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Mob has only been at the office for ten minutes, settled in at the tiny reception desk and eating a snack that he bought from the vending machine downstairs with Reigen’s money, when the doorbell chimes and Ritsu walks in.
Mob smiles a little, with mild surprise. “Ritsu, what are you doing here?”
Ritsu’s dark gaze shifts across the office, temporarily landing on Reigen, sitting at his own desk, before returning to his brother. “You left this at home today.” He pulls Mob’s cell phone out of his pocket and hands it to him. “Mom said you’re supposed to bring it with you when you’re… ‘working.'”
The scare quotes are implicit in his tone. Reigen snorts a laugh but keeps his eyes fixed on his laptop screen.
“Oh. Thanks, Ritsu!” Mob offers him his open bag of chips, but Ritsu declines and turns to leave the office.
“See you at dinner, Nii-san.”
“See you, Ritsu.”
“Thanks for stopping by, Ritsu-kun,” Reigen pipes up, not able to help himself. “Always a pleasure.”
“Wasn’t sure I’d find you in the office today,” Ritsu says, pausing with his hand on the door. “Shouldn’t you be off doing exorcisms? You only have him for two more hours.”
“If Mob forgets his phone again and you need to get ahold of him, you can always ask your parents for my cell phone number,” Reigen says, shooting Ritsu a weaponized pleasant smile. “I’m not a hard man to find.”
The position of Mob’s desk means he’s caught in the crossfire of their exchange, but he seems unbothered by it, munching on his chips.
“Unfortunately,” Ritsu quips, hoisting the door open to leave the office, and letting it fall shut behind him.
Alone with Mob again, Reigen leans back in his chair and chuckles. “Wow, your brother hates me.”
He’s not looking directly at Mob so he doesn’t see his immediate reaction, but he hears him freeze. The chip bag stops rustling, the crunching stops. Reigen glances up to see Mob wide-eyed.
“What?” Reigen asks.
“You think Ritsu hates you?” Mob asks.
“Well,” Reigen says, starting to sweat a little. He thought it was obvious. He thought Mob was choosing to ignore it, to stay uninvolved, which was the wise thing to do. He had never before considered that Mob simply didn’t know. “‘Hate’ is a strong word,” Reigen admits, “but he certainly doesn’t like me.”
Mob grows a shade paler. “Oh.”
“It’s not a big deal!” Reigen rushes to say. “Lots of people don’t like me, you know that.”
“But why doesn’t he like you?” Mob asks. “You’re a good guy.”
“Mob,” Reigen scoffs, grimacing as if Mob had said something distasteful. “Sometimes people just don’t get along. Their personalities don’t mesh, but it doesn’t mean either of them is a bad person.”
Mob seems dissatisfied with this. “I’m going to talk to him when I get home.”
Reigen pinches the bridge of his nose, keeping his growing frustration at bay. “Please don’t do that, Mob. It’ll look like I can’t handle a thirteen year-old being mean to me and I asked you to step in and defend me.”
He shudders to think what Ritsu would say to him the next time they saw each other if Mob asked him to be nice to Reigen.
“Do you like Ritsu?” Mob asks him suddenly.
Reigen hesitates for a beat too long before answering, but luckily Mob isn’t the type to pick up on those conversational subtleties. “Yeah!” he says, voice going high-pitched. “He’s your little brother. He’s a… good kid.”
He wouldn’t say he likes Ritsu, but he also wouldn’t say he doesn’t like him. Ritsu is just Mob’s little brother who shoots daggers and veiled insults at him every time they see each other (and on the rare instance that they’re alone together, not-so-veiled insults). It’s amusing, because the kid’s thirteen now, and Reigen’s known him since he was nine or ten. Reigen’s not threatened by it. He actually is mature enough to let some misdirected preteen angst roll off his back, thank you very much.
But the fact that Mob hasn’t picked up on this changes the equation somewhat. Mob is still worrying over it, a crease stuck between his brows.
“Mob,” Reigen sighs, closing his laptop as he stands up from his desk. “Why is this bothering you so much?” It’s a gentle, genuine question, and Reigen crosses the office, nodding at Mob to join him in the sitting area by the door, the designated space for impromptu therapy sessions.
Mob settles down into the armchair across from Reigen and thinks over his answer for another few seconds. “You’re both important to me,” Mob says. “You’re two of the most important people to me.”
Reigen’s heart twists a little at that; Mob casually placing him in the same category as his brother is an honor he finds hard to accept.
“And if you don’t get along, I think that means you don’t understand each other,” Mob says. “It makes me… sad that you can’t see each other the way I see you.”
Mob fidgets a little and averts his eyes, but he expresses himself with such unabashed clarity that Reigen feels jealous sometimes.
“Okay,” Reigen says, smiling fondly. “I understand how you feel. Thanks for explaining it.”
Mob meets his eyes now, seeming chuffed at the praise.
“Maybe, um…” Reigen pauses, can’t believe that he’s about to suggest this. “Maybe the three of us can get dinner soon, my treat, and you can tell Ritsu what you just told me. Okay?”
Mob nods. “Thanks, shishou.”
-
“Nii-san said getting dinner was your idea,” Ritsu says skeptically, as he sits down across from Reigen in the booth. It’s a family restaurant in town; nothing that will break Reigen’s budget. Mob slides into the seat next to Ritsu.
“Well,” Reigen says, shrugging as he glances to Mob. “That’s true, but I think Mob wanted to… uh. Yeah, let’s order food first, though.”
They order a few dishes to share, Reigen steering them toward the more affordable options, knowing how much these boys can eat. Once the menus are put aside but Mob doesn’t seem ready to broach the actual topic, Reigen fills the silence by asking Ritsu how school is going.
“How’s school going?” Ritsu repeats. “Um, fine.”
“Mob tells me you’re top of the class.”
“Not quite,” Ritsu says. “I’m third.”
Reigen tuts. “Gotta study more. I’m joking, I’m joking—that’s incredible. You think I was ever third? No way.”
Ritsu is still regarding Reigen with no small amount of suspicion, and Mob isn’t saying anything at all. Reigen considers the real possibility that Mob will never bring up the reason why they’re having dinner together in the first place and they’ll have to do this all over again another time. He manages to meet Mob’s eyes over the table, raising his eyebrows.
Mob stares back.
“So, Mob,” Reigen says slowly. “You suggested the three of us spend some time together. Anything on your mind…?”
Mob blinks. “Yeah.” He fails to elaborate.
Reigen’s realizing a little too late that Mob might have an easier time talking to him than to his brother. And that suggesting they do this in a group setting may have been a mistake. Too much pressure, or something.
“We don’t have to talk about it now if you—” Reigen starts to say, at the same time that Mob finds his voice.
“Ritsu, Reigen-shishou thinks that you don’t like him, but I think that if you got to know each other better you would see that he’s a good guy.”
Ritsu turns to stare at Reigen with barely concealed malicious joy. Reigen wants to pound his head against the table.
“Well, that’s not— Mob, when we talked about this before, you said that—”
“Did I hurt Reigen-san’s feelings?” Ritsu asks, staring directly at Reigen, eyes brighter than usual. The brat is loving this.
Mob opens his mouth to reply, but Reigen cuts him off, without remorse. “No, no. Mob, thank you, I got this. Ritsu, your brother has noticed the… let’s say, friction, that sometimes exists between us. And he mentioned, to me, that he’d like for us to make an effort to get along better. And I suggested this dinner as a first step toward that.”
Ritsu turns to his brother. “Is that true?”
“Yes,” Mob says. “Well, I didn’t notice it, really. Shishou told me that you hate him.”
Ritsu looks back to Reigen, another barely contained smile on his face. “Reigen-san, why would you think I hate you? I’m sorry if I said anything that offended you.”
“Oh my god,” Reigen says, then points at the kid. “Don’t play dumb, Ritsu.”
Their food arrives just then, leaving Reigen to stew in shame for a few seconds. He shouldn’t have snapped. It’s going to be hard to come back from that, with whatever dignity he has still intact. The two boys dig into the food and for a moment Reigen dares to hope that the whole thing has been dropped.
But then Ritsu looks up, between bites, and says, “I don’t hate you, Reigen-san. I think it’s really cool how you built a business from the ground up… and in an industry where you have no qualifications. It’s quite impressive.”
A slow smile spreads across Reigen’s face. He shouldn’t take the bait. He really shouldn’t. He shouldn’t stoop to the level of arguing with a thirteen year-old in public.
But then again…
“Thank you, Ritsu-kun,” Reigen says, his tone saccharine. “I’ve always appreciated you for your honesty. You always let me know exactly what you’re thinking.”
“Someone has to,” Ritsu says.
It goes on like that while they finish dinner. Reigen says that Ritsu’s protectiveness of his brother is so great one would think he’s the older brother, and Ritsu kicks it into high gear, losing some subtlety as he praises Reigen for his devotion to a friend who’s half his age.
Mob, for his part, seems relatively clueless. He keeps eating, watching the conversation unfold, nodding and smiling at certain parts.
“Most espers are born with powers,” Reigen says, “but Ritsu, you’re a rare case of developing them later on in life. I think being a late-bloomer has given you a lot of perspective.”
“And what perspective do you have, Reigen?” Ritsu says. “Considering you never did develop powers?”
Reigen chuckles, picking at his food. “There’s a lot more to life than that, kid.” He shoots Mob a quick wink and Mob smiles slightly in response.
Ritsu finally seems worn out, silent as he finishes his plate. They’re all winding down. Reigen supposes he’ll pay the bill and they’ll go home and that will be that; not a very successful peace-making effort, but at least it will be over.
Then Mob excuses himself to go to the bathroom, and Reigen finds himself alone with Ritsu. Ritsu’s focused on his food, maybe deliberately so, ignoring Reigen.
“This is fun,” Reigen says, his tone flat. “As much as I love your brother’s company, he’s never much of a match for verbal sparring.”
Ritsu snorts. “Glad you’re having fun.”
“He’s serious about this, though,” Reigen says, leaning forward over the table, more sincere now. “It’s my fault, I kinda let it slip that you hate me—I thought he already knew, but I’m always overestimating that kid’s ability to read a room—and he’s not comfortable with that as the status quo. Sorry about that. I know it’s a total drag, but we should probably play nice from now on, for his sake. Deal?”
Ritsu looks back at him, considering. “For his sake? He seems fine.”
“Do you feel good tricking him, though? Letting stuff fly over his head? I don’t.”
“You don’t?” Ritsu says, eyebrows raised.
“You’re not gonna make this easy, are you?”
“I don’t hate you,” Ritsu says. “So you can quit being so self-absorbed.”
“I’m the self-absorbed one?” Reigen says with a laugh. “Listen, it’s natural at your age to blow everything out of proportion like this. But you’ll be embarrassed about it one day.”
Mob returns to the table, ending Ritsu and Reigen’s tense conversation. They wrap up dinner shortly after that. Reigen pays the bill and he considers whether to check in with Mob, make sure he got what he wanted from this—but he doesn’t. He lets the evening come to an end, the three of them walking outside and parting ways on the street.
“Have a good night, Mob, Ritsu,” Reigen says, nodding to them.
“Thanks for dinner, shishou,” Mob says, thoughtful as ever. Ritsu, by his side, says nothing.
“Don’t mention it.”
Reigen turns away from them, digging into his coat pocket for his pack of cigarettes. He’s been itching for this for the past twenty minutes: a solitary walk home and a smoke. Nothing better to clear his head.
Because, look, he doesn’t really care what an angsty thirteen year-old thinks of him. He knows it’s more about Ritsu than it is about him, and Reigen’s had his share of fun pushing the kid’s buttons over the years, which certainly hasn’t helped. But if he dwells on it too long, it stings to know that someone so close to Mob thinks that his intentions are purely selfish. It’s an uncomfortable reflection of how Reigen views himself—used to view himself, rather. He’s working on that.
He’s barely lit up his cigarette when someone calls his name: “Reigen-san.”
He turns to find Ritsu, alone and approaching him. Reigen exhales, letting out the smoke from his first, heady drag. “Ritsu.”
“I hate that smell,” Ritsu says, nose wrinkled.
Reigen says, “I don’t really care,” but he turns to the side, carefully directing the smoke away from him. “So, what’s up? Where’d Mob go? You’re not walking home together?”
“Nii-san is going to meet Hanazawa, I think.”
“Wow. Two social engagements in one night. He’s popular.”
Ritsu laughs a little. “Yeah, he is.”
“So, what’s up?” Reigen asks again. They’re standing on the sidewalk, out of the way of traffic, and Reigen takes another drag of his cigarette, figuring he’s not required to stop since the kid interrupted him. “Need me to walk you home?”
Ritsu rolls his eyes. “No, I just wanted to say… I used to hate you.”
Reigen quirks an eyebrow. “Used to?”
“I’m serious. When I was a kid,” Ritsu says. “Eleven, twelve.”
Reigen smiles a little, doesn’t point out that that was only a year ago.
“I still don’t like you,” Ritsu qualifies, “but I used to really hate you.”
Reigen’s quiet now, letting his smile fade.
“I think I was just jealous.”
“Of me?” Reigen’s not gloating, just clarifying.
Still, it seems to make Ritsu’s hackles rise. “Yeah, that’s what we’re talking about, isn’t it?” he snaps.
Reigen feels startled and amused all at once, his eyebrows jumping, but he tamps his reaction down. It seems like Ritsu is trying to say something real, and he doesn’t want to scare him off.
“He hurt me,” Ritsu says quietly, his eyes fixed in the middle-distance past Reigen’s left shoulder. “When we were kids. He didn’t mean to, but he did. He hurt me and he really scared me, and we never talked about it, even though I wanted to, even though I tried to bring it up, and then a month later he started hanging around you. And he trusted you and he confided in you and he used his powers around you. He stopped using his powers around me. He stopped talking to me, really.”
Reigen sighs. “It can be easier when it’s not family, you know? It can be easier when it’s someone you don’t have that history with. And Mob didn’t tell me everything. He kept a lot of big things from me. I never knew that he injured you as children, not until after… well, after.”
After. They both know what that means.
“I like to think I would have acted differently if I had known,” Reigen says. “But I can’t say that for sure.”
“I know you’ve helped him,” Ritsu says, raising his eyes to look at him. “For the record.”
“Thanks for saying that,” Reigen says. “He always just wanted to protect you. Even if that resulted in him distancing himself from you, it’s only because he wanted to keep you safe.”
Ritsu looks away, swiping at his nose with his coat sleeve in a way that isn’t subtle at all but Reigen lets him get away with it. He clears his throat and then says, “Unlike you.”
It takes a beat to sink in then Reigen laughs, understanding that the emotional arc of their conversation has ended. “Yeah, he had no problem putting me in the path of danger.”
Reigen takes a step forward, starting to walk toward the Kageyamas’ home, the opposite direction of his own apartment. Ritsu falls into step beside him.
“Well, you are the most powerful psychic of the twenty-first century, after all.”
Reigen rolls his eyes. “Did he never tell you that I came clean? Figures.”
Ritsu glances sharply up at him. “What?”
“Yeah, I told him everything,” Reigen says with a nonchalant shrug, flicking some ash by his side. “That I’m a fraud, that I lied to him so he’d work for me, et cetera.”
“And he’s still…”
“And he’s still,” Reigen says, flashing a smile. “He already knew, anyway. How stupid do you think he is?”
At that, Ritsu gives Reigen a pretty hard shove, enough force that he takes a stumbling side-step to regain his balance.
Reigen laughs boisterously. “Hey! I thought we were finally getting along!”
“We are,” Ritsu says, grinning. His smile is more mischievous than malicious.
“Brat,” Reigen says, shoving him back and laughing harder still at Ritsu’s shocked expression. “What, you didn’t think I’d push a kid?”
“It’s exactly what I’d expect from you.”
After another couple blocks of walking together in pleasant silence, Ritsu gives Reigen a look. “Are you walking me home?”
“No, I’m just… walking,” Reigen says, unconvincing.
“I’m old enough to walk by myself,” Ritsu says, indignant. “You're so weird.”
Reigen laughs, waving him off. “Fine, fine. Get home safe, Ritsu.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Ritsu huffs, continuing down the street.
Some things never change.