Work Text:
"Things are going well." Shigeo insisted as he absentmindedly fiddled with the pen between his fingers. "Mom, you don't have to worry."
"It would be nice to see your face once in a while." The woman sounded defeated. "At this rate, I'm not going to know you the day we pass each other on the street."
"Right now I'm very busy, but maybe later on." Shigeo replied knowing it wasn't going to happen anytime soon.
"This is still your home. Ritsu misses you too."
"Mom, you know why I can't come." Shigeo threw the pen on the table, the last thing he wanted was to have that argument again. "Give my regards to everyone."
"Shigeo, you're not a monster. What happened was just an accident. If only-"
"If I hurt you guys again I couldn't forgive myself." Shigeo interrupted her. "I can't as long as that thing hates Ritsu."
His mother sighed but didn't insist again. They'd been through it enough times to know she wasn't going to get him to change his mind. As much as everyone said, there were few people who surpassed him in being stubborn. And he had good reason to be.
"I love you, sweety"
"I love you too. Give Dad a hug for me."
The silence was suffocating. Shigeo let his gaze wander to an undefined spot on the ceiling. Disappearing didn't seem like such a bad idea lately. In the last few days, he had turned away every customer who had walked through the office door. Their problems weren't something he could solve.
The world was once again becoming a distant and strange place. Shigeo still remembered that isolating feeling, as if an invisible wall was rising around him. It wasn't the first time that even breathing seemed to require too much effort. The clock read half past six when Shigeo finally moved an inch. He couldn't remember where the last two hours of his life had gone but nothing seemed out of place.
Taka should have gotten there by now.
Shigeo knew for a fact that it wasn't going to happen but, like an idiot, he kept hoping to see him walk through that door. How long was he going to keep waiting? His hopes were just a selfish wish. As long as that thing was still inside him, Shigeo was still a danger to everyone. He had been deluded to think that thing wouldn't end up turning against Taka as well.
Why couldn't he just be a normal person? Teru would still be with him. And he wouldn't have lost Ritsu.
"Why do you have to steal everything I care about?" Shigeo looked down at his hands.
The walls of the office seemed to pounce on him. Shigeo closed his eyes tightly until white flies crossed the darkness behind his eyelids like a thunderstorm. The best he could do was lock up the ffice for that day.
"Anyone would think someone had died."
Shigeo was startled. Energy buzzed around him and tingled in his fingertips. Dimple's voice shouldn't have come from those lips.
"I should have taken you out the moment I saw you." Shigeo stood up abruptly and stretched out his arm.
"Hey! Wait! Wait!" Dimple raised Taka's arms in surrender. "I've only done what you asked me to do."
"What I asked you to do? When have I ever asked you to do anything?" Shigeo waved his hand, a blast of power bursting against the wall.
Taka's body barely had time to stretch in the air as if playing limbo, the wave passing mere inches from his face. With a somersault, he sat up and continued prancing.
"The deal was I protected him and you didn't send me to the afterlife!" Dimple yelled, dodging his new attack. "This is what your word is worth?"
"In what way is this protecting him?" Shigeo stopped dead in his tracks.
The two red dimples glowed in Taka's gaunt cheeks. Dark circles under his eyes gave him an almost ghastly look. He was barely a shadow of the boy who spent his afternoons sitting at the reception desk making charms. What had happened to him?
"Shigeo! Are you going to keep ignoring him much longer? Are you just a coward who runs away as soon as the slightest trouble appears?"
"You're not going to let go, are you?" Shigeo raised his arm again, power swirling in his fingers.
He'd been an idiot to think the spirit was just a nuisance. As soon as he removed it, Taka would be safe again and he could forget about its existence.
The power vanished completely.
For the first time in many weeks, Shigeo noticed the other's consciousness in some corner of his mind. He could hardly believe it. Shigeo tried again to no avail. The monster that had completely ruined his life had decided to save that thing that had taken over Taka's body.
"Why?" Shigeo tried to keep his eyes open but the world began to blur around him until only darkness remained.
***
For a second, Dimple had been sure that this would be his demise. His vanity was going to cost him dearly in the end. Maybe he should have thought things through. The boy had lost consciousness a while ago and it was almost better. The panic had been very real and had almost made Dimple feel guilty. But almost wasn't the same as really feeling guilty.
"I made the deal with you, didn't I?" Dimple got out of the kid's body and left him sleeping on the couch.
Shigeo ignored him completely and sat on the table in front of the couch. His fingers seemed to want to trace the contours of the kid's face but didn't dare to do so. He looked as if he might burst into tears at any moment.
"What happened?" Shigeo finally dared to touch the kid, grabbing his wrists and observing the lines that marked his reddened skin. "No one was supposed to hurt him again, who was it?"
"You should know, don't you think?" Dimple drew a grim smirk.
The kid had been the key all along. Dimple had been an idiot for not realizing it sooner.
"I'm not in the mood for your games. If you're not going to be useful-"
"Oh, come on. Take a little joke. You know I can still help you." Dimple circled Shigeo until he stood next to his shoulder. "If it weren't for me, you wouldn't even know he's in trouble. And it would be better to ask who's not to blame at all. Mm? His parents? That kid he's dating? His classmates? Or you? Curious, isn't it? That you're the guiltiest of them all."
"That's not true." Shigeo muttered, his expression freezing into a grimace of pain. "I would never hurt him. It's not true."
Dimple watched every little grimace, watching Shigeo's spirit shatter into pieces as the words settled in his mind. As much as he wanted to deny them, Shigeo had to know as well as Dimple did that they were completely true.
"You could have built a world where he felt safe. You have the strength for it, and yet you abandoned him."
"That's not true!" Shigeo rose up, anger vibrating around him and rattling the shelf timbers. "It's not true! Mob is better at this stuff, Mob can-"
"Take over?"
"Kageyama-san?" Not only did the kid's voice seem to have caught Dimple by surprise. "And that thing... that thing-"
"Hey, show some respect." Dimple turned indignantly.
Thing? Did he call him a thing? The magnanimous Dimple? Almost a god? A thing?
A barrier prevented Dimple from getting any closer. It had taken the boy barely an instant to barricade himself in the corner of the couch, trying to get as far away as possible. His hands were shaking and beads of sweat glistened on his forehead.
"Taka, nothing's going to happen." Shigeo put his hands on the kid's cheeks and forced Taka to look at him. "You're fine. It's all right. It's all right. You're here, with me."
The boy gripped Shigeo's shirt tightly until his fingers lost any trace of color. The man looked like a bear defending his cub, his arms wrapped around the kid, pressing him to his chest. The sobs were barely audible in the silence of the office. Dimple had barely seen a shadow of the demons that lived in that boy's head but it was enough.
Dimple was an evil spirit, it made no sense to feel guilty about a stupid human.
Shigeo looked over his shoulder without letting go of the kid for a moment. Dimple didn't need any words to understand that the best thing to do was leave.
Maybe his plan had been a very bad idea from the start.