Chapter Text
His life didn’t flash before his eyes. All Reigen saw was red, and he felt like he was suffocating—but the fire burned around him and the smoke cleared and he was still standing. And a man stood in front of him, wielding an umbrella.
After narrowly escaping death once, he did the same twice more, as they were attacked again and then hurled from the side of the tower. The chaos continued after that. He couldn’t do much but watch helplessly and then run when Mob told them to.
After the blast, and what came in its wake, Mob’s brother and friend say that they can sense him, buried under the rubble. So Reigen doesn’t let himself think anything different. They’ll find him, they’ll dig him up, and they’ll go home.
While the rag-tag group organizes, Reigen decides there’s something he should do first.
The man who had saved his life—put his own life on the line for him and for Mob—sits on a stray chunk of concrete, tears streaming silently down his face. Reigen takes a few steps toward him and clears his throat to announce his presence. The man looks up, but he doesn’t wipe his face, apparently not even registering that he should be embarrassed about crying.
“Hello,” Reigen says stiffly. “I feel like I should introduce myself and say thank you. I’m Reigen Arataka.” He extends his hand. “And… thank you.”
The man shakes his hand but doesn’t stand up. “Serizawa Katsuya.” He seems preoccupied still, but when he withdraws his hand he finally blots his face with the sleeve of his robe. “I hope—I hope Shigeo-kun is alright.”
Reigen turns back to look at the giant tree that has sprouted, filling the shape of the mushroom cloud as it dissipated. “Yeah, he’s fine,” Reigen says confidently. “We’ll find him in no time. We’re putting together a little search party if you want to help.”
“Oh.” Serizawa looks down, folds his hands in his lap. “There are… some other things I need to attend to.”
Reigen can’t quite imagine what those things are, but he thinks better of asking. “Well…” He digs into his coat pocket for a business card. Amazingly, he hasn’t misplaced them after this hellish day. “As way of saying thanks—please, feel free to stop by. Actually, since you’re uh… between jobs right now, I might have something for you.”
Serizawa takes the business card like it’s a lifeline thrown to a drowning man. “For me?”
“Yeah.” As Serizawa reads the card, Reigen repeats what it says, with a flourish of his hand: “Spirits & Such Consultation. For all your spiritual and non-spiritual ailments.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Serizawa says, not meeting his eye. “I’ve never really had a job like that before.”
“Don’t worry about it. Mob’s been working for me since he was eleven. It’s a job even you could do.” Reigen means it as a joke—to question the competency of the man who just saved his life seems absurd—but Serizawa doesn’t laugh.
“Okay. Thank you.” Serizawa closes his hand over the card. “When can I come in? Tomorrow?”
“Um.” Reigen wasn’t completely expecting to be taken up on his offer—and he remembers with a start that his office is still very much burnt. “How about Monday?”
Serizawa nods eagerly. “Okay. Thank you, Reigen-san.”
This suddenly seems very backward to Reigen, as his simple gesture of gratitude is met with such deference in return. “No, no,” Reigen says, waving his hand dismissively. “Thank you. See you Monday.”
He turns away to join Ritsu, Teru and Dimple.
It’s a few hours later when they’ve finally found Mob and unearthed him. And he is fine, of course he is, he always is; he’s predictably blasé about the whole thing and Reigen’s chest aches just looking at him.
They walk back to the middle school, Mob on Ritsu’s back. He’s not asleep; his eyes are half open as his head lolls on his brother’s shoulder.
“Hey, Mob,” Reigen says finally, walking beside them. He waits until he gets a sleepy mhm from the kid. “When did you meet Serizawa?”
Mob answers, “Oh, just earlier today. He’s my friend.”
Mob’s had a stressful day and he’s barely conscious so Reigen doesn’t bother to tell him that you can’t be friends with someone you just met.
*
It’s Monday and Serizawa is late. Or maybe a no-show.
Reigen isn’t surprised. His offer was spontaneous to say the least, and Serizawa’s acceptance was just as impulsive. Still, he’s been watching the door and checking his watch for almost an hour, while Mob worries about his future prospects.
The office situation was easier to get sorted than Reigen expected. Turns out, psychic powers can repair as readily as they can destroy. Apart from a few misplaced items here and there, the office feels the same as ever.
When the door does finally open, Reigen leaps up from his chair. Serizawa enters the office, already apologizing. Mob is caught off guard, almost as nervous as Serizawa, as the two are awkwardly reintroduced.
Serizawa’s first day turns out as hectic as he should have expected. Reigen gets him trimmed and shaved, looking presentable and professional—plus, a haircut always helps to turn over a new leaf. The first two clients leave Serizawa more than a little frazzled, and then Mob runs off halfway through his shift, leaving the two of them alone.
“Well,” Reigen says to his new employee. “Do you want to get some ramen?”
“Now?” Serizawa asks. “I thought you said we still have—”
“We’ve already had two walk-in clients today, and there’s nothing on the schedule.” Reigen manages to stop himself before he adds: and you’ve had a hard enough day. “Let’s close up shop.”
When they sit down at a tiny window table at the restaurant down the street, Reigen says, “This is my favorite ramen place.”
“Really?” Serizawa seems to take the offhand comment too seriously—all Reigen really meant was that it’s close to the office and cheap. “I haven’t been to many restaurants.” He says it like it’s a normal thing for a thirty-year-old to admit, while he studies the menu.
Reigen watches him for a moment and then says, “I want you to know that Mob told me about your history. So, I’m aware of all of that. In case it wasn’t obvious. And if you… want help with anything besides work stuff, just let me know, okay? I’d be happy to do it.”
“That’s really generous,” Serizawa says quietly. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. You saved my life after all.” Reigen tries to strike a breezy tone; he’s not sure how Serizawa will react to it. He doesn’t react much, actually. Just smiles a little and returns his eyes to the menu.
They place their orders—Serizawa, for all his deliberating, ends up getting the same thing Reigen gets—and are served within minutes. Another thing Reigen likes about this place: it’s fast.
As Reigen picks up his bowl, he asks, “You have a place to live yet?” He slurps some broth while Serizawa considers his answer.
“I’m… Well, not really. I’m staying in a hotel right now. But I need to… look for a place.” Serizawa lifts up some noodles, his eyes fixed on the rising steam.
Reigen can’t imagine being thrust into the world at thirty, trying to figure it all out. It’s hard enough when you’re eighteen or twenty or twenty-two, but then you usually have people to help you. It’s easier to take gradual steps at that age. Serizawa is learning to swim by jumping into the deep end without a life jacket.
“I suppose you don’t have a credit score or any rental history,” Reigen says carefully.
Serizawa’s eyes are wide. “No. I don’t. Is that—is that something I need?”
Trying to stop another panic spiral, Reigen cuts in, “No, no, it’ll all be fine. Landlords like to see that kind of thing, but everyone is a first time renter at some point, right? Tell you what—” he aims his chopsticks at him, “—I’ll be a reference. Have them call me, and I’ll tell them that you have steady employment.”
“Really? You would do that?”
“Of course I would! I don’t want you throwing your hard-earned money away on a hotel room.” Reigen pulls out his phone. “Let’s look at some listings right now. It’ll be fun.”
Serizawa shifts his chair so they can both look at the screen, and Reigen searches for studio apartments in Seasoning City. He caps the price at a reasonable rate—“I hope that’s not too presumptuous, but I know what you make, after all.”—and asks for Serizawa’s input on other things. He doesn’t have much to say: he doesn’t know the city well enough to have location preferences, he thinks he prefers a small building to a huge complex, he doesn’t want much square footage (as if he’d have much choice in that matter).
“This one’s furnished,” Reigen says, angling his phone screen toward him.
“Oh, yeah.” Serizawa reaches for his phone and takes a closer look, flipping through the photos. “This is what I need. It says ‘move-in any time.’”
“Call and ask for a showing,” Reigen suggests, shrugging.
Serizawa hands him his phone back and shifts in his chair uncomfortably. “What do I say?”
“Just say ‘I’m interested in the apartment and want to schedule a showing.’”
Serizawa nods seriously as he retrieves his own cell phone. He dials the number and there’s a bead of sweat on his forehead again as he waits for the answer. Then, he straightens up and nervously begins: “Hi—Hi. Hello. I saw your listing for the apartment. I’m interested, and want to schedule a showing. Um. I could do… Yeah, Thursday? At one?” He looks at Reigen, and asks him, “Can I have time off Thursday at one?”
Reigen smiles and nods.
“Okay, yes. I’ll see you then. Oh, oh—my name is Serizawa. Sorry, forgot to say. Okay. Thank you. Goodbye.” He hangs up the phone and looks at Reigen, a little smile on his face. “I have a showing Thursday at one.”
Reigen chuckles. “Yeah, I heard. That’s great. I’ll draw up some proof of employment for you, you can take it with.”
Serizawa thanks him and then digs back into his ramen, almost forgotten. Reigen’s done with his bowl but he sits with him quietly until he’s finished.
*
Serizawa’s second day gets off to a smoother start. He’s outside of the office when Reigen arrives that morning and he’s wearing a different suit and tie from yesterday. Reigen looks him up and down, appraising the brown suit and light blue patterned tie. “Look at you, fashion icon,” he says as a greeting. “And you’re early. You put me to shame.”
“I didn’t want to be late again,” Serizawa explains.
“Hope you haven’t been standing out here too long,” Reigen says as he unlocks the office.
“No, not long.”
“Remind me to give you a spare key before you leave today.” Reigen supposes he doesn’t really need one—telekinesis is the world’s master key—but it’s a gesture of trust and of normalcy.
Reigen opens the door and Serizawa follows him in. His hand is in his hair again, tugging at the short tufts, as he spent much of the previous day doing.
“How’s the haircut treating you?”
“Good. It was weird washing my hair this morning,” he says with a sheepish smile. “It feels different. I keep touching it.”
“I noticed,” Reigen says, and then to soothe his self-consciousness, he adds, “It suits you.”
“Thanks.”
Reigen sits down at his desk and starts up his computer. While he’s looking through his inbox, getting a handle on the day ahead, Serizawa places a mug of tea in front of him. Reigen glances up. He has another mug in his own hand.
“Thank you, Serizawa.” He takes a sip before noticing that Serizawa is standing around in the middle of the office; he shifts his weight back and forth on his feet, as if not sure what to do with himself. “I suppose we should get you a desk of your own. But you can sit at Mob’s for now.”
He does, looking comically oversized at the tiny reception desk.
“Ah,” Reigen says, reviewing his calendar. “We have a house call before lunch today. What do you say we go pick out a desk for you and then meet the client?”
They get the desk, or the pieces of the desk, and carry it back to the office on the train—Serizawa’s powers make this a much easier task than Reigen expected—and start putting it together. Serizawa stands, poring over the instructions, while Reigen sits on the floor amongst the various pieces, trying to fit them together. Eventually, they have to abandon their progress to go meet the client.
The house call is across town, at a modern and spacious apartment. The client, a man in his fifties, drones on about seventeenth century ceramics, and Reigen smiles and nods and makes agreeable little noises. He throws a look to Serizawa, tries to bring him into the pleasant if mind-numbingly dull chitchat: “Fascinating, huh?”
Serizawa stands a few paces behind him, Reigen’s new quiet and intense shadow. He nods, still not breaking his silence. It’s already apparent that clients react to him differently than they did to Mob. A fourteen-year-old sulking wordlessly behind Reigen is one thing; this six-foot-tall thirty-year-old man must seem vaguely threatening. Maybe Reigen needs to be clearer that his role here is not to be a bodyguard. Maybe the joking on his first day confused him.
When the client finally ends the monologue about his personal art collection, they stand in front of the vase in question. It looks, well, like a vase. The color is faded a bit on one side, as the client said during his previous phone consultation. That was what led to the suspicion of the supernatural in the first place. Reigen did a quick round of internet research and typed up a little fact sheet on caring for such artifacts: exposure to light, managing temperature and humidity, the whole nine yards. Of course, he titled the fact sheet: Dispelling Spirits And Curses From Your Valued Possessions.
Reigen temples his fingers at his chin and hums. “Serizawa. Will you go ahead with the exorcism?”
After a pause, Serizawa says, “But it’s… but there’s no spirit.”
Reigen pinches his eyes shut for half a second, the only display of frustration he’ll allow himself while on the job.
The client behind him blurts out, “What? What does he mean there’s no spirit? Over the phone you said that it was definitely a curse. What kind of scam are you two running?”
“No, no, sir,” Reigen says diplomatically, turning around to face him. “Sorry for the misunderstanding. My apprentice, Serizawa, here—he’s still in training, and sometimes the stronger spirits evade his detection. No matter. I’ll take care of this one.”
Reigen fishes into his breast pocket for his trusty bag of salt and puts on a show of sprinkling the coarse grains around the vase—not directly on it. The client repeated the astronomical value of it more than a few times, not satisfied until Reigen indulged him with a little raise of his eyebrows and said, “Wow, that much, huh?”
The salt sprinkling is as anticlimactic as usual. Reigen throws in some hand flourishes and chanted gibberish for good measure. It’s all in the presentation. Then he gives the client the Dispelling Spirits fact sheet, the client gives them 12,000 yen, and they go on their way.
Reigen leads Serizawa down the street and toward the train station, not bothering to say anything or even glance back at him. He knows he probably should say something, shouldn’t let his new hire stew in discomfort. But, Reigen thinks, maybe a little discomfort is in order. There’s a reason why mistakes are valuable learning experiences; negative emotions tend to stick in one’s memory longer, more potently.
When they turn the corner, Serizawa scrambling after him, he asks, “Are you… are you upset?”
The stewing is over, apparently.
“I’m not upset,” Reigen replies jovially. “I told you to call me out if I was wrong about something, didn’t I? But I think we need to work on… reading the room.”
“Oh. Reading the room,” Serizawa repeats.
“Yes, we need to be mindful about what we say in front of clients,” Reigen continues. “The way that we might talk to each other is not the way that we should speak in front of a customer.”
“Oh, right. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Reigen says. “This doesn’t come naturally to everyone. Mob, for instance, used to struggle a lot with this.”
They’ve reached the train station. Still a few minutes to wait, and they’re within the window of their transfer tickets. Perfect. Reigen leads Serizawa down the platform, and leans against the railing. He nods his head at his employee, inviting him to join him. Serizawa settles in, leaning beside him.
“So,” Reigen begins again, “if a client really believes that they are cursed—enough so that they have sought out help from us—but in reality they are not cursed… what should we do?”
Serizawa ventures a guess: “Tell them… that they’re not cursed?”
“Not necessarily.” Reigen turns to face him, hands up and ready to gesture. “The thing is, Serizawa, we can’t change a sincerely held belief. They didn’t come to us for that. They came for help. If we turn them away, they’ll just go to another psychic—another psychic who will charge more and not help them. What we can do—for our very reasonable prices, might I add—is actually help them, in whatever way they need. Spirits & Such, right, Serizawa? That’s the… that’s the ‘such,’” he finishes weakly.
Serizawa stares back at him, nods slowly.
Reigen launches into monologue again: “Anyway—and this was an oversight on my part but— we need some kind of signal between us, so that we can communicate without clients catching on. Let’s say… let’s say, we’re in front of an allegedly haunted vase, here—” he gestures to the space in front of them, “and we look at it, and I ask you, ‘Serizawa… can you handle this one?’ and if you say, ‘Yes,’ then you do so. If it is not a spirit, then you say, ‘Why don’t you take it?’ and I’ll do so. Does that make sense?”
Serizawa nods again, more eagerly. “Yes. Sorry, Reigen-san.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s a learning experience. That’s what you’re here for, right?” He claps his shoulder and tilts his head to catch his eye, giving a supportive smile. Behind Serizawa, Reigen spots the train rumbling toward them. “Let me buy you some lunch, okay? MobDonald’s?”
In line at MobDonald’s, while Serizawa thoughtfully looks over the menu, Reigen is distracted by two teenagers behind them. He hears the whispering and distinctly his own name, and sees them pointing out of the corner of his eye. Over the past couple weeks, he’s become accustomed to this kind of thing, able to differentiate between unfounded paranoia and actual attention. This is the latter.
The whispering ceases and then, predictably, there’s a tap on his shoulder. He turns to them.
“Excuse me, are you Reigen Arataka?” one of the girls asks. They look no older than sixteen.
He nods, gives them a pleasant smile. “The one and only.”
Serizawa has taken his attention off the menu board to watch the exchange curiously.
“Could we take a picture with you?” Her eyes are bright as she holds up her cell phone.
“Yeah, alright.” Reigen stays in place as they crowd in on either side of him and beam at the camera. He strikes a pose similar to that in his years-old office poster; cocky grin, quirked eyebrow.
As soon as the photo is captured, he drops the expression; they say their thanks and turn their attention back to their phones, tapping frantically. “Will you send that to me?” the other girl asks, peering over her friend’s shoulder.
Reigen turns back to face forward in line, feeling—and ignoring—Serizawa’s eyes on him. As they take another shuffling step forward, Serizawa asks, his voice low, “Are you… famous?”
Reigen chuckles. “No, I wouldn’t say famous…” He pauses, realizing something. “Wait, did you… did you watch TV while you were in Claw? Or go on the internet much?”
Serizawa shakes his head. “I didn’t at all, really. Not for the past few months, anyway.”
“Were you not allowed to?”
“No, it was never like that,” he says quickly. “I just… didn’t… I didn’t want to.” There’s something about the way he says it, his voice small, his eyes flickering downward.
Reigen brushes it off; something he wasn’t meant to notice. “Well… I suppose if you’re going to be working for me, you should do a Google search sometime. Of… me.”
They order their food—to go—and walk the few blocks back to the office, paper bags and sodas in hand. Reigen sits at his desk and Serizawa in the client chair across from him, his own desk still only half-assembled on the floor. Over their meal, Serizawa takes out his phone, not wasting any time in following Reigen’s instructions.
Reigen meant that he should Google him sometime when he wasn’t there to witness every reaction in real time—but he tries to play it cool, to shake off the feeling that he’s being dissected, his skin peeled back. Serizawa scrolls through his phone with rapt attention while absently munching on fries.
Reigen watches his face, taps his foot anxiously. Serizawa’s eyebrows are slightly furrowed, but other than that his reaction is minimal. At one point, he chuckles and Reigen tenses up—until Serizawa turns his phone to him, shows him the photo with the teenagers, already posted to Twitter: Even the 21st Century’s Greatest Psychic eats at MobDonald’s. #ReigenArataka.
“Oh, great,” Reigen grumbles. “They’re probably going to contact me looking for a sponsorship now.”
After ten excruciating minutes, Serizawa finally puts his phone down and looks up, his face still frustratingly blank.
“Well?” Reigen prompts, impatient. He’s barely been able to eat for the nerves burning a hole in his stomach.
All Serizawa says is, “Wow,” with a mildly impressed tone.
Reigen’s not sure exactly what he saw—he doesn’t have the strength to do such a deep-dive himself—but he has a pretty good idea: he likely saw bits of what happened on TV; he definitely saw the memes from that debacle; hopefully, he saw something from the press conference… the end of it, anyway.
“Yeah…” Reigen pauses. “It was all, a… uh. Publicity stunt. Obviously. And it worked like a charm, you know. Get everyone talking, then hit ‘em with…” he trails off, not able to bring himself to finish that thought. It hasn’t been long since this all went down, not even a month yet. It still makes him a little sick to think about, much less talk about.
Serizawa smiles, none the wiser. “So you are famous.”
Through a chomp of his burger, Reigen mumbles, “I guess.”