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“You’ve never seen it, have you?”
Reigen looked up from the front page of his garish weekly rag. “Hm? Seen what?” He glanced back down at his newspaper. “Seen… that ‘Local Man Clears City Block With Awful Flatulence, more details on page A3?’”
“No,” said Dimple, his fat purple lips flapping in the air, “though I’m pretty sure that’s you they’re talking about. Heh!”
“Says the very literally gaseous, ass-nasty blob.”
“What! You’re the one who sweats enough salt to make a new ocean, you scrawny, impudent slob!” Dimple punctuated his statement by grabbing a nearby spirit from the ether and cramming it into his mouth, spit flying as he worked his ghostly green jaw. “If anyone’s nasty, it’s you.” A slurping sound followed, and then a burp.
Reigen made some gestures with his hand, including a quick middle finger, and then ran a hand through his hair. “Showering, my nasty green friend. Does wonders for the body. Wonders for the soul, too! If you so chose to take it upon yourself to cease being a crusty little slimeball, you too could be almost hygienic.”
“Reigen, you idiot, I can’t shower. I’m dead.”
“Like I said- almost hygienic.”
“Pah.” Dimple crossed his arms and pouted- and then burped. Again.
Reigen clicked on the fan by his desk and liberally sprayed a can of air freshener around himself without a word before returning to the labyrinthine intrigue of a double-page article about how ghosts were really a government conspiracy to take the attention from cryptids while Bigfoot daylighted as the Emperor and ran the country.
“Hey,” said Dimple, “you never answered my question.”
“I’ve never seen Bigfoot, either,” Reigen shot back, licking his thumb and turning the page of the newspaper to put the question of “Is Bigfoot Holding Us Underfoot?” to rest.
“Stupid.” Dimple plopped onto Reigen’s desk and crossed his scrawny, nubby arms. “I was talking about Shigeo.”
“I’ve seen Mob before, yes.”
Dimple opened his mouth to fire back something in response, probably a wad of spit bathed in ghost-gut leftovers, but thought better of it and let Reigen’s grin retreat behind his outrageous newspaper, unscathed. “His power. I was talking about the power that sleeps inside him. You’ve never seen it, have you?”
Reigen snorted. “If this is some joke about the power of youth, I’ve heard it plenty before- not as many times as you have, I’ll bet.”
“Haha,” said Dimple, his face twisting into a mockery of amusement, and then dropping a moment later. “But I’m serious. You’ve never actually seen what happens, have you?”
“Hm.” Reigen deliberated over the horoscopes page.
“You sure don’t know much about much, to have been in as much trouble as you have.”
“Hn.”
“Hey,” said Dimple, “don’t ignore me. This is serious.”
“Totally,” Reigen said. “According to this, the love of my life could walk right on in at any moment!”
Dimple’s yellow teeth leered out at Reigen as the ghost sneered and clicked his tongue. “Who’d be stupid enough to pursue a fraud conman with a prissy pink tie?”
“My tie is very popular, thank you. Iconic, even.”
“It’s the only one you own.”
Reigen flipped the through the grey pages in his hands so quickly, it was like they were film frames spinning an entire tale on a movie reel and not a stale tabloid. “Not true.”
“Bullshit.”
“Nope.”
“You’re just saying that.”
Reigen leaned forward, stuck his hand into the metal handle of the worn filing cabinet standing at constant attention beneath the snoozing fax machine, and pulled. A neat row of files sprawled forth along with the drawer, and Reigen deftly walked his fingers over each one before pulling one of them out like one would uproot a carrot from soil. He laid it out on his desk, dropped his newspaper into his lap, and flipped through the papers in the file until he came to a separate, older newspaper clipping, and then held it up before Dimple’s rounded, smug face. In the photo, Reigen and his smart black tie preened proudly back at the perturbed spirit despite his aged, yellowed edges and Shigeo Kageyama’s deadpan paper stare.
“Coulda just been the lighting,” the green ghost griped. “It’s probably still the same tie.”
Reigen chuckled as he stuffed the old article back into the file. “Trust me. If that was the case, I would have been on the news way before that black-and-blue dress incident.
“Because your last press conference wasn’t enough.”
Reigen shot him a look.
“No, really.” Dimple crossed his arms and tossed his snotty-colored snoot into the air. “What possessed you to buy a hot pink silk tie, anyway? Were you afraid people would be looking at anyone or anything besides the obnoxious, self-aggrandizing fraud in the room? You call enough attention to yourself even without help.”
With a snap of his wrists, Reigen straightened his newspaper. “So says the fart who would be God.”
“Pah.” Dimple turned around and puttered over to the tomato plant looking out the office window. Idly, he poked at its leaves and watched the plant shake side to side from his tugging. The clock chopped out a few more empty, rhythmic minutes until Dimple asked, “You wanna go get some booze and cigarettes while Shigeo’s gone?”
Reigen’s eyes sparked at the suggestion, but did not leave his newspaper. “Hm. Nah. Wouldn’t be good for business if anyone saw.”
“Aw, c’mon! Aren’t you bored?!”
“I’m working,” Reigen retorted, leisurely flipping a page and punctuating his statement with a yawn. “I’m a very busy guy.”
“Please. Do you know how many secrets Shigeo keeps from you? You can keep some from him. It’s not like he doesn’t already know you aren’t perfect.”
“It’s got nothing to do with that.”
“Hmph. Keep telling yourself that.” Dimple sunk into the floor, and then disappeared into it like water escaping through a drain. “Get a clue.”
---
The convenience store was well-lit and stocked with groceries, cookies, manga, and magazines with contents that contrasted starkly with the cleanliness of the tile floor. Reigen considered the pack of cigarettes sitting next to the boxes of loose leaf green tea, a vice and a virtue, and then bought neither in favor of paying the bills he handed the clerk.
The clerk ripped off his receipt like a bandaid from a scraped knee, and Reigen only barely winced in gratitude and nodded as the clerk recited her standard lines of service. The fortysomething waiting behind Reigen purchased Lucky Strikes.
Reigen went outside, around the corner, and down the pale, neat sidewalk lining the last of the post-work traffic. An older salaryman darted around him with a ducked head and a trail of smoke wafting behind him. Reigen took a side street and navigated to a nearby park to clear his head.
To his left was a fountain gurgling beneath the dying sun, and his right a bench with a middle-aged man leaning against the right armrest, sitting bottom to bottom and back to back. Sitting, and smoking.
Reigen’s fingers twitched.
The sun was ripening towards tangerine, now, and the sky just barely pinkening. Reigen leaned against the wall of the fountain and looked out and away at the leaves slowly turning to brown, slowly cracking off and falling to the ground to reveal the truth about the bare branches underneath, naked for all to see.
The wispy tails of the other man’s smoke reached out for Reigen on the soft breeze and snuck into his nose.
Reigen gritted his teeth and considered the pedestrian commuters returning home from work. “Old men are everywhere,” he muttered to himself. “Even in Hell.” He drew his coat tighter around his face and chuckled under his breath.
Then, the man on the bench called out to him- because he overheard him, maybe because the fates decided. “Young man,” he said, a friendly, mellow smile alongside his five o’clock shadow, “you look like you could use one of these, too.” He stood up and held out an open pack of cigarettes. “Work day’s over. Relax! Don’t look so uptight.”
Reigen smiled and held up a hand. “That’s very kind of you, but I’m trying to quit.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
The man peered at Reigen with the countenance of a perturbed Fu dog, and then broke out into a wide smile. “And how many years’ve you been trying, now?”
Reigen bristled, and then ran a hand through his hair. “About five,” he admitted. “I think.”
The man laughed and patted the bench space next to him. “I like you! Come here and tell me about yourself- I don’t get to spend a lot of time with you young folks anymore. They keep me locked up with the other old fogies at work. Scared I might actually have any fun. Heh!”
Reigen looked between the street and the sun, and then at his watch. “Alright,” he said after a moment, and strode over to the bench.
“So!” said the man, taking a drag, “How old are you, anyway?”
“Twenty eight, sir.”
“Oh! Older than I thought!”
Reigen gave a tight smile.
The man did not notice. “But still young. Still young.” He tapped some ash from the tip of his cigarette and crossed his legs the other way. “Got anybody special? You’re a handsome guy, and professional, too!”
“I,” said Reigen, “no, not particularly.”
“Oh? The man asked, surprise lighting his eyes beneath his bushy brows, “Well, don’t worry! These things take time, you know? It’ll happen when you’re ready. I’m sure you have admirers, even if you don’t realize it.”
Reigen deflected with all the poise expected of his position. “Not as many as you do, I’ll bet.”
At that, the old man laughed and laughed and laughed. “Ha! And a sharp wit! You’re a good one! Ha!” He pulled a tiny plastic bag from his pocket and tapped the last bit of ash from his cigarette before depositing it inside. Reigen watched carefully.
“I’ve got a son a little like you,” the man said. “He’s much younger, but he’s smart as a whip and talented- and handsome, but tragically uninterested in all the cute girls in his class making eyes at him. Probably makes my other son jealous, but it’s hard to tell with those two.”
A cat snuck around the side of the fountain and jumped up to sniff the water, its tail swishing back and forth like a pendulum keeping track of the seconds leading up to eternity. “Two sons! You must be very proud of them,” said Reigen.
“Oh! Yes, very. They’re good kids. Real good kids!” The man shuffled his hands together.
“I’m sure the younger one will be popular with the ladies when he gets a little older,” Reigen commented, his eyes wandering to the ramen shop peeking through the thinning crowd of people on the street.
“Oh? No, no, it’s the older one who struggles. He’s a clumsy and awkward kid for sure. But he tries his best, so it’s hard not to love him. Ha!” The man laughed again. “Just like his old man!” He grinned and leaned forward.
“I know someone like that.” Reigen, after a quick glance at his watch, stared at the cat on the fountain while it stared back at him, and then walked nearly half the circumference before whipping its tail up into the air and facing away from Reigen and his acquaintance. “Your son might like to hear that,” he said. “What you said about being alike.”
“Really?” asked the man. “You think so?” He put a hand on his scruffy chin. “Never thought about it. We’re not much alike besides that, though. Might disappoint him.”
The cat stuck its face into the fountain for a drink, and then slipped and fell in. It yowled and then jumped back out before Reigen could so much as get to his feet, its fur plastered to its face and water dripping down its whiskers to give it the most displeased face imaginable. It shook itself down, hunched its shoulders, and plodded away one wet foot after another at breakneck speed.
Eventually, Reigen and his companion stopped laughing and settled back on the bench.
“I’ve,” said Reigen, still snickering, “I’ve seen that cat by my apartment. I’ll leave something out for it; It’s starting to get colder at night.”
“You like cats?” the man said.
“I like dogs,” answered Reigen.
“It’s not a good idea to feed strays. They keep coming back.”
Reigen raised his eyebrows. “Oh, believe me. I know.”
“Do you? You’ve got a soft heart. My older son likes cats.” Then, the man said, “He wants me to quit, too. Smoking, I mean. He doesn’t exactly say anything, but I can tell.” Then, “I wonder if I should.”
At that, Reigen shrugged. “It’s bad for you.”
“Lots of shit’s bad for me!” the man started, throwing his hands into the air. “That’s why it’s fun.”
Reigen twiddled his thumbs and kicked at a rock. It escaped, but Reigen did not follow. “Is that why?”
The man just laughed. “So, why’ve you been trying to quit? Tryin’ to get a girlfriend, after all?”
“No,” said Reigen.
“No?”
“No.”
“That’s all you’re gonna say?”
Reigen looked at his watch again. “I don’t have anything else to say.”
“Pft,” said the man. “Just like my kids. Not much to say.” He chuckled. The dying light reflected off the side of his face and drifted down along the curve of his torso, cutting out shadows over his face. “They spend so much time on their own, I feel like I barely know them. Sure, they’re nice and we get along fine, but they don’t say a whole lot. Lots of secrets. My youngest has student council and extracurriculars, and my oldest… I know he’s in some kind of athletics club now, and he’s got a part-time job, but.” He smiled, serene and familiar. “I don’t know, maybe I feel like my son is being stolen from me, a little.”
Reigen stared up at him, mouth open and eyes wide.
The man shrugged and looked at his own watch. “Oh, well. That’s part of them growing up, I guess.” He stood up and stretched. “It’s time to go! My oldest is working tonight, so it’ll just be me, my wife, and Ritsu for dinner.” He grinned. “Thanks for humoring me, young fella.” He stuck out his hand for Reigen to shake, and then walked down the bricked path and trails of littered leaves to the street until he rounded the corner and disappeared.
Reigen watched him go, the breeze pulling at his coat and hair like it might hold him back from saying anything stupid while the sun slipped lower down the horizon as it lost interest.
When he turned around, Shigeo was waiting, his gym bag in hand. “Are you ready to go, Master?” he asked, black eyes betraying nothing. “You look lost.”
“I,” said Reigen, looking over his shoulder, “yes,” he amended. “I just,” he looked at Shigeo, and then back at the long walk to the road, “You’ve told your parents about the work you do for me, right?”
Shigeo’s eyes got a little wider, but his expression did not change. “They know I have a part time job, yes.”
“But do they know what you do?”
“I am your office assistant,” Shigeo said plainly. “We shouldn’t keep the client waiting.”
“I,” said Reigen, looking back and forth once more, “Yeah.”