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Minegishi hates these meetings. They’re a recent development; Serizawa suggested them and the Boss, that bastard, must have thought the idea was hilarious. Now every few months Minegishi has to endure more than an hour trapped in a room with his fellow Super 5 members. The most infuriating part is that they don’t even do anything, every meeting so far has just been them sitting around in a boardroom stewing in silence. Naturally, he forgot his book.
Minegishi levels a low-grade glare at the rest of the table: Shibata, who might approach normal if he weren’t such a muscle freak; Hatori, absorbed in some game system he’s unsuccessfully hiding under the table; Serizawa, that poor deluded sap, who shuffles nervously under his eye; Shimazaki, a cavalier risk-taker with a predictable fuse and a huge grin on his face.
And the brat. At least the meeting won’t be a total waste of time. Mob's on an assignment right now, but is present as a halting trickle of words coming through Minegishi’s cellphone. A totally mundane cellphone, no thanks to Hatori, which is racking up higher charges the longer Mob dithers on the line. His voice echoes around the room as he reports from half a world away.
“I was pursuing leads on the cult that's causing so much trouble for Ishiguro-san. They keep trying to recruit me, so I’ve been walking around the city in the afternoons, in neighbourhoods with a lot of cult activity. Ishiguro-san told me which areas at length, it was very helpful,” he says, followed by a moment of expensive silence. It's one of his more annoying habits.
Minegishi cuts a look across shiny hardwood at Shimazaki, whose smile grows with every word. For whatever reason Shimazaki gets a huge kick out of the brat. Well, out of torturing him anyway. When he realized it was Mob on the phone he made a pest of himself until Minegishi switched the call to speakerphone.
“What actually happened, Mob,” Minegishi prompts, keeping his voice neutral despite his annoyance.
“Um, I was at the meeting, and I was blending in as usual. I cut off my powers so the mind control miasma could affect me. A girl came in with a really thick layer of power surrounding her. I thought she might be the leader, but she only delivered a message from ‘Dimple-sama’. She's definitely a high ranking member of the cult, though.”
Another pause as the brat lapses into thought. Getting harsh with Mob does nothing but make him shrivel up like a dead leaf, but dissatisfaction usually works as a motivator. Minegishi sighs audibly.
“S-sorry, Minegishi-san. Uh, after the meeting I dispersed the miasma on the cultists and followed her. She went to a coffeeshop, and then a women's clothing store, and then an ice cream shop that had a lot of young people, and then she walked over to me and asked 'what the hell I was doing following her'.”
Shimazaki almost laughs, but bites it back just in time. The others range from uninterested—Hatori—to thoughtful—Shibata—to excited but unwilling to interrupt a debriefing—Serizawa.
“I didn’t know what to do. I’m not specialized as an infiltration operative, I’m a combat asset. I… panicked. So I said I was interested in her uniform.”
Shimazaki’s shoulders shake slightly in an effort to contain his mirth; his face is twisted with glee as he slowly keels over onto the table. Idiot.
Mob wouldn't be nearly so open about what happened if he knew Shimazaki and the others are listening, but Minegishi can't be bothered to let him know. It’s already hard enough to get information out of him. He gets why it wasn't Shimazaki or Shibata the kid was assigned to but that doesn't mean it isn't an enormous pain being a ‘supervisor’—and hell if that isn’t a loaded euphemism.
“She asked what school I was from and I told her I don’t go to school. Then I asked her what school she was from because maybe ‘Dimple-sama’ is a classmate of hers. She told me it was Salt Middle School and asked why I wanted to know. I couldn’t tell her I’m trying to destroy her cult, so I said I might visit. She asked if I was ‘transferring’, I think into the cult. But she didn’t say cult, probably because there were a lot of people around. I said yes, because maybe she would lead me to the leader for an introduction. Then she introduced herself—her name’s Mezato Ichi—and asked my name so I told her. She looked at me weird and asked for my full name, but I only have one. I couldn’t think of anything so I… I said Suzuki.”
Damn. Even for the brat that's kind of fucked up. None of the idiots he works with have any emotional intelligence but Minegishi wonders which Suzuki flashed through the kid's head.
“So what do I do now, Minegishi-san?” Mob asks.
“Mob. You do realize you just told your only lead that you’re going to start attending her school,” Minegishi replies.
“W-what? But that’s not… I mean, could you please elaborate, Minegishi-san?”
“She asked if you were transferring to her school , and now when you don’t show up she’ll know you were lying. Once that happens, she’ll never trust you again. And it took you a month to find just one clue, who knows if there’ll be another. You blew it.”
A despondent silence from the line, and then, quietly:
“Ah.”
Minegishi couldn’t care less if Mob fails the mission; the only reason he’s over there is that everyone got sick of the incessant reports from the 7th Branch whining about how some new group was poaching their people. But failure means bad things for the brat; Minegishi isn’t involved there but he’s gathered that much.
Shimazaki has stilled where he’s slumped on the table and Minegishi vaguely hopes he died choking on spit and laughter. Then he sits up, the unholy light of inspiration twinkling in his weird useless eyes. A smudge from his forehead mars the tabletop.
“Well kiddo, that's certainly a mess,” he begins, “I've been listening and—”
“You've been—” Mob interrupts, dismayed.
“—and I think I know how to solve your problem!”
Mob remains silent, probably busy playing back his words from earlier to assess them for vulnerability. Minegishi wishes him the best mitigating the damage.
“All you have to do now is actually transfer to that salty school or whatever! That way you won't lose your lead.”
At any given time Shimazaki is usually at the top of his shitlist—right above the Boss—and it's only because of this stupid meeting that Serizawa is currently in first place. Shimazaki likes to play games, so letting him have free rein with Mob is a recipe for disaster; as Minegishi anticipates how many headaches he'll get from this conversation he can feel Shimazaki steadily climbing back up to number one.
Mob is at least suspicious, thank god, but the brat's always been way too gullible and way too obedient for his own good. As a high level asset Mob is above the authority of most of Claw, but the Super 5 aren’t just any members. Duty's branded him down to the bone by now and despite his own best interests he can’t ignore Shimazaki.
Minegishi privately thinks shit like that is counterproductive if you want to forge an effective tool—too much fertilizer weakens the soil after all—but if he cared about the crap people do to each other he never would have joined Claw in the first place.
“Shimazaki-san, what do you mean? Going to school, it's dangerous... all those people... I don’t have clearance for that!”
Shibata, who has adopted a self-serving one-sided mentorship toward the brat since the end of their short-lived training relationship, speaks up. Minegishi resents him for prolonging this farce.
“It might be scary, but I think a lot of kids your age feel that way about a new school.”
What an imbecilic thing to say; Mob is nothing like other kids his age.
“Eh!? Shibata-san, you're there too?”
Serizawa must take the sudden free-for-all as permission to speak because he also interjects:
“Mob-sempai, I'm sure you can handle it! After all, you're so strong. You don't even need an umbrella!”
“Serizawa, you also—?”
Hatori’s game plays an electronic victory jingle.
“Hear that, kiddo? We're all rooting for you! And out of the goodness of my heart, I'll even file the paperwork with the boss for you!” Shimazaki bulldozes Mob's increasingly bewildered reservations.
With that offer, Mob's fate is probably sealed. Or at least it’s out of his hands. If Shimazaki sells the idea to the Boss then whatever chaos results becomes Shimazaki’s problem. Minegishi would have stepped in—though arguing with Shimazaki is always a chore—but now that he won’t be on the hook for what happens he can't muster a single ounce of fuck to stop it. After all, no matter what Shimazaki comes up with the brat won’t be irreparably damaged.
Minegishi, willing to excuse himself from this travesty now that he won't have to explain it to a superior, tunes out of the resultant four-way conversation. He spends some time contemplating his shitlist. Serizawa still tops it for now, followed by Shimazaki and the Boss, but Hatori, that asshole, is getting up there since he won't let Minegishi piggyback on his powers to save him from the huge phone bill the call is still ringing up. This meeting hasn’t been the worst though, so Minegishi allows Serizawa to drop back down to the bottom, to his usual place right above where Mob hovers in the null zone. He goes through the whole list, adjusting the people who’ve pissed him off lately. Then he thinks about which new botany text he’ll pick up after the meeting.
When Minegishi comes back to reality Mob has been either coaxed or bullied onboard and Shimazaki is jovially insisting that Serizawa should also go to Japan.
Minegishi is positive the only reason Shimazaki is pushing for that is that he thinks it'll be hilarious. Well, it's on his head now, no way in hell is Minegishi going to be responsible for that mess. He’ll be surprised if the Boss lets one of his personal lackeys get that far away though, much less one and a half. Even the half was unexpected, but then again of all of them Mob is most suited to international gruntwork.
Minegishi can imagine it now, the anarchy of those two social incompetents let loose in society. Trying to navigate the unknown jungle of secondary education. Pretending to be people who can function outside of shady psychic organizations. Failing at both, spectacularly. It basically amounts to a mean prank, exactly up Shimazaki’s alley. Hell, does the school even take late transfers? What’s the date? It’s July, but he can’t remember what day. He wishes he could check his phone, but it’s still in use. God, his phone bill…
His phone alarm beeps serendipitously from where it sits surrounded by his scheming coworkers and Hatori, telling him the meeting is over. It’s about time. Minegishi scoops his cell off the table, tells Mob to report to Shimazaki for the rest of the mission, god help him, and hangs up.
“That concludes the quarterly meeting!” Serizawa says, a little keyed-up. He’s probably been missing his playdates with Mob while the brat’s been in Japan.
Hatori’s already out the door, and Minegishi goes to follow but Shimazaki, grinning like a jackal, blocks his way by leaning on the table in front of him.
“How invigorating, Mob-kun and Serizawa are going to have a little adventure!” he says. For some reason, he sounds gloating. Minegishi doesn’t begrudge him some entertainment—okay, actually he does—, but he’s barking up the wrong tree.
A few years ago, Shimazaki accused him of giving a damn about the brat. He acted like he was revealing some big secret, a hidden weakness inadequately concealed. Minegishi was unaffected because he feels nothing but apathy for Mob, which blew Shimazaki’s mind. What Shimazaki doesn't get is that it's just business. Or at least, it’s not personal. He's never learned how not to care about people, so he blunders impulsively through life doing what pleases him. He’s weak, reliant on the reactions of others to survive.
But then again, all the people the Boss lures in are weak some way or another. Not to mention the brat. Minegishi is weak in circumstance, and he admits that’s a cop-out. Still, he not nearly as dependent as the rest of the inner cadre. He owes Boss, but that doesn’t make him a lapdog.
It does mean he has to follow orders, though. Otherwise he’d never have gotten saddled with Mob. If Minegishi wanted to be responsible for the wellbeing of another living creature he would have gotten a cat. Instead, he has a supremely fucked up child. If he accomplishes one thing during his time as management it’ll be never getting assigned a subordinate again.
While Minegishi was busy ignoring him, Shimazaki was monologuing. What a moron. Minegishi doesn’t ever want to understand what makes him tick.
Minegishi walks around him, dodges past Shibata, and is free. Fucking finally.
And with Shimazaki taking custody of Mob for the foreseeable future, he’ll have a lot more free time. He thinks he’ll grow some plants.