Work Text:
On Thursday, there’s a small light glowing from a laptop screen, and there, sitting in the dark is Serizawa. At 2:39 am, Serizawa was working late in the Spirits and Such Consulting Office. Reigen had left about a couple of hours ago, leaving behind a small list of reminders on how to close up the office properly. Normally, Serizawa would have headed home by now, but he wanted to pull an all-nighter and study for his Eiken test once he was done.
His checklist of tasks that needed to be done sits quietly, half done, covered in tea stains and food crumbs. A clean space for a clear mind”, Reigen once told him. Serizawa begins to clean the area, wiping crumbs into his hand, heading to the coffeemaker on the small table. The air feels like static, with his pens flying a few inches off the desk. He presses his palm onto the cool coffee table, gripping it. He focuses on the smooth feeling, rubbing his hands against the wood of the furniture and slowly lets out a sigh. Seeing the objects start to float down, he preps a cup of coffee, stronger than normal, noting to make sure to check if anything accidentally floats again in the next 30 min.
Waiting for it to brew, Serizawa quietly mutters in English some of the common phrases he’s learned. “Hello, good evening. My name is Serizawa. How are you? I am doing fine, thank you… I apologies, wait, no it’s ‘I apologize’, I apologize for the wait”. He'll have to remember he needs to revisit the section on nouns vs verbs.
“Why are you muttering in English by yourself in the dark?” In the corner of his eye, he sees a slightly confused Dimple floating near the window. “Did you hit your head?”
“I’m practicing for my Eiken test, Dimple.” Serizawa says, pouring the coffee into his slightly dirty mug. “It’s next week, and I want to make sure I do well on it. So, I’ve been working on my pronunciation and grammar”. He sips it and grimaces, realizing he accidentally burnt the brew.
“You know, you should try and talk to Reigen in English for practice.” Dimple suggests, slowly circling around Serizawa’s head. “I bet he would be great to practice with, and I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”
Dimple doubts Reigen actually knows how to speak anything other than constant bullshit. But after seeing him try and help with Shigeo’s math, it might be funny to see just how bad Reigen is at understanding a junior high school level of English.
“You really think so? I don’t want to bother Reigen too much.”
“Have you ever seen the office busy lately? All you’ve been getting are walk-ins, it’s not like he’s doing anything super urgent.”
Serizawa pauses for a moment, thinking it over. It has been pretty quiet in the office lately, and with the exception of Tome coming in consistently, there were no spiritual exorcism appointments set up for the rest of the week. Still, he doesn’t want to take that workaholic away from his work.
“Maybe. I’ll see.” He says, finishing his cup and walking back to his desk. He continues to work, taking a break at 7:03 am to wash and change out of his work clothes for a spare suit.
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Reigen arrives at the office at 8:15, 30 minutes before its opening. He notices Serizawa and gives a quick “good morning” before heading to his desk to work, the morning passes slowly. Reigen finishes up his online Photoshop exorcism and ends up chatting with Serizawa for a bit. He was just about to ask about how his studies were going when the phone rang.
“Hello, Spirits and Such Consulting Office.”
Reigen proceeds to talk to the client, eventually convincing them to go for the full exorcism package. Serizawa listens in, taking careful notes of Reigen's persuasion tactics. After a long conversation, Reigen lays down the phone with a click.
“Serizawa! We just got a call for a live exorcism!” He says, standing up and pulling up his suit jacket. “Apparently the client has been hearing loud and strange noises whenever he sleeps.”
“Yes, sir!” He says, scrambling to close his laptop.
They arrive at the exorcism site, to dead silence in the house. Based on the information given from the phone call, Reigen deduced that the best way to capture the spirit, and instructed them to watch for the spirit as he pretends to fall asleep. The Spirit loomed over Reigen, who was definitely pretending to sleep and not at all actually sleeping, when it suddenly stopped. The spirit roars, screaming as the Esper continues to exorcise him, before finally dying. When Serizawa finally lowers his arm, Reigen slaps him on the back gently.
“Great job Serizawa! You’ve been doing such a good job this week, I say let's treat you to some ramen for lunch. What do you say?” Reigen beams.
Serizawa grins. Now's your chance, Serizawa! Show off what you know!
“Sure Reigen, that sounds great!” Serizawa says.
Reigen continues to smile. After a few moments of silence, he finally says “Great. Let’s go then!”
Serizawa and Reigen continue to walk down the street. Reigen shoves his hands into his pockets, replaying what Serizawa just said. What the hell’s up with the English? Reigen understood a little bit of the language, mostly because he remembers taking English. Unfortunately, it has been a while since he spoke English, and his grade was lackluster at best, so he can’t remember how to read and speak it fluently.
Oh well. Guess I’m going to have to context clues.
When they get back to the office Serizawa continues to speak in English, occasionally tumbling on his words for the correct verbs. Whenever he tried to correct himself, he would restate in Japanese, in order to find the right words. Thank goodness for that, otherwise Reigen would have no idea what he was saying. Reigen nods to whatever Serizawa was saying as he unlocks the door. Before they even step foot into the room, Serizawa and Reigen notice Dimple floating there.
“Hello Dimple! We're back from the job!”
“Hey Serizawa. How was it?”
“It went well.” Serizawa says as he walks in. “The spirit did not give us a lot of trouble. Reigen can tell you about it.” gesturing to Reigen.
Reigen freezes. Shit. What does Serizawa want him to do? He racks his brain, trying to remember as much as he can from his class. He looks at Serizawa, studying his face and gestures for any context clues. Serizawa looks at him expectantly, Dimple grins.
“What, can’t you understand junior high English?” Dimple goats.
“Of course I can! I’m just thinking about how I want to go about it.”
“Go about what? I don’t know what Serizawa was talking about.” Dimple says in a quieter volume, flashing the most innocent look the spirit could muster. “I have no idea what he wants you to do”.
Of course, he conveniently wouldn’t.
“Oh, you know. Just, uh…” Reigen does multiple hand gestures as he continues to think. “Hey, y’know what, how about I tell you about the job first.”
Dimple smirks. “Of course, Serizawa did say he would leave it to you to talk about what happened.”
Reigen waves his suit jacket at the spirit, successfully shooing him away. “If you’re not going to do anything, go look out for Tome.”
Whatever. He needs to get back to work.
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At 4:12pm Dimple looks out the window, watching street traffic. Reigen was engrossed in some work on his laptop, and Serizawa swept the floor. Tome should have been let out of school at this point. Spotting the unofficial Spirits and Such Secretary approaching the building Dimple floated down to meet with Tome.
“Tome, by any chance did you start studying a new language?” Dimple looks at her with a malicious grin.
“Oh, hey Dimple!” Tome waves. “Yea, I’ve always wanted to do a study abroad program, so I started taking Korean.”
“Listen, I need you to do me a solid…”
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Tome walks into the Spirit’s and Such Consulting office with a smile, Dimple following right after. There's a glint of mischievousness in her eyes that Reigen normally only sees in Dimple.
“Hey, Tome.” Reigen said, lazily waving.
“Oh! Hello Tome!” Serizawa greets her with a smile.
“세리자와! 레이겐! 새로운 직업은 없나요?” <Serizawa! Reigen! Do you have any new jobs?> She says in the same chipper attitude she always does.
Reigen looks incredulous. What? Tome too? Am I cursed or something? This is worse than trying to understand Serizawa. At least I actually took the language he's speaking, I can't even begin to understand her. He pauses to contemplate what’s happening.
“레이겐? 무슨 일 있어요?” <Reigen? is something wrong?> Tome asks, smiling smugly.
“Reigen, are you alright?” Dimple asked as well. “Normally you’re much more talkative ”
Reigen gives Dimple a pissed off look. No, of course not. Obviously, this is not normal. “Hello Tome. How are you? If you were asking about new jobs, we had one exorcism today but that was all.”
Tome lights up speeding to Reigen's desk, awaiting details about the job. Oh, thank God, she was asking about that. He begins to give as many unimportant but exciting details from the exorcism job as possible. Looking pleased, she steps away, sitting in one of the corners of the room to work on homework.
Just then Reigen heard more footsteps. The door pushed open to reveal Teru, smiling at Tome and waving. Reigen pauses, looking suspiciously.
“Hello Teru.” He simply says.
“Bonjour Reigen. C'est un plaisir de vous revoir!” <Hello Reigen. It's nice to see you again!>
Reigen looks disappointed. Am I going insane? Why the fuck is Teru speaking French?
“Is this a prank or something? Why do all of you know a different language? Korean and French shouldn’t be offered at your school level.”
“해외 유학을 가고 싶어요.” <I want to do study abroad>
“Mes parents me l'ont appris. Mais, en temps normal, je ne le parle jamais.” <My parents taught me. I just normally never speak it.>
Reigen’s not sure what he expected.
“Well, whatever the reason, I'm sure this won’t last long. All of you guys are speaking in completely different languages.” Reigen says annoyedly, folding his arms.
“No, but we can all speak basic English.” Tome says smirking.
“Can you?” Teru asks, snickering.
Reigen is slightly pissed. This is all that stupid spirits fault.
Ritsu walks in with Shou, looking around before looking at Reigen.
“超级, 老头儿” <Sup, old man.>
“Hola Reigen ¿Has visto a Shigeo?” <Hello Reigen, have you seen Shigeo?.> Ritsu asks. “Se suponía que debía caminar con nosotros aquí” <He was supposed to walk with us here>
Why me?? Reigen grits his teeth. This is driving him mad. Dimple looked pleased with himself.
“我们收到 暗田留 发来的短信，说她希望我们顺便去一下” <We got a text from Tome saying she wanted us drop by.> Shou grins.
“¿Qué pasa con esa cara de confundido?” <What 's the confused look for?>
“Ok, I see how Shou could learn Mandarin, but Ritsu, how do you even know Spanish, that’s not even a super common language to learn.”
“Solo porque podía. No es tan difícil de aprender.” <Just because I could. It isn’t that hard to learn.> Ritsu says, slightly glaring.
“我的意思是，对于像灵圆这样的人来说，这可能很难.” <I mean, It might be hard for someone like Reigen> Shou teased, tapping Ritsu on his arm. They both laugh.
This was getting ridiculous. He had to do something. Just as he begins to try and convince them to speak Japanese at least in every other sentence, he hears some familiar footsteps approaching. Mob walks through the door. Before he could even get a single word in, Reigen locks in on Mob, scrambling to talk to him.
He turns to see Mob. “Mob! Hey! Please tell me you had a good day. Like you normally do.”
Mob doesn’t move or speak. He grips onto Mob's shoulders.
“Even if it was a normal day. Even if it was a bad day. Please. Please just tell me about it like you normally do! Please!”
Shigeo smiles.
“Hello Master.” Shigeo says calmly “Yes, I did have a good day."
Reigen felt his demeanor crack. Mob, No! Not you to! Fuuuuuuck!
Reigen lets go of Mob’s shoulders, crumples to the ground, and begins to sob on the floor. Not a full-on sob, more of a quiet meltdown. He can't look Serizawa, Tome, or Mob in the eye. If he did, he would notice a slightly guilty look that donned Serizawa, considering it was a little bit of his fault Reigen ended up like this. He can hear Tome taking a few steps to back away from him. He could hear Mob calling him in a nervous and quiet voice, asking if he's alright.
Reigen sighed. He really wished he paid more attention in his English class.
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One month later, at 8:33 am, while Reigen was getting set up for the day, he heard footsteps. A disheveled and very relieved Serizawa walks into the office, carrying a report sheet, looking proud.
“Reigen, good news! I passed my Eiken test!” Serizawa grins, eyebags heavy.
Reigen looks up from his work and smiles. “Good for you Serizawa. Proud of you.”