Chapter Text
“How did you beat me?!”
Both of them gape in silence.
“Hold on, that was you?!”
Serizawa Katsuya has spent most of his life in a conflict-avoidant mode. It used to be that the idea of a disagreement with a figure of authority, be it President Suzuki or Serizawa’s own mother, made him want to burrow into a deep, deep hole somewhere in the wilderness, never to be seen again. Nowadays, he understands — logically, if not emotionally — that having conflicts is a natural part of growing up and forming his own opinions.
If he asked Reigen, his boss would probably say something profound. Something about how Serizawa having his first argument without levelling the city block is a sign of personal development. He wouldn’t even call it an argument; he’d give it a softer, marketable name, like “ideological incompatibility”. The problem is, Serizawa can’t even talk to Reigen about it because Reigen is the person he’s having an ideological incompatibility with.
Turns out, being in a fight with Reigen is exhausting.
Not because he’s Serizawa’s boss. Not because they are close friends who see each other practically every day. Not because they’ve recently stumbled into a sort-of-relationship — with all the grace of a person who, while unused to sitting, somehow manages to trip and land on a folding stool. No, the most draining and, dare Serizawa say it, infuriating part of fighting with Reigen is the latter’s pretence that there’s no fight to begin with.
On Tuesday, instead of steadily supplying his colleague with matcha, Serizawa puts a single cup of cold, oversteeped liquid on Reigen’s desk. The cup goes thud. Usually, Serizawa would push it over with a gentle swoosh, but this time, he’s feeling less charitable. For hours, the conversation barely stretches past work-related matters and clipped, sanitised “Could you pass the…” “Here.” “Thanks.” If Reigen notices the tense atmosphere, he doesn’t comment.
On Wednesday, Serizawa leaves ten minutes early without prior warning — something his Early Employment Self wouldn’t have done if the building was on fire. Reigen waves him off with the easy acceptance of someone who’s seen way more terrifying things, teenage tantrums included. Serizawa doesn’t text him good night.
Is it childish? Maybe. Maybe Serizawa needs to get over himself. Maybe that’s just how fights between adults are supposed to look: you disagree, then you calm down, forgive each other, and never talk about it again. Is Serizawa being immature for wanting to drag this squabble to a satisfying conclusion? Is it selfish to sit and marinate in a pile of mentally rehashed arguments, waiting for a chance to lay them out like a hard-boiled detective lays out evidence?
Ugh. Why does adulting have to be so complicated.
On Thursday, Tome’s first words upon entering the office are “Do we have those wasabi crackers?” Her second words, after she and Serizawa look to Reigen for an answer and get none, are “Okay. Who died?”
The girl’s best quality is being observant. Her most bothersome is being uncomfortably outspoken about it.
“Hm?” says Reigen, who is clicking away at something on his laptop. Serizawa used to think it was emails or invoices, but has since discovered his boss’s affinity for Mobtter, Psychogram, and Tetris. “Nobody. What are you on about?”
Serizawa scratches his neck and feigns an interest in swaths of algebraic formulas crowding his worksheet. Tome laughs — a short, disbelieving sound.
“Uh, you guys are acting kinda weird? Normally, you’d be all over each other.”
Well, at least one other person sees that something is wrong. With his… partner’s… lack of a reaction, Serizawa was starting to wonder if he hadn’t hallucinated their whole falling out.
“We’re fine.” Serizawa imagines Reigen rolling his eyes in a show of boredom, reclining dangerously far on his squeaky, abused chair. “Really.”
Tome’s tone is unimpressed. “Riiiight. Serizawa-san, wanna tell me what actually happened?”
“Er…” Serizawa’s head snaps up, a sudden wave of heat washing over him. Should he tell her? If he doesn’t, she’ll feel excluded, again. If he does, it might seem inappropriate. Too personal, like airing dirty laundry. He tries not to fidget under the stare Reigen’s undoubtedly shooting his way.
“We, um, fought. Over a video game.” Prickling all over, Serizawa hurries to add, “B-but it’s really nothing serious, Tome-chan.”
The girl blinks. “Huh. What kind of video game?”
“Tome,” Reigen warns.
“Uhh. E-echoes of Shadowfire.” Third and most advanced instalment, Serizawa doesn’t say. Judging by Tome’s face, she’s never played, and he won’t unload hours of lore analysis onto her. He still has a figurine of the Troll Wizard back at his mother’s house.
“And what did you fight about?”
“Tome,” comes the second admonishment. “It’s nothing. Let it go.”
Historically, the phrase let it go has never convinced any creature on Earth to let it, in fact, go.
Serizawa watches, mesmerised, as the unstoppable force of Reigen’s persuasion crashes against the immovable cliff of Tome’s bull-headedness. Anyone else would be too self-conscious to plough on, but not the fifteen-year-old recently vindicated by the existence of actual aliens.
She juts her chin out, hands on her hips.
“If it’s nothing, why don’t you tell me?”
Reigen groans, and Serizawa is almost ready to step in. Then, as his boss opens his mouth, out comes an unexpected sentence.
“Serizawa’s found out it was me who killed his top character a while back. There. Happy?”
Tome doesn’t look happy. Serizawa certainly exists in a separate universe from happy right now. The words float over and settle on his shoulders like a dusty shawl. They’re not technically wrong. Still, they make it seem like Serizawa’s the only one at fault. Sure, he’s not the most well-adjusted man in Japan, but he’s not such an asshole as to be salty about, what? His friend beating him in an MMO?
That’s not the problem. The problem is something more substantial that Serizawa struggles to articulate.
“Oh,” says Tome. Serizawa, easily the most powerful man in the room, drops his gaze so he doesn’t have to meet hers. Reigen returns to typing.
It’s a very awkward afternoon.
Two hours and three walk-ins later, Serizawa is unable to contain himself any longer. Why Tome’s opinion matters so much to him, he couldn’t say, but if he doesn’t set the record straight right this second, he might genuinely sprain something.
“Actually,” he says, one sweaty palm clutching a pencil and the other pressing into his thigh. “I’m not upset at being beaten in a game. That’s what online competitions are for, anyhow. I kind of figured I’d lose eventually, no matter my rank or experience.”
“Wow, now I’ve completely lost the plot.” Tome heaves a put-upon sigh, leafing through her favourite paranormal weekly. “If Serizawa-san’s not mad, what are you having this feud for?”
“We’re not having a feud,” Reigen calls from under the desk. He’s been trying to entertain himself by rearranging the folders in the cabinet, then by cleaning every visible horizontal surface, and finally, by painstakingly tightening the screws of the drawer rails. As a man constantly in pursuit of activities to occupy his busy self, it’s a wonder Reigen hasn’t yet acquired a serious injury while cartwheeling through all the spiritual and physical hazards of his daily routine. Once, shortly after starting to work at Spirits & Such, Serizawa walked in on his boss practising a headstand, apparently to “get a fresh perspective”.
Satisfied with his handiwork, Reigen wiggles back to freedom and springs up, assuming what Serizawa’s come to think of as his “lecturing pose”.
“And it’s perfectly natural for a person to need a bit of time and space to process certain events within a new context.”
Serizawa frowns. “I never said I needed space.”
“Oh, you know, you might not realise yet—”
“No.”
Reigen freezes mid-word, his coy, placating smile slowly morphing into a rictus.
“No?” he asks.
“No,” repeats Serizawa. “We’re not doing this.” If he lets Reigen philosophise and cloak himself as a wise mentor, they won’t get anywhere. Serizawa can barely handle a phone call with fifteen minutes of preparation. Reigen could charm a demon into selling its horns. “I may not always… understand… exactly what I’m feeling. But please listen when I say that deaths in a video game are an absolute non-issue to me.”
Reigen, because he’s clever, latches onto the last part. “What is the issue, then?”
Serizawa swallows, notices that Tome has quietly sneaked out. Good kid.
“Do you remember what I asked? About your gaming strategy?”
Reigen nods, shrugging. To a less trained eye, he’d seem nonchalant, borderline arrogant. That’s his “difficult customer” setting. His “I’m entertaining this bullshit because our reviews on MobgleMaps are already damaging enough” poise. As though, if he doesn’t get this right, Serizawa will run crying to the nearest Labour Standards Office.
“Of course. And my answer hasn’t changed. There’s no strategy except being what the client needs me to be. I’m not a gamer, just fulfilling my end of the deal.”
“There were multiple accounts ganging up on me. It was obviously planned, I just want to know how you did it.”
“Why? It’s in the past, and it’s not interesting in the least.” Reigen stuffs his hands in the pockets of his trousers. His brow twitches.
It’s all incredibly cagey. Reigen had never flat-out refused to explain his actions before. Deflected, for sure, but in a manner that wouldn’t let you realise he was doing it until after the stream of conversation has been successfully redirected.
What changed? Serizawa thinks, desperately. Was it something I did?
What smarts is that Reigen promised to try and be more honest not even a month ago. Now it feels like regression, like they’re back to square one, with Reigen summoning fake psychic powers to perform a distracting manoeuvre for a gullible audience. Only Serizawa isn’t so gullible anymore.
His next thought is mean, and plausible, and makes his stomach churn.
Maybe, his mind whispers, maybe.
“Maybe you’re not telling me,” echoes Serizawa, “because you cheated.”
As always.
A muscle spasms in Reigen’s face, true annoyance peeking through. When Reigen is annoyed, he tends to say harsh things, things he doesn’t mean, and it’s hard for him to stop once he’s on a roll. Serizawa is well aware of this. It doesn’t make it hurt any less.
“Well, maybe you’re just not as good as you thought. I mean, being so hung up on games can’t be healthy. You should find something better to do with your time.”
When Serizawa Katsuya is twenty-five and still a shut-in with crippling agoraphobia, Echoes of Shadowfire 3 takes the Internet by storm.
It’s all the media and critics talk about, praising the sophisticated magical system and elegant animation while condemning the unimpressive skill tree and sprawling microtransactions. It’s not a perfect game by any means, but it’s certainly addictive. Serizawa can’t get enough.
When it comes to isolation, loneliness isn’t the worst or, indeed, the most prevalent feeling. What torments Serizawa every hour of every day, smoothing dips of sadness over like a tidal wave, is monumental, soul-crushing boredom.
He’s awfully, fundamentally bored of scrolling forum threads and saving pixel princesses from low-res fire-breathing dragons. He’s bored of online wars cycling through a list of pre-determined topics, which serve merely to remind Serizawa how out of step he is with the rest of humanity — no more than a kid trapped in a grown body. Talking to other hikikomori lurking in the chat rooms has become not only boring (because nothing ever breaks their monotonous routine), but also incredibly discouraging (because each discussion is a glimpse at Serizawa’s inevitably bleak future).
A fresh MMO title is, without exaggeration, the most exciting thing to happen in months, not least because playing on a server gives Serizawa a distinct advantage. Other people have schools, jobs, family responsibilities. Serizawa has himself, a bag of crisps, and a lot of hours to kill.
His path is that of a merciless XP-farming machine. He rises from Bronze to Silver to Gold to Platinum, even winning some merch at a local championship. He scours the Web for advice, files numerous bug reports, and fends off many, many spiteful and fraudulent cheating accusations. The crowd on the servers thins as the initial hype dies down, casual gamers heading for greener, polygonally denser pastures, but Serizawa stays.
For years, he stays. In the same pyjamas, in the same beanbag chair, in the same time capsule of a room, forever frozen. He stares into the lit screen, body degrading, and when his character comes alive, so does he.
Reigen’s reaction speed is commendable. In two seconds, he switches from passively aggressive to apologetic.
“No, gods, that came out wrong.” He drags a hand down his face, sheepish. “Forget I said anything. Can I buy you dinner for that? I’m going to buy you dinner.”
Serizawa turns around, begins gathering his stuff with choppy, neurotic movements. Pencil case, drafts, calculator. Dictionary. “That’s fine,” he says. “It’s time I left for class, anyway.”
“Right, right. Makes sense.”
Does it?
Serizawa spends a few quiet moments sorting his papers into the correct folder sections and putting everything away in his bag. He looks over his workplace and, satisfied that he hasn’t missed anything, heads for the door. He pauses just before grasping the handle, glances at Reigen.
His boss is watching, lips pulled into an uneasy smile, his silence broken only by the moribund wheezing of the ancient rotary fan. Whatever explanation Serizawa was hoping for, he’s clearly not getting it today.
Reigen’s gaze meets his and falters, falling to the side. “Have a good night, then. See you tomorrow?”
Serizawa doesn’t want to promise anything. He feels raw and exposed, like an oyster scooped out of its shell. He needs time to process, to figure out what emotion is buzzing under his skin and how he should deal with it in a non-destructive manner. Now I’d appreciate some space, he thinks mirthlessly to himself.
If Serizawa asked, Reigen would step back without a protest. Though he may occasionally have lapses of judgement when it comes to implicit personal boundaries, Reigen’s not the type of guy to hover over someone when it’s obviously unwelcome. The question is, could Serizawa do it? Deprive them both of their closest friend?
In the end, he settles on a soft “See you later”.
Upon exiting, the first thing Serizawa sees is Tome loitering at the bottom of the stairs, kicking dust. He suspects she may have originally been sitting much closer to the office door.
“Are you going, Serizawa-san?” Tome tilts her head upwards, pouting.
Serizawa smiles, slowly making his way down. “I am. It was nice to catch up, Tome-chan.”
The girl sighs. “It sucks that we work together, like, twice a week. ‘Cause right as I finish school, clubs and all, your school begins.”
It’s true. With Reigen aggressively supporting their academic and social journeys, Serizawa and Tome’s schedules largely overlap only on Thursdays and Saturdays — and only when Spirits & Such doesn’t have field exorcisms too dangerous to involve non-psychic children.
“It is a shame.” Serizawa awkwardly places a hand on the girl’s shoulder as he passes by. He himself isn’t big on physical contact, but hopefully, it reads as a gesture of comfort. From a certain angle. If you squint.
Tome responds with a scrutinising stare.
“Reigen’s being an idiot, isn’t he?” She nods up. Somewhere above, a sudden and obnoxiously loud sneeze rings out. Serizawa winces.
“Please don’t be hard on him,” he begs. Creating more office drama would be, at the very least, unhelpful. “We’ve had a misunderstanding. We’ll figure it out ourselves, like adults.”
Tome squints. “Okay. But only because I trust you wouldn’t let him walk all over you.”
Serizawa blinks, slightly taken aback. Concludes that yeah, he’s actually pretty confident in his ability to stand up for himself. Even to someone who generally wishes the best for him. Things really have changed, huh.
“I won’t, Tome-chan.”
“Pinky promise?”
“Pinky promise.”
Sorry, got a lot of homework. Is it okay if I don’t come in tomorrow?
Tomorrow is Friday. No pre-existing appointments.
Serizawa stalls, checking the message over and over. Is it too dismissive? Too formal? Implausible? Serizawa does have a lot of homework, but not so much that he couldn’t squeeze it in between the normal exorcism hours.
Still. Too much homework is ambiguous enough not to sound accusing. Too much homework is vastly preferable to I said I liked you, and you said you liked me, and so we wanted to try something new, but neither of us is bursting with relationship experience. You’re probably already regretting chaining yourself to me and are trying to let me know through these subtle hints I’m too dense to pick up on. I’m kind of angry at myself, and a little bit at you, but I don’t want to hurt you, so I’d rather we not see each other until I’ve calmed down.
Serizawa takes the offending thought before it can spiral any further, balls it up and shoves it far into his mental cupboard. Homework. Right.
He presses send and switches his phone off. A notification arrives shortly after, but Serizawa ignores it, gripped by an incomprehensible bout of anxiety. He methodically goes through a list of chores to distract himself: folding laundry, disposing of the trash, setting a pot to boil noodles, reining in a sense of grinding, all-encompassing guilt, having dinner.
When the well of justifiable diversions finally runs dry, Serizawa seats himself on his tiny couch, feet apart as if bracing for impact, and unlocks the chat.
no problem. your grades are important.
He lets out a relieved breath. Shigeo once confided in him that Reigen used to have trouble taking his disciple’s private life and prior commitments into consideration, though he’s been getting better about it. Reigen’s self-improvement is holding up strong, which is good. It means that, despite hitting a rough patch, they’re not backsliding.
Friday is spent studying and ruminating, with way less of the former and more of the latter than Serizawa would’ve liked. Poring over an essay on the kind of person he wants to be is a bit reminiscent of torture, even with all the “prompting questions”. What do you enjoy? What are you good at? What is your ideal job?
Hello, Serizawa Katsuya here. I enjoy video games and am good at beating people up. My ideal job has a relaxed environment and lets me eat snacks on the clock, so pretty much what I have right now. My boss might consider me another one of his charges and not an equal partner, but I’m sure this will change once I patch up this horrible, gaping chasm of personhood within me.
After about an hour of turning sheets of paper into a graveyard of ideas, he’s almost grateful for an interruption.
“Yo,” says his unexpected guest. “Been busy, huh?”
“Dimple,” Serizawa greets with a nod. He swivels in his seat to take in the green ghost bobbing a few metres in the air. “What brings you here?”
Dimple shrugs. “Ehhh. You didn’t show, so Reigen pestered Shigeo, who pestered me to come act as a stand-in. It’s boring as hell, though.”
Serizawa clears his throat, suddenly self-conscious, eyes wandering over the empty mugs and discarded candy wrappers accumulated on the desk surface.
“Well. Thanks for checking up on me.”
Dimple snorts. “Yeah, yeah. Don’t get a big head about it. I literally had nothing else to do, and I’m not allowed to bother Shige during school time.”
Serizawa smiles to himself. For an evil spirit, Dimple can be surprisingly lenient with the kids.
“Watcha doing that’s so important, anyway? Finally wisened up and rushed to draft a couple job applications?”
“Ah, no. Just writing about… Er, about my aspirations, I guess. What I want to do in the future and…” Serizawa grasps at the string of thought and finds it abruptly cut. “…and stuff,” he finishes lamely.
To his credit, Dimple doesn’t miss a bit. “You could start an exciting new religion.”
Dimple is sort of like a spam ad on a piracy website. They both know Serizawa’s going to ignore him, but he has to try, just in case. Here to download an app? How about joining a cult instead? No? Oh well, maybe next time.
At least he’s toned it down significantly since Shigeo’s Incident last spring. Serizawa humours him for the sake of camaraderie. “I’ve decided world domination isn’t for me, exactly.”
He pretends not to hear the grumbled “Not with that attitude, it isn’t”.
The ghost quietly snoops around for several minutes. There’s nothing he hasn’t seen before; a kitchen nook, a lonely pair of shoes in the genkan, a sixteen-volume manga collection displayed proudly on the shelf. Serizawa attempts to scribble something productive, but his notes are beginning to look less like cohesive arguments and more like general concepts of things. Stable. Maturity. Emotions???
“How is Reigen?” he asks absentmindedly.
“Cheap and ugly as always.”
“Hm.”
“Seriously, he’s like a MobDonald’s misprinted toy. I guess you have to learn and see value in his unique brand of messed up, ‘cause you’re not getting a normal one.”
Serizawa stares at REIGEN, scrawled out and circled next to FUTURE without a conscious input from his brain. He sighs. Dimple hesitantly inches in front of his face.
“Okaaay. Don’t get all tragic and shit. Liking Reigen is a major character flaw, but it’s not terminal. I think.”
Serizawa swallows uneasily. REIGEN. FUTURE. What do you enjoy?
“It’s… I don’t…”
Should he really be bringing Dimple into this? Then again, his only other options are a gaggle of school children, a former extremist circle, and a few odd acquaintances from the evening classes. The Venn diagram of people who know both him and Reigen, people he’d be comfortable asking for advice, and people who could remain impartial towards the matter is, plainly speaking, a single dot. A green, floating dot who often makes crude gestures behind the clients’ backs.
“I just…” Serizawa picks at his nails, gaze jumping between the posters on the wall. He thinks about Reigen, whose nails are immaculate, who never hides in the guest bathroom to stave off panic attacks, who doesn’t stew over minor, stupid disagreements the way Serizawa does. “D-do you… Just, do you think Reigen and I are a good fit? Personality-wise…”
“Eh? Whassat?” Dimple clears his non-existent ear canal with a finger. “I fear you’ve got me confused with a couples’ counsellor. Where’s this coming from, anyway? Not that I care, but you’re, like, disgustingly infatuated with each other.”
Serizawa summons a meagre amount of telekinetic power and begins twirling a pencil with it, to release the building tension. “We had an appointment on Monday. Two guys kept having mysterious trouble on closed servers in Mobcraft. Disappearing items, weirdly placed blocks, stuff like that.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And they wanted Reigen to take care of it. Because he’s some kind of local game-exorcising celebrity.” Serizawa pauses, pencil suspended vertically like a tiny spear. “Did you know about the Player Killer case? It was last October.”
“Last October?” Dimple scratches what could be loosely defined as his head. “Nah, I wasn’t there. That bozo was off doing his own thing.”
“Well” — an eraser and a bottle of correction fluid join the pencil in a cloud of static energy — "there was news coverage of Reigen’s ‘digitally exorcising’ an unkillable, tanked-up MMO player. I didn’t read it at the time. The clients kept referring to it, and Reigen almost…” Serizawa stops again, notices the prickling sensation spreading across his scalp that means his hair is beginning to stand on end. “Well, he almost refused to take the job.”
“Huh. Didn’t know he knew how to do that,” Dimple muses. “He once went dumpster diving for the price of two chocolate bars.”
That case involved a lost heirloom and a teenager strapped for cash, and it was an outlier. Granted, Serizawa sees how it supports the general trend: Reigen declining a work opportunity is as common as Serizawa behaving like a completely functional, put-together human specimen — which is to say, exceedingly rare, almost unheard of. On occasion, Reigen will even do work he’s neither paid nor qualified for, in order to, as he’s put it, “shut his brain up”.
Serizawa can relate. He, too, wishes his own brain would shut up and cease berating him like it’s got a line of potential suitors at the door, all waiting for a chance to let this damaged clump of cell goo pilot them.
“Yeah. That’s why I was curious and looked it up.” Every writing utensil and piece of stationery in a metre-wide radius starts vibrating. Something in the kitchen goes shlink. “It was me. The Player Killer. The deadliest account on the server, best armour, constantly online patrolling the spawn. That was me. He killed me.”
The ghost snorts. “That’s it? You butthurt over a bunch of pixels?”
Serizawa’s fingers twitch in a flare of irritation. It takes some effort not to send the books and furniture flying.
“Why is it so hard to believe that I’m not angry about it? Mastering a game requires a lot of skill, and I’m open to learning! If only somebody gave me clear, definitive proof that there’s anything to learn. I don’t want to throw the word cheater around, but what else am I supposed to think when I’m being shut out in incredibly suspicious ways?”
Maybe you’re just not as good as you thought.
The psychic huffs and forcibly sets down the objects cheerfully dancing around him. The room hiccups.
“Ah,” intones Dimple after a few moments. “I see what the problem is.”
“Really?” Serizawa deflates, hands unclenching.
“Really. Your problem is talking to me.”
Serizawa opens his mouth, but the words travelling to it fizzle out like cheap Christmas sparklers. Dimple flaps his tiny green palm.
“No, dude, look. You wanted my opinion? Here it is: you should’ve run far, far away when you had the chance.” The ghost shakes his head in mourning. “Too late. Best you can do now is deliver this whole tirade to Mr Salty Pirouette. He’s the one who needs to hear it. Comprendes?”
Serizawa folds in on himself, knees tugged up to his chest, bare feet resting on the chair cushion.
“I keep wondering if…” he whispers. “If we’re not just… incompatible, I suppose. I’ve made my peace with small lies to help the clients, with lies out of politeness or because Reigen doesn’t want to share something personal. I get it, I honestly do. But games are...”
What gives my life purpose as an individual?
The only thing I’ve consistently succeeded at for more than a decade?
A venture I’ve invested tons of work and countless sleepless nights in?
A hobby that has kept me moving, forced me to improve and find new strategies, hidden exploits, easter eggs, conspiracies behind every unused sprite or corrupted audio file, when all I wanted to do was curl up and wallow in self-inflicted misery?
Has Reigen put in any real effort? Or were Echoes of Shadowfire 3 no more deserving of preparation and care than a simple ‘graphic exorcism’?
“…different. And, I mean, if we’re already having disagreements over trivial stuff, how are we expected to handle real problems? Like insurance, or mortgage? What about kids? What about retirement plans?” Serizawa presses his palms into his eyes and tries to breathe through the mounting panic. “Gods, what was I thinking, getting into a serious relationship? I have no idea what I’m doing…”
Dimple apparently takes pity on him and moves closer, snapping his fingers.
“Look. You looking?” Serizawa’s watery gaze snaps up. “Cool. Here’s a trade secret: nobody’s got any damn clue what they’re doing. And I mean, none. The trick is convincing everyone, yourself included, that you do. You wanna patch things up with Reigen, right?”
Serizawa nods. Dimple grins maniacally, arms akimbo.
“Then figure out what outcome you want and pretend you’ve got it. If you project enough confidence, things, people, the universe itself will fall in line with it.”
Serizawa takes a moment to roll this idea around in his mind space. Pretend you’ve got it, huh? For a creature vastly indifferent to modern romance, Dimple gives surprisingly sober advice. Of course, Serizawa won’t be able to hold onto the mask of a normal, collected adult for long; but maybe, if he doesn’t act like he’s in the middle of a catastrophe for a single day, it won’t be a catastrophe anymore.
Come on, Katsuya, you’re thirty. You can handle a little responsibility.
“R-right. Okay. You’re right. I’ll talk to Reigen. I just… need to convince myself I have it together.”
Stable. Maturity. FUTURE. Serizawa can manage those.
Dimple gives him an encouraging thumbs up.
“That’s the spirit! Maybe one day, you’ll convince yourself to have a better taste in men.”