Chapter Text
Ritsu is awake. Surely, he’s awake.
There isn’t enough light coming into his room. It’s a dark gruel further distorted by visual noise. He blinks slowly at the ambiguous silhouettes that are only recognizable as his room through the mental picture he has of it.
There is something standing behind his door.
It is distinct. White is something that makes it through the dark, and there is white there. His brother in his pajamas, Ritsu thinks, but the memory of Shigeo does not slot easily onto the shapes.
The visual snow is like a spread of multicolour sand across his vision, making the edges swim. He doesn’t…he doesn’t know what slots onto those shapes. That isn’t a person’s shape. That isn’t a person behind the crack in the door. He can’t move. It isn’t a person.
A pale hand with long, knobby fingers grips the door. Ritsu doesn’t think he could move even if he wanted to.
What pushes in is in a school uniform, maybe, the white block being the shirt, tucked in high so the proportions look wrong. Over-long arms hovering in the dark. The face is a caved-in blotch of black, truer dark than any corner of Ritsu’s room.
It’s here for him.
It approaches without a sound. All is quiet. He can’t hear his father’s snoring, or Shigeo rolling in his sleep, or cars passing outside, or the buzz of streetlamps.
It stands over him, staring at him with the black, and Ritsu looks up at it with wide, terrified eyes.
The knobby fingers slide over his sheets and wrap around Ritsu’s hand. The figure’s palm is so freezing the skin where it touches goes numb. Then it descends, not to be level with Ritsu, but to sit on the floor. It holds Ritsu tight and begins moving in a strange rhythm.
He lays there, in the gap of silence, eyes straining to catch the bobbing of the dark head of hair. It takes him a moment before the tight little motions mean anything to him.
Rocking. Small, tight, self-soothing movements.
Ritsu remembers, faintly, in a vision that bleeds into the room he’s seeing, the way he would wake up after a nightmare, and the way he wouldn’t be able to go to Shigeo about it, because Shigeo was the nightmare. He’d pad to his parent’s room and hold his mother’s hand, rocking there until she woke up because he was too afraid to speak.
Ritsu does move then, maneuvers so his hand hangs more comfortably over the edge of the bed. His gaze on the top of the strange figure’s head becomes curious instead of fearful. He lets it sit there, even as his hand goes completely numb.
But he does not invite it onto his bed.
==+==
Arataka wakes feeling like his hand has been crushed by a sledgehammer.
It has the character of numbness up until his bones, which are always where the hurt is. If he didn’t know better he’d think the curse has done something irreparable to the marrow. He can barely move his fingers. He is accustomed enough to pain that he doesn’t cry, but it’s a close thing.
Arataka climbs out of bed wincing the whole way through. The pain may be less immediate, but his joints are faring no better than the hand. It’s responding to his mood, but if he could stop feeling sorry for himself on command, he would have done it years ago.
It’s his left hand that’s hurting, at least. Don’t need a left hand to click a mouse, or answer calls. He doesn’t exactly understand why it’s hurting, but he’s given up questioning the eclectic moods of his curse.
He gets some cold water to drink from his water cooler and sits on his couch, willing himself to get over the feeling. Time swims despite the methodical tick tick tick of the clock. He knows he won’t be able to go back to sleep at this level of pain.
Then, out of nowhere, the air is suddenly much easier to breathe, and the whole house seems lighter. There’s the sound of a key in the lock, shuffling, and Mob emerges from the genkan. He stops at the sight of Arataka on the couch. “You’re up early.”
“It’s noon,” Arataka mumbles.
“Yes,” Mob says, and then goes right into his usual weekend post-wakeup routine.
The curse roils in rejection at Mob’s arrival, but as Mob starts cooking breakfast, it slowly flattens out. As it relaxes, the slamming pain in his hand finally releases. Thank fuck. What the hell was that about?
Mob serves him breakfast and takes out a homemade bento for lunch. He takes a little weiner octopus tentacle in his teeth and strips it up to the top of its head in a clean line like it’s string cheese, a habit Arataka realizes Mob must have gotten from him. It’s always a little strange to see his unconscious habits reflected in the kid.
Arataka’s plate is piled with vegetables — the most pleasant thing to eat that takes the least amount of preparation — as well as an even spread of textures someone who has tastebuds probably would not enjoy. Mob has made his favourite, which is tamagoyaki that has been cut into extremely thin portions and rolled into hideous little weed joints with seaweed paper.
His thoughts swim. He stares at Mob rip the octopus to shreds tentacle by tentacle. It’s almost exorcism day, and he’s flagging already. The usual dull throb in his body pounds heavier and heavier as his thoughts sink. The seaweed crinkles under his teeth.
The doorbell rings.
Mob and Arataka look to the door, then at each other. They do not get visitors at this house.
Mob answers it so that Arataka cannot unintentionally summon a meteor to strike the visitor down through the power of his curse. Jubilant conversation pours from the front door. Mob’s short responses are almost inaudible. Finally, the kid returns with a fruit basket.
“From the neighbour. She heard you were sick.”
“What am I, a hospital patient?”
Mob sets the basket down. “I think it’s nice of her. I don’t usually get to talk to your neighbours.”
“They probably think I’m a predator,” Arataka mumbles.
Mob halts. Arataka can’t help but look up to see why, and winces at the sight of a rare complete expression on Mob’s face; stern disapproval.
“They don’t think that, Reigen-san,” he says far gentler than the glower would imply.
“I— I know. I mean, I’m wondering what it even looks like, you coming in daily and nobody seeing me once.”
“I work here. I tell them about it.”
“Eleven-year-olds don’t have part-time jobs.”
“Uhm.” Mob visibly thinks about this, which is close enough to acknowledgment. The silence continues as he starts eating his lunch again. Most of his expression is overshadowed by the bowlcut. It’s unbearable. It makes Arataka’s skin crawl.
Finally, Mob decides on what he wants to say. “I think they think I’m family.”
A sudden queasiness, and responding soreness in his marrow. Arataka’s appetite shrivels like a worm under the full light of the sun. A shameful flush rises up the back of his neck, threatening to hit his head and only fought back by his body’s disoriented attempt to fight whatever is sending shivers of pain through him.
“Makes sense,” he chokes.
He likes being thought of as family, is the thing.
If he were ever given the opportunity to go back in time, he’d beat his own skull in for leaping on the chance to rope the kid into this situation. It was pathetic and cowardly, and if he had any way of knowing that how tightly Mob would have to wind his life around Arataka just to keep him ticking, he never would have dragged him down with him.
But Mob did wind his life around him, and living his life at Arataka’s side is…the closest thing to a personal relationship Arataka may ever get. He never got along with his sister, but there was always an implicit understanding that they’re part of a whole, even though her goodwill was pulled so thin that he was reluctant to admit he was dying. And, well, that feeling certainly persists with Mob.
It has to. Arataka made sure of that.
He struggles through the rest of his breakfast, and Mob does the dishes. It’s still too early for work. He already met his quota, so there’s no reason to start early. His whole body throbs with the aftershocks of his self-loathing.
“Ah.” Mob pauses as he opens the door to the hall, and then he opens the next door to the engawa. “I think the sunflowers are ready.”
Arataka rubs his face. Right. “We needed a new place to plant them now that the hydrangea are so big, right?”
Mob tilts his head at the garden. “Mmm…I’m not sure where, though. I should ask Youko-san…”
Won’t that be novel. Youko hasn’t been hovering around here for years; she’s gone back to her default state of keeping her distance and ignoring shit right in front of her face, tucking her life and her problems out of sight of everyone else.
Arataka winces through another starburst of pain. He almost complains at the curse out loud. He can’t help it. You try to be an optimist in this situation!
But it’s nothing more than a miserable side effect, only responding to the severity of Arataka’s moods rather than how well the curse has been sealed. There’s no intent behind it, not in the way there is when the curse seeps from his body like an eel emerging from its hole.
Mob returns with a bucket. “Do you want to take the seeds out with me?”
Ahh. He needs to get out of his own head.
Arataka smoothes out his thoughts and puts on the most confident mask he can manage. “Sounds like fun.”
They scrape the buds off into the grass, and start breaking the flowers up. They’re not particularly large, probably because of their shaded position behind the hydrangeas. The seeds patter-patter-patter against the bucket as his fingernails dig them out at their base. It’s a little reminiscent of blackened teeth falling out.
“I’m…Tonight, I have plans,” Mob says haltingly.
Arataka glances sidelong at him. “Ah? You don’t need my permission every time.”
“I know. I…” Mob looks contemplative. His thumbs rub the seeds free as if he were massaging the blossom. “…I’m meeting with. A friend.”
“Oh?” Relief is the first thing Arataka feels, that Mob is capable of making friends. An unpleasant itch under his skin follows. It doesn’t mean anything. He experiences unpleasant feelings often.
“I’m not really sure how to make friends in middle school,” Mob continues uneasily. “I’ve never just. Hung out with someone. And it’s my first time meeting someone with psychokinesis…”
The kid he mentioned from before, the one who had lashed out at him. It’s a relief to hear that the situation’s resolved to the point they decided to be friends.
“Ah, yeah, I can only really show you my, uh, spiritual techniques.” And most of it was bullshit he’s copied from the pseudo-scientific diatribes he saw on Spirit Walk.
“He uses his powers more, so he wanted to give me tips. But I think we’re just playing,” Mob continued, in the slow way he does when he isn’t sure where he wants to go with his sentence. “The ways he uses his…it’s different.”
“Different?”
“He…I think, maybe, he mostly uses his powers for that. Fun. Just because it makes him happy.” With another small massaging circle of his thumb, another round of seeds plop into the bucket. Arataka imagines the bed of the flower like row after row of festering gums, too rotten to hold onto the decaying stubs of teeth any longer. He imagines some of the blackness as long-dried blood.
“I used to use them like that. But I think when he’s lost control it’s not as dangerous, so he never stopped. I think…” Mob frowns down at his flower. “I’m in control enough to use my powers for work, I don’t know why I don’t ever want to play with them anymore.”
Patter-patter-patter.
“Well, how would you play?”
Mob’s face scrunches a little in concentration. “…I…don’t know. I liked to show them, but it’s not like Ritsu or Tsubomi-chan want to see anymore.”
“Tsubomi-chan?”
“Ah…” Mob goes a little pink. Oho? “My childhood friend…”
Arataka makes a wide dismissive gesture. “Well, it’s like I told you, powers are just a normal skill. Once people get used to seeing it and the novelty wears off, you have to actually do stuff with it. Thrill-seeking middle-schoolers are less interested in bending spoons and more interested in knowing a guy who can spin the merry-go-round fast enough they can dangle sideways when they hold the bars, or being held up on top of a tree to look at a bird nest.”
“A bird nest…” Mob looks enchanted by the thought.
“Even in childhood, you weren’t interfacing with the world with your powers, you were just trotting them out to show off you had them. I think seeing you doing regular work would be way more impressive to most people.”
Mob lights up with the simple joy of understanding the conversation. “My mom likes it when I use them in the kitchen.”
“Exactly! That’s the power of interfacing!”
“I see…I’ll ask Hanazawa-kun more about it. He says he can reshingle roofs,” Mob says with genuine delight. Mob has the simple, utilitarian mindset of a small farm owner. No wonder Youko says he’s easy to shop for.
“It’s good to get to know more kids your age. Socialization is important to depth of thought,” Arataka says. When he starts in on the flower again, the petals tickle at his palms, reminding him it’s just a blossom.
“Mmm…He’s really different. I think he expects me to use my powers more…I wonder if he didn’t understand what exactly happened when me met…” Mob trails off, and the last of the seeds tumble from the flowerhead. His posture begins locking up like he’s trying to tightly grip something inside him. “…I don’t think…my powers are like anyone else’s. Every time I lose control, so much of it comes out. I don’t think I can talk to him about it.”
“One person can’t give you everything,” and there’s a spike of nerves that warn Arataka has already pushed too far into himself with just that statement, but he is used to talking through his nerves. It doesn’t matter. “You’ll meet a lot of people in life, and none of them will perfectly meet your every need. That’s why it’s called a social net.”
Arataka doesn’t have that. Arataka has two people.
Mob stares blankly at his seedless flowerhead. “Do you think that youkai was right? That I’m the only one like me?”
Arataka clicks his tongue. “Hey, are you still fixated on that? Relax. You don’t have to be super strong to not have control of your powers. Somewhere out there is someone who’s half as strong but has the same issues. Anyway, the spirit you’re talking about possessed Youko, right? An opportunistic asshole like that wouldn’t want you to commiserate with other espers!”
“Oh. That makes sense.” Mob relaxes, and he takes another flower. “I’d like to meet other espers. I liked meeting someone like me.”
Not that Mob has much opportunity to socialize at all, let alone with something as rare as an esper. The kid had to get set up by some freak ghost who specifically sought him out for his powers. What are the chances of Mob coincidentally finding anyone else?
And if he does, surely he’d notice it. How unfair this is. How fucked over he was by finding Reigen Arataka, some fraud rotting from the inside because he didn’t understand how actual espers work, instead of someone who could help him. Now he’s obligated to spend his life learning lessons from the worst possible person he could have found. There’s no escaping this, there’s no improving, there’s just sugarpill words that are evidently less and less functional the more Mob grows up. Soon enough he’ll recognize this house for the prison it is.
His whole body throbs the longer he stews, but he can’t bring himself to feel it at this point. Arataka thinks, with exhausted resignation, that a lot of things wrong with this situation would be resolved if he just died.
Pain lances down Arataka’s hand, and he doubles over with a choked-off gasp. His vision goes white with the intensity of it.
“Reigen-san?” Mob cries.
His hands run over Arataka’s shoulders, back, arm, helplessly attempting to divine the problem, as if the injury was physical. But it’s not, it’s inside him, vivid and hateful, a crushing grip that grinds his metacarpals into bonemeal.
Mob lets out a small gasp and a layer of curses peels from just under Arataka’s skin. Mob’s powers dig deeper, and Arataka can feel it forcefully peel the punishing squeeze free from his hand.
The curse snaps into that little cranny inside Arataka without needing to be forced.
Because it was fleeing.
Because whatever that was, it was on purpose.
Mob looks shaken when Arataka rolls over. His eyes rest heavy on Arataka’s hand. This has never happened before. To his understanding, this has always been an illness. Arataka has never told him about the behaviours.
“…Exorcism day is soon,” Mob finally says.
“Looking forward to it,” Arataka wheezes back.
85%
==+==
Tonight Shigeo wears the clothes Reigen bought for him.
He’s not sure he wants to go out right now. The sudden attack and then Ritsu’s high school bullies compete for attention in his head. But he had already agreed when Hanazawa asked, and he can’t break a promise he made in advance.
The clothes look okay. Reigen had insisted that he picked a bunch of nice plain ones that he can’t go wrong with, and it looks a lot like what he usually wears.
His mother coos when she sees him coming down the stairs. “Oh, you look nice! What’s the occasion?”
“A friend wanted to hang out,” Shigeo says shyly. Maybe it’s stylish after all? Hanazawa would probably like that. He seems to like style.
“A friend! Hm,” she looks at the clock. “Days are getting shorter, I don’t want you out too long. You can keep yourself safe with your powers, can’t you?”
“Yeah. I told Ritsu before, if I use a barrier I can just walk away.”
She nods in approval. “Good. Oh, I hate to send you right back upstairs again, but can you tell Ritsu it’s dinnertime?”
“Oh. Sure.”
Ritsu’s room is quiet when Shigeo knocks. It stays quiet. Curious, Shigeo knocks a little harder. Silence.
“Ritsu, dinner,” Shigeo calls through the door.
Nothing.
The anxiety spikes, even there’s no reason to believe Ritsu not responding is in any way a problem. He shouldn’t be pessimistic, but his gut churns. Shigeo knocks again. Nothing—
A thud.
Ritsu groans and approaches the door with heavy footsteps. When he opens it up, he’s wearing a button-up — some small part at the back of Shigeo’s brain notes it isn’t the kind of thing Ritsu normally wears — and his hair is a disaster.
“Dinner,” Shigeo repeats.
Ritsu gives him an extremely tense smile. “Oh. Thanks.”
Shigeo glances over his little brother’s shoulder into his room. The window is open, and his school bag is laying on the ground next to the bed with the contents spilled out over the floor. Ritsu’s face is flushed, and getting redder the longer Shigeo looks.
Ah. He must have fallen asleep and tripped over the bag trying to get up. Shigeo smiles at him. It would probably be mean to point out how funny that is.
The two of them go set the table out. His mother kept shooting him sly looks the whole time, so Shigeo probably should have expected it when dinner starts and she suddenly says, “So how about that friend of yours?”
Ritsu sits ramrod straight. “Friend?”
“Uhm,” says Shigeo.
“I haven’t seen you with anyone at school,” Ritsu accuses.
“...He goes to another school."
“When did you get the chance to meet someone from another school?”
Shigeo’s cheeks warm. “Someone needed me to pass on a message to him. He wanted to talk more so we met up later. He’s good at a lot of things, so he said he’d give me advice.”
“Oh, I was hoping it would be a girl,” their mom muses.
Their dad laughs. “That doesn’t matter, our boy’s getting out more! Going to, ah, what’s open late. Karaoke?”
Shigeo does not think he has the rhythm or ear for pitch to sing karaoke, but he just nods, because if he actually said where Hanazawa invited him his parents would get mad at him.
“How old is he?” Asks his mom.
“He’s in the same year as me. I think we’re the same age? Uhm—” His spoon goes floppy in his hand, and he winces.
“Let me,” Ritsu says sharply, and he snatches it from him. Shigeo’s grip isn’t good enough to get spoons looking normal again and he lacks the fine psychic control required to get it just right, so Ritsu almost always fixes them, but never this insistently.
“That’s great! You needed kids your age to hang out with. What about, uh, the girl you were always with, Tsubomi?” Their dad presses.
Shigeo flushes and doesn’t take the spoon back to avoid bending it a second time. She's coming up a lot lately. Tsubomi was one of the scant few children in their neighbourhood who went to Salt Middle, which he was relieved about up until he realized she didn’t really hang out in the park anymore and was always surrounded by girls. Nobody he knew from elementary school ever talked to her anymore, not even his female friends, and talking to her alone—
“She’s super popular. It’s hard enough to insert yourself into someone else’s friend group once it’s formed,” Ritsu says casually. He waggles the spoon until Shigeo takes it.
“Middle school politics,” their dad sighs with a shake of his head.
“Hanazawa-kun is popular,” Shigeo blurts.
“Oh, well there you go, you still have it in you! Why not talk to Tsubomi again? Childhood friend privileges and all!”
“Erm,” says Shigeo.
“Tsubomi-san is a girl,” Ritsu says with solemn finality.
“Come now dear, don’t you remember middle school? Leave him be.” Their mother chastises. Then she leans forward with a small smile. “You enjoy spending time with your friend, Shige.”
“What? He’s going out? It’s already 6:40. He’ll be out past dark!” Ritsu cries. “Why does he get to go out when I’m grounded?”
Their mom clicks her tongue. “For goodness sake, high-schoolers aren’t after him, are they? And he’s got powers! Shige can take care of himself.”
“Well I—“ Ritsu’s jaw locks, and he stabs his rice vindictively. He isn’t usually this upset about anything. He must feel cooped up.
“I can take you somewhere if you want to go out,” Shigeo suggests softly.
Ritsu sinks lower in his chair for a moment, but then takes a deep breath and sits up. “It’s okay. I can take a few days at home. It’s not like I go out much anyway.”
“How…How about Reigen-san’s next good day, if you want something to do?”
Ritsu’s furrowed brow smooths right out. He leans over eagerly. “Really?”
“I— I can ask. Yes.”
Ritsu used to ask about Reigen all the time. He found the idea of the man fascinating, and would always try to mine Shigeo for information— and then complain about the vague answers. He’s stopped in the past year, so Shigeo had simply assumed he lost interest, but maybe he only stopped bothering.
At least that made him feel better. Reigen has been helping Shigeo a lot through his recent anxieties, maybe he’d have the perfect advice for Ritsu too?
When dinner is over, Shigeo contemplates texting Reigen about it, but then he remembers how bad that last attack was. The exorcism is due very soon, and today was the worst it’s ever been. Shigeo had thought he was improving, but that was so…
During the day, maybe.
He feels, once again, that he might not be in the mood to play around, but the agreement and his parent’s encouragement takes him right out the door.