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Standing atop a building, looking down at the world below are two men. Two men with enough power to level the entire city to the ground. They won’t though, at least not today. Today, they look down on a world full of ants, non-entities that can and someday will bend to their every whim.
Serizawa’s hands do not sweat, they hold his umbrella with a steady confidence that comes with repeating an action day in and day out. The wind whips harshly around them, but does not touch them, safe within the bubble of Serizawa’s power. The president places a cigarette between his lips and imbues power into his thumb, using it to light the tip. He breathes in the smoke before letting it out in a silver cloud that slowly disperses before being torn away by the wind as it breaches the bubble. It’s almost beautiful to watch.
“Just look at them,” the man says, voice dripping with contempt, “they don’t even know we exist. Isn’t that pathetic?”
Serizawa hums thoughtfully, but does not respond. His eyes lock on what looks like a park, with colorful dots of children playing among the greenery. The president’s eyes slide over in the same direction and he huffs a laugh, breathing in another round of smoke.
“Do you like children, Serizawa?” The president asks. Serizawa jumps slightly, looking over at him in surprise.
“I, uh, I don’t…I haven’t really talked to any kids since I was a kid myself. Well, except for Shou but he’s…”
The president barks a laugh, then says proudly, “Yeah, he’s not really like the other kids, is he?”
Serizawa only nods again. The president turns his attention back to the kids on the playground, offering the cigarette to Serizawa. He stares at it for a moment, looking between the president’s hand and face. He doesn’t look away from the park, but he doesn’t withdraw his hand either. Hesitantly, Serizawa shifts his grip to hold his umbrella with one hand, propping most of the weight against his shoulder. His fingers brushed the president’s when he reaches out to take the cigarette, and Serizawa half expects to be scolded for it, freezing for a split second. When there is no additional reaction from the man, he pulls the cigarette away, bringing it to his own lips and hesitantly inhaling.
Immediately, he begins to cough sharply, keeling nearly in half and gripping his umbrella for dear life. When he looks up with watery eyes past the white plastic, he sees what looks like a smirk on the president’s face. He finishes hacking up his lung, stands up straight, and offers the cigarette back. The president takes it, inhales deeply, breathes out. Offers it back to him.
He thinks about declining, but knows he won’t. He never declined an offer from the president. His savior- the only person to ever care about him.
He takes the cigarette.
---
Serizawa’s routine looks like this,
At 6:30 a.m, he wakes up to his alarm and hits snooze. He lays in bed, covers pulled over his head, and breathes through the swirling clouds that threaten to swallow him whole. Inhale deeply, hold, exhale- just like cigarette smoke. He does this for five minutes, until his alarm pulls him out of it, and he forces himself to roll out of bed.
He makes himself breakfast, some plain eggs with a piece of toast if it's a good day, instant ramen if it's not. He brushes his teeth, combs his hair, shaves, then gets dressed for work. A soft tank top goes under his work shirt, he isn’t quite used to the starchy texture. He shrugs on his blazer, and fiddles with his tie for far too long, torn between the uncomfortable tightness and looking like a slob. Usually, imagining Reigen’s disappointed frown is enough to resolve to the slight discomfort.
Before he heads out the door, he slips into his pinchy business shoes and silently mourns his crocs, which Reigen had apparently thrown out when he wasn’t looking after wearing them to the office once by mistake, then grabs his umbrella. Well, it isn’t his umbrella, that has long since been destroyed, but it is an umbrella. One that looks nearly identical, but is smaller. Serizawa tries to pretend it’s the same, even if the weight of it doesn’t feel quite right. He steps out into the sun, and hunkers beneath his mini sanctuary as he walks to work. He’d gotten stares at first, but after doing this for months, the regular people he passes have stopped sparing him any attention, for which he is grateful.
As the sign for the office comes into view, Serizawa slows to a stop. He looks around in a way that is certainly not suspicious as he finally gains enough confidence to close his umbrella. He chose this one as opposed to a full sized umbrella so he can easily slip it into his bag, hide it beneath his laptop and papers for class. He doesn’t really know why he’s so paranoid about the other members of Spirits and Such seeing it, but whenever he tries to think on it too hard he feels a bit light headed, and his powers begin to coil like a snake about to strike. So he doesn’t think on it, just follows his gut, and perhaps that’s a bad thing- he chooses not to think too hard on that either.
He goes to work, and enjoys the way it makes him feel like a normal person. He follows Reigen out on jobs, where half the time he helps exorcise a ghost, and the other half he watches as Reigen makes something up with wild, fluttering hands and quick, sharp words. They go out for lunch, with Reigen paying if it’s early in the month, and Serizawa paying once a noticeable stress crease appears on his boss’s face as they approach the time Reigen’s rent is due. They go back to the office, and Serizawa gets his homework done while Tome takes over filing paperwork and cleaning shelves. He lets her and Reigens’ bickering wash over him, and on days where he’s feeling particularly brave he watches them out of the corner of his eye. Reigen’s hair turns gold late in the day as the sunlight hits their side of the building, his shadow a cool imprint against the tile of the floor, and his eyes crinkle at the corners when he makes a point that he’s particularly proud of. He’s so beautiful it almost hurts to look at him directly, so he doesn’t.
At 3:30, Serizawa silently repacks his bag, says goodbye to Reigen and Tome, and heads to his classes. Reigen always beams at him, sometimes patting him on the back or the arm as he heads out. On those days, the warmth burns through Serizawa’s suit, right down to the skin, and Serizawa doesn’t even bother to pull his umbrella back out once the office is fully behind him, kept moving simply by the light curled around his very bones. He wonders sometimes if Reigen ever imbeds some of his aura into his own, even if logically he knows he’d see it happening if that were the case. He settles into his seat next to his classmate, Tanaka Kaede, and most days she’ll manage to corral him into gossiping with her and her friends who sit in front of them. He doesn’t usually have much to add on those occasions, but the girls always seem to like when he talks about Reigen.
He sits through his class for the day, and takes messy but diligent notes. He turns in his assignments, and usually makes it home before 7:00 p.m. so long as he doesn’t have to buy groceries. He fights the urge to collapse face first onto his bed, instead sitting down to finish up any assignments he couldn’t manage to cram into his break time at work, then makes dinner- usually rice or instant ramen again. He watches T.V. or plays video games, but never for more than an hour in case he ends up sucked in again, unable to move for days as his worries all wash beneath the steady buzz of stimulation from the screen. He showers, puts on pajamas, brushes his teeth, and collapses into bed by 11 p.m.
This is Serizawa’s routine. Or at least most of it, the parts he actually considers part of an established routine. From here, he likes to say he goes to sleep and does it all again in the morning. And sometimes, he does! Somedays, it’s truly that easy.
Today, it is not.
---
Serizawa watches Shigeo climb the stairs up to where the president currently waits. He watches a boy that feels the same way he does; a boy who understands the swirling, painful storm that builds to a hurricane inside. He watches him walk into what must surely be his death, and he does nothing to prevent it. Perhaps he is a coward, but he turns away to stare out the window as the building begins to shake and three distinct voices speak muffled words. Serizawa can’t make out what’s being said from his place near the stairs, but he knows them well enough: The president, Shigeo, and Shou. He stares at the destruction of the city, and for the first time in ages wonders if maybe his bullies were right all along- he’s a freak, a monster who can never be tamed; he helped level a city just because he could. He feels disgust and shame roil in his stomach, and grips his umbrella tightly.
Three distinct voices fade out to two, then become three again, but…the one he previously recognized as Shou is different now. Was someone else up there?
There’s a gunshot.
Serizawa feels his breath catch in his lungs. The president couldn’t be hurt with a bullet, surely, he was too powerful for that. Shigeo though…he’s powerful, of course- almost as powerful as the president is, but he’s still a kid. Would he know how to block a physical attack like that? The kid didn’t seem phased when Serizawa released his full power at him, but absorbed it and lobbed it back. Could he do that with a bullet? Would he be willing to?
Serizawa is rushing up the stairs, skidding to a stop and taking in the scene before him. The president is backing a strange man up to the railing, one with golden hair and a silver suit that makes him look almost ethereal in the bleeding sunset. Shigeo lays on the ground, banged up and bruised, and Serizawa wants to believe the president wouldn’t do that to him, but…
“Wait-” Shigeo gasps as the president raises his hand to eliminate the stranger, and something inside Serizawa screams that this isn’t right, this isn’t okay stop him stop him STOP HIM.
But Serizawa can’t move. He could never betray the president, the only person who ever cared for him, (no matter what Shigeo said about him not valuing him as a person- he couldn’t understand, he couldn’t ) not for a stranger, not for anyone. The president fires off his attack, and the man lets out a terrified, agonized gasp that cuts off before it can become anything more. Serizawa feels dizzy.
When the smoke clears, all that’s left of the man is a pink scrap of fabric, like the last fading bit of sunset that flickers behind the horizon. There is silence so thick, it feels like a black hole swallowed all sound.
Then, like a supernova, Shigeo begins to scream.
The whole building, the whole city, the whole world begins to shake with the sound- grief and rage and hatred all mixing together in one painful, terrifying howl as Shigeo claws at his arms, his hair, his face. The president looks startled, and perhaps even scared, as the boy’s whole form begins to ripple and shake apart into shadows. Then, his surprised gaze shifts over to Serizawa, his eyes growing even wider.
It’s then that Serizawa realizes he’s screaming too.
---
Serizawa sits bolt upright in bed with a strangled gasp as every loose item in his apartment hangs in the air for only a second more before crashing to the ground in a horrible cacophony. That, unfortunately, includes his bed, and Serizawa bounces off with the force and nearly brains himself on his upended nightstand.
Serizawa tries to calm his breathing, desperately gasping for air as thick clouds choke his lungs. Things begin to float again, and Serizawa squeezes his eyes shut, digs the backs of his palms into them until he sees spots. He lays there for several minutes as he finally wrangles his breathing- and his aura- into something more manageable. He stares at the ceiling blankly, and dreads the inevitable chewing out he’s going to get from his landlord when his neighbors make a noise complaint. Again. He’s been having these nightmares more and more recently, and he honestly can’t figure out what the trigger is.
Sitting up and looking around at his wrecked apartment, he decides that he won’t be able to go back to sleep anyway and gets to work. He rights his nightstand, collects fallen figurines and returns them to their shelves, makes his bed, checks his dishes and throws away any that shattered when they hit the counter- he really should just stick to plastic ones from here on out. He puts the cushions back onto his ratty sofa, and since he’s at it already, he takes out his trash.
While putting the garbage in the bin, the wind ruffles his hair and clothes, and Serizawa thinks about how nice it feels. He breathes in deeply, the wind combing through his short-sheared hair and filling his lungs, taking the smoke away and clearing the storm from his mind. Serizawa considers going back inside and laying in bed again until his alarm goes off, like he usually does after a nightmare, but the time on his phone tells him that he’d be stuck staring at the ceiling with nothing but his thoughts for another four hours. Instead, he locks his door, and begins to walk down the street.
The orange light of streetlights is much less intense than the sun. It offers him a steady path to follow whilst also allowing him the safety of the dark. He’s out in the open, but there’s hardly anyone out and about at this time of night aside from a few drunk uni students coming home from a nearby bar. The wind guides Serizawa’s feet as it nips harshly at the skin of his face and at his ankles where his pajama pants don’t quite reach. He’s still wearing house slippers, but can’t really bring himself to care. His thoughts blow away to nothing, and Serizawa simply lets himself be.
He turns onto a street he passes regularly on his way to work, feeling like he’s being pulled by an invisible string towards the office. Maybe he’ll get some work done early. Reigen had given him a key recently- “For emergencies,” he’d said, face serious as he waggled a finger, “I expect you to still follow all our rules. If I come in and anything is missing you’ll be in big trouble!” There had been no real bite to his words, just a sparkle of something that may have been pride in his eyes.
“Serizawa?”
Serizawa almost misses the voice, it’s so much quieter than he’s used to, but once it sinks in he stops suddenly, turns sharply and yes- there stands Reigen, leaned up against a building with a half-smoked cigarette burning between his fingers. He looks rumpled, his hair a mess and wearing a silly pajama shirt with a dog on it and plaid pajama pants. It almost knocks Serizawa off his feet, how soft he looks like this.
Serizawa very carefully files that thought away in a forbidden box and punts it out a mental window.
“Reigen-san,” Serizawa says, going for polite, but coming across closer to a startled cat, “what are you doing here?”
Reigen’s eyebrow shoots up, and he jabs a thumb over his shoulder towards the building as he says, “I live here. What are you doing here?”
“I ah-” Serizawa shuffles his feet, and Reigen’s eyes lock on his house slippers, leading his other eyebrow to follow its twin up to his hairline. Serizawa flushes, “just…couldn’t sleep. I guess.”
“You guess,” Reigen deadpans before taking a draw off his cigarette. He tips his head to the side, blowing the smoke in the opposite direction Serizawa has been walking. Serizawa hesitantly walks over to lean against the wall with him. They stand silently for a few moments as Reigen waits, presumably, for Serizawa to give him a better answer. Serizawa waits for Reigen to offer him a cigarette. Neither gets what they want.
Finally, Serizawa says, “I didn’t know you smoked.”
“What?” Reigen looks at Serizawa in surprise, his thin lips hang slightly open, and the cigarette hangs at his side. His eyes slide from Serizawa’s face to the offending entity as he continues with, “I don’t.”
“You…don’t?”
“Nope!” Reigen stubs out the cigarette on the brick of the building and throws the nub behind him blindly in one smooth motion, his hands landing on his hips.
“But I just saw-”
“You didn’t see anything!” Reigen says, pointing at Serizawa accusingly, his finger is far too close to Serizawa’s nose, and he goes a bit crosseyed trying to look at it before Reigen pulls it away and begins to gesticulate, “I know you must be tired, Serizawa, but it’s not a good look to start accusing someone of something like that, especially not your boss. Don’t you know I’m a professional?” Serizawa’s eyes drop to Reigen’s pajamas and he feels his own eyebrow raise. Reigen stops, noticing his expression, and his cheeks turn a dusty pink. He coughs dramatically, then turns away to stare out at the street.
They stand in silence once more, and Serizawa is reminded of his nightmare. The way all sound seemed to be sucked from the room before the agonized screams-
“Seriously, though, Serizawa- are you alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost- well, maybe not, you’re usually pretty calm after seeing a ghost. You look more like you’ve seen some kid get run over by a lawnmower. Or perhaps like a granny after she found out her grandkids were only spending time with her for an inheritance. Oh! I got it! You look like-”
“I had a nightmare,” Serizawa finally says. Reigen cuts off, both his mouth and his wild hands, and looks at him expectantly. Serizawa inhales sharply, feels nothing but air and storm clouds in his lungs, thinks for a moment then- “Reigen-san, do you think…I…do you remember how we met?”
Reigen snorts, brings his fingers to his lips, seems to recall the lack of cigarette, and tries to cover the blunder by tapping his bottom lip thoughtfully. Serizawa tries very hard not to stare.
“Of course,” Reigen says, waving casually, “it was a pretty memorable moment, you have to admit.”
“Yes, that’s one way of putting it,” Serizawa smiles at him wearily, and Reigen returns it with a bright beam, “I was just wondering, ah- why did you not put up a barrier? I know the president is powerful but you didn’t- it didn’t seem like you even tried .”
Reigen goes rigid at the question, standing stock still and staring out at the street. A lone car passes them by, casting shadows across Reigen’s face. By the time the car’s fully passed, an easy look has replaced the expression he’d been previously wearing, maybe it had never been there at all, and he lazily waves at Serizawa with a loose wrist.
“I did, of course! It was very quick is all- you were obviously too focused on Suzuki to notice it is all. Is there a reason you brought it up?”
“I- ah- no,” Serizawa says, clasping his hands together and fiddling with his thumbs. Reigen’s gaze follows the motion.
“I hope you aren’t concerned about me,” Reigen finally murmurs, quieter than Serizawa has ever heard him. Serizawa’s eyes snap to his, and he sees the way Reigen’s eyes shimmer with certainty, the way they get when he’s talking about ghosts with a client, even when there’s nothing there, “I’m your boss, Serizawa. I know what we do can be dangerous, or scary, but I promise you that you don’t need to worry. Your powers are incredible, I trust you to be able to handle yourself. In the same way, you must trust me, alright?”
Serizawa swallows harshly and nods, unable to break eye contact as he says, “I just- I was a bodyguard, essentially, for the pres- ah, for Suzuki. I suppose I’m just used to fulfilling that role…”
“Well, I’m not him. Your only job with me is to help and protect our clients,” Reigen says. He pats Serizawa on the shoulder and offers him the same beaming smile he does when Serizawa heads out to class, one that seems equal parts fond and proud. “You’ve grown a lot, Serizawa, please don’t forget that. Now get some sleep, we have an early appointment tomorrow.” His hand slides off his shoulder and, briefly, Serizawa feels his fingertips skim down his chest like burning points of sunlight. Reigen turns on his heel and waves over his shoulder as he steps back inside his building, and Serizawa watches him go feeling like the wind has been stolen from his lungs.