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"It's getting dark..." the blonde sluggishly states to himself.
A frigid breeze blew past him. It gave him goosebumps everywhere but his face because for whatever reason he couldn't really feel it. Whenever he would bury his face in his own hands it didn't feel like it was his. Like it was misplaced. He felt as if he wasn't alive.
There Reigen sat (though hardly even able to keep himself upright) next to a headstone of which the words engraved have been weathering overtime. His legs were starting to strain from the hours he's spent in the exact same position, near unmoving except for the hand he's using to hold a bottle. He promised himself he shouldn't be drinking so much, but another part of him would argue he was coping just fine. It wasn't like there was anyone to stop him now anyway. Just like how there wasn't anyone to stop Mob.
Recently he would lose track of time running every scenario in his head thinking of ways where he could've done better.
He remembers it so vividly, how the kids he swore to take home safe were cornered by the division leaders. The look of fear to them. How distressed his own kid looked. How he had his hand reaching out to the boy just a second too late, his words barely making it to the other side, eyes straining from the bright flashing lights that followed.
He remembers how he woke up in the midst of a vast crater where the headquarters should've been. Nearly everything in sight has been destroyed or damaged, all but the very ground he blacked out on. He noticed the dust hung heavy in the air, though that could've also been an excuse to look everywhere but down. The fight was over, and he caught on quickly. He just didn't want to confirm his hunch, that everyone was dead except him. He remembers it all too well. He wants to forget, yet here he was taking a swig from the bottle for every time he felt unwanted tears well up behind his eyes.
The look the Kageyama parents gave him felt equally as worse as he did when he was met with that realization. To tell the siblings' family about the death of their kids was something he never would've hoped to do one day. Especially to someone who brought it upon himself to be their guardian, the sheer anger towards him that the parents tried so hard to supress didn't go all unnoticed. They had to tolerate him for the next few weeks just so they could arrange a funeral and stopped coming in contact with him entirely. He really couldn't blame them for feeling that way. If the explosion was going to happen anyway he honestly just wished that he went down with it.
Though wish as he will, he's still well aware he's not able to change what happened. He couldn't do anything about it. That same thought used to give him such an overwhelming sense of dread that no amount of cigarettes could deal with that he nearly got himself killed on several, separate occasions. He didn't hospitalize himself, no. "In this economy?" he'd tell himself. Depending on how it went, attempted suicides are expensive. Though as it stands he would have to follow through a plan that could risk injury in case it failed.
At last, he finally got himself to stand up from his spot. He stumbles dramatically, swaying in every direction before settling as if he was one with the dead leaves that were slightly trembling from the wind. There was certainly an attempt at wiping the grass off his pants. Then he would get irritated at how he can't fully control his motor functions as if he didn't put himself in that situation in the first place. He very drunkenly exits the good old buried corpse galore, as he likes to call it instead of the proper title, before the mist would quickly turn into a fog. He pitched his bottle to the nearest parapet hoping it would shatter so as to feel something. Instead it made a pathetic "clink" sound as it bounces off the side and rolled off the pavement. He mutters a swear under his breath, waiting for a bus to stop by. Clearly having no plans to dispose of the bottle properly.
Reigen would earn glares from a couple of passengers here and there including the driver on the way to his office. They would mumble to each other as if he couldn't hear them. He was drunk, not deaf. He hasn't had one day of sobriety for the past few weeks, he was getting used to it. At the very least he had a reason to be like this, that's how he would validate himself.
He stumbled (again) once he arrived at the building. There was an obvious struggle between walking up the stairs and looking for the keys. He doesn't even know why he's here. He was supposed to go home, something just compelled him to visit his office again. It's been a while since he did. Suspecting clients simply assumed it got completely abandoned.
Reigen cracked the door open, with some intergalactically far-fetched hope that he would once again find the middle schooler enjoying his lesiure time with a couple of his friends over, circling around his desk as he waits for his so-called mentor. Back when the kids didn't have any problems bigger than school. When they still had a future. With some sort of sliver chance that Reigen was feeling disconnected from reality because this isn't how everything ends, that he was just having a terrible nightmare and things would go back to normal when he'd wake up.
...
He's back in his apartment. That was a horrible idea. He didn't realize how much he hadn't legitimately processed until he saw how empty and dull the office looked. It was filled with every reminder of the boy. He remembered how Mob would forget to put his books back in his bag before clocking out. He remembered how he finally fixed the one broken tile he's been putting off because Mob kept tripping on it. He remembered how Mob would talk about the spirit always floating around his shoulder. He remembered Mob. The only friend he's made since forever, the only person who was able to make such an impact on his life was now gone. As much as he wanted to spare himself from the crushing weight of guilt and grief, he couldn't forget. How could he?
Thousands of thoughts cross his mind all at once. Why did it come to this? What was my error? Why did I act on it too late? Why couldn't I save at least one? Why did I have to survive yet they didn't? What was I even worth? Reigen Arataka, titled "Greatest Psychic of the 21st Century", couldn't do anything about it. He could barely see living past today. He felt like he was dying, his head spun, he was dizzy, his head was pounding, he felt as if he was going to collapse anytime.
Just right before he completely broke down he felt something in his throat. He rushes to the bathroom, bouncing off the walls as he did so. He began vomitting in the toilet consecutively, as if he had anything else to throw up other than alcohol. Shit. He threw up a ton. And by God it was so painful, but he tells himself it was deserved. It was almost enough to get him to sober up.
Every single day it just gets worse. He was hopeless. He wanted to cry then and there but he really couldn't. He needed someone. Anyone.
...But he was right back where he was 4 years ago. He remembered when he used to be lonely, he would laugh at himself.
Now look where it got him.