Chapter Text
Saitama adjusted the hat sitting on his head. His skin was so slick that the thing threatened to fall off if he so much as twitched.
“So.” Reigen, the man sitting across the desk, crossed his legs. “You say you’re cursed because you don’t feel emotions anymore.”
“Um, well, maybe,” Saitama said. “I guess.”
“You guess? What’s that supposed to mean? Are you being haunted, or not?”
Saitama’s blank stare could undermine the enthusiasm of millions. “Well, like, you’re the psychic. You tell me.”
Reigen’s red hair bristled, and he pulled at his collar like the temperature in the room was getting to him all of a sudden despite the vent blasting frigid air on him from above. “I mean, well, it doesn’t work like that- not all spirits are visible, not even to my trained eye! They have signs, like symptoms!” He made a grandiose gesture towards himself. “My abilities are more suited to sleuthing out that kind of ghost to know the most effective way to use my powers- and keep me from melting you by accident along with the spirit!”
“Dude,” Saitama said.
“Yes, exorcism is a much more complex procedure than most people assume!” Reigen flashed a deceptively bright smile.
“No, I mean that this sounds super bogus.”
Reigen’s pallor turned spectral. Then he cleared his throat and introduced some color back into his cheeks. “W-well, if that’s all you wanted to tell me, then why, pray tell, did you come to my office, sir?”
Saitama opened his mouth, and then closed it. The hat perched on his head slid forward and shaded his eyes in a harsh, dramatic slash across his face. “Well, I guess I figured since I couldn’t riddle it out by myself, that there might be something else to it. See, I’ve gotten really strong lately. Monstrously strong.” His dark eyes peered up at Reigen. “I mean, I wanted to be strong, but I’m, like, unreal strong. At first I thought it was because of my training, but then...” He brought a shaking hand up to the brim of his hat, and ripped it off like one would remove a wax strip from sensitive skin.
Reigen stifled his horrified, high-pitched gasp with a hand to his mouth and another one to the strands of his own full head of bright, healthy hair.
“I know,” Saitama said, stress burning deep, dark gashes beneath his wide, horrified eyes . “It’s been gone for like a year. This is what I look like now. I don’t even wax it, but this is what I look like now.”
“You poor man,” Reigen uttered. “You’re cursed, definitely!” He tossed a forearm over his eyes and stretched an imploring hand out to his client. “With the worst possible kind of curse!”
Saitama’s back straightened in his seat like the bones in his body were terrified for him. “So it is something supernatural?”
“Yes!” Reigen threw his head back and peered at Saitama through his parted fingers. “It’s the curse of bad genetics!”
Somewhere, a cat yowled in distinct displeasure. Saitama stood out of his chair and turned towards the door.
Reigen all but tripped out of his chair and scurried to get in front of Saitama. “Wait, wait! I never said I couldn’t get rid of it!” His toes danced above the linoleum as Saitama picked him up and moved him out of the way like he were made of feathers. “Ack!”
“I don’t have the energy to deal with you, man. Let me get my coat from the rack behind your kid there, and then I’ll leave and we can pretend like this never happened.” Saitama dropped his human load, and Reigen steadied himself on his assistant Shigeo’s shoulder.
“I’m not his son,” the boy said, his dull eyes lingering on Saitama’s shoulder, “and I wouldn’t say you’re cursed, but there is a ghost following you.”
Reigen’s fingers attacked his collar again, and then carded through the hair on the back of his neck with the fury of a thousand disillusioned housewives on Valentine’s Day. “Yeah! See, I was, uh, just getting to that! I had been kidding about the other thing!” He laughed airily. “Mob, tell this noble gentleman more about his ghost, would you?”
“The ghost wants you to help it get stronger. It also wants to be noticed- he’s been screaming at you both for the past fifteen minutes,” Shigeo said, this time pointing to thin air.
Of course, in Shigeo’s eyes, there was definitely something there- a humanoid form about the size of a housecat, with a shock of pale, lively hair and a face red from exasperation. “And you couldn’t have said something about me earlier?”
Another ghost, this one green and ugly and nothing but a face with symmetrical spots of red staining its cheeks, floated over Shigeo’s shoulder and gave an appraising look to Saitama’s specter. “A runty little thing.”
Saitama’s ghost slugged his inspector square in his broad nose.
Reigen chuckled. “Go ahead and eat it, Dimple.”
“Eat me?!” The little ghost latched on to Saitama’s neck.
“Dimple?” Saitama asked, glancing left, and then right, and then pointing to himself. “My name’s Saitama, but what’s this about food? And,” he patted his neck, his fingers temporarily squashing his tiny hitchhiker, “did something fall on my shoulder?”
Shigeo shook his head, his expression hypnotizingly serious. “No, Dimple’s the ghost that follows me around sometimes.”
“Y’mean there’s,” Saitama shivered, and was suddenly hit with the same need to adjust his collar that Reigen suffered from, much to the dismay of the spirit occupying the same space, “another ghost?”
Meanwhile, two tiny arms shot out from where Dimple’s ears should be, and he reached for his prey’s neck. He was denied, and the two ghosts entered an intense swatting fight.
“Dimple, stop it,” Shigeo instructed, holding up his hand and compelling Dimple to move away from Saitama’s shoulder as if by magic. The blonde ghost blew a raspberry.
Reigen’s smile reappeared on his face. “I see you understand now, good sir, what we psychics defend against! Spirits are all around us, and--”
Saitama clamped a hand over Reigen’s mouth. “No, no. I want the kid to explain it.”
Shigeo blinked up at Saitama from where he held Dimple hostage between his pale hands. “Oh, uh. Well. That ghost likes you, and it isn’t ready to pass on, so…”
“I will have vengeance!” The tiny, blonde ghost screamed.
“Yeah, but does it have anything to do with my problem?” Saitama asked, his hand mercilessly holding steady as Reigen flailed and pried at his grip.
“Your hair and your emotions?” Shigeo said, more to himself than any of the others in the room. “No, not really.” He pulled Saitama’s jacket off of the rack behind him and held it out to him. “Please let my Master go. He’s changing color.”
“Oh. Oops. Sorry.” Saitama released Reigen, who gasped in gratitude, and took his blue track jacket. “Well, shit! That’s not very helpful. Guess you can’t help me. Oh, well.” He slung on one striped sleeve, and then the other.
“Well,” Shigeo said, holding out his hand, “Actually…” he trailed off, and his palm began to glow in tandem with Saitama’s scalp.
“Wait, what is that-?” The bald man threw his hands up on top of his head, and his eyes bugged out as he felt something soft and dark push up out of the skin like daisies from beneath the cover of the last pristine, barren snow of winter. He frantically whirled around, and then darted into the nearby bathroom so quickly that Reigen and Shigeo could not even see him, and his little spirit was left behind in a daze.
Reigen blinked. “Wait, where--?”
“Sensei is incredible,” the blonde ghost said, reverent.
Then, Saitama was back, his full head of hair shining beneath the fluorescent lights, and his hands clasped firmly around Shigeo’s. “How did you do that?!” He demanded. “What did you do?! Can you show me? Can you teach me? I’m begging you, kid! You’re amazing!”
Shigeo blinked. “Master Reigen taught me everything I know about control,” he said lamely, his cheeks turning a light pink.
Saitama’s head craned around to appraise Reigen’s raised eyebrows.
“Ah, Mob…” He cleared his throat. “Well, I suppose since I am the premier psychic of the generation, I could stand to give myself a little more credit. After all, I--” Reigen rubbed at his neck, and then shrieked as he received a face full of Saitama standing much too close.
“You gotta teach me!” Saitama all but screamed. “You gotta teach me how to make my hair grow back in case it falls out again! I can’t deal with that happening a second time! I just can’t!”
For once, Reigen was at a loss for words. “Wh-what?”
“Seriously! I’ll kill monsters for you, build you a new office, punch a ghost for you, whatever! Doesn’t matter! Just teach me your ways, Master Raygun Aratakeout!” Saitama finished his speech with a bow, and Reigen only shot Shigeo a look.
From Shigeo and Dimple’s point of view, Saitama’s tagalong, the ghost called Genos, threw himself on the floor by Reigen’s feet, too. “If Sensei calls you Master, you are my Master as well,” he said. And then, a glowing eye poked out of his hair and examined them all. “But you’ll never be as great as Sensei.”