Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Legend says that Mob has two dads, one of them is straight, the other is Reigen Arataka.

And at the moment, one of them was calling him at 2:00 in the morning.

Mob picked up the phone and pressed the accept button, causing a familiar voice to pipe up on the other side.

”Yo! Mob! You busy?”

Mob blinked

”Yeah I was busy..............sleeping”

"What are you? five? Anyways I heard about that thing you won recently and I was just thinking. Don't you think a little celebration is in order?"

There was a pause, after patching together a response, he replied.

" …………..Shishou, what are you doing up at this hour?"

"Ah, Mob Mob Mob, justice never sleeps. Some clients popped up at the last hour and I was kind enough to lend a hand."

Despite this proclamation of grandeur, the unmistakeable sounds of a YouTube spiral trickled through the tinny speakers of Shigeo's phone. He swore he could hear someone shuffling a popcorn carton too, though that could just be his imagination.

"Well anyways" said Reigen's voice, a little crunchier than usual. "You up for it?"

"Not now I've got school tomorrow."

"Oh yeah school. Well how about Friday? Serizawa told me of this swanky new joint that just opened up near here. You can bring everyone else too, my treat."

"..."

"..."

"Sure, sounds fun."

"Great! see you then. 'night!"

And with that, the call ended as suddenly as it had started. It signed off with a prim little "click!".

Not entirely sure if he was still dreaming or not, Shigeo put down the phone, and dropped back to sleep.

Chapter Text

MOB

19:00 FRIDAY, AFTER SCHOOL, RAINING

It was a beautiful night, everyone agreed.  While the rain did hammer, unyielding, down upon the group of five it also brought with it a smell of freshness that seemed to wash away the settled dust of seasoning city's streets. Reflections danced around their shadows like mad poltergeists, and they pressed ever on, chatting all the time while huddled under a dome of shimmering smoking psychic energy.

The spell was immediately broken when Tome plunged her foot through a puddle, and cursed rather loudly with words no 15 year old should know.

"Come to think of it, Nii- San did he even tell you where this place was?"  Ritsu inquired  "We can't walk for much longer. Everyone's socks are getting wet."

Shigeo pulled out his phone from his pocket and squinted at it. 2 minutes to go.

"Yeah, we're nearly there" He murmured, popping the phone back.

"You know" mused Ritsu, an edge of disdain to his voice "This better not be some sketchy fast food place or something because Reigen seems like the kind of guy who frequents those places. I don't want him rubbing off on you, no one knows what you're eating with fast food."  He wrinkled his nose a little, disturbed by the thought. Mob clasped a hand round his brother's shoulder and smirked like he was born yesterday.

"I'm sure it's fine, he's pretty reliable once you get to know him." 

He squinted at his phone again, one minute.

Tome stepped in another puddle and cursed the gods. Again.

30 seconds.

A gust of wind blew by, Teru clutched his head out of instinct.

10

They rounded the bend, the unmistakeable cacophony of a restaurant rose to meet their ears.

0

Serizawa and Reigen stood to greet them, backlit by the glow of fluorescent lights like store-bought angels.

Both still wore their work suits and were taking shelter under a clear, plastic umbrella.

And behind them, taking pride of place-

-was a taco bell

"- so apparently this place was opened by American celebrity Clark Newman. Can you imagine! Clark Newman Himself?" 

Two adults and five children marched through the open doors of the Taco Bell. While most of them wore expressions ranging from indifference to satisfaction, Ritsu’s face looked like he had just been forced to swallow a cockroach.

Reigen continued to ramble about the rich history of this Taco Bell, hands spinning in a tornado of gestures.

” You know, this place used to be some kind of shabby old wagashi place or something, the couple who ran it retired and the place was knocked down and re- furnished. Or at least that’s what Serizawa told me, I don’t know the details.

But Clark Newman, wow……, I can’t believe I missed him by 20 minutes talk about bad luck right?"

"Ok wait here I‘ll get us a table”

With the exaggerated swagger of an overconfident rooster, he sidled up up to the kiosk and slid a crumpled 10,000 yen bank note to the disgruntled teen behind the desk.

”Table for 6 please, 2 adults and 4 kids”

Serizawa piped up,

” We have five kids, Arataka.”

” 2 Adults, 4 Kids and Ritsu please.”

With a grunt, the teen snatched up the note and recoiled a little after noticing how unusually greasy it was. He then pointed them towards a shabby looking table in some desolate corner of the restaurant.

"Many thanks, m'lady" Reigen tipped an invisible fedora and ushered the group over towards the table like some sort of mad mother hen. They shuffled awkwardly, not wanting to be associated with this strange and disconcerting man in a public space.

Half an hour later, 5 greasy paper boxes were carried to the table of 7. Unfortunately this was very much unnoticed, as for the past 20 minutes of them Tome had been running an extensive conversation about the nuances of the ponysona,  and had been been lovingly etching away at a napkin trying to capture the attendants in the table in all of their equine glory. She had explained in meticulous detail the extensive similarities of an esper and a unicorn, and had drawn herself (a buttercup- yellow mare) with a horn that was long enough to be used for a kebab spit.  Wishful thinking, unfortunately.

" I think Shigeo would be an alicorn " She said, drawing out a little grey horse in felt- tip. " I mean no offense but he's like, the specialest guy out of all of us. Alicorns have all the traits of the 3 types of pony including the unicorn and considering how multi- talented he is it would probably be the best fit for him. Not sure about what his cutie mark would be though, what do we think chat?"

The table suddenly became rife with debate.

" It would be a frog!" screamed Shou "Ritsu told me he's crazy over frogs, that's gotta be important enough right?"

Tome held up a finger, " Cutie marks don't work like that, they're more about destiny than interests. For example in episode 43 su-"

" Maybe he'll kiss a frog. Maybe it'll turn into a beautiful prince!" 

"OBJECTION!"

Teruki slammed his fists into the table and pointed towards Sho, daggers in his eyes.

" IT WOULD BE A STAR, YOU IMBECILE! If you really look into the symbolism in the opening sequence of this show, you briefly see him crashing to earth like a shooting star. This star imagery is yet again repeated in the end of the Mogami arc in which ???% first emerges, the background is of a cleansed galaxy. Furthermore, this leads me to conclude that when paired with his character development of expressing his emotions more freely, like a star being allowed to shine that this-"

"How did you make that sound with your mouth?"  

"...... That's irrelevant, what I'm saying is-"

Before he could go on, Shigeo butted in,

" Actually I'd like to have a frog. I like frogs."

There was a silence, broken only by the sound of a squeaky felt tip drawing a frog on a horse's flank.

"Anyways, we should eat. The food's getting cold"

While taking a bite out of his quesadilla,  Reigen's eyes drifted over to Mob's left- over churros.  He had ordered the quesadilla only on account of craving something with cheese but wow, those churros looked enticing, seductive almost. They glistened with an otherworldly light, sparkled like they were dusted with starlight.

And besides, If Mob had really wanted to eat those by now he would have. He knew Mob wasn't the type to want to eat cold food, he wouldn't mind right?

No, he was a responsible adult.

Ooooh but he was hungry

What no he wasn't ,he had just eaten.

Yeah but he was hungryyyyyy

He was literally eating right now he wasn't hungry.

Go, on take one. You know you want to. Fatass.

Fine, he would. But he couldn't do it so brashly or Mob could float them out of reach. This called for a carefully formulated plan, something that allowed him to discreetly grab the churros and stuff them in his face with no one else noticing.

A lightbulb blinked on.

" Dimple's pole-dancing !"  He screamed, drawing back his arm and then jamming it past Shigeo's left ear.

Mob whipped his head around for about five seconds. This was just enough time for Reigen to grab the box, unhinge his jaw, and shake the entire contents of the box into his dustbin-lid of a mouth. It was like the looking at the JAWS poster if it had a weird 29- year old rat- man in place of the shark.

Mob turned back around and was greeted by a ginger man with the cheeks of a chipmunk, and an empty churros box. He narrowed his eyes.

"Reigen- shishou, did you eat my churros?"

Reigen tried to flash a customer- service grin, but then remembered his mouth was full of sugared dough paste and settled for a lopsided smirk.

"Who, me?" He fibbed "No! a spirit ate them. Very hungry spirits round these parts. What are you talking about???" he gestured frantically like a deaf man having a seizure.

Mob held his glare for a second, and then relaxed.

"Good, I saw the cook drop them in the bin and re- pack them. It could be a health risk. You're very lucky you didn't eat them"

22:00 OUTSIDE TACO BELL. CLOUDY

The first thing Mob noted when they walked out of that hot, dense resturant was that the air was cool. Not in that way in winter where it bites at your face, but in the way after the rain has passed where it cleanses your senses and makes you feel alive and free and back in the world.

The second thing he noted was the smell. Wet tarmac and tires and glass puddles perfumed the air, a breeze blew across his face, brushing his skin with cold waves and he breathed in great lungfuls of it, almost as if he wanted to take in the memory of that smell and hold as a cloud of rain in his chest.

The third thing he noticed was the sound, first the splashing of tires on the slick watered roads, then the flapping of his coat which made a sort of dense flimsy sound whenever it struck.  And chatter, oh so much chatter, the people around him had such colourful voices.

And finally, he looked around him.

Everyone was smiling and chatting and laughing . The line of children he walked in were snickering at some crude joke or other, Ritsu clutched his stomach and shook with giggles, tears forming in his eyes.

Mob felt a bubbling in the pit of his stomach and a tug on the edges of his mouth. The fizzing spread up, up, growing and glowing with a golden warm light and filling his throat and bursting through his lips as a soft, beautiful sound . He did not resist it, he let himself shake with laughter, let his face crinkle up into a smile, let the world embrace him as he laughed again and again.

He was happy.

A few paces behind, two men and an umbrella trailed behind a group of 5 children, steps matching two- by two.

The ginger one stared ahead.  His face softened into the tender gaze of a parent watching their child grow up.

The stars glistened overhead, and they all walked home.

Chapter Text

SERIZAWA

MONDAY THE 4TH OF MARCH, SUNNY

Serizawa Katsuya finds that keeping a routine holds his day in shape well enough. He sets his alarm for 6:30 and gets up at 7:00, he doesn't cook, he can't cook for shit so he stops by a local cafe every day for breakfast, not wanting to burden his mother. At approximately 9 o' clock he murmurs a "good morning" to the cashier and asks for the same thing every time, a melon bread with pumpkin croquettes and two teas to go. He orders one for himself and one for his boss. He knows that Reigen likes the green tea from this place because he sees his face light up every time he spies the familiar matcha- cream paper cup.  Serizawa prefers the iced sweet teas. They remind him of his summers as a boy.

By 9:15 he is on his way to the office, lately he has noticed he walks with his head held higher and his back straighter. Maybe it's the office job, maybe it's the star- eyed kids who look up to him, maybe it's the absence of that all too- familiar weight.

He arrives at the office at 10: 15,  15 minutes before opening, and hikes up the shaded stairway to the tiny rent- out that is spirits and such, shined leather work shoes tapping and resounding on the icy concrete.  He tries the handle

It is locked.

He hears someone start inside. Serizawa jumps for a second but quickly regains composure.

"Hello?" he calls out, rapping his knuckles against the plywood  "Are you in there?"

There is no response. He persists

"Um, is everything alright?"

He hears someone groan a jumbled half- formed sentence. Serizawa recognises the voice.

His palms start sweating and he tries to wipe them off on the rim of his suit- jacket. The fabric is too silky to be effective so he ends up wringing it between his fingers to try and distract himself from the snowballing thoughts in his mind.

'Stay calm'

What was happening? Was this serious? 

'Stay calm'

Serizawa's heartbeat skyrockets from a canter to a gallop, a sickly rush of cold panic pierces his chest, he gulps it down and readies himself.

"Wait there! I'm coming in!" He yells, and thrusts his hand in front of the lock.

A wave rolls out from his core and down his arm, bursting out of his fingertips. He finds his target and wills the energy towards it.

A 'kthunk' and a rattle sounds as the lock pops open. He throws his shoulder against the door and pushes the handle down, practically stumbling into the office.

The stench of vomit assaults his senses. He feels sick as it stings the back of his throat so he pulls the neck of his shirt over his mouth to try and muffle it. It works, just barely. 

Two horrible drawn-out retches resonate from the bathroom, like pins being scraped against flesh, and then, a violent splatter. A wave of stench rolls over Serizawa and detail  blurs into shapes and swathes of colour as his eyes start to water. He charges towards the bathroom door which bursts open and slams against the cold white tile of the walls with a piercing ceramic clack.

What he sees is a mess.

Reigen collapses to the ground. One hand still white- knuckled and clenched over the rim of a once-pristine toilet bowl. The rest of his limbs are tangled, splayed out across the floor like a dead spider's . Sweat plasters his hair to his forehead and he is as pale as a sheet, eyes gaunt with dark half-circles under each one, they look unfocused and far away like his mind is not entirely there. His suit jacket and tie lie crumpled in the sink, long- forgotten facades of a workplace persona. Serizawa thinks he may be shaking, but it's hard to process everything else first.

A moment passes where they lock eyes, at a loss for words.

Then, very slowly, the conman prises himself off the floor into a teetering standing position and waves a hand towards his employee. It takes a few failed words to get his mouth to coordinate but he manages.

"Hey Serizawa" he slurs " How're you"

Serizawa, stands there, petrified.

"We may, uh, have to open a little late today"

...

A middle aged woman walks out of the spirits and such office with a blissful expression on her face and Reigen and Serizawa wave her off in good fashion. She is the third client of a non- stop stream they had this morning.  Serizawa hands the tea from the cafe to his boss, freshly re-microwaved.

"Are you sure you want to keep working?" he inquires. The hot water bottle and antibiotics have done very little to help, Reigen still looks like a zombie.

"Uhhh yeah, business waits for no one" Reigen replies, sipping the tea and then choking a little because it's still too hot. "We know it's not contagious." His face contorts and he opens and closes his mouth swiftly like a fish, trying to numb the pain of a burnt lip.

"That's not what I'm worried about"

"I'm fine, I can work"

" You can't in this state. Do you even know what you looked like this morning? You looked half dead."

Reigen scoffs and blows on his tea.

"Look when you get to my age you realise that a little food poisoning is no excuse for bad work ethic, it's an unspoken workplace rule. It'll get better by itself."

"No it won't, ignore it and it gets worse."

Serizawa spits this last bit with force behind every word. He sees Reigen pause, taken aback.

"Ok" He says ,finally "I'll consider it"

The doorbell rings and Serizawa jumps, Reigen sighs and pulls himself up from his chair, he struggles.

"Let's get this day over with first."

MONDAY THE 11TH OF MARCH

Reigen does not come into work today

Serizawa walks into the office to find it empty, he hears his phone ring and picks it up.

"Hey Serizawa" The conman's voice trickles through the phone. "Sorry but i'm calling in sick. Dimple should be there to help you out but you probably won't need it. Remember to smile a little when dealing with customers, it helps break the ice. Ok signing off."

The work day passed as it usually did, same old same old. Dimple floats around and makes the occasional unsolicited comment but then again that was kind of his thing.

When the sun starts setting, Serizawa packs up and heads home.

TUESDAY THE 12TH OF MARCH

Mob swings by today and brings Takoyaki with him, he didn't know Reigen is off sick when he bought it so he, Dimple and Serizawa sit around the coffee table and eat it together. They have a conversation about how Mob's body improvement club is doing. He says it's a little lonely without most of the original group but it'll probably get better, the newbies seem to like him as a captain.

Serizawa waves goodbye to Mob and works for the rest of the day. When the sun starts setting he packs up and heads home.

WEDNESDAY THE 13TH OF MARCH

Today is quiet, Tome catches a mewtwo on pokemon go and almost knocks down the pinboard while celebrating.

THURSDAY THE 14TH OF MARCH

Serizawa wakes up to the sound of crows, he makes a note to buy a birdfeeder.

FRIDAY THE 15TH OF MARCH

Serizawa starts to worry.

SATURDAY THE 16TH OF MARCH

Serizawa swats a fly that bumbles into the office.

SUNDAY THE 17TH OF MARCH

He starts to worry again.

MONDAY THE 18TH OF MARCH

Serizawa calls Reigen on the way to work.

He hasn't heard from him since last Monday and that's probably because he was resting, right he was resting.

But a double check wouldn't hurt.

It's probably nothing.

Ring......

Ring......

Ring......

No answer

He tries again

Ring......

Ring.....

Ring.....

No answer.

And again

Ring.....

Ring.....

Ring

No answer

Serizawa tries to call his boss 10 times over the span of 10 minutes, and not a single call is answered.

Something is wrong

He turns and dashes towards Reigen's apartment, breakfast forgotten,  feet pounding the pavement, a sick dense dread settling in his chest.

Something is wrong.

Chapter Text

REIGEN.

MONDAY THE 11TH OF MARCH, OVERCAST.

Reigen Arataka had gotten no sleep. Most of the hours between evening and sunrise had been spent retching over the bathroom sink and silently wishing for the sweet release of death. He had tried to construct a sort of makeshift bed from spare towels in the cupboard and it had helped a little, swaddling himself in a nest of tangled terry cloth. The scent of fresh linen and the cool fabric was strangely soothing to come back to after another bout of retching.

Some time around 6:10 he noticed his alarm going off and groaned, each shrill synthesised 'beep' pierced his eardrums like a needle and resounded in the back of his head.  With a grunt, he dragged himself up to face the tiny water- stained bathroom mirror, maybe he didn't look so bad, maybe he had ejected all the bad stuff out and had just returned to normal overnight.

Delusional, Reigen forced his head to look up at the mirror.

Nevermind.

If Serizawa's comment about him looking "half dead" yesterday had been true then he was currently 6 feet underground, rotting to the bone, and being eaten by maggots. 

"'World's 2nd sexiest man" he half- joked, trying to lighten the mood for no one in particular and then staggered out of the bathroom like a sickly Victorian child, wondering if his neighbours would mind the crash of an alarm clock against the drywall.

Most of that morning was spent generally feeling sorry for himself. The sickness and vomiting had stopped, and a pounding headache and burning fever had taken their place. Reigen had just managed to punch in Serizawa’s office number and call in sick before throwing on some pyjamas and collapsing into his bed.

The already untucked bedsheet sprang off it’s corners with the impact. Reigen made a noise like a strangled mouse, and tried to somehow kick it back into place, flailing his limbs wildly.

This only served to wrinkle the bedsheet further. By the time he gave up it had the texture of a prune. 

He flopped onto his back and busied himself with analysing the composition of his ceiling fan, trying to distract himself from the oven of a bed he was baking in.

As it spun around lazily, he noted the speckled char marks that dotted its surface.

That fan had been bought a few years ago and had leaned, unhung, against the coffee table for months.

He had gotten into the habit of stubbing out cigarettes on it’s smooth, unpacked surface, mixing the chemical plastic stench with a musk of tobacco.

The fan now rattled obnoxiously every time it spun, probably in revenge.

Come to think of it, the entire apartment used to stink of tobacco too, a heavy, musky, smoky smell that forced its way into your nose and settled like molasses in your lungs. It was familiar, comforting in the way picking at a scab was.

Though, after a while, he realised tobacco wasn’t exactly great for a child.

So he stopped smoking, which was hard, god it was hard.

But he was a adult, and it was his job to make the hard decisions.

So as the years went by, the smell faded away.

Suppressing a yawn, Reigen rubbed at his eyes and settled down to sleep. As he reclined into unconsciousness, thoughts of all the catch-up work he'd have to slog through, on his eventual return to the office, plagued him. He made a disgruntled snort at the thought, and then fell into relaxed, regular breathing.

SATURDAY THE 16TH OF MARCH, SUNNY

Reigen woke up to the sun setting, throwing strips of golden light across his otherwise unspectacular apartment.
It was too cold, with a groan he realised that the ac had been rattling on tenaciously all throughout the day, the sheets (previously a cocoon of flames) now felt like slabs of marble under his palms and his skin had started to pucker in face of the crisp cold.

A fly buzzed around his room, an arrogant fool, and landed unceremoniously upon his nose.

He despised flies.

Feverish, and still half-asleep, he raised a hand and swatted at his face as hard as he could. He succeeded, resulting in a sting of pain, a red handprint, and the remains of a pulverised bug sticking to his already disgusting skin, sticky and oily from a day (at least he though it had been a day?) spent sweating in bed.

Ew, gross.

He had to take a shower.

With nothing but thoughts of fly- transported diseases and of rising electricity bills, Reigen subconsciously willed his body to swing up and out of the bed.

Except this time, his legs would not move.

Frowning, he tried again, same result. They lay there, two gangled sticks of flesh that refused to do their job.

He tried to prop himself up on his right elbow, and found to his great surprise, that moving his torso up felt like moving a mountain. His arms shuddered with the effort. Eventually he managed to force himself into a jumbled sitting position, and collapsed, hitting the headboard which shook with the impact.

Cautious, and wheezing, Reigen arranged his left hand into a sort of ‘A’ shape, index and pinkie pressing all the other fingers into a point, thumb jutting out at a bold angle. And poked jerkily at his legs like he was poking a rabid cat with a stick.

He couldn’t feel anything.

Panicking a little now, he juddered his hand along the rest of his body. Poking and prodding with increasing aggression, as if slapping at his dead limbs would somehow bring them back to life.

He tried his hip, nothing.

His stomach, nothing.

His chest, nothing.

He was full-on panicking now.

Terror filled his chest and he clawed at his shirt weakly, trying impossibly to reach in and yank out the clawing and spitting sensation that shredded at his insides.

He stopped, horrified at how the tiny action drained lakes and oceans of energy.  

Blood rushed into his ears as his throat closed up and he noticed, feverishly, that he couldn’t feel his own heartbeat.

He had to do something.

Anything.

Desperate, he threw out his arm towards the bedside table and groped blindly for his phone, hand flailing around for an object in the dark.

119, that was the ambulance, 119, three numbers and help would come. 

He cursed as instead, he heard the noise of a dense, plastic object scraping across the oak and hitting the carpet with a muffled thud. 

A pause followed, another thud and a click sounded. A pop song started playing through a radio speaker.

Reigen collapsed back onto his bed and drew icy air in and out of his lungs, trying to calm himself.  

Sensation, he could feel the cold in his teeth.

That was a start.

Dark spots swam in front of his vision, and he noted distantly that he felt himself sinking.

He drew far back behind his eyes, and the hullabaloo of thoughts blended themselves into a smoky batter as his body forced itself out of consciousness. He sunk deep, down, floating, away from flesh and matter as sleep swallowed him whole.

The last thing he noted was the breathy voice of some pop singer, echoing in and out of his mind.

MONDAY THE 18TH OF MARCH, RAINING.

“ Runnin’ down the avenue, see how the sun shines brightly, in the city….. ”

Reigen stumbled awake to the radio’s monologue .

The room swam around like milk in a fishbowl. Furniture bent in and out of shape, colours swelled and faded with no pattern, what a mess.

”On the streets where once was pity……”

The radio’s tiny voice did very little to fill the void of an apartment. It’s cheery song was drowned by the crashing of raindrops, fat and lustrous glass bullets, on the other side of the roof.

Reigen closed his eyes, and pictured the sky above to be ashy and muddled, like a watercolour painting of British weather.

”Mr blue sky is living here today, hey”

If god was real, he had a sick sense of humour.

Reigen realised numbly that he could not feel anything against his skin, not even the too-thin blanket or the grimy bedsheet. All the sensation in his body had puckered and turned itself inwards. He had a painful scratching in the inside of his lungs that felt like someone had stuffed it with scorpions overnight, their spiked legs stabbed at his flesh as they scuttled around, fighting to get out. He coughed, great convulsions that shook his entire body, and breath came back to him in rapid, shallow dips, trying desperately to fill the gaping vacuum in his chest.

What was happening? Why was this happening? What was he doing just now? 

Questions flashed in and out of his mind, and yet the answers to them hid behind a muffled woollen barrier. A solution would start to half-form, yet as he reached out to grasp it the thing evaporated and slipped away, smoke in a warm desert wind.

Yet as of now, that wasn't important. Right at the moment he could only think of breathing, in, out, in, out, of keeping himself awake and away from the trap that was sleep. There was a boulder sitting on top of his chest, each breath he drew grew ragged , the gargantuan weight forced his ribs down every time they rose, and Reigen fought to wrestle more air into his lungs, even as they pricked and flared with pain.

In, out, in, out.

Help would come.

In, out, in,

It had to.

out, in, out

There were crows outside

in, out, in

He could hear them cackling.

out, in, out

Tiny feathered reapers

In, out, in

Reigen recalled that long ago, a classmate (her face now lost to time in his memory), told him a quote she liked from a movie. 

"Only nobodies die alone", the quote was uttered by an angular noir protagonist with a pipe clenched between his teeth. He was talking of some insignificant character, a 40- something figure that the writers had only used to further the plot.

Reigen had thought back then that this was one of those cheesy quotes that only applied to worlds full of bad dialogue, stiff acting and tacky plastic effects. Privately of course, he laughed at it within his own mind.

out, in, out

They hadn't even bothered to give him a face.

in, out in,

The protagonist's sidekick, an obnoxiously chipper young man, had said he'd died in a campervan in the middle of the desert of heart failure.

Not a single person had come to see him go, he had no friends, no family that could be bothered enough to help. The corpse was found a week later, cold, alone, face down in the ground, circled by nothing but vultures against the pale orange sky.

Reigen glanced up at his still-spinning ceiling fan, charred flecks swooping in ravenous circles. 

out, in, out,

He realised how ridiculously bird- like the smudges were.

in, out, 

in

The weight on his chest tripled in size, he could not move, he could not breathe, more air was snatched away from him as the seconds passed.

out.

He found, quite suddenly, that he did not care. He stopped fighting,

He was tired, just so tired.

Darkness swam in front of his vision again and this time he leaned into the fall. Letting sleep embrace him and pull him down into it's depths.

As he sank, he noted blearily that the last song had stopped and another one had stepped into it's place. Tin- like drums marched in a steady rhythm for what felt like forever, and then, finally, a woman started singing.

"My god I'm so lonely, so I open the window- " 

Her voice was liquid smooth, like that of a mothers, soft and lullaby-like.

He let it sing him to sleep.

"To hear sounds of people

To hear sounds of people."

Chapter Text

SERIZAWA, MONDAY THE 18TH OF MAY, RAINING.

Serizawa ran, heels pounding the pavement, sending tremors ricocheting throughout the tarmac. He could feel the blood stampeding through his veins, the damp air tearing itself to and from his lungs, every drop, every molecule screaming with panic, screaming at his legs to run faster, quicker, or he would be too slow, too late.

Too late to save him.

The rain lashed at his face, splinters tearing his skin to shreds. But he kept going, one foot in front of the other, racing past snatches of irrelevant jarbled conversation, lights and colours and sound all whisked away in the blur , bleeding themselves into a technicolour jargon that bounced themselves helplessly off his consciousness, trying in vain to distract an unstoppable force.

A shop radio blared somewhere, tinfoil noise with lyrics long ignored.

Serizawa felt a catch on his shoe, and found himself weightless for a snapshot of time.

Then he crashed to the ground with a booming thud. The sandpaper pavement scraped at his skin, leaving long, crimson gashes scored into his flesh. It burned, the rain barrelled itself into the wounds, slicing the tender, open flesh with flecks of razor sharp debris.

He tried to pull himself up, and muffled a yelp as a bolt of pain shredded at the tendons of his leg. His limbs shook, cold seeping in and settling into the fibres of his muscles.

He forced them to work, gritting his teeth as pain, hot and sharp, tore open his nerves. 

The shop radio continued, it’s melancholy song cutting through the static of the rain.

Venus, planet of love was destroyed by global warming.

The woman singing it had a voice that dripped with sorrow, notes lilting up and down like the rolling of waves.

Did it’s people want too much, too? Did it’s people want too much?

Serizawa did not register this, nor did he care. He forced himself forward on a one-track mind.

The song that echoed round the streets fell on deaf ears.

He was nearly there, he knew the way.

Turn left at peppercorn street, carry on downwards, sharp right at the second junction. There it was, in the distance, the stretch of apartments on paprika road.

Reigens apartment was the one on the top left, the one with the pastel candles in the window.

All of them had gone out.

Serizawa slammed incantations into his mind.

“Just concentrate on running, one foot in front in front of the other. Don’t let anything else matter, just go, go, go. You need to help him, you need to get there in time, it can’t be too late.”

And I don’t want your pity, I just want somebody near me.

“You’re in the car park now, good, he’s just up the stairs, he’s just a few seconds away, don’t start slacking, keep going, keep going. Here’s the stairs now, don’t slip you’ll waste time, clear level one, good, now clear level two, good, ok you’re here, he’s just behind the door.”

Guess I’m a coward, I just want to feel alright.

”The radio’s on, why is it on? Wait you’re getting distracted, Try the door handle”

Serizawa tugged at the door handle, it jammed itself rebelliously.

”Fuck, it’s locked. Ok think think.”

Serizawa could not think, fury, rabid and red- hot, thrashed beneath the surface of his skin. His thoughts filled with curses, why the hell was it locked, why had he slipped and wasted the seconds, why had he been slowed by his injuries. 

Damn it all.

Something invisible burst out of his body, raw, bubbling emotion that liquified everything it clawed at. It was an wild beast, a cornered hound, a swarm of wasps, a wildfire.

It contorted the steel railing into hideous shapes, and the bars screeched, howling a grating, piercing song. It crushed the drywall into a fine dust, sturdy material that had braved years of storms reduced to nothing in an instant.

And finally, it blew Reigens door clean off it’s hinges.

Serizawa peered into the lightless hallway, and saw his friend motionless in bed. Cold, face down, stiff as a corpse.

And I know

Terror filled Serizawa’s entire being. And he screamed Reigen’s name, every syllable built from a thrashing, primal horror.

He rushed forwards, hands outstretched. Praying to whoever that there was still some life left to kindle.

No one will save me

Chapter Text

18/03/2018 10:32

AUDIO TRANSCRIPT OF SEASONING CITY EMERGENCY SERVICES LINE. 

———————————————————————

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT.

R: This is seasoning city emergency services, which service do you require?

C: (unintelligible) 

R: Sir?

C: Sorry, the ambulance please. I- I need an ambulance.

R: Ok, the address?

C: Um, Apartment block….. 5 I think? P-paprika road. GC…1..0………….

Excuse me, I’m panicking a little.

R: I understand, but can you remember the rest of the postcode?

C: Yes um…. 1 no 4 hIC erm, yes that’s the postco-de. I’ve got it.

R: Ok and how many casualties?

C: Just one

R: I see, do you know the casualty?

C: Yes

R: Is he an elderly individual?

C: No no not that I know of, he’s twenty- nine. No history.

R: Has his skin turned an unusual colour, red or blue for instance?

C: He’s s-started to go pale I think. 

R: Have you checked his heart rate? Breathing? Is his breathing regular?

C: Oh no, no I haven’t. Why didn’t I think of that, god.

R: Stay calm sir.

C: Yes, Sorry. 

(Pause)

C: His heartbeat is irregular.

R: Breathing?

C:….. Shallow, he j-just stops breathing every few seconds. Is that bad?

R: Do you know CPR? An ambulance is on its way.

C: I think they taught it at some point in night school,  uh. I-I don’t remember the details.

R: That’s alright, do you want me to instruct you?

C: Yes, yes please thank you

———————————————————————

Serizawa gritted his teeth and pushed his left palm, pinpoint into the center of Reigen’s chest, the breastbone pressed against the soft flesh of his hand.

He slotted the fingers of his right hand, into the notches of his left, and gripped it with the strength of a goliath. Praying to god that it was enough to stop them shaking, he held on, terrified that this newfound tenacity would slip out of his grasp and dissolve into nothing.

He held on, fighting off thoughts of his limbs turning to rubber as the strength left them, of his hands, mannequins of cold bones and tendons, flopping limply to his sides, rendered useless by the electric jolts of adrenaline that seized up his being.

Of him watching as his friend grow paler, his breathing shallower, watching as that always too- blinding flame everyone knew as Reigen Arataka flickered slowly, painfully, into nothing, until not even smoke remained of a memory, until the world billowed again into an all- swallowing void.

Until the darkness became as heavy as the universe itself, crushing him into a whimpering nothing with no light to hold it off.

Serizawa’s nails dug into his skin, and he spotted blood, gobstopper red, trickling it’s way in thin brushstrokes down his fingers. A stab of colour against the pale, clammy canvas.

He was thankful for the pain, evidence of physical effect.

“Compress at about 5- 6 centimetres at 100 to 120 beats per minute, don’t stop if you hear ribs crack, what’s important is that you keep going .”  

The faceless voice on the phone instructed.

”A-alright…”

Serizawa grit his teeth, and started compressions.

He dumped all his body weight into his arms, pressing them up and down in a steady, rhythmic pattern, limbs locked ramrod straight like batons. He ignored the burning fatigue creeping into his biceps. Air forced its way under and out of Reigens mouth as his rib cage bent and swayed, whistling a little as it rushed past lifeless lips.

There was a crunch, and Serizawa felt something snap under his fingers.

For an instant, he recoiled, whipping his head up, braving himself for a yelp, a jolt, a wince, anything.

He was met with silence, still and empty.

Reigen’s head lolled to one side.

”You need to keep going sir, I’m sorry.” The receiver reprimanded, voice like a monochrome.

“I-I-

ok”

He set his quivering hands into the same old position, and continued.

Snap

He could feel them

Snap

Jagged broken shards

Snap

Buried beneath a membrane.

Snap

pressing against his skin.

“The ambulance will be there in 5 minutes, you’re doing well, help will be there soon” a far- away voice said.

Serizawa did not hear it.

He kept going, nothing else in existence mattered, not the person on the other end of the receiver, not the burning fatigue in his arms, not the laughing of the pedestrians in the street, not the rain pounding against the roof, not the stench of incense, not the mud and blood on his suit, not the passing of time itself.

In that moment, all of Serizawa’s world became him, a run-down apartment, and a friend that was dying before his eyes.

Reality could have ended, and he would still not have stopped.

Red and blue light painted the walls of the apartments of paprika street, an ambulance was parked outside, a neon yellow box on wheels.

Three paramedics, dressed in green uniforms and hi- vis jackets of the exact same shade, rushed up the tin steps of the apartment block. Various instruments stuffed into their arms. A few neighbours poked their heads out of their doors, expressions an equal proportion of bewilderment and horror. 

The middle paramedic, a burly woman in her 30’s, pounded on the door of no 6. on the second floor. Her colleagues sidestepped the rubble and broken railing.

”Ambulance!” She yelled “Open the door!”

There was no response, but she could hear movement inside.

She pounded her fist sharply against the wood, and the door swung open. A stray chunk of rubble skidded across the carpet, an impromptu doorstop no doubt.

They rushed inside to find a man, widely built with a face like a stray dog, hunched over another man with a fox- like appearance. He was performing CPR, dirt and rainwater clung to his deep-blue suit and an orange tie hung loosely round his neck, swinging wildly as he moved up and down.

There was a wild look in his eyes, a look the paramedic had only seen in cornered street- hounds.

Desperation, pure and simple.

She strode forward and tapped him on the shoulder.

”It’s ok, we’ll take it from here.”

He did not respond, she noticed both of his hands had gone white.

She shook him by the shoulder and he started, like he was emerging from a trance.

” I said we’ll take it from here, you can relax.”

She became aware of how ironic this statement was, the man looked anything but relaxed. His pupils darted wildly around the room and his entire body was tensed up, shuddering, sweat glistened on his face and hands and his breathing was shaky.

”What’s your name?” She asked with what she hoped was a kind tone. Her eyes swept past him, assessing the scene. The apartment was unkept, cups of long-finished ramen piled upon the windowsill, a little disgusting but no pills or bottles that indicated an overdose. She moved on to the unconscious man himself, he was still wearing his pyjamas, an ugly printed-out bear face stared up at her from the shirt. His hair was unkept and greasy and a small dent had started to form in the memory foam mattress where he lay.

”S-Serizawa Katsuya” came the reply after a pause.

“Ok Serizawa, we’re going to get him to the ambulance and then I’m gonna ask you some questions.”

She pulled an oxygen mask out of a colleagues hands and started untangling the tubing. Another paramedic wrapped a blood pressure cuff round the casualty’s arm. The other tilted his chin up and held a hand below his nostrils, checking his breathing.

”Is that alright?” She asked, and shot an inquiring look towards him. 

***

Serizawa took a shuddering breath, and steeled himself.

”yes, that’s alright.”

She nodded, and pressed the mask against the conman's face. The other two paramedics finished their checks, and conversed in hushed murmurs. They then nodded in agreement. Perfectly in sync, they picked him up and slid him into a stretcher. The sight reminded Serizawa of factory workers lifting bags of grain, transporting objects that could not move or feel, carried always with too- rough hands. Such a careless action felt completely alien for the person on the receiving end, a being of sound and sensation, and he briefly found himself thinking of the terror of watching your own body being treated as nothing but an object, of how those around you could not hear you scream as the scalpel cut open your skin like a fruit, of their faces remaining unchanged as you could never resist. You, reduced to less than human.

As they wheeled Reigen out of the door, Serizawa stopped dragging his feet, he quickened his pace, steps turning from 2 a second to 4 a second until he was walking right beside the stretcher. Slowly, bravely, he reached out a hand and wrapped it round his friend's forearm, round a small gap where the sleeve had rolled up, a raw, pale patch of skin. He could feel a heartbeat, weak, but still there, it thrummed like wings against the bars of a cage. He was still there, he was still alive, that was all that mattered.

Serizawa squeezed his fingers tight, and hoped that somewhere, anywhere wherever he was, it had been received.

He did not let go of Reigen’s arm until they reached the hospital.

Chapter Text

“MRIs or Magnetic Resonance Imaging is often used to take scans of the brain. The machine works by emitting a strong magnetic field that forces the protons in the body to align to form an image. The key things you need to memorise-“

Mob did not hear any of the droning as he sat half asleep in a too-warm classroom on a wet Monday afternoon. Most of his focus, in fact, was spent on psychoanalysing the birds at the window. Three crows perched in a trio on a cherry tree branch, still as marble in spite of the hammering rain. He noted this as strange, over the past few weeks any bird that came under his gaze was jittery, alert, and quick to flee, usually at anything louder than a snapped twig.

As wild animals should be.

Yet these birds didn’t do that, they didn’t even flinch at the swaying of the branch.

Mob mourned the absence of Mezato and her artistic eye. This could make a competition-winning photograph.

“Mr Kageyama”

Maybe they were spirits? That would explain their peculiarities.

”Mr Kageyama?”

Oh wait, they’re visibly soggy. They’re corporeal. 

“Shigeo”

Mob flinched, he had been caught daydreaming again. By this point he knew the drill, stand up, bumble the wrong answer, sit down, pray to be struck by lightning.

He took a deep breath, and prepared himself to meet twenty odd mocking students and one exasperated teacher.

What he did not expect to see ,in fact, was his brother standing at the door.

The pale light from the window engulfed his silhouette, the shadow that broke such a wall of grey too rigid, every joint seemed to be locked in place.

“Ritsu has informed me you have gotten a call from the office, you are free to go” the teacher announced, wiping chalk from the whiteboard with a dusty hand.

Slowly, Mob packed up his things, a dog- eared textbook, a pen with a broccoli on the end, an assortment of grey markers, then shuffled across the classroom with a curious urgency. He knew full well the rigidity of the Japanese school day, and of the emergency needed to break it, whatever had pulled him out of Biology was not something to anticipate.

Ritsu tapped his foot in a rapid drum- beat and fixed his gaze on his brother. He had stuck on a smile, misshapen on his usually stoic face , a convincing cover. But his eyes were strained in a way that carried a soundless message.

”We need to be somewhere, and fast” 

Mob reached the doorway and they walked out into the hall. The rattling of rain reverberated around the empty school halls, he felt encased in the sound as they walked towards the office, shoes thumping and echoing against the shiny white floor. Muffled monotonal conversation swelled and faded as they passed classrooms.

Ritsu chewed at his lip, a nervous tic that had left the skin on his bottom lip scarred and flaky.

”-I” He started, and then stopped, scrambling for the right words.

”we-“ “You got a call from Serizawa. That’s what the secretary told me.”

” Shishou calls me for work emergencies .”

”Don’t call him Shishou, he doesn’t deserve it.”

”I’m used to it, it feels weird to stop now.”

” Yeah but…., Look that’s not the point. What I’m trying to tell you is that she told me, ….that he told her that….”

”What?”

”Well….”

Ritsu stopped walking , his eyes flitted from one point of space to another. Meeting anything but his brothers gaze.

”God why me.Why do I have to tell you” He muttered under his breath

Mob stopped walking too, and shot a curious glance at him.

Ritsu took a tight breath and balled up his fists. The gesture was preparatory, but it made him look even more scared.

”Reigen’s in the hospital”

There was a pause, in which the rain seemed to grow louder.

”For a checkup?” Mob asked.

Ritsu shook his head, he blurted out the rest ,as if the words themselves were going to explode in his throat.

”He’s unconscious, Serizawa found him out cold this morning but no one knows the cause.”

Mob said nothing.

”They’ve got him under for some scans right now so who knows how long we’ll have to wait. I have no clue how we’ll get there though, maybe I could call dad or something??”

Ritsu’s brow creased in worry. He shot a sidelong glance.

”But seriously, Nii- san are you ok?”

There was a few seconds in which Mob stood very still and made very little noise. His gaze stared into some far off foreign place and Ritsu wondered if his brother’s consciousness was even present at all. 

Then came the reply in a voice that was barely there.

”I don’t know Ritsu.”

He marched forwards automatically, and Ritsu trailed right by his side. None of them said a word as they reached reception, none of them said a word as they signed out and none of them said a word as they walked out the school into a torrential city afternoon. 

Ritsu was constantly flicking his eyes towards his brother, searching for any signs of distress. A curled lip, a creased eye, a sag in his posture, any excuse for him to swoop in and show that he would always be there for him, a reassurance he had emptily promised for years up until now.

He found nothing.

They waited in the pouring rain. Ritsu pulled out an umbrella and held it over the two of them, shifted ever so slightly so that not a drop of rain fell onto Mob. He flicked the raindrops off his exposed shoulder and checked yet again for a sign that he was needed. Still nothing.

They waited for what felt like hours until a taxi rolled up to greet them, a sleek black Nissan with the windows blacked out. Ritsu wasn’t entirely sure if this was for them, and braced himself for an attempted kidnapping until the driver rolled the window down.

The driver of the taxi did not match his vehicle at all, he was a portly man of his 60’s and was the proud owner of a spectacular pot belly to rival even the most impressive dad bod. He had a face that was set into a square, a protruding jaw, and a heavy brow that gave him a popeye-like profile. Most of the wrinkles on his face seemed to suggest that he spent most of his time frowning, at traffic most likely.

None of this mattered at the moment however, because the first thing they noticed was the neon flashes of scarlet across his cheeks.

”Yo” he barked in dimple’s voice “Need a ride?”

“Seri sent me to come get you so here I am. I pretty much had to learn how to drive on the fly.”

Dimple backed the car into a rubbish bin. An expensive sounding crunch rang from the boot.

”I don’t see why humans have to get a license for this thing this is eeeaaaassyyyyy. Man is this guy hard to pilot though, he’s got arthritis everywhere, I’m in agony as we speak.”

He drove the car forwards into a lamppost. 

“ Good thing the drive is short though. Shigeo, Oi Shigeo you know how to work a satnav right? Shigeo?”

Mob didn’t respond. He sat with his bag in his lap, staring out the window.

“Can you wave your hand in front of him?” Dimple asked, turning to Ritsu. “Or punch him or something, I don’t know what your boundaries are.”

Ritsu frowned, the evil spirits tone was way too casual for the circumstances they were in. It was insensitive.

”I’m not doing that, he needs space.”

”Yeah well he’s got a head full of air anyways so there’s enough space in there. Do you know how to use this thing by any chance?”

”I’m only doing that when you show him a little respect for once.”

”Whaddya mean?? I do??”

”Explain ‘airhead’ then.”

Dimple pinched his brow and gave a very long and theatrical sigh. Which he clearly wasn’t used to because he started choking on the inhale.

”Look, kid.” He sighed “we don’t have a lotta time. You know I don’t actually mean any of the things I call your brother. He’s a great kid, I’m just trying to lighten the mood.”

”Why?”

”Because as a spirit you see a lot of doom and gloom with death and illness and all that. It bogs you down if you let it get to you, it gets tiring.”

Dimple twisted himself so he was facing both of the boys.

”So I’ll lift what I can.”

Ritsu didn’t say anything for a bit, neither did mob. None of them knew how to reply.

”Press the set destination button, then type in ‘herb hospital. Don’t press the one next to it, that’s the sos button.” Ritsu said, indicating the targets with a point.

”How long is the drive?” Asked Mob as Dimple punched in the letters.

He squinted at the screen.

”Well I’m not blind but with these cataracts I might as well be. Uhhhhh 10 minutes?”

“Ok.”

”Ok?”

”Ok.”

”Sweet, let’s go.”

Half an hour later, the remnants of a taxi clawed it's way into the parking lot. The car itself was covered in so many dents and scratches that the average onlooker couldn’t even tell that it had been painted black in the first place. Both front doors had been torn off, a tree had somehow lodged itself into the windshield, and the windows had so many cracks in them that they had become fully opaque. An acrid vantablack smoke squeezed it’s way out of every orifice

It trundled its way into an empty space on what was left of its wheels, then crumpled from exhaustion. Dimple collapsed out of one of the doorways, choking and gesturing frantically for his passengers to clamber out of the disaster.

”Go!” He screamed “ Run! Run!”

The Kageyamas followed suit, and they all bolted away from the wreckage as if it were a live grenade. 

After a few seconds, they paused to catch their breath. Ritsu sank down onto the steps of the hospital entrance, wiping both sweat and rain from his brow. Mob leaned on top of the railing, completely limp like a dead fish.

”That…” wheezed Dimple, both hands on his knees. “That’ll buff out, I’m sure we can still save it yeah?”

The car burst into flames.

They all stared at it dumbly.

No one said anything for a very long time.

“Does……. does he have insurance?” Ritsu finally asked, his voice taut with concern.

”God I hope so” Dimple replied. “Let’s go”

The waiting room itself was nothing exceptional, clean white floors, clean white walls, clean green chairs and the occasional mysterious stain standard of the average clinical practice. This sterile design gave way to the true star of the atmosphere. The hospital was a building that burst at the seams with emotions, euphoria on the good days, grief on the worst. 

In this room, it was dread. 

Dread pasted so heavy into the air that they could taste it, a thick, heavy flavour on the tongue that left the mouth coated in grit long after it was gone. It was tasteless and odourless to everyone but those three, who felt it press in on all sides like water at the bottom of the sea.

Gentle but suffocating, a deep blue-black.

Time was moving both too slow and too fast, every heartbeat a lifetime, every footstep both miniscule and mountainous, nothing became everything and everything became nothing, the situation was a contradiction. This was an emergency, seconds were irreplicable but they were rushing towards something, no, someone that could shatter life itself, someone with the name and face so ingrained into their memory lying motionless, his eyes empty, tubes stretching out his skin, jaw pale slack and silent. The thought was revolting, so no one could bear to think of it, the best they could do was delay, delay until they couldn't anymore, until they just had to face it.

They reached the desk far too soon.

The woman behind it looked 20- something, she sported a smile that was surprisingly genuine. Mob found a little comfort in this, Ritsu found it unnerving. Dimple leaned forward and spoke.

"Have you admitted a man in his 20's lately? Arataka, short, kind of fruity, very good at yapping?"

The receptionist's smile faltered a little.

"We've admitted an Arataka yes, are you associated with him?"

"Unfortunately"

" How so?"

"We're his co-workers."

The receptionist squinted at the two barely- teen kids in front of her, then decided it was not worth looking into.

" So I'm also assuming you're associated with Serizawa Katsuya as well? He named himself a co-worker too."

"Unfortunately him too yes, I've got confirmation."

"No its fine he already confirmed. The waiting room on floor 3, they've finished up the tests so you should be able to visit him."

They thanked her and walked through the doorways and up the stairs to floor three. Dimple abandoned the driver at the bottom of the stairs, not wanting to risk breaking one of his already inflamed joints. The climb was long, but not tiring and they reached the top floor in record time.

The entire waiting room had pristinely shined floors that mirrored everything in an inverted blur. It was wide, empty, and eerily silent, save for a haggard man in a navy suit and an orange tie. He sat with his back to the trio, seemingly asleep until he heard them approach.

Serizawa was not in good shape.

New lines had rapidly appeared in his face, he looked at least 20 years older if not more. His hair was matted, his posture taut, his eyes bloodshot as if he hadn't slept in days, he was thoroughly soaked, the knees of his suit torn through with bloody scrapes underneath. His entire body was trembling but he hadn't seemed to have noticed, or perhaps he didn't care, the nurses had offered him a hot drink and white towel to try and help a little, both lay untouched on the seat beside him.

"S-sorry to pull you out of school " He stuttered, the tremors chattering his teeth. He clambered to his feet and waved stiffly at them "We-"

Both the towel and drink started to rise behind him. 

"They said we can go see him now-w, they moved him to room 42, w-which is just in front of me, conveniently."

The towel started to twist itself in knots.

"I, I mean I can totally understand if you don't want to, it's a l-lot I mean for a kid and I can let you know-w If he's erm...."

Rips started to tear in the fabric.

" If he's ok? I mean he is obviously he is. He's always ok in the end what am I saying haha. What I meant to say is how he's um, doing."

The towel tore clean in two with a loud rip, Serizawa jumped.

" Sorry, old habits I'm so sorry, it's just the stress, sorry."

Mob walked forward and grabbed the towel, swiping in swooping arcs across the floor to mop off the coffee. He spoke after a few seconds, eyes still downturned towards the spillage.

" You have nothing to apologise for."

It took him a few moments to clean up the rest but when he did he stood up, wiped his hands on his jacket and beelined towards 42, stopping just short of the closed sliding door. Everyone else followed, they all crowded round the entrance, flanking him.

Ritsu pulled an arm up and wrapped it tightly round his brother's shoulders, as if to protect him from anything and everything. Serizawa did the same, his shaky grip tightening in reassurance, he bobbed a small but firm nod towards him. Dimple floated in front of his vision, eyes locked.

"Ready?"

Mob took a deep breath, held it, then exhaled.

"Yes".

He raised his hand, and gripped the handle.

Chapter Text

(Placeholder)

”Guys I’m alive!” Reigen screamed as he rose evangelically from the hospital bed

“ What the skibidi” said Mob “ Thats so sigma Shishou.”

”No one gives a shit” said Dimple.

“Kys” said Ritsu 

“Ahh kids these days” said Reigen, scratching his head. He was wearing one of this hospital gown things with an exposed back so as he turned around he revealed his MASSIVE gyatt to the room.

Everyone but him was instantly vaporised, think of the ash baby that’s what they looked like.

”Hmmm, where’s my wonderful husband Serizawa.” Reigen said as he turned back round. Serizawa was reduced to a pile of ash.

”Aw what the yaoi” He exclaimed “ not my husband.” 

And then Sans undertale walked in 

“eeeeeeeeeeee” said he.

”well alright then” said Reigen.

Then they had another twitter poll and some old important old person died or something idk.

the end.

Chapter Text

skibidi toilet ohio rizz (to fill in the character limit)