Chapter Text
Oh, he was whipped. Like actually so obsessed. It had been two days since he saw that absolutely gorgeous stranger on the subway, but Reigen couldn’t keep his mind off them — it was like he was possessed. He even asked Dimple if he was playing tricks on him, but the green spirit concluded that he had a crush, a pathetic one at that.
Work was always slow, so Reigen could daydream all he wanted. He could stare at the wall in silence for hours, just fantasising about what he’d say if they met, or that they would talk to Reigen first and tell him they thought he was cute… Stuff you’d think about when you’re deep in a crush and can’t get out, you know?
Reigen saw his crush a few more times that week. They usually took the same subway line as him, but Reigen always felt like it was fate whenever they stepped into the same carriage, even though it really was random. That person never even looked his way, because, well, they didn’t know Reigen existed. Every time he saw them, Reigen always hyped himself up to wiggle through the busy crowd of passengers and introduce himself to the stranger, but he never actually did it. They had the same train station they had to go to, so they stepped out of the subway at the same time, but Reigen always told himself that it was ‘impossible’ to walk up to them, because the sea of passengers exiting the train separated them, and then Reigen couldn’t find them anymore. On some days, Reigen spotted them taking the tram down south, so he always looked at the tram stop to see if he could catch even a glimpse of them. Perhaps he looked like a lunatic for jolting his head left and right to see over the heads of the busy office workers of Seasoning City in the early morning, but Reigen had little worry about his public image — as long as he could start the day with seeing their face, it was okay!
Dimple took interest in Reigen’s crush at the office, especially after it took Mob a few times of calling him and waving his hand in front of his face to snap Reigen out of it, and when Mob asked him what he was thinking about, he simply laughed it off awkwardly. It was a completely different side of Reigen that he never really saw. Usually he was stupid, but this took it to another level. With every customer that came in, Reigen jumped out of his seat as if that stranger would be the one to walk through the door. Big surprise, it never was them.
“You know you’re pathetic right?”
The green spirit had his arms crossed and clicked his tongue when Reigen was spacing out once again. He snapped his fingers in front of the man’s face, and it brought him back to reality. Reigen shook his head to get rid of his thoughts, but to no avail, as they kept crawling back into the foreground. Reigen put his face in the palms of his hands, groaning in it as if it would remove his fantasies. It didn’t!
“Is this person really so attractive that they got you like this?” Dimple’s voice held genuine interest, as well as still wanting to tease him. “You gotta take a picture of them, I need to judge.” The spirit hovered over Reigen’s head, who dropped his head on his desk, letting out another groan.
“If it was socially acceptable to take pictures of strangers, I would have done that already,” Reigen replied. “But in this society, I’d be a creep.”
“You’re already a creep,” Dimple said, raising his eyebrow. “You dressed up as a teenage girl trying to get into an all-girl middle school.” Reigen ignored this comment.
“I can literally not do anything about it,” Reigen sighed, speaking as if he’s monologuing instead of talking to Dimple. “I’ll never interact with them. Guess that’s just the way it is, huh.”
He jumped back in his chair when Dimple suddenly flicked him on the forehead, his nose scrunched and his teeth showing. “Pathetic, I tell ya!” the spirit said, hitting him on the head a few more times before Reigen waved Dimple away as if he was a fart. Reigen glared at him, partly because he knew that Dimple was right, and that there certainly was something he could do about it — he was just too much of a pussy to actually do it. “How hard is it to make a friend?” Dimple muttered, though he was not one to talk lmfaoooo!
“Every time I see them, I always feel like, ‘This time I’ll really talk to them!’ and then the doors of the subway open and I just never do it.” Reigen let out another sigh. The thing was, Reigen believed that he would be able to do it if he had the experience — if he went through something like this before. But deep down, he knew that was another pathetic excuse he gave himself. “How do I even do this?” The question was aimed at himself, because he knew that Dimple would be no help in this situation.
“Have you ever even made eye contact with them?” Dimple asked.
“No,” Reigen responded, still lost in thought.
“So they’ve probably never even seen you before,” Dimple said. “Like, they don’t even know you exist. Man, you don’t stand out. You’re just some boring guy on the subway… Well, even if they knew how eccentric you truly are, I don’t think that’d work in your favour.”
Reigen looked at Dimple. “Really?” An idea sparked, but he needed balls to do it.
“No one would date a con man like you,” Dimple said, not knowing that you, the reader, are probably reading this because you want to date a con man like Reigen — or you’re my friend who was forced to read this.
“Maybe you’re right,” (no he isn’t), “but that’s a problem for later. I just need some way to get their number. Then my natural charm will do the trick.”
“Natural charm of a wet rat,” Dimple mumbled, but once again, Reigen ignored any comments that weren’t beneficial to him. “What are you gonna do to get their number? You can’t even say hello to them.”
Reigen clapped his hands together, then spread his arms out like he was preaching to a church. “Dimple, my friend, I have a plan.”
Question marks were all around Dimple, but he decided not to push further — this conversation was getting boring, and if he wanted to be entertained, he’d have to actually witness Reigen’s shenanigans first-hand. “And when are you going to execute this plan?”
“Tomorrow morning, I promise,” the blond man replied. “This time, I’m really gonna do it.”
“Don’t say stuff like that. You sound like you’re going to kill yourself.”
“I might if this doesn’t work out.”
Dimple raised his eyebrows. “Huh. Well, we can haunt Shigeo together.”
“I wasn’t actually serious. I have money to make, and I can’t make money if I’m dead.” He waved Dimple away again. “Alright, I’m going back to work. You’ve distracted me enough.”
“You haven’t been working for two hours,” Dimple said, “even before I started talking to you.” But his comment was not received as Reigen was staring at the opposite wall again, heads in the clouds, god knows what he was thinking about. “Whatever.” He floated off, most likely to find Mob at school.
The next morning, Reigen was nearly shitting his pants when he remembered what he promised himself (and Dimple) to do today. He was going to do it. Yes, he was going to do it. This morning, he would know no shame, and he would simply live with the consequences of his actions. Under the shower, Reigen contemplated on whether or not he should do it. But you gotta live a little, right? Besides, if this worked out, this would be a really good love story that they could tell everyone they meet. It would also be some sort of life lesson for Mob — just do it, don’t be ashamed. Though Reigen’s plan was… well, a little direct and forward. He had planned to walk up to his subway crush and hold out his phone, asking for their number. It was kind of weird, actually, but maybe they liked the weirdness and directness, and maybe they’d be flattered…? Ough, Reigen was just coming up with things to encourage himself not to bail on his own plan. He was tired of having to daydream all the time about this person, he just wanted to have an interaction to look back on — whether it would be a great one, or one that he wished he could forget.
On his way to the subway station, Reigen saw Dimple floating his way. God, not this annoying snot again. When Dimple hovered by Reigen’s shoulder, he had a smirk on his face. “I’m here so you don’t chicken out,” he said. “And so I can see you fall flat on your face.”
“Urgh…”
“Don’t worry, when things go wrong, I’ll say some nice stuff to you to comfort you after I finish laughing.” This was followed by Dimple’s cackling, which was not appreciated by Reigen.
They made their way to the subway. It was already rather crowded, but it would only get more packed than this. Reigen’s subway crush got on two stations from Reigen’s, and they both had to get out at the central station. Reigen stood between his fellow passengers, his phone in his hand. Dimple noticed that he was trembling.
“You’ll be fine,” he said, “you’re just going to ask for their number. Not a big deal.”
Reigen looked Dimple’s way and opened his mouth, but talking to thin air would probably get weird looks from the people around him. Instead, he typed something on his phone, and showed Dimple.
“ You have been a spirit for as long as you can remember. You don’t even know how this works! ”
Dimple shrugged. “True, but still.”
“ Not still! Stop pretending you know what this is like… ”
The doors of the carriage opened, and this was the moment Reigen’s crush always came in. He tiptoed to look over people’s heads and saw… nobody interesting. His crush wasn’t in this carriage!
“No way,” he whispered to himself, then he started typing on his phone again. “ They’re not here. They must be in another car. ”
“What are you going to do?” Dimple asked. “Look for them when you get out?”
Reigen let out a deep sigh. Honestly, his plan was not at all thought out. He thought he’d walk up to his crush in his crazy crowd and ask for their number, but if he was rejected, that’d be ridiculous, because he’d have to stay next to them for the rest of the ride, and that’d be too awkward. So his next — and only — chance was to look for them before they stepped on the tram, and shoot his shot there. God, he was nervous! Dimple pointed out Reigen’s sweaty back, which looked terrible — he hoped Reigen had a spare suit at the office.
With a sweaty back, Reigen finally got out of the subway, looking around to see if he could catch his crush walking somewhere among this sea of people.
“What do they look like?” Dimple asked, looking around as well, but no idea what he was supposed to be looking for. “Geez, this is hopeless.”
Reigen practically jumped up and down to see over the people’s heads, earning him some judgemental glances, but people walked past just as quickly. And then, by the stairs, Reigen let out a sharp gasp that almost choked him. He coughed, and tried to subtly point at the person halfway up the stairs. Dimple raced towards them, inspecting their face and pointing at them to ask for Reigen’s confirmation. Reigen nodded, out of breath from jumping and choking.
Dimple had his finger on his chin as he hovered in front of the subway crush’s face. “Yeah, Reigen doesn’t stand a chance,” he muttered.
He looked at the stairs, where Reigen finally emerged from, sweating profusely and overall not looking very attractive at the moment. “I’m not sure if I’m ready for the second-hand embarrassment,” Dimple said, furrowing his eyebrows as Reigen slowly walked towards Dimple. The man had to pause to catch his breath.
“Did a flight of stairs kill you? You’re so not ready for sex,” Dimple sighed, floating out of the way so that Reigen could see his subway crush stand at the tram station, waiting for their tram to arrive. “Well, they’re standing there. What are you waiting for?”
Reigen’s panting was the only response Dimple got.
“What, you left your balls at home?”
He received a painful look from Reigen. Reigen looked at the ground, letting out a deep sigh, his hands on his knees as he got himself together. “I should really do it, huh? I need to do it.”
“Yeah, you told me you’d do it.”
“Yep, I should just do it.”
Dimple looked at him without saying anything. Reigen continued. “I should walk up to them and just say hi, and ask for their number. Yeah, I should do that, that’d be wise.”
A few more minutes of Reigen’s ramblings that passerby had learned to ignore passed by and Dimple was getting annoyed. He pointed at the tram station. “The tram might come any minute!” The spirit was practically shouting at Reigen, increasingly irritated by Reigen’s foolishness. “If you didn’t want to do it, then you shouldn’t have promised! Don’t you know it’s bad luck breaking a promise to a spirit?” He completely made that up.
Reigen looked at his crush from afar once again, taking in their beauty, knowing that they’d never look his way. “I wonder if I can guess their number,” Reigen muttered, which earned him a flick on his forehead from Dimple.
That was when the sound of the tram finally snapped Reigen out of it — the tram was slowly making its way to his subway crush’s station, and Reigen had no choice but to act right at that moment or live with the bad luck that Dimple would unleash on him if he broke his promise. Reigen held his head between his two hands and panicked. What the hell was he supposed to do?!
“ GO! ” Dimple screamed, and the sharpness and loudness of his voice caused Reigen to sprint towards the tram, which his subway crush was already stepping in. He ran like his life depended on it — well, it kind of did, since Dimple would probably curse him if he didn’t! There were a few times he almost tripped and fell, but Reigen recovered from this as smoothly as he could, and kept running. By the time he got to the tram, the doors were already shut, and it was just waiting to leave.
This did not stop Reigen.
He found where his crush was sitting — alone, by the window, headphones on and listening to music. Reigen knocked on the glass and waved like a lunatic, finally catching their attention. They turned to him — this was the very first time Reigen and his crush made eye contact. It froze him for a brief moment, but this tram was going to move any second, so he got himself out of it.
Reigen gave them a smile, the most awkward and stupid smile on earth, especially with his heavy breathing from sprinting all the way from the subway station to the tram station. He made a heart with his hand, to which his crush tilted their head slightly, and looked at him with a confused, but kind smile. Then, as Reigen got his phone out, and put it on the dial screen, the tram started moving.
He held his hand out, hoping that they could see the screen. As the tram sped up, Reigen also started running, just to catch a glimpse of their reaction. The only thing he could see was them putting a hand on their chest, but the rest of his view was obscured by the light reflection on the glass window. Reigen ran as fast as he could to properly see what they were doing or saying, but he couldn’t make out any of it. Then, he tripped, falling face flat onto the ground, and the tram left.
It took him a few seconds to get up in defeat — all of Seasoning City had seen his blunder, and this was embarrassing to live with. Hopefully no one recorded him doing this, because that would be disastrous. Then, after dusting off his suit, Reigen walked away from the tram station as if nothing happened — while fighting back the tears, obviously.
“Man,” Dimple chuckled as Reigen walked past him, “that was really hard to watch. But, you did it!”
Reigen straightened his tie. “Right, let’s pretend that never happened,” he responded, his tone completely flat. He was drenched in sweat, but one of the many talents of Reigen Arataka was pretend like everything was perfectly fine even after a desparate attempt of trying to get someone’s number, and then failing miserably in the end. He would be fine! He just had to live with the embarrassment for a week or so.
That afternoon, when Mob came in the office, he showed Reigen a video on his phone that Ritsu sent him. “Shishou, is that you?” The video was titled ‘ Guy tries to get someone’s number and falls on his face! ’. Reigen did not speak any more for the rest of the day.