Chapter Text
The sun is shining above Spice City. The sky is blue, the flowers are blooming, and the birds are giving it their melodious all. The calendar says early February, but Reigen’s suit jacket slung over the back of his chair, the dampened armpit stains and rolled-back sleeves of his shirt beneath, and the office window flung open at his back say that summer is most certainly on its way.
“Maybe I should invest in a publicity campaign,” says Reigen to his keyboard, which is clattering rapidly as he hammers at it. “But the problem with investing is you need something to invest, and I’ve got nothing. I’ve got a backlog of chakra-aligned gemstones. I’ve got a shipment of incense the online tracker tells me has been successfully delivered to a small fishing town in northern China. I’ve got a cupboard full of half-empty bottles of massage oil, and I’ve never met a rental agency yet who’d take their payment in half-empty bottles of massage oil... Although,” still clattering, his expression one of profound, squinting concentration as he tries to ignore the radiant sunshine dazzling from his laptop screen, as his voice takes a turn for the optimistic, “that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not out there. If the rental agency was haunted, now – that’d work. That’d be ideal. An exorcism in return for overlooking one month’s rent, perhaps two, three at a push if the exorcism was especially complicated and its associated expenses especially high – now, that’d work out nicely... But what are the odds of a ghost moving into the rental agency...? Maybe I could persuade Mob to haunt it; maybe we could stage a poltergeist...”
Mob takes a deep breath. It’s the third deep breath he’s taken since he put his homework book down on the desk in front of him, and this time he follows through: he lifts his hand. He puts it on his book. He takes another deep breath, and steels himself, and he opens the book.
“Oh, self-employment’s all very well when it’s the independence, the flexible working hours, your own name on every piece of advertising in any font you choose – but the expenses, the expenses...” Reigen’s still clattering vigorously at his keyboard. He doesn’t seem to be addressing Mob particularly, but Mob’s used to that; far too many times to count he’s arrived for work and overheard the muffled sound of Reigen talking full-speed in his office, alone and engaged with himself in heated discussion. “Goddammit, how much incense can a man buy before he goes bankrupt?”
Mob contemplates the issue while he gazes at the fresh blank page of homework that lies before him. It’s better than contemplating his homework while he gazes at the fresh blank page of homework that lies before him. “I don’t know,” he says, eventually. “It depends. Probably... a lot. Unless it’s an expensive sort.”
“Unless what’s an expensive what?” says Reigen.
“Incense,” says Mob. “An expensive incense. But it would take longer if you were rich.”
“Who was talking about incense?” says Reigen. He says it in a voice of bemused good humour. He stops typing and fans himself instead, using the sheaf of client accounts paperwork spread across the desk beside him. “Who was talking about anything, in fact?”
“...You?” says Mob.
Reigen shakes his head. “Don’t let the heat get to you, kiddo,” he says, and pulls his sweat-sticky shirt away from his armpits to fan himself there as well. “Keep cool, keep drinking water. I’m going to have to dust off the air conditioner, at this rate – that’ll be another expense I sure as hell don’t need, but no way can I take clients in a sauna like this... Maybe I could get Mob to stand in the corner with a big paper fan, save on electricity. Maybe I could start accepting sacks of ice as payment.”
A sense of vague confusion settles down over Mob, as muted and muffled as music heard through noise-cancelling headphones. It must be his homework that’s causing it. But he’s not looking at his homework; he’s looking at Reigen. So it must be Reigen that’s causing it.
“Wonder what he’s on about, though? Something I said...?” Reigen drops his paperwork back onto the desk and shuffles through it, still looking at Mob. His expression is inquisitive. “Wish I knew what was going on in that head of his sometimes... God, it’s hot in here... Hey – you all right, Mob? You’re looking pretty serious over there.”
The sense of vague confusion grows stronger, like the music’s turning up to maximum volume. Mob looks at Reigen. He looks at Reigen some more. He keeps looking at Reigen, his expression wiped blank with the effort of thought...
“Homework giving you trouble?” hazards Reigen.
Mob’s sense of vague confusion is abruptly overpowered by a far more specific sense of confusion. “Yes,” he says, with feeling. Then he pauses. It’s an optimistic pause. He says, “Could you help?”
“Certainly I can,” says Reigen, and gets to his feet. A Reigen-shaped damp patch remains behind, imprinted on the faux-leather back of his desk chair like a sweaty ghost. “What are we dealing with today, then? Don’t let it be maths, anything but maths – oh, it’s maths, of bloody course it’s maths... Maths, is it? Well, that’s no problem, no problem at all. Let’s have a look, shall we?”
Obligingly, Mob pushes his book across his desk. Then he pulls it back and turns it around, so it’s the right way up for Reigen to read it, and pushes it back again; he’s not taking any risks.
“Long division, eh? Well, it’s all quite simple,” says Reigen, examining the question page before him with the same keen, experienced eye he uses to diagnose the status of household items cursed by evil spirits far too high-level for Mob to sense a disturbance, “or at least it’s simple once you get the hang of it. Learn it once and you’ll never have to learn it again – it’s like riding a bike, in that respect, and also in the respect that it provides as healthy a workout for your mind as riding a bike does for your heart... Dammit, I haven’t thought about this crap since I was in middle school – but it’s fine, it’s got to be fine; how hard can it be?”
At once Mob opens his mouth to tell him – but words are pouring out of Reigen at such a rapid pace that trying to interrupt would be like trying to dodge across four lanes of high-speed motorway traffic.
“I’m an adult with the reasoning skills of an adult,” he’s urgently assuring both of them. “My brain is more advanced than a middle schooler’s just on a purely biological level. My ability to do middle school maths has been maturing like wine ever since I graduated middle school, presumably. At least you’d hope it has. I hope it has. No – no, there’s nothing to worry about here,” announces Reigen, decisively, “not a thing, Mob. It really couldn’t be simpler. A walk in the mathematical park. No wonder the poor kid was looking so stressed out,” he adds, heartfelt, “who wouldn’t be, faced with this... Give me just a minute to check my emails, and then we’ll get stuck into your sums. Wouldn’t want to leave any clients hanging, would we?”
A little dazed, Mob supposes they wouldn’t.
Reigen gives him a wink, and a double thumbs-up that’s more complicated than long division, and talks without stopping as he goes to check his email about his profound hope that Mob doesn’t realise he’s actually just urgently searching online to remind himself how long division works. The sun blazes in through the window behind him. The damply translucent patches on his dress shirt are spreading. Mob’s unbuttoned his school jacket; he hangs it on the back of his chair and tries to cool down in his white undershirt, and listens, with increasing bemusement, to Reigen discussing the finer points of long division with himself without any visible movement of his mouth.
+++
The overheated afternoon simmers down into a balmy evening, and the sky glows golden as Mob walks home. The streets smell like springtime in full late bloom, fresh with greenery and sweet with flowers, despite the almost total lack of any greenery or flowers in the severe concrete heart of Spice City.
“How was work?” asks Mob’s father over dinner.
It was okay, and Mob tells him so. School was also okay, and Mob tells him that, too. Ritsu’s day at school was fine, he reports; his student council meeting was also fine. They eat, and through the open kitchen window the birds sing on into the warmly fading evening, musical and tireless.
“Nice weather for a change, isn’t it?” says Mob’s mother.
“Global warming, I’ll bet,” says Mob’s father.
“So long as it stays clear tonight,” says Ritsu. “But there’s barely been a single cloud today, so it should do... So long as the visibility’s good, I don’t care. I’ll tell Suzuki to get here early. Midnight. Half eleven...?” He glances up for a perfunctory scan of his family around him at the table. “Eleven,” decides Ritsu. “They’ll be asleep by then; the heat’ll make them tired. Brother looks half-asleep already...”
Mob sits up straighter, and prods a little more vigorously at his eggs.
“But he’s trying,” says Ritsu fondly, to his dinner. Then he looks up, and addresses Mob directly: “How are you feeling, brother?”
“Oh... okay,” says Mob. He takes a sip of water, and tries to look vibrant and alert while he does it. Since he’s not sure he’s ever been vibrant or alert in his life, it’s hard to judge the success of the manoeuvre. “I’m not that tired.”
“I don’t believe that,” says Ritsu, with a warm smile. “That’s good to hear,” says Ritsu, with the same warm smile.
“What?” says Mob.
“I’m glad you’re not tired,” explains Ritsu, in a voice as warm as his smile. “This weather can be exhausting, but you’re holding up strong.” He picks a piece of mushroom from his plate and says to himself, “No, he’s definitely tired; you’ve only got to look at him to see it. He’ll be out like a light as soon as he lies down...”
Mob stares at him uncertainly. It’s the same as Reigen: Ritsu said it with his mouth closed. He said it through his gentle brotherly smile, and a look of warm sympathy. He said it very clearly, but he said it without saying it. He said it without speaking.
Maybe Mob’s not the only one feeling lethargic in this unseasonal heat. Maybe Ritsu’s just feeling too lazy to speak nicely. Maybe Ritsu just doesn’t want to talk with a mouthful of food. Mob’s sense of curiosity is a long-dormant thing which long ago settled down, curled up, and went peacefully into a state of semi-permanent hibernation, but this uncomfortable minor mystery does its best to prod it awake and into action right up until ice cream arrives on the table for dessert, at which point everything that isn’t ice cream finds itself promptly knocked a very, very long way down Mob’s list of immediate priorities.
The second minor mystery involves Ritsu’s appearance at Mob’s bedroom door a few hours later, wearing baggy grey pyjamas and lounging against the doorframe, yawning widely despite the fact that he invariably stays up for hours after Mob’s own early bedtime.
“I think I’ll turn in early tonight,” he remarks carelessly – which is immediately the third minor mystery: Ritsu is naturally as careless as he is happy-go-lucky, which is to say not at all. “Sleep well, brother. See you tomorrow.”
“I thought you were going out,” says Mob, surprised.
Ritsu’s in the middle of a particularly ostentatious yawn. The yawn pauses oddly, like a moment’s glitch in a badly pirated DVD – and then Ritsu finishes his yawn, and says, carefully casual, “Going... out?”
“With Shou-kun,” says Mob. “Aren’t you...? I thought you were.” A thought strikes him. “Are you going out in your pyjamas...? You should put on a coat. You’ll catch cold. Ah, but it’s so warm today... But you should put on a coat anyway. You shouldn’t take the risk.”
Ritsu looks at him. His expression is no longer carefully casual: it’s just careful. All traces of his feigned sleepiness have vanished. “Brother,” he begins – then slips inside and shuts the door behind him, and says, his voice a heated whisper, “How did you know?”
Mob eyes Ritsu for a long, concerned moment. Then he marks his page and sets aside his comic book, and reminds his overtired, overworked, overstressed little brother gently, “You were talking about it.”
The tension pops like a balloon.
“Of course you heard us,” says Ritsu, pressing the heels of his hands against his temples like there’s so much going on in there it’s an effort to hold it in. “Of course you did. It was inevitable, really... Suzuki wouldn’t know what stealth was if it broke into his house and smashed all his plates while shouting its name in his face,” says Ritsu, “which, incidentally, is what I’m pretty sure he thinks stealth is. I’m sorry if he woke you up last night, brother. I’ll tell him to meet me somewhere else this time.”
“Oh... that’s okay,” says Mob. He’s not entirely sure what Ritsu’s talking about, but he still means it – it’s okay. Whatever Ritsu wants to talk about, it’s okay by him. It always is; it always will be.
“It’s just training,” Ritsu adds, defensively. “It’s not – no one’s getting into trouble. We’re not fighting anyone. There aren’t any would-be forces of evil involved, or anything. Not like last time. Or the time before. So if that’s what you were thinking...”
“I wasn’t,” says Mob, which is true. He wasn’t thinking much of anything, beside how proud he is of Ritsu for having made a friend. “But you should take a coat, Ritsu. I don’t want you to be cold.”
“I’m going to put my normal clothes back on later,” Ritsu promises. “As soon as Mum and Dad have gone to bed.” He hesitates, and then he flashes a smile as small as it is rare as it is real. “Thanks, brother.”
Faint noise from Ritsu’s room reaches Mob while he’s meandering along the hazy borderline of sleep a while later: the balcony door scraping in its tracks, a jumble of lowered voices, an instant’s brayed laughter stifled at the same time as the sound of a punch...
Mob rolls over, yawns contentedly into his pillow, and slides all the way down into sleep.
+++
The Taxidermy Club are the last to leave on Tuesday evening. The student council are the first to arrive on Wednesday morning. At some point in between, all the bathroom fittings in Salt Middle School turn to gold.
They turn completely to gold: inside, outside, all the way through. There’s no evidence of tampering, no evidence that the plumbing system has been in any way affected by an outside party. Nothing’s changed, but now the taps and spouts and pipes are solid gold: that’s what the initial forensic analysis suggests, after the school’s been closed for the day and the police called in, which happens only after an unobservant second year council member refills his water bottle from a shining golden tap, drinks deep, and gives himself a mild but painful case of metal poisoning before the rest of the school has even arrived for morning registration.
The bathroom fittings are very beautiful. They sparkle in the grimy light of the overhead fluorescents; they shine wonderfully in the blinding light of police lamps. But they’re also made of solid gold, and the transformation from one metal to another has done something very peculiar to the water still running in the pipes.
+++
Students are already pouring into the school when word goes out that it’s being closed for the day. Students start pouring back out, and the students still pouring in meet the students pouring out, and where they collide the word starts spreading at increasingly feverish speeds and with increasingly feverish detail: there’s been a break-in and the culprit’s still hiding somewhere in the building, there’s been an anthrax attack by a former student still furious about the amount of compulsory sports lessons he had to do, Tokugawa from the student council got stabbed five times in the chest during a fight about the scheduling of next week’s agenda... But not even an explosively excited gossip chain made up of several hundred middle schoolers can change the most important fact of the story, and the word gets out: no school today.
“Mob-kun!”
Even over the noise of the chaos in the schoolyard, it’s unmistakeable. Mob turns, holding the straps of his schoolbag tight. “Mezato-san...?”
Mezato fights her way towards him through the crowd, grabs his sleeve, and continues fighting onwards, now with Mob in tow. “Have you heard the story?” she yells, elbowing a third year aside. “Your little brother’s in the student council, right? What’s he told you?”
“That he’s going out with a friend today,” says Mob. “Because school’s been cancelled, I mean. But I’m not sure what I’m doing yet. Ah – I’m sorry,” this to a first year shouldered efficiently aside by Mezato, “sorry, sorry,” to another pair of first years shouldered aside by Mezato, “ah – I’m sorry, I’m very sorry,” this to everyone else shouldered aside by Mezato, as she sets her sights on the schoolyard gates and forges unstoppably onwards.
“I didn’t know little Ritsu-kun had friends,” says Mezato. She says it without shame; she says it without any obvious movement of her mouth. “Might be worth looking into, if I have time to follow up leads on any story beside this one... Well, file it away for a slow news day – he’s got a lot of influence for a kid of his age, it never hurts to have more information on a person like that. You never know what favours you can pull unless you’ve got the leverage to pull them, after all... This way,” she adds, with a commanding tug on Mob’s sleeve, and Mob follows her obediently out into the street. “All right, Mob-kun. Walk with me. I’ve heard that school’s been closed for some very mysterious reasons, and I’d appreciate your input.”
“My... input,” echoes Mob. He’s not sure anyone’s ever asked him for his input before. It sounds much more adult and impressive than asking for his opinion. He holds the straps of his schoolbag tightly, squares his shoulders, and attempts to muster an attitude of powerful maturity. “My... input. Okay. You can have it.”
“Excellent,” says Mezato, and they turn down a narrow street criss-crossed by ropes of unlit lanterns. She’s no longer holding his sleeve; she’s steering him after her by force of personality alone. “Rumour has it that something impossible’s happened. Something that could never have happened. That shouldn’t have been able to happen.” In a single slick move she produces a tiny voice recorder from an inside pocket, flips it open and active, and holds it up before Mob’s mouth to ask him, in a tone of devastating intensity: “Do you know anything about... a miracle, Mob-kun?”
Mob doesn’t hesitate. “We had maths homework to hand in,” he says. “But now we don’t have to. We don’t even have to go to the lesson.”
“Not that kind of miracle,” says Mezato. “I was thinking of something supernatural. Something to do with psychic powers. Your kind of miracle, Mob-kun.”
“Being psychic isn’t a miracle,” says Mob.
“But it’s still pretty weird, isn’t it?” says Mezato brightly. She doesn’t usually do anything brightly, except perhaps deny that she’s recording conversations. As an afterthought she smiles brightly at him, too, and through her smile she says rapidly: “If anyone knows, Mob’ll know – if anyone can get it out of him, you can get it out of him... C’mon, Ichi, step it up step it up, if you’re the first one to break this story you’ll be pulling national bylines before the April break... Mob-kun,” she begins again, “rumour has it that a student was taken ill in school this morning as a result of bizarre, possibly supernatural interference. Some eyewitnesses at the scene, such as myself, have said that the police seemed to be ‘bewildered’.” The quote marks are audible. Mezato’s reporter voice is brisk with well-practised professionalism. “The school’s vice principal has gone on record stating that the morning’s events are ‘strange’, ‘ongoing’, and that I should get my microphone ‘out of her face’ because she has ‘a lot to deal with right now’. A member of the student council who chose to remain unnamed told me in confidence that the victim ‘puked up his breakfast’, and that the situation was both ‘gross’ and ‘weird’. Can you comment?”
“Um,” says Mob. He looks down at the voice recorder waiting expectantly before his mouth. He looks at Mezato, waiting expectantly at his side. He takes a deep breath and tries again: “Um...”
“All right,” says Mezato. “Let’s try again, Mob-kun. What do you know about today?”
Mob thinks hard. “I... saw Tome-san by the bike racks,” he says, at length. “And then she told me school was cancelled today, and she was going to sneak into an office block and go all the way up to the roof so she could sit with her telescope and get a good view. So I don’t know about those things. About... the police, or someone being ill. I’m sorry, Mezato-san.”
The narrow backstreets spit them back out onto the fringes of the shopping district, and the shade is suddenly, horribly gone. Mezato fans her reporter’s notepad before her face. Mob undoes the first button on his uniform jacket. It’s only just gone eight in the morning, but the sun is already gearing up for another long day of baking Spice City into the ground.
“Can’t be helped, I suppose,” says Mezato. She flips her recording device closed again and slips it back into her pocket; then she adds, to herself, her mouth still closed: “I’ll have to try that kid from the student council again; he said he wouldn’t leak the details before the police spoke to him, but he didn’t say anything about leaking details after the police speak to him, technically...”
Only once she’s left does it occur to Mob that he’s now alone in the city on an early weekday morning with nothing important to do and nowhere important to be. The realisation of his own tremendous freedom is so overwhelming that for a few minutes he stands dazed at the edge of the road, letting it sink in. He could go... anywhere. He could do... anything.
He could...
If he wanted, he could...
“Hm,” says Mob, at length.
There’s nothing he really wants to do. He turns around and heads back for the school. Tome’s probably already sprinting up the fire escape of the highest office block in town with her telescope equipment slung across her back, but the rest of the Telepathy Club might still be loitering around, debating how to spend their day. If Mob hurries, he should get there in time to make sure they spend their day with him.
+++
The morning simmers in its own heat. Midday is relentless in its approach; the sun rises mercilessly high in the sky and then it stays there, stubborn as though it’s got a point to prove.
In the sweltering office of Spirits and Such Consulting Agency, the telephone rings.
Reigen kicks his feet down from his desk, unpeels himself from the sweat-slick back of his chair, and launches into his standard greeting despite the fact that maintaining his usual level of exuberant energy feels like a gruelling physical workout, in heat like this. “You’ve reached the office of the most astoundingly gifted psychic of the twenty-first century, and I’m Reigen Arataka, and of course my profound natural clairvoyance means I already know who you are and exactly what problem you’d like me to address – but perhaps, for convention’s sake, you’d like to introduce yourself anyway. I’m sure you’d feel more comfortable that way, and the comfort and convenience of my clients is always the—”
He stops mid-sentence. He’s been attempting to yank his tie into a neater, tighter knot while he speaks, with the hand that’s not holding the phone. He stops that, too. He listens.
“Excuse me?” says Reigen, eventually.
The voice on the other end of the line repeats itself.
“Well – certainly,” says Reigen, who’s temporarily too stunned for eloquence. “Certainly, certainly. I’d be more than happy to—I’m sorry,” he interrupts himself, unable not to blurt it out, “how much did you say, again?”
The sum is as stupendous the second time as it was the first time.
“I see,” says Reigen. The knot of his tie is a lost cause, and he abandons it. He pulls a pad of paper towards him and grabs a pen. Stunned amazement had been temporarily holding back his words – but the dam cracks, shatters, and floods away, and the reporter on the other end of the line is hit by the full-force deluge of his charm. “Yes, yes, of course. And the client who gave you my contact details...? Well, I already know, of course – I’m getting a very strong psychic suggestion of the name; but I always prefer to check the facts before assuming I’m correct. Arrogance is an unfortunate natural hazard of the psychic lifestyle, and I do all I can to prevent myself succumbing... And the story you’re planning to run, you’ll want a photo, will you? Ah – you’ll want a photoshoot? Then regarding the interview, should we meet at—”
The reporter keeps talking. Reigen keeps listening. His pen keeps moving on its pad; his mind keeps feverishly ticking over the possibilities opening up with every word.
An elderly lady came into his office last week complaining of a poltergeist, which had turned out to be nothing but her equally elderly dog having developed a peculiar habit of sleep-walking in his old age. Reigen advised her on certain changes she should consider making to her dog’s diet, which would repulse any spirits who saw him eating it so much that they would flee the house and never come back, and which would also hopefully reduce the nocturnal energy levels of her easygoing old dog. The client had thanked him, and paid him... and then, so it seems, she had gone to her local paper to inform them of not only her miraculous supernatural experience, but also her desire to make a tremendous cash donation to the outstandingly hard-working psychic who’d made it possible.
It’s too good to be true – but it is true. It’s the kind of thing that’s featured in his daydreams since long before his nightmarish blitz of mainstream media success, since long before his hellish rise and fall; it’s the kind of perfect opportunity that swims up from the depths of his daydreams when he’s dozing on the train. Not just the satisfied client, not just the unexpected windfall – but the fact the client’s an elderly woman, the fact there’s a heartwarming animal story involved: it’s a recipe for the kind of perfect publicity that couldn’t be improved upon even if Reigen had scripted the entire thing himself.
Too good to be true, yes – but it is true. So what if his last bulk order of incense still hasn’t surfaced from where it went to ground along the coast of northern China? He’s going to have the money to replace it. He’s going to have the money to do far more than just replace it. With money like this behind him, he could make the world his oyster.
Reigen’d much rather make it his billboard, though.
+++
This unreasonable, unseasonable summertime heat has arrived so unexpectedly that most of the city still seems to be in denial: it’s hard to find anywhere with its air conditioning turned on yet. A single free-standing fan is doing its best to stir the air in the arcades, its humming drowned out by the deafening beeps and squeals and electronic chirruping of the flashing machines on every side. Mob and the rest of the Telepathy Club take turns standing as close against it as they dare, jumping back whenever it seems like their clothes might get trapped in its whirling blades. They’d probably all be less overheated if they went down to the river instead, but down at the river there’s no possibility of winning rattling, glittering streams of silver arcade tokens, so there’s no point comparing the two – the river is out of the question.
Every now and then, nearly drowned out by the electronic din, Mob overhears Saruta talking to himself in an anxious rapid undertone about his cat, who apparently has a vet’s appointment scheduled for the next morning as well as a habit of eating the fluffy pom-poms from the ends of Saruta’s younger sister’s collection of pencils with fluffy pom-poms on the end, or rather of pencils which used to have fluffy pom-poms on the end until Saruta’s cat went slinking into her room and ate them all.
Mob doesn’t tell him that he’s overheard, though – he knows not everyone prefers to retreat as deep inside themselves as he does, when they’ve got something difficult they need to think over. Supportively, he gives Saruta his last token for the claw machines instead; supportively, he applauds with everyone else while Saruta fishes out a large soft toy prawn with an amiable, glassy stare.
Their funds run out sooner rather than later. The three-quarters of the Telepathy Club without Tome separate into their component quarters, and once again Mob’s let loose to wander.
It’s hot outside. It’s even hotter than it was before. The trees of the city’s parks are ripe and bright with blossom, their leaves glossy with newness. The flowerbeds are a technicolour dazzle. He’s gazing at them through the railings when the first tickle creeps in – up his throat, his nose, growing worse as the feeling rises...
Mob sneezes. Then he sneezes again. Spring has come too soon, and it’s brought hayfever season along for the ride. He unearths a crumpled hygiene mask from the back pocket of his schoolbag and pulls it into place as he trudges aimlessly on.
Unexpected free time fits him like a jumper in a colour he doesn’t much like: he’s grateful for the gift, but he can’t help wishing he’d been warned beforehand. With the school closed, there won’t be any club meetings today; Wednesday is his regular weekday off from work. It’s around the time that school would be finishing, if it hadn’t been miraculously cancelled by Mezato’s miraculous miracle...
...but Salt Mid isn’t the only school that lets out around this time.
The thought strikes Mob only a moment before another sneeze strikes him. Once the hayfever’s subsided, optimism sweeps in to take its place. He sneezes again, twice in a row, and sets off with fresh purpose for Black Vinegar.