen as he returns from his reverie.
Serizawa had walked into his life, and he had plowed his roots deep into the foundations of Spirits n' Such, as well as the foundations of Reigen himself; then he had graduated, and he had stayed right where he was. Right where Reigen had always hoped he would, and feared he wouldn't.
The sentimental moment is broken when Reigen's phone rings, and he answers with enthusiasm, listening and assuring the client on the other end that they'll be there right away.
Then he flips his phone shut with a sharp snap and looks back to Serizawa, who had never turned away. Reigen smiles, and stands from his seat.
"We've got a job."