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It's a slow evening at work for Tome when the front door slams into a dent in the wall, the signature arrival of Suzuki Shou. That boy has been a regular visitor to Spirits 'n Such over the past few years, but he never comes for spiritual advice. Her boss always complains about Mob-kun's friends using his office as a hang-out spot, but she knows how much he secretly likes laughter filling his office. And Shou, as he prefers to be called, always brings some with him.
"Oi!" He's dripped out as usual, leather jacket hanging off him in the spring heat.
"Oh, hello, Shou-kun," Serizawa-san says to his paperwork. "Reigen-san is out with some clients right now, so make yourself at home."
He didn't need to be told. Shou psychically floats over to where Tome is doodling in her sketchbook, ignoring Mob-kun doing his homework in the corner. It's a really good sketch of an alien queen with a lot of inspiration taken from some art books she got from the library but it's not done and he's staring so she clutches it, looks up, and blows a raspberry.
He's giving her that weird, ice-cold stare, for when he's serious, big-time. Her tongue slowly vibrates to a halt and droops.
"Tome," Shou says, in a voice like the dead, "I think my mom and dad are trying to kill me."
She blinks. Wow, ok. Tome hasn't met either of Shou's parents, but she pulls up what sparse info she has on them from her mental database. She knows they live separately, and that his father used to be in prison, but that's largely it. Dad's entry does have a bit more detail; like the back of her hand, she knows the long-and-short of a tale that begins with a fire at Mob-kun's house and ends with her boss hiring Serizawa-san at Spirits 'n Such. But she also knows that both these people are on good terms with their son, which is all that seems to matter to him these days.
"Why would they want to kill you?" she says, raising an eyebrow, and a devilish smirk creeps over her face. "Did you break curfew again?"
"I don't know, maybe!" He throws his arms up, instantly becoming normal. "Ugh. They're just acting really weird this week, and I can't figure out why. It's not like my birthday's coming up or anything..."
Tome's instincts kick in. She smoothly rearranges herself on the clients' couch into a more appropriate "listening-to-gossip" pose, hands propping head, legs kicking air. Her back creaks, but that's called presentation. "Well now, this is just what your ace investigator oneechan is here for! Tell me, little man, what did Mom and Dad do this time?"
He visibly dies inside, but decides it's not worth it and recovers. "Alright, so I told you about my old man the other day, right?"
Tome nods, vaguely remembering an anecdote about Shou's dad refusing him entry into certain areas of his house. Definitely strange, she had agreed, and possibly sinister; the guy did not exactly have a clean track record.
"Well, I just came from visiting my mom. Tome, whatever this is about, she's in on it, too."
She gasps with theatrical delight, clapping a hand over her mouth. His own mother - the deepest betrayal! Glancing around, she notices that Mob-kun and Serizawa-san's pens are not scratching paper with the same vivacity they were a few seconds ago. Whether Shou’s aware or not, he's captivated the room.
"C'mon, Shou-chan, enough with the dramatic pauses," she beckons with one hand. "I need details, details."
He scoffs at the nickname and does a half somersault in the air, always preferring to tell stories upside-down. "You can keep your shirt on, Tome-chan," She snickers, and he clears his throat. "O-kay. So, I was flying over to my mom's neighborhood after Art Club today..."
He paints the picture. Tome envisions Shou soaring prone through the sky like Goku, hair all Super Saiyan, even though she's only seen it long in old pictures. In her mind's eye, this shounen version of Shou performs a perfect superhero landing on his mom's driveway and Jojo-walks up to ring her doorbell. Shou started off by telling her he'd sensed his old man's aura from a mile away, so now he's got a serious-protagonist look on his face, all ready to get to the bottom of whatever caused the man's unusual inhospitality earlier that week.
"She takes so long to answer the door, which is weird, 'cuz Mom's always on top of things," he's saying. "I hear some shuffling from inside, and their voices. They're panicking about something." He'd dropped his voice to a whisper. "Then I glance over to the window and I can swear that I make eye contact with my dad, Tome, but as soon as I blink, he's gone." And his aura disappears right away.
"Oo-ooh," Tome jeers along. "Maybe your dad's a ghost." She has learned to be an excellent audience. Serizawa-san has stopped signing things and is now pretending to read a webpage; Mob-kun works diligently with a subtle smile.
"Pfft," Shou blows, and Tome wipes her face. "An alien, maybe."
The story continues to unfold. At Shou's reference, Tome conjures up the image of his mother, a vague, blonde-question-mark lady who she thinks looks like her son, based on fuzzy memories of photos on his phone. Answering the front door, and, with Tome's embellishment, trembling with obvious guilt, she greets Shou with all the warmth she can muster - for a criminal, that is! When Shou questions his father's appearance as seen through the window, his mother jokes that he was just seeing his own reflection ("LAME!" he exclaims, but Tome can't help but giggle).
As she ushers him inside, Shounen-Shou takes careful note of his mother's oddly disheveled appearance. Her hair looks like she just rolled out of bed, she's got dark circles under the eyes, and look at how she's dressed - still in sleep clothes, even though it's almost five in the evening! His mom is always far too put-together, he's saying, so obviously, something awfully nefarious has been keeping her up night and day. Tome nods sagely. Her brain has jumped to her own three AM seances with extraterrestrials, of all-nighters on the dark web researching phantasmagoric rituals - emphasis on the "gore." She's also thinking about how Shou's father is a frighteningly powerful psychic, second only to Mob-kun, and her spine shivers with titillated recollection of all the creative tortures Shou's told her he designed for Claw's Awakening experiments. Oh, the horrible possibilities, they breed in her mind with morbid excitement! But Tome is gonna keep her mouth shut about the Claw stuff - she doesn't want to remind Shou of his childhood darkness, even though he's probably thinking of it already.
Her Shounen-Shou drifts through the common area of his mother's house, scanning with Reigen-san's expert eye for suspicious activity. "There was residual psychic energy literally everywhere, hours old at most," he says. "Although it was mostly telekinesis." A shrug. Disappointing, but both of them know just how versatile that power can be. Another possibility pops into her mind, but she dismisses it on the grounds of mundanity.
"Was it from your dad?"
A determined gleam comes into Shou's eye as he says, "I'm certain of it."
He expands upon his mom's strange behavior. She’s sweating like crazy, he says, and immediately busies herself with housework - the house is a mess too - while he grabs a soda from the fridge. Two more points for her complicity, in Tome's mind. With a knowing smirk, Shounen-Shou asks his mother if she went on a run today, gesturing to her perspiration, and she stiffens, agreeing with suspicious eagerness. Oh, he's got her now, Tome thinks.
"Is that so? Well, why aren't you wearing your running gear then, kaasan?" says the anime boy, playing his hidden trap card. Shounen-Shou's mother folds like a paper fan, admitting to everything - except, oh. Shou says she apparently took a nap afterwards. But that doesn't check out logic-wise, so Tome - no, Shou, presses his nose to the trail, not ready to give up on making her talk. He shuffles over to her couch with false nonchalance and asks, "So, has Dad been over lately?" Tome kicks her legs faster. The juicy part!
And ohhh, Shou's mom falls silent at that, long enough not to be unintentionally admitting something. She's a non-esper and thus can't sense psychic activity, but she still must've realized her son had more information than she assumed, and a smart liar always gives up something when they're caught. To her delight, she does. Shou imitates her high-pitched voice telling him that, ohhh, yeah, his father had come by earlier, um, uh, to get his coat, which he accidentally left behind last time they had dinner as a family. "But that was a month ago," Shou dictates, "and I saw his coat on the rack when I came in."
Another gasp from Tome, this one in unison with Serizawa-san. She and Shou snap their heads at him, happily clicking away, giving the complete appearance of inattention. "There was a really cute cat picture," he offers lamely, to their owlish stares.
Tome returns to the main event, pounding the edge of her seat. "Then what, then what, then what!" Shou's plodding pace always leaves her dying for answers, like a really long joke with a terrible punchline, one that she falls for every time.
"Well, I point out the coat thing, and she freezes up for a second, but doesn't have anything to say. Then she says she's got to go get dressed, leaving me to poke around the living room for a bit. I heard the shower running while she was gone." Shou scratches his head. "Eventually, Mom comes back wearing normal clothes. We ordered takeout, watched a few episodes of one of her old samurai shows. Then I came here."
Tome processes this quickly and takes a deep breath, ready for some intense theory-crafting. Then she blinks. "Wait, that's it?!"
"Well, yeah that's it!" Shou fires back, defensive. "I came here! The adventure continues! Aren't you supposed to be my ace investigator oneechan?" He said the last part in a mocking imitation of Tome.
A vein pops in her forehead as Shounen-Shou shatters on the stage of her mind. "You've given me nothing to work with so far!" She straightens up, gossipping mood completely soured. "All that drama with no real action. What a waste of my time!"
"Reigen's solved a ton of cases with a fraction of the information," Shou retorts, arms crossed. Tome narrows her eyes at him.
"Oh, it's on, now," she growls. Time to slip into master detective mode - a challenge to her skill has been issued!
Let's go over our information again, she thinks, but without all that useless fluff. Shou Suzuki is suspicious of his parents' activities, citing recent unusual behavior from both. On Tuesday afternoon, he visited his father, who forbade him from entering the guest or master bedrooms, and only tentatively allowed him into the bathroom. Shou sensed traces of his psychic activity from those areas, but when he tried to scope them while Dad wasn't looking, he smacked his fool head straight into a barrier. Two days later, Shou visited his mother, sensing his father's presence, which he confirmed by hearing them talking inside and seeing his father through the window. But when he pressed his mother about that, her state of undress, his father's coat, and his dad's psychic energy permeating the place, she lied, unconvincingly, and distracted him from his inquiries.
"Hmm..." Tome puts a hand on her chin. Well, it's obvious they're hiding something from their son. But, putting aside her own need for stimulation, there isn't anything to suggest that it's necessarily sinister, or has anything to do with Shou other than that they don't want him to know about it. Seems like there's some private business going on that he probably wouldn't be bothered about them having if they weren't his parents. Psychic power is involved, though, so... what could that mean?
A mundane possibility she dismissed earlier stirs in her mind, and her eye twitches. Okay, okay. Hold on a minute, here, she thinks. Maybe the fact that Shou's dad is an esper is actually irrelevant. Like, a major red herring, that she just got carried away with. Supposing she'd heard Shou's story without knowing his father used to be an esper terrorist? She runs through the whole thing again and suddenly, it all clicks.
Oh my god. His mom was so unprepared to see him because... A horrified corner of her mouth jerks upwards as she realizes she's gonna have to not laugh no matter what.
"...Shou," she begins, with the pretense of tact. "Did your mother seem...embarrassed, at all, when she opened the door?”
"Well, duh," he says, not expecting that particular question. "She was caught undressed. And red-handed." White-handed, more like, Tome thinks before she can stop herself.
She clears her throat. "And what about your father, when you made eye contact with him through the window?"
"My dad doesn't get embarrassed." Shou sounds pretty clear on that. "Though he did look surprised to see me."
"Right, right, of course, not unusual, considering," she assures, disguising the quaver in her voice with a cough. "Um, I just have one more question, Shou."
"What's that?" Suspicion's already creeping into his voice, and Tome's huge smirk probably isn't helping.
"How much was he dressed, when you saw him?"
Shou stares down Tome with an unreadable expression. Serizawa-san's ears are completely red, and he's making odd jerking motions as he struggles to remain silent. Mob-kun is cold as ice, as always, but his smile is bigger than Tome's right now.
"Well, I don't see how it's relevant," Shou says conversationally, "but now that you mention it, I guess it was kind of odd that he wasn't wearing a shirt."
Cars pass over the street outside. The clock ticks. Tome screams.
She falls backwards in a legendary explosion of laughter. Oh, my god, she thinks between sobs. This is so much better than that time Reigen-san got cake on his face. She clutches her stomach in agony, weeping, while Shou yells something at her, red-faced. Oh, can I even tell him? Can I bear to shatter this poor boy's mind? Yes, oh yes she can. Because his reaction to that information would be the only thing funnier than what he just said.
She looks back over her shoulder - Serizawa-san's head is in his hands, now. He's shaking with the resilience of a true professional.
"Seriously, what's so funny?!" Shou is malding, face white with anger, but his ears are pink. "Why are you all smiling? Are you all in on it, too?"
He grabs the front of Tome's shirt and pulls, so she wipes her eyes and waves in a conciliatory fashion, unable to speak yet. She ushers him in close and gives him the obvious, bursting truth, whispering for politeness' sake.
The noise Shou makes is irreplicable, a tortured cross between a gag and a scream. "No!" He's buffeted towards the ceiling by the force of her words. "No, no, no!" Tome might have told him they were dead. "I can't accept that explanation. I won't! It's impossible! They don't - I've never - What about the residual telekinesis?"
She waves him in again and offers her professional psychic opinion on that, too. He jerks away and slaps her before she can get a full sentence out, and she pretends to die from his touch, hyperventilating on the couch until stars appear in her vision.
Shou rises like a warm current, leaving Tome to her just fate. "Serizawa, back me up here!" he calls over her head. "You're the real psychic, so you ought to know better than this clown! She's not a serious worker!"
"I don't know, Shou-kun," Serizawa-san says, voice compressed into a quivering squeak. "I think Tome-chan's perfectly capable."
A furious noise from Shou. "And you, Shigeo!" he writhes, spinning to point at smiling Mob-kun and his homework. "You've been reaaal quiet these past few minutes. What the hell do you have to say about all this, huh?!"
Sitting cross-legged in his favorite chair, Mob-kun sets his pencil down and folds his hands over his work. He looks up at Shou, his comrade, his friend. His eyes are so kind.
"Only that I wouldn't expect less than 100% output from Suzuki-san," he says softly.
Tome just barely catches Shou around the waist, screaming so loud that her face is hot. Shou rakes the air with his claws at sound-breaking speeds, a demon of pure energy, screeching spine-chilling curses at Mob-kun, who laughs at all of them. Behind her, a repetitive banging suggests that Serizawa-san would definitely need some ice on his head later. "Shigeo-kun!" is his final, choked whisper before he passes away.
In a few minutes, Reigen-san will come back with his clients only to find three of his closest acquaintances in various states of distress. Tome, as though she'd run a marathon and performed in a metal band in a single day. Serizawa, with his bag of ice and refusal to look at any of them. Shou, curled on the floor, numbly listing all the objects in his mom's house that he touched with his skin. And then there's Mob-kun, sitting pretty above them all. When Tome explains how this happened, her boss will not be impressed.