Chapter Text
“The truth is that even big collections of ordinary books distort space, as can readily be proved by anyone who has been around a really old-fashioned secondhand bookshop, one that looks as though they were designed by M. Escher on a bad day and has more stairways than storeys and those rows of shelves which end in little doors that are surely too small for a full-sized human to enter. The relevant equation is: Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass; a good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read.”
- Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!
❧❧❧
The multiverse is a wonderful strange kaleidoscope of a thing. Infinitely folding and unfolding with enough doors and possibilities as a holiday advent calendar where, behind every possible door, there is more than just chocolate. The brief amount of scientist who were able to study such an expansive thing, without their heads turning to jelly, raspberry to be exact, were able to conclude some sort of hypothesis (which is very similar to a guess, but with far more steps).
The hypothesis being: If anything is possible, then everything is possible.
As well as: Dark fondant with a cherry liquor filing is quite popular. Something about jam tomorrow. And, if you get right down to it, it sure is a funny old world, erm, multiverse, after all.
This was generally followed up with a rather lengthy and extensive tab from the local pub.
It was supposed to be an easy exorcism. Though, weren’t they always supposed to be? Initially?
However, in this, highly specific instance, that was deeply lacking in the Serizawa department, it was supposed to be a very easy exorcism.
The esper in question was still taking it easy during his recovery process from what has been coined as the “Roshuto incident”.
Sure, Serizawa still showed up to the office, but Reigen found it prudent to look for slightly less taxing cases for now. The sort he could go solo on, much to Serizawa’s chagrin. The sort Serizawa wouldn’t really have to participate in.
Besides, a very big exam was coming up for Serizawa.
And BESIDES, the case in question sounded like a case of mice in the walls more so than a malignant spirit.
And Besides BESIDES, Reigen really didn’t want to risk Serizawa getting hurt again after just half a week out of the hospital, it was bad for his health. Specifically Reigen’s health*.
[*That is to say, his pocketbook. Though that is to truly say, his heart. Which Reigen kept in his pocketbook for safety, and was far too fearful to keep on his sleeve as Serizawa usually did. Unbeknownst to anyone, that Reigen was aware of, there's a little flower shaped sticky note in said pocketbook. It had Serizawa's name on it. Despite this, it was also stapled to a document straight from an online sourced HR document. This is usually tucked between receipts of offered meals, and the occasional IOU from an old woman who usually could only afford to pay in root vegetables.
Which is a pretty round about way of saying: Reigen was very deeply scared for and of Serizawa. Because goodness was he head over heels for him, which is a very inconvenient thing to feel.
This served as a reminder for Boundaries, and Work Ethic. The subtext: Serizawa deserved better. Love can be an irrational creature.]
Cue Reigen, alone, inside “Short Michiyuki” a bookstore on the corner of a heavily frequented bus stop. All sorts from students, to commuters, to those heading out and coming in to town used this bus stop as a quaint stepping stone from one line to the next.
Having a bookstore by such a location felt like a smart business move in Reigen’s mind. Who didn’t like to read while journeying? A small companion when there weren’t any physical companions, or the thoughts of the mind were a bit much. Pure escapism. Great foot-traffic.
The client, a Mori Chimon, was the owner of the Short Michiyuki.
Mori was well into that ambiguous old age of Not 50 Anymore, but certainly Still Kicking. A sun wrinkled face, relaxed skin that at one time certainly stretched over a good set of muscles, and wide cheeks that perfectly added innocence to the mischief in Mori’s twinkling eyes. The sort of man who screamed Cool Grandpa. Who would certainly let you try their cigarette knowing full well you’re going to hack half a lung, be absolutely disgusted by it, hopefully throw up, and forever be turned away from smoking For-Ever.
Reigen had one like that. He sometimes thought of him with bittersweet fondness, before lighting his own cigarette.
Good ol’ Jiji Hikaru.
Back to the present, Mori proffered Reigen some tea as they finalized and repeated a few case details. Jittering in the walls, the sound of scratching, the growing sense of unease when perusing the aisles and corridors of extensive books. The smell of ripening bananas.
“Its quite a collection,” Reigen pointed out genuinely impressed. “I mean,” Reigen eyed his surroundings again, every nook and cranny had some sort of leafed book in it. A low whistle escaped him, underlining his feelings. “From the outside I wouldn’t have imagined so many books could fit in one place. Yet the place just keeps going, and going.” Good lord there was even a downstairs, and an upstairs.
“Oh this building has had quite a history, dear me, yes it has. Was a school, survived a fire, became a library, survived the war, survived yet another fire, bankruptcy, was a library again- I’m not surprised something as strange as a haunting will be the next thing to tack on to the list.”
“There sure is always something, huh.”
“That’s life, my lad. One something, after another,” nodded Mori with all the weighty sageness his ambiguously long life could add.
“R-right.”
Good grief. Reigen knew that older people tended to swath themselves in sagely wisdom, ready to hash out any combination of words like they were the next Bashō. But really, ‘one something after another’? At least the ‘All Star’ meme remix Tome blared from her phone whenever it was close to testing time was at least - well, calling it entertaining would be a stretch. More like, it caused some sort of emotion akin to pure anxiety, and a migraine by an exploding fireworks factory. Horrible, but at least something that didn’t invoke a bland ‘Congratulations You’re Graduating’ card.
Reigen placed his cup down, and tried not to think about Serizawa. He gestured towards the stacks of books, “Mind if I look around?”
“I’d be offended if you didn’t! Please. It’s what you’re here for, after all.”
Reigen managed a chuckle like sound to slide from between his smile. “Of course.”
In the vast muted silence of a large apartment, far too large for a lone middle schooler, Hanazawa Teruki looked at the messages in his phone. It was the 18th time he’s read, and reread, a very specific message. It’s a message he didn’t quite want to deal with. A message he didn’t entirely believe. A message he had no idea how to approach.
He doesn’t often show others the tugging bittersweetness he feels, in fact, he would never show it if he could help it. The heavy nearly oppressive loneliness masked as preferred solitude.
He’s fine. Everything is fine. Thank you very much.
But his parents aren’t on the same continent, and are hardly ever if at all on the same page with each other. And with their grace, that is to say, their money, Hanazawa Teruki is fully enjoying and embracing this solitary apartment life. To the fullest!
Sure his apartment exploded once, but its refurbished, and hey! Complimentary refrigerator thrown in guaranteed, it’s nice, even if it is second hand, or perhaps third hand with a new paint job, it does its job well.
Sure his plans were canceled because, because… well, Hanazawa Teruki saw the forecast, and it said there was an unprecedented 50% possibility for rain. It had nothing to do with not quite feeling up to playing the personable people person. The true reason is 50% 50%.
Whatever the reasons, or percentages, Hanazawa was alone, feeling a little sorry for himself for reasons he refused to contemplate, and decided to pick up a book at random from his favorite comfort series.
While he bravely read, the words started to become wobbly looking, as tears slowly started to form. He kept reading, tears kept falling, and, eventually, he fell asleep.
While Reigen toed the bottom of a wobbly shelf, and tried very very hard not to think about book lice, or silverfish, he said, over his shoulder to Mori, “So, how can you even find anything in here? What if I wanted to find a specific book?”
“Then I’m sure it’d be found.”
“It’s like a maze in here,” said Reigen mildly distracted by how a stack of books seemed to spiral with the staircase. He’d hate to be here during an earthquake.
“I never said it would be a quick process to find a book,” Mori chuckled from somewhere in his bookshop, like a disembodied deity, or something, “but however long it takes, the right book is always found.”
Reigen inhaled through his nose, and looked up into the ceiling for not only patience, but also any signs of mice holes or damages. A dust particle must have tickled something in his nose, as he then started sneezing.
“Tissue?” asked Mori seemingly materializing from nowhere by Reigen’s elbow.
“Thank you,” sniffled Reigen with pulled together dignity.
“Have you, found anything?” asked Mori, with a sort of leaning anticipation. It almost looked comical. “Felt any presence?”
“Hah?” Reigen blew his nose on the tissue, “Oh. Uh, oh yes, I’m certainly feeling something.” Reigen wiped his nose again for good measure, not wanting anything to be left hanging. “There’s a presence here alright,” Reigen squinted at the dust particles caught in the ray of sunlight, floating about, marginally reflecting the light like wisps.
There is always something that could be said about dust particles. They always looked like something more, magical in its simplicity to just float and be noticed in the light, and at the end of the day they were still dust. Nothing more, nothing less.
Not too dissimilar to the bookshop itself really. Thank goodness his instinct on how easy a job this would be was right. He could wrap this up easy, and be back in time to see Serizawa off before he headed out to night school.
“Just, one last thing, please.”
“Yes?” Mori’s eyes are twinkling again. Though that could be the dust.
Reigen held up the used tissue, “Where can I dispose of this?”
“Oh! Of course, just right down there,” Mori gestured, somewhat vaguely, but Reigen is sure he could figure it out.
“Excellent. I’ll be right back.”
“Take your time.”
Reigen keeps himself from making a face, and started walking down one of the corridors. Keeping the used tissue at a marginal distance, he flipped open his phone to look up various home remedy ways to keep silverfish away.
There’s a somewhat decent article on keeping a stem of rosemary in books, strategically placed dried bay leaves. Then it goes on talking about lavender, and lilacs.
“Huh.”
At the office of Spirits and Such, Serizawa looked out the window, and watched as the rays of sunlight flittered in and out from passing clouds.
“Hm. Might rain, might not,” Serizawa said to no one in particular. Or at least that what it would look like if you weren’t an esper, or someone who has had a prolonged contact with them and their abilities.
“Yeah?” Said a would be disembodied voice, nearly grating in its sneering quality. The sort of voice that belonged to someone who would perpetually pick his nose with his pinky finger. “What about it?” said Dimple.
Serizawa contemplated this with all the gentleness of a grazing cow.
His thoughts grazed towards Reigen, and whether or not he brought an umbrella to the bookstore client. Would it be necessary to bring one out to him? Was this an excuse to just meet up with him? Would he have time to get to his night class in time if he did decide to bring an umbrella out to Reigen? Would it be ridiculous to bring an umbrella, especially if it turned out entirely unnecessary to bring one? Did Reigen want an umbrella, or, erm, maybe, him?
Serizawa’s hands rubbed together, feeling a bit clammy. Having had perhaps a few too many umbrella related thoughts in one go. Reigen inclined or not, for Serizawa, too many umbrella thoughts tended to bring out a slightly nagging fear of backsliding. He spoke about this at length with his therapist.
Tired from his own thoughts Serizawa sighed and rested his chin in his palm. Cheeks, a bit pink.
“Fifty fifty anyway you look at it,” said Serizawa at last, in a deceptively calm voice that hid a title wave of anxiety.
“Hah?” said Dimple, flicking whatever he was picking from his nose away.
The name of the bookstore was starting to rub off on Reigen’s imagination. Especially as he started to feel less and less as though he were walking down a corridor of an extensive bookshop, and more like he was walking down a hanamichi stage. In which Reigen felt, in what he’d be the first to admit was pure foolishness, was as if all the books in Mori Chimon’s curated library were watching him, like an audience at the edge of their seats. Spines of all sorts, leaned, invitingly.
Anticipating,
anticipating.. . what, exactly? To be picked up? Leafed through? Perused?
Pure foolishness, plain and simple.
And oh, how the universe loves a fool.
Hesitation ran through Reigen’s arm as he rubbed in his thumb and forefinger together, a breath away from picking up a book. It had an interesting spine, and the title of the author, though foreign, sounded familiar. Reigen was fairly positive he had read this author’s work before. What was it called again? It had been ages ago, just before or as he had started college, perhaps? This was going to bug Reigen all day now. Like an annoying itch just to the left of the frontal lobe.
Goodness, when was the last time he had read fiction for fun?
From somewhere in the bookstore the bell signaling the door had been opened and closed, chimed.
That was when the earthquake hit.
Hanazawa Teruki had managed to fall asleep. The book he was reading placed over his puffy red eyes. He dreamed of exciting carriage chases, impossible tasks, a vampire photographer who practically combusts to dust every time he takes a photo and resembles himself, people hanging from wires sending messages with lights, an on going question about the whereabouts of a cow, carrot stalks with tufts of green that looked similar to the shape of a crown, talking dogs, Shigeo turning back to look at him, and a building that blazed, on fire, while a scratch band played a waltz.
It was like a wave. A surging suspended anticipation like if one crossed a literal title wave with a sport stadium crowd. On each side of the corridor books started toppling into each other, and on to Reigen. Reigen stumbles, has just a second of time to get his bearings before he started falling over himself to get out of the corridor.
He didn’t remember the corridor being this long before. Didn’t remember it curling and curving, though that could also be from the earth shaking.
This was supposed to be an easy case. Open and closed. Give the old man some leaves and dried flowers, make a show of hanging them. Offer a package deal of Spirit and Such’s complementary incense that is guaranteed to ward of spirits, and wasn’t at all generic store-bought incense with the tag scratched off.
This was supposed to be an easy job!!
Visions of Mob, Serizawa, and all the kids flashed before his eyes, even Dimple, much to his own bemused chagrin, as the Dimple in Reigen’s mind was making rude gestures at him. Figures.
“I’m going to fucking survive this!!” Reigen yelled at the top of his lungs, hurdling over a bookcase that was leaning over a shaking wall*.
[*This is one of Reigen Arataka's special moves: Where he parkours through various objects (sometimes moving sometimes not), to get to where he needs to be. Usually away from danger. Usually.]
From a distance Reigen could see it. The curving staircase, and the archway that connects it to the wall, one of the only places Reigen can see that didn’t have toppling books.
Just as he is about to reach it, someone falls through the air, well logically it would have to be from the upstairs, and on top of Reigen.
It was by no means a graceful fall. Not that there was anything graceful about falling through a gap of a curving staircase to begin with, but it certainly didn’t inspire an image of a classic painting filled with the decent of angels.
Even if there was a golden cascade of filtering light, with motes of dust particles dancing in the air current left in the falling body’s wake.
Borderline poetic, the rest of the border was filled with the pain of having a sack of potatoes dumped on Reigen’s appendix.
“OMPF” said Reigen, with feeling.
He wheezed, and looked without quite looking, adrenaline pumping to the point where he could hear it in his ears.
He grabbed whoever fell by their gray suit collar, and dragged with all the force that was left in Reigen.
His eyes spun with double vision from the tremors. From the safety beneath the stairs he watched on as books continued to cascade into each other. As Reigen caught his breath he wondered, idly, if he would be buried here with..he spared a glance at the gray suit wearing fellow in his lap and was only to spare the cognitive realization that whoever this was, was not Mori.
Reigen then spared another spark of thought hoping Mori got out of the bookshop alright, and then went back to considering the logistics of swimming through books.
It started to rain. At least in the area where Spirits and Such’s office is. Serizawa sighed again. He checked his phone.
There were no messages.
He checked the time.
It was almost time for him to leave for night school.
His thumb hovered over the messaging app, just above Reigen’s name. He then inched his thumb to the side so it wouldn’t cover Reigen’s first name.
“You think Tome-chan is coming in today?” said Dimple, cutting through whatever pink thoughts Serizawa was allowing himself to muse over.
“Oh! Um,” Serizawa fumbled with his phone and placed it down on his desk, in what he hoped wasn’t very incriminating. He cleared his throat, “No, Tome-chan told us yesterday she wouldn’t be able to make it.”
“Oh? What could possibly drag Tome-chan away from this termite hill of excitement.”
“Something about…bug catching with friends? Though I’m only a little sure she only said that to get a reaction from Reigen-san.” Serizawa smiled at the memory, and it broadened in a touched way, content that, from the sound of things, Tome was making friends in high school.
Dimple made a mischievous face, which wasn’t all that different than his usual face, but this one had more intent. “Is that so? Weeeeell, that’s fair. Spring’s here, all sorts of crawlies waking up after the winter,” Dimple said to the air in general, waving his pinky in a spiraling gesture.
It was sometimes painful to watch Dimple try to be innocent. Serizawa watched him float closer and closer to the window. The ghostly version of inching away.
“Tell Tome-chan I said hi,” said Serizawa, smiling.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”
Serizawa waved as Dimple faded out through the window. He returned his attention back to his phone while the pattering sound of a light spring shower filled the silence of the office.
It was not raining at the bookstore, for the same reason Serizawa did not feel an earthquake. Well, not the exact same reason, but a more generalized reasoning that could be broadly filed under ‘isolated instances’.
To Reigen’s delight and mortality, he and the person in his lap, did not in fact drown under the raging sea of literature.
However, the irony of pushing a copy of Moby Dick away from himself was not lost to Reigen.
From what Reigen could tell there was no structural damage. Everything seemed fine, messy, but fine.
He leaned out from under the staircase, and noted the stairs were certainly still usable.
Okay, means of leaving check.
All that really remained was the whole human person that was on top of him.
“Hey,” said Reigen, jiggling his leg in hopes to stir whoever this was, “you okay? Oi.”
No responce.
Reigen flipped the guy over to face upwards, and checked to see if there were any signs of, well, blood or something. Idly, Reigen wondered when would be the right time to start panicking. Thats when Reigen remembered he should probably check if this person was breathing, at least.
Reigen curved a finger below whoever this was’s nose.
Yup. Signs of life.
He wiped his finger against whoever this was’s lapels. “You, uh? Unconscious?” Thank goodness Reigen never tried to be a private detective.
Reigen leaned forward some, eyes narrowing in concentration. And looked. Reigen looked at him. Deep in his face. Every line, every detail. Looking. And realized he looked, he looked!!
Like the most average looking motherfucker Reigen ever had the displeasure of meeting.
Without much ceremony or lingering, Reigen checked the guy’s pockets for an ID.
No such document was found.
What was found was: a stash of lock picks rolled in velvet (very suspect), a pencil, a piece of string, and a leathery pouch that jingled.
With the surreptitious look around that he was, in fact, alone with Unconscious-san. Reigen began a tumble of mental gymnastics that would have earned him at least a silver in the olympics. Oozing with good will towards his fellow man, and reasoning that, well, what if identification could be found inside the jingling pouch, and a look of placating innocence of good will that shone so bright it could be picked up from any surveillance camera, (not that Reigen thought any would be working after an earthquake) Reigen checked the pouch.
A strangled sound escaped Reigen.
He turned back to who he was now mentally naming Unconscious-san, and reevaluated him to be the most Beautiful average looking motherfucker he ever had the Pleasure of meeting.
The pouch had gold in it. Real, tangible, bite-able, gold!! Sure the majority of the pouch also had some paper with drawings like someones own take on monopoly money. But the gold!!
Reigen’s mind filled and swirled with daydreams of Unconscious-san’s generosity, the gratefulness of Reigen’s heroism as he single handedly caught Unconscious-san, and whisked him and himself to safety. Just how much could he-
This daydream was interrupted by an elbow to the nose, and stars in Reigen’s eyes.
Reigen swore, and barely felt the average looking motherfucker leave his lap.
“Hey!! Hey!! You shouldn’t be running - I, damn.” Reigen scrambled to his feet, hoped his nose wasn’t bleeding, and ran after the gray blur.
He was halfway up the stairs when he heard the sound of a car screech, a scream, and a thunk.