Chapter Text
Reigen was driving his beat-up sedan (he got from winning a bet with a junkyard employee) along the cracked road that led to his office. After everything that happened with Mob he told the kid to take some time off, knowing that was the right thing to do. However, on the business side of things others in his field would've advised against it. His funds were running low, so much so that he had to lay-off Serizawa because he couldn't pay the poor man. After the display of destruction made possible by the psychic powers required for exorcisms. . . its safe to say his clientele was significantly reduced just in the past couple of months.
He parked across the street and lethargically pulled himself out of the car, up the stairs, and into his office chair. He leaned back earning a squeak from his chair, taking a deep anxious breath he opened his email. Eyes scanning through the mountains of spam and notices for late fees he hoped against hope there were at least a couple clients that could get him through next month.
'There's gotta be some shmuck with a knot in his shoulder or "mysterious" stained carpet I can help in here..' Regrettably even after refreshing and double checking a couple times the struggling businessman's email had nothing but bad news for him. The only new email being from the landlord of the building sending the bill for outstanding bills.
Reigen choked on the air that had suddenly thickened around him. He leaned into his palms and slid his trembling fingers into his messy blonde hair. "Seriously Reigen... again?" he muttered to himself. He remained in that same sullen position, shadow dancing against the wall when the occasional car would pass in the night, for an indiscernible amount of time. He likely would have remained in that same position were it not for his old landline beeping out the ringtone he'd really never heard because he always picked up so quickly. This time he let it ring out, a rather unimpressive brring brring brring, until it hit voicemail. He was surprised the old thing was even still able to do that. 'Don't be the landlord... don't be the landlord' he wished to whoever might be there to grant him just one break to find his feet again.
Then a static-y, no doubt from the phone' quality, voice broke out, "Mr. Arataka it's unfortunate I was not able to reach you this evening-" Reigen unsurely lifted his head from his palms, hair tussled into a mess, but shocked that it truly wasn't the disappointed voice of the landlord he tuned back in, "My name is l/n with the Cathartes business group. We had a business proposition for you and would like to meet at your earliest convenience, please reply with your preferred time to 090-5555-XXXX. Good Night."
Reigen hurriedly scribbled the number and business name on the back of an old takeout menu and held it up in front of him, clutching it with both hands as if it would somehow cruelly slip away from him. A sliver of light from the emergency light highlighted the name, "Cathartes. . . why does that name sound familiar?" He shook his mouse to wake up the screen and thoughtlessly closed his email that was previously his priority to explore a new lead. He clacked in the name and immediately a wall of news articles, along with their official website, loaded into view.
"Cathartes Case Suddenly Dismissed"
"Prosecution Drops Cathartes Allegations"
"Cathartes Business Group Requisitions Land In South Seasoning City"
"South Seasoning City...?" Reigen's office was located in the Southwest of the city, "That's not far from here." He tried looking more into the content of the dropped case but any site that might have previously had information was popping up 'Sorry, this content is unavailable' messages. He could smell that something was fishy, a perk of being in the business of fooling people, but he also didn't know how much of a choice he had. On one hand he was in desperate need of some help, and his pride ached at the idea of asking his former employees Serizawa or Shigeo for assistance. On the other if they really were a fishy group, it was clear that they had enough power to really put him out.
Against what he knew his friends would have told him to do, he decided to comply and just try and lie low. All that was left was to decide where in his tragically empty schedule to ask them to meet.
"Would it seem too desperate to schedule for tomorrow night...?" He squinted and shook his head, "like I have time to worry about seeming desperate, I am desperate." He whipped out his token flip-phone and punched in the number, "tomorrow 5pm" his text was brief but in reality he would've been talking his mouth off he was so nervous.
SEND
"Well that's that then..." He once again leaned a squeak out of his chair, before deciding he was too antsy to be sitting down. 'Should I get my suit laundered?' He opened the door to the familiar empty staircase with only a couple functioning stair lights. Before closing the door to his lonesome office behind him, he sent out one other text asking them to meet at a local restaurant of their choosing. He figured adding "local" would end them up somewhere not too fancy, since anything local to his office was still in the same sketchy part of the city. He climbed down the dangerous stairstep affirming his choice to change locale one stride at a time. He got outside and slid into the dilapidated sedan, he got out his wallet and pulled out a couple of coins. Just enough to get his suit nice and lined up.
He put the car into gear and optimistically drove off to the cheapest laundromat that he could hit before returning to the office to get some sleep before tomorrow.