Chapter Text
“Isn’t this just another prank? Like the urban legend of the jinmenken?”
“What? No! Have a little faith, Mob. I don’t handle phony stuff like that anymore. It’s the real deal this time.”
Mob stared down at a blurry picture on Reigen’s laptop messaged to him through his homepage of a dog laying on the roof of a house. Just some dog. Just laying there. On a roof.
“Uh...”
“Some evil spirit obviously could have lifted that dog up there, now let’s go, Mob! Time is money!”
Before Mob could even think about voicing his thoughts, Reigen was already throwing on his jacket, grabbing his trusty bag of table salt, and whisking out the door, leaving it open behind him. With a sigh, Mob closed the laptop, picked up his school bag, and followed. He supposed he didn’t really have anything else to do today, anyway.
The pair walked along in silence for a while, business as usual, occupied by their own thoughts. When Reigen stopped into a nearby department store to purchase a cheap extension ladder for the job, Mob waited outside and poked at a fresh mosquito bite on his wrist that he’d gotten from traipsing around a forest with the man the night before.
It had reminded him of the time they tried to catch a tsuchinoko and ended up finding a ridiculous amount of matsutake mushrooms instead. Except this time, their forest adventure had ended with Reigen freaking out about seeing a small possessed child darting behind a tree in the shadows, which, in reality, as Mob discovered when he approached to exorcise it, was a raccoon running from the man screaming out his battle moves. Though, honestly, Mob didn’t really mind it too much.
The mosquito bite he’d gotten was itchy, but he didn’t really mind that, either. Was there anything he’d done with Reigen lately that he really minded..? It had been inconvenient to get mud on his shoes from last night, and he’d been out late enough that his mom had hounded him with questions when he’d gotten back home, but did those things really bother him? Did he regret being dragged out there? Not really.
He didn’t exactly have fun; it was more like... What was the feeling? The proper word didn’t seem to be coming to mind no matter how hard he thought about it. All he could compare it to was the feeling he got whenever he was exhausted at the end of a long day and laid down in bed to curl up in his covers. That feeling when he could finally close his eyes and rest: that was similar to what he felt with Reigen most of the time. Not exactly relieved. It was more of...
After a few minutes, Reigen came out of the store empty-handed, took one glance at Mob, then stepped around him, waving for him to follow. Mob stared at the back of his suit in confusion.
“W-wait! Don’t we need a ladder?” he asked, jogging to catch up. He remembered a time when such a short burst of movement would have made him tired and felt pride at his small progress.
“They were all too expensive,” Reigen explained with a wave of his hand, as if it was the most justifiable reason in the world and should never be questioned. “10,000 yen for a ladder is a ripoff. We’ll use the client’s ladder instead.”
“What if they don’t own a ladder?”
“Ha!” Reigen just smirked, puffing his chest out. “A rookie question, Mob! Of course I’ve already considered this and planned out an emergency course of action just in case.”
‘A rookie question..?’ Mob thought to himself, matching his pace with the other’s, ‘Asking if someone owns a ladder? Isn’t that just a normal question...’
Contrary to his statement of having planned everything out, Reigen never really gave an answer, just trailing off after that sentence and continuing to look proud of himself, so Mob let it drop. If the worst happened, he could always use his powers anyway, though he doubted any spirit was at work here. It really did look like a simple case of a dog somehow climbing onto a roof...
He stared down at the gray pavement in front of them, debating whether or not to share his thoughts on this particular case. In the back of his mind, he knew that the client, whoever they were, could just as easily have contacted the fire department or the police station and gotten someone to come help their dog down for free. But he also knew that Reigen needed this money to live, as he obviously wasn’t receiving any other sources of income, so what choice did he really have? Reigen needed money, and this person needed help. Whether there was an actual spirit involved didn’t change those things.
‘Everyone has a reason for everything they do,’ Mob thought. It was a simple concept, but blindingly true. As long as that reason held no inherent evil nor caused any evil intentions to be acted upon, didn’t that mean it was just as important and valid as any other reason?
Wasn’t Mob just getting way too unnecessarily philosophical about his 300 yen per hour part-time job?
“Mob.”
“Yes?!” he gasped out, flinching in surprise at the sound of Reigen’s voice and peeking over to him.
“Hm? What’s up?” The man crossed his arms and leaned over, squinting at his expression. “Why do you look so nervous? Could it be that the evil spirit’s aura reaches this far? Is it that serious?”
“Ah...” Mob whispered, looking away. “No..”
“Don’t worry, Mob, I understand. No matter what happens, I’ll back you up.”
“Um.. Yes..”
----------*17%*----------
“What do ya mean you don’t own a ladder?!”
Mob stood still beside his outraged mentor and stared up at the small dog peering down at him from the roof of the woman’s house. It was a cute, mixed-breed dog with a stubby tail wagging like crazy, as if this dog was having the time of his life up there.
He knew they should have gone back for that ladder.
“Mochi-chan is too clever for his own good!” the older woman fretted, holding her shaking hands to her chest. She was frail and hunched over, obviously quite old. Mob wondered how long she’d been living all on her own with such a small, energetic dog. How did she possibly keep up with him? “He’s always getting into trouble. But that’s the problem here. Since I have no way to get to the roof, I fear something supernatural might be involved. Otherwise, how could little Mochi-chan have done it himself? He must be possessed!”
Now Reigen cupped his chin, nodding sagely in agreement and casting a serious look up to Mochi. The dog met his gaze with a playful bark.
“Well,” he sighed, rolling his shoulders back, “ladder or not, we can’t just leave the dog up there. You did well to contact us. C’mere, Mob. It’s time to execute the emergency plan.”
Looking up in surprise, Mob obediently approached, still clutching his school bag with one hand. Without a word, Reigen reached out to slip it off his shoulder and set it down on the grass behind him as Mob curiously watched. Then, still silent, the man hooked his hands under Mob’s arms and picked him up, holding him awkwardly in front of him.
“...Huh?”
“You climb onto the roof, perform the exorcism, and get the dog down,” Reigen explained impatiently, as if they had both already talked over this plan instead of Reigen springing it on Mob out of the blue.
The kid just blinked back at him.
“Okay, but,” he mentioned, staring at Reigen’s impatient face, “there are no spirits here. It’s just a normal, adventurous dog.”
“Ahem!” Reigen cleared his throat over Mob’s voice, effectively drowning out his words from reaching their client, who was still hovering nearby, staring up at her dog and fidgeting. “Yup, yup, a simple exorcism, just like we talked about. Alright, upsy-daisy!”
Barely giving the kid time to prepare himself, Reigen flipped him around, set him on his shoulders, and stepped closer to the side of the house, relying on Mob to pull himself up on his own.
“I can’t reach,” Mob mumbled, stretching both arms over his head. His fingertips were nowhere near the edge of the roof. Above him, Mochi had run over, his tail still showing his excitement, to see what all the fuss was about beneath him. “I can see Mochi-chan from here. I can just float him down. I’m good at making dogs float.”
“No can do, Mob!” Reigen grit out, sounding as if he was struggling under the middle-schooler’s weight. He stumbled forward, unsteady on his feet, and Mob quickly brought his hands back down to grip his hair, wary of being dropped. “Remember, you have to rid the spirit that- Ouch! Don’t pull my hair!”
“Get closer then,” Mob muttered, loosening his grip.
The old woman had started to fan herself with her hand, as if the stress of standing by and doing nothing was becoming too much for her. Her little gasps of panic every time Mochi moved up there even the slightest did exactly help, either.
Some people intent on just passing by slowed down and even stopped in their tracks to watch the spectacle, and Mob felt himself grow increasingly nervous about his performance with every additional gaze on his back. Reigen, on the other hand, soaked up the attention like a bone-dry sponge.
“Stand on my shoulders! You’ll have to jump for it!” Reigen projected his voice to yell dramatically for the crowd, despite the fact that this particular street was rather peaceful and quiet, so Mob could have easily heard him either way.
“But I can get Mochi-chan from where I am right-”
“Trust me on this one, Mob!”
At those words, Mob came to a complete stop.
He looked down at the top of Reigen’s head, at the familiar, light auburn hair under his fingertips, and he nodded, more to himself than anyone else.
After some struggling and much more hair-pulling, he found his balance on Reigen’s shoulders, his arms held out at his sides to steady himself, while the older man held onto his ankles.
They coordinated their plan of attack, counting down to signal when Reigen would let go of him so he could immediately jump. It took some hesitation on Mob’s part to build up the courage to actually execute it, but as soon as he tried, he made the jump so easily that he wasn’t sure why he’d even been worried about it in the first place.
When he’d scrambled up onto the roof, Mochi pounced what he saw as a new friend, bouncing over to him, wiggling into his lap, and trying to lick his face. Mob gave him one gentle pet on the head before psychokinetically picking him up and floating him down towards Reigen.
“What is that!?” the old woman began panicking immediately, hobbling over and pulling at Reigen’s sleeve. “What is that weird light around my Mochi-chan?!”
“Now, now, don’t worry. This is psychic power at work,” Reigen muttered to her, seeming more interested in holding and petting Mochi than explaining to the client what was happening to her dog. Mochi seemed just as thrilled, his short tail wagging like crazy at the idea of meeting yet another new friend. “Mochi-chan is now saved. Though, I may need to spend a few more minutes with him to make sure he is totally okay...”
“Oh, thank goodness! My poor Mochi-chan!”
As the old woman, to Reigen’s extreme disappointment, peeled her poor Mochi away from his grubby fingers, a few, random claps came from the small crowd at the successful rescue, and Reigen perked up again like a spring daisy.
“Ah, yes... This purification was no big deal for someone like the disciple of Reigen Arataka, this world’s greatest-”
“Master!”
He barely looked up in time to see Mob take a step off the edge of the roof and leap right at him.
Acting on instinct, before his mind could even process it, he’d braced his feet and held his arms up, body on autopilot to catch his falling assistant.
What a perfect chance for all those bystanders milling around to witness even more proof of how caring of a guy Reigen was, he thought. What a shot for the papers. A kind and compassionate psychic ready to rescue his young assistant in dire need. It wasn’t often that he had a chance to save Mob like this (as usually, mostly, almost always it was the other way around). He could visualize those new future clients like dollar signs in Mob’s dark, approaching eyes.
“Gotcha!”
Mob landed right in between his waiting arms, thudding against his chest, and Reigen wrapped his arms around him, just as he felt a thin pair of arms loop around his neck in return.
“Oof! Oh shi- Just how much do you weigh?!”
His legs collapsed under the weight of Mob falling against him, and he dragged them both down. Mob simply went limp in his arms, innocent eyes blinking up at him.
“Mob, what the hell were you thinking?! I think I pulled something... Ow..”
“Sorry,” Mob told him quietly, sitting up and scooting away from Reigen on his knees. “I guess I’ve gained some weight recently from my club activities.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” Reigen muttered, unable to just admit that he was so physically out of shape that he couldn’t catch a falling middle-schooler.
Rubbing at his bicep and glaring around them, he remembered the monetary importance of all the people he was glaring at in annoyance and reached out to lay a hand on Mob’s shoulder.
“More importantly than my serious, unfortunate injuries, are you okay, Mob?”
“I’m fine,” Mob said, looking away from him, already distracted by something across the street. “I used my powers to slow myself down.”
“Even so,” Reigen stated, pulling a sudden inspirational speech out of his ass, both for Mob and the audience, “powers or not, it worries me to see you put yourself in danger. Though you may feel invincible at your age, a young boy like you should not be taking impulsive risks at such a crucial time in his life.”
“Oh.” A small smile touched Mob’s lips. “Thank you for your concern, Master.” Then the smile fell as soon as it had arrived. “But it really was a small jump. Anyone could have made it. I only used my powers to prevent me from hurting you.”
As Reigen lowered his head and froze for several seconds, deflated, Mob nudged his hand off his shoulder and stood, brushing his pants off.
“Anyway, should we go back now?” he asked, stepping over to his school bag in the grass and slipping it on. “We’ve rescued Mochi-chan.”
Reigen pushed himself to his feet behind him, his gaze still lowered, still nursing his bicep.
In the meantime, during Reigen's daring rescue of Mob, the client had gone back into her house to gather money for the payment. Now, Mochi bounded out of the open front door and ran a circle around Mob before plopping over onto his back right next to Reigen’s shoe, exposing his tummy.
The man glanced to Mob, then started to kneel with a hand outstretched, his wounded arm apparently healed by the miraculous powers of Mochi.
“In.. In a minute.”
----------*10%*----------
“So how do you think that dog got up there, anyway?” Reigen asked around the half-chewed food in his mouth.
Mob watched him reach for a napkin, then looked down to his own plate of food.
“I don’t know. Either he found someway to climb up, or someone else with psychic power put him up there as a prank.”
“Ugh.” Reigen braced an elbow on the table between them, waving his chopsticks carelessly. “What a lowlife. Using an innocent creature for your own personal interests like that.”
“Yeah...” Mob whispered back, still staring down at his untouched food.
‘Comfort.’
It was comfort. That feeling he got around Reigen. He’d decided that it was pure comfort.
He’d been pondering over it since they completed their job and walked back to the office, of all the possible things he felt when he laid down in bed at the end of a day, and, for some reason, his mind had stubbornly settled on “comfort”.
He felt comfortable enough to share almost anything with the man, all of his thoughts and worries, about his life, his powers, or the world in general. He felt comfortable enough to express what he really thought about things, something he might feel self-conscious about doing with anyone else. He knew who Reigen really was, and Reigen knew who he really was. Other than his brother, he didn’t have anyone else like that in his life. And he knew that Reigen definitely didn’t, either.
But now, as he thought about it, finally picking up his chopsticks and beginning to eat the meal Reigen had bought for him, he second-guessed himself and wondered if “comfort” was really the most appropriate term. Maybe he could find something even better if he continued to search hard enough...
“Master Reigen?”
“Hm? Something wrong, Mob?”
“Nothing. Thank you.”
“Huh? Oh, no problem.”
“No... Just thank you.”
Reigen paused and tilted his head in confusion, his eyes narrowing. “What, for your payment?”
“No.”
“For asking you along to help the client?”
“No.”
“For buying you food?”
“No...” Mob sighed, showing only a fraction of a fraction of his frustration in the tone of his voice.
Reigen leaned both arms on the table now, nudging his plate away and leaning forward over it.
“Then what?”
To this, Mob didn’t actually have a clear answer. He bit his lip and thought about it for a few seconds before he shrugged, looking back down to his plate.
Reigen studied his face as he looked away, the neutral curve of his lips, the straight line of black hair covering his eyebrows, his slowly blinking expressionless eyes, and smiled.
“Don't mention it, Mob.”
----------20%----------