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The first time it happens, Mob assumes that it’s an honest mistake.
Shishou certainly doesn’t react like anything unusual happens. He just keeps smiling, politely asking the customer more about his haunted basement (which sounds less like a haunting and more like he needs to call a plumber). The customer doesn’t say it again, and while Mob tags along for the “exorcism,” he mostly just watches Reigen-shishou explain that the spirits are displeased by the house’s state of disrepair and are too anchored to it to be removed by force. They’re walking back to the office in time to grab yakatori on the way.
Shishou doesn’t mention it, and Mob quickly puts it out of his mind.
Still, there was something odd about the client’s face when he called Reigen-shishou “ma’am.”
It doesn’t happen often – maybe once every couple of months at most. Mob likely wouldn’t have noticed it at all if it happened to other people. But no one ever seems to make a similar mistake with his parents, his classmates, his teachers at school. It’s just Reigen-shishou.
After one incident, when the client’s vase has been exorcised and she’s left, he ventures to ask about it. Reigen, predictably, doesn’t seem fazed.
“Oh, that? It’s pretty early, you know, and I’ve been told I have kind of a high voice. She probably misspoke.”
“Then why didn’t you correct her?”
He shrugs, waving his arms a little. “It’d just embarrass her. Never make a customer feel foolish, Mob. It’s bad for business.”
Mob nods and turns back to his math homework. That makes sense. He knows how important customers are for Spirits & Such, and how careful his shishou is in making them comfortable.
It doesn’t quite explain everything, though. Like the specific clients that do it. They tend to be older, and usually are already irritated or embarrassed about seeing a psychic. There’s a certain class of clients that are very insistent that they’ve done their research, and that they won’t be scammed, and the clients that make the mistake tend to be in that group. They also never seem embarrassed by the mistake itself. They all have a similar expression when they make it. A particular way of smiling.
‘Hey, Kagayama-kun? You’re the psychic, right?’
He nodded.
‘Show us a trick, why don’t you?’
He shook his head. Something felt wrong about being asked, and he didn’t know any of these kids that well.
‘Come on, just one! It’ll be easy. That is, if you’re really psychic.’
'Yeah, why don’t you levitate that trash can?’
His eyes followed the hand, and the trash can lifted before he could think twice. He startled and dropped it. It spilled open, and then there was an older man coming towards them. He looked angry.
Shigeo turned around and the other kids were already far off, running and laughing.
They also sometimes call him “sir” but smile the same way, sometimes placing just a bit more emphasis on it than most people do. That doesn’t make sense, either – why would calling the same man two opposite things have the same expression attached? Maybe it’s like how some people sarcastically call him a genius when he gets questions wrong in class. But shishou isn’t doing anything wrong.
And it still doesn’t explain why it only happens to shishou.
He considers asking about it again, but he’s beginning to learn his boss. At the very least, he understands him well enough to know that if there’s something personal behind this, Reigen will never admit it. He also knows that his job here is – not provisional, exactly. But fragile. He doesn’t think Reigen-shishou would fire him over one question (and on some level, he’s already pretty certain that Reigen’s “perfect control over his powers” means that Mob’s unfireable).
But his parents worry about this job. They agreed because he needed a psychic to teach him about his powers, and they like the idea of him having things to do outside of school and home. But he doesn’t talk to them about the scary parts, and he certainly hasn’t told them the actual odds on Reigen being able to protect him if it came down to it. And he doesn’t know what’s going on with this, so he has no way to know if it’s secretly a big deal. (Another thing he’s learned about his shishou – nothing is a big deal with him, especially if it’s actually a big deal.) Asking his parents would be asking for trouble, and he doesn’t have friends at school he could ask a weird random question about what’s almost certainly nothing but might just be something important with his boss/mentor/shishou/friend.
So, after mulling through his options, he tries to reason through it himself.
It’s clearly not an innocent mistake. Reigen-shishou isn’t a woman – that’s obvious. He doesn’t look like one, dress like one, or (in spite of what he said) sound like one. Sure, he wears a pink tie, but plenty of people wear pink. And that wouldn’t explain the smiling.
Oh – that’s something he can ask about.
“Ritsu?” He knocks on his brother’s door and waits. Ritsu spends most of his time at home holed up in his room, studying. Their dad says it’s admirable. It’s a bit selfish, but he sometimes wishes his brother had more time for other things.
He waits for the mumbled “Come in” before entering, but forgets to wait for a prompt before asking his question. “Ritsu, remember how kids sometimes – would sometimes play tricks on me? Getting me to do things and then getting me in trouble?”
Ritsu looks up so fast from his desk that Mob’s surprised there’s no cracking sound. “Did something happen?”
“… No. But I was wondering about something.” He pauses to remember how he wants to phrase this. “The way they’d look at me when they were tricking me. There was some kind of smile. What does that mean?”
Ritsu fiddles with his pencil, brow furrowed. Mob can’t tell if he’s trying to remember the face or if he’s trying to figure out how to explain it. (Ritsu told him once that he doesn’t think about things like this the way Mob does. He just sort of knows, sort of like how Mob has to describe spirits because other people can’t always see them.)
“It means… It means that there’s a joke, and that they’re in on it. That there’s something that they know that makes them feel superior.” He frowns. “I don’t know if that’s helpful. Why are you asking?”
“People smile like that at shishou sometimes.” He doesn’t mean to say it, but there it is. “Not – not because he’s a psychic, I don’t think.” (He ignores Ritsu’s snort at the descriptor.) “It’s more – sometimes they call him ‘ma’am,’ and sometimes they say ‘sir’ the same way. It’s like they’re not sure if he’s a man or a woman, only there’s no reason not to be sure. I don’t know why they do it.”
“Hmm.” Ritsu seems intrigued, which is at least a step above the contempt with which he usually approaches all Reigen-related conversations. “Maybe they’re saying he acts like a woman?”
Mob considers that. He doesn’t really think so. Reigen can be a little strange, but he doesn’t really come off as feminine. He gestures a lot more than most men, but he also gestures more than most women. “I don’t think that that’s it.”
“Then – oh! Maybe it is the psychic thing.” Ritsu’s grabbing his laptop. “I mean, I don’t know for sure, but maybe most psychics are women? So they’re saying he’s doing a woman’s job?”
That's an interesting theory. Reigen is the only psychic Mob knows aside from himself (and even that’s more doubtful than he’ll admit to Ritsu), but there have got to be others out there. That would certainly explain why his shishou’s response is to ignore it and double down on professionalism – if they’re worried that a man shouldn’t be a psychic, then focusing on the psychic part would be the right approach. (Reigen always figures out the right approach to dealing with people. It’s baffling.)
But Ritsu doesn’t look sure. He’s scrolling through hits on Mobgle and shaking his head. “It’s hard to say for sure, but this looks like a pretty even split. Even if I search for something like ‘psychic men vs women’ or ‘psychic gender balance,’ there’s nothing saying it’s a lot of women. If anything, most of the famous psychics are men.” He shuts his laptop and shrugs. “Sorry, nii-san. No idea.”
Mob nods a little. He supposes it would’ve been too easy. “That’s okay. Thanks for thinking about it, and for telling me about what that smile means.”
“I’ll let you know if I have any more ideas.”
“Sure.”
He turns to leave, pausing only to close the door on his way out.
After that, he sort of forgets about it. It’s far from the strangest thing about his mentor, or his job, and there aren’t any more clues forthcoming. He spends most of his time on school and work and Reigen-shishou’s lessons and video games and all the other things that make up the life of a boy in Seasoning City.
Things are changing with his life, too. He starts middle school, and a year later, he joins the Body Improvement Club. He shuts down a cult, and its leader somehow decides that they’re friends. He gets in a fight and loses control of his powers to an extent he hasn’t in years. Ritsu becomes an esper, and things escalate and deescalate between them far too quickly to focus on anything but that and Claw. Even Reigen borrowing his powers to fight Claw (itself an admission of the Thing about Reigen that neither of them has said for years, and will not acknowledge out loud) doesn’t really catch his attention in the middle of everything else happening in his life.
Then, just when he’s starting to have his little circles of friends, and his life, and feel like he’s someone other than a directionless balloon attached to a bag of psychic energy, Reigen crosses a line.
Before this year, Mob didn’t even know he had lines like that. Reigen seems surprised, too. He’s so used to Mob coming when he calls and accepting his outlandish claims to clients and not having other friends that he’s clearly genuinely shocked that Mob now has priorities that trump his. He almost seems upset.
But this isn’t what Mob wants his life to be forever. He wants to be a full person, with hobbies and friends and a life outside of his powers. And he knows that Reigen knows that. Which is why it hurts to hear him try to deny it.
Leaving is the right choice. That hurts, too, but Mob is 100% clear on it.
It hurts the most for the first couple of days, but he hangs out with Tome-chan and Ritsu and Teruki-kun and the Body Improvement Club, and soon he can’t believe how much he was missing. Karaoke, casual hours just chatting about TV and their least favorite teachers; adventures through the city hunting for entertainment and food on their collective allowances. He feels normal, for the first time he can remember since he told his mom about a spirit in the neighbor’s house and she took him to the doctor.
Sometimes he wonders how Reigen is doing, but he resists the urge to mobgle. It’d make him want to go back, and it’d be prying. Besides, Reigen is an adult – enough of an adult to lecture other adults about being an adult. Adults can take care of themselves.
So he isn’t following his former mentor’s activities until Mezato-chan bursts in on him recovering in the Telepathy Club/Body Improvement Club room.
“Did you see the news about your boss?”
“I don’t work for him anymore,” he says automatically. Then his brain catches up with what she said. “What news?”
“He’s been exposed as a fraud! He went on some TV psychic program and faked an exorcism, and now everyone knows he’s not a real psychic! You haven’t heard?” She shoves her phone in his face too fast for him to really process the text, but individual words pop out. “Liar.” “Sham.” “Victims.”
She yanks it back, so he pulls out his own phone and does a quick search for “Reigen Arataka.” The Spirits & Such website, which used to be the first hit, is now buried about halfway down the page of results. Instead, there are news stories. Video clips, both original and with autotune and meme modifications. Message boards of people, most of whom Mob’s fairly certain have never set foot in Spirits & Such, claiming that Reigen ripped them off. Long rambling threads about the danger that charlatans pose to society and “thinkpieces” about whether they offer any value to the world at all. Threats to sue. Threats to have his business license revoked. Threats to have him arrested. Other threats, ones that Mob hopes aren’t meant seriously.
It occurs to him that, given how online Reigen is, there’s no way he hasn’t seen this. It makes something inside of his chest tighten, even though he knows that their basic premise is right.
Then he runs into something confusing.
‘So, get this: not only is ‘he’ not a psychic. He’s not a man, either!’
That sounds familiar.
Tanaka Yoshi, the Seasoning City Daily reporter, was trying to find out more about the dirtbag. And he dug up Reigen’s old school records. Turns out she’s a girl pretending to be a guy.’
The replies are even more confusing. It seems like there’s more than one conversation happening at once.
‘How fake can you get?’
‘Ew, gross!’
‘What’s her real name? The newspapers should get it right if they’re going to warn people.’
'If he got it changed, then “Reigen Arataka” is his name. Get your facts straight.’
'Lol you’re defending her’
‘Anyone who thinks trannies aren’t predators needs to know this right now.’
‘Look, he’s scum, but that’s not a reason to disrespect him, or to assume that other trans people are like that.’
'You know, if she’s really a woman, then I bet I could teach her a lesson about lying…’
The messages devolve into violent vulgarity from there. Mob’s been online – he’s not naïve about that. But seeing it directed at Reigen-shishou is making that tightening feeling worse. It’s real in a way that stupid comments haven’t been to him before, even when they upset him.
“Mob-kun? Is something wrong?” He looks up, and Tome is looking at him strangely – or rather, is looking at his hair strangely. It’s spiked up, strands floating a little around his head.
That little mystery he never solved pops into his head. The clients who did their research. Of course.
“Tome-chan, what’s a tranny?”
It’s not how he meant to say that, and based on the way the others in the room look at him, he suspects it was the wrong way to say it. He’s vaguely put in mind of the Dragger, and how Reigen-shishou had thought it was convenient that he didn’t have normal middle school conversations bogging him down.
“Well, I don’t think you’re supposed to say that word.” She worries her tongue a bit between her teeth. “I’m not sure what you should call them, though. Basically, they’re men who decide to be women, or women who decide to be men.”
“There’s a little more to it than that, although Tome-chan is right about not saying that word. Why do you ask?”
Mob startles a little. He didn’t hear the Body Improvement Club returning from their weight training outside, and given how loud they are, that’s a pretty good sign he’s focusing in too much.
Gouda goes on. “Transgender people, or trans people, don’t feel like the gender they were assigned based on how they looked when they were born. They might feel like their bodies are wrong, or just that people don’t see them the way they see themselves. Sometimes, they make legal or medical changes to live more comfortably as themselves.” He moves over to peer at Mob’s phone. Mob holds it up a little for him and lets him read.
While he’s looking through the thread, Mob thinks. One of the things he’s learned from Reigen over the years is that he doesn’t see truth the way Mob sees it. Truth to Mob is closely connected to not lying, and Reigen lies a lot. Half the time, he doesn’t even seem aware of what he’s saying when he talks to clients. He’ll spin stories about ghosts haunting basements and spirits in porn sites and tense shoulders that need exorcisms.
But that doesn’t mean he’s not honest, in a way. Truth to him is in what he does and how he treats people. He’ll tell a client that their shoulder is haunted, but he won’t take payment unless the “exorcism” gets rid of the problem. He’ll promise to exorcise a human-faced dog and give the dog a bath. He fixes clients’ problems, even if he lies about what he’s doing.
And the advice he gave Mob was (mostly) honest. He supported Mob joining the Body Improvement Club, and he was genuinely worried about what would happen to Mob as a person if he fought Claw.
Mob doesn’t really understand what Gouda said about gender. But he knows that, no matter what comes out of his mouth, Reigen lives honestly. He’s not a fraud like those people with the fake expensive vase were frauds. His actions say that he’s a man. That’s him being honest.
Gouda is straightening back up. “Ah, I see.” He eyes Mob seriously. “Did you know?”
“… Not really, no.” He thinks for a second. “If I’d known that people like that existed, I might’ve been able to guess.”
“Mob.” Tome’s looking at him oddly again. “You quit working for him like a month ago, and he’s just torched his reputation.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s obvious he was just using you.”
He hums noncommittally.
“I’m serious. You got out just in time. His business is over, and this other thing just blew up in his face.”
“Yeah.”
“This would be a really, really stupid time to get involved.”
“Yeah.”
She looks frustrated, like she’s already spent an hour arguing with him and is getting tired. Then she sighs.
“This is why people exploit you, Mob. You know that, right? He doesn’t deserve your loyalty.”
He smiles a little at her. He doesn’t have the words to explain why she’s wrong, but he’ll think of something. Later. After he figures out how to help his friend.
Mob livestreams the press conference on his phone from a block away. He still doesn’t have a plan, per se, but he figures that if it looks like he’s needed, he can help. (He doesn’t think he will be. Reigen-shishou can talk his way out of anything.) It’s the first time he’s seen Reigen’s face since they parted ways, and it really hits him that he’s missed the man.
He doesn’t look all that different on the surface. Same grey suit, same pink tie. Even knowing what he knows, Mob can’t look at him and see a woman. He’s just… Reigen-shishou. If he focuses, Mob can almost imagine him cracking a joke as he blows on a hot piece of takoyaki, although he’s clearly not in a joking mood. He looks calm and serious in the way people holding press conferences always do, especially when he bows, but Reigen-shishou understands when to be polite.
The fact that he’s not, more than anything else, is jarring. If even Mob can tell he’s being rude, then the reporters must be fuming. They shout questions at him, alternating between the name Mob knows and a different one.
It might be his imagination, but he thinks that under the irritation and skin-deep politeness and fatigue, his shishou looks a bit scared.
It’s one of the reporters calling him the wrong name that asks about his middle school essay. He freezes, and Mob wonders what he’s thinking. Maybe he’s thinking he should’ve stayed a girl. Or maybe he’s thinking about the essay, about wanting to be somebody. (Mob doesn’t particularly want to be somebody, at least not like that. At least, he thinks not.) Maybe he’s wondering how this happened, trying to remember how the kid who wrote that essay became the man trying to defend himself against accusations of fraud.
Dimple’s hovering at his shoulder, watching the feed. “The hell is that idiot doing? I thought he was supposed to be good at talking.”
Mob watches the tiny face on the tiny screen, trying to parse a facial expression that would be equally inscrutable in person. “Maybe he doesn’t want to talk to them.”
“Then he shouldn’t have called a fucking press conference.”
“Shh. I want to hear this.”
Something shifts in Reigen’s demeanor, and he leans into the mic. He looks straight into the camera, as if he knows that Mob is watching.
“You've grown so much,” he says.
And Mob knows that he’s needed, and he acts as if he’d had a plan all along.
Reigen doesn’t look at his face when he asks, in a quieter and more serious voice than he’s ever used, if Mob knows the truth. Mob’s usually the one dodging eye contact, and it’s strange to miss it. The whole situation is strange, and he wishes for a moment that it could just go back to normal. The problem is that the old normal wasn’t working anymore. And they both know it.
But there are parts of that normal that they can salvage. And maybe those will help them work out something better.
He doesn’t say it. Any of it. He doesn’t say that he knows Reigen’s about as psychic as Mob is academic. Or that, while Reigen helps people with “exorcisms” all the time, he needs a real psychic for when the spirits aren’t just arthritis and improperly installed doors. Or that Mob is beginning to realize that Reigen probably said those things because Mob’s not the only one who has trouble making friends.
He doesn’t even know what he would say about the transgender thing, so he sure as hell isn’t going to try it off the cuff.
They make up, and they grab dinner in a cheap ramen place a few blocks from the office. Mob agrees to come back, but he’s not a little kid anymore. He has other priorities now, and he sets some boundaries. No more calls out of nowhere. Shorter hours if he has something to go to with his friends, especially if there aren’t any exorcisms he needs to help with. A raise. Reigen agrees quickly, and it’s not clear if that’s because he respects Mob’s position or he’s just desperate for him to come back. (He might feel guilty about taking advantage of his shishou later, but he knows at least a few of his friends would point out that Reigen took advantage of him first.)
Reigen’s waiting for their change when he says, “By the way, you don’t have to come in this week. You can start next week – you know, have a few days to work out any commitments. Fresh start on Monday.”
He’s smiling, limbs relaxed, hand waving in a jerky frenetic circle, and looking casually over towards the server at the register, but Mob still knows him. Reigen-shishou is an excellent liar, and Mob knows better than to listen to his words. The real question is what outcome he’s trying to get with those words, and why.
He clearly wants Mob to come back, so this can’t be getting more time away from him. Hiding something from him? Unlikely. The office is always kept nice for customers. Is he being genuine about Mob’s commitments? Possibly, but it feels lacking somehow. It’s only Tuesday. A day off to let his parents know he’s been rehired and figure out whether he still wants to go out for bubble tea on Friday would be more than sufficient.
He narrows his eyes, trying to watch his shishou more carefully. Reigen isn’t looking at him, the same way he wasn’t on the bridge. After he’d fixed everything.
‘No. Not everything.’
“Are people still going to be angry about you changing your name?”
Reigen turns around so fast, arm already swinging up to emphatically gesture, that he knocks a water glass clear off the table. Mob catches it with his powers before it can make a mess, but judging from the brief sheepish look on his face, his shishou knows he’s been caught out.
Give him credit, though. He tries, anyway.
“Look, Mob. I don’t know what you’ve heard, but that’s not a problem. It was just something people were throwing on top of everything else, and they’ll forget about it as soon as the press conference sinks in.” He shoots a finger gun at Mob, bringing it back to point at himself. “And at the end of the day, the Greatest Psychic of the 21st Century and his student know what we’re doing. That’s all anyone cares about.”
“That’s not what it looked like online.”
Reigen’s cheesy, poster-perfect smile dims to a lower wattage. “You saw that, huh?”
Mob nods. “I don’t really know anything about it, but it sounds like some people were angrier about that than the TV show.” Reigen’s left hand has vanished into his lap. “Are you expecting them to make trouble?”
“I –“ He moves to throw his hands up and bangs his left on the underside of the table. He winces and turns it into a shrug. “It’ll blow over.” He sighs. “It might take a couple of days, though. And you don’t need to be around for that. We probably won’t get a lot of customers this week, anyway.”
“Then why not close for the week?” He knows the answer as soon as he asks.
“Because we don’t give up! Especially after being vindicated!” He’s animated again, ramping up into full shishou lecture mode. “No, Mob, the best thing is to get back to normal as quickly as possible. Let people get used to the idea, and they’ll forget. I mean, people found out occasionally all the time before, and it was never a problem!”
“Except that it was. For you. They’d make fun of you.”
Reigen rubs his forehead. “Mob-kun…”
“That’s what it was, wasn’t it? People who didn’t trust us would look you up, and they’d find out, and they thought it was funny to tell you they knew, so that you’d be uncomfortable.” He’s not really sure he can elaborate beyond that, even though he knows he’s right. Because what exactly did those people know? A name? A label? And what was his shishou feeling when they said it, anyway? Embarrassed at someone knowing his secret, or something worse? “And you put up with it.”
The tight feeling from before is back.
“It’s not that simple, Mob.”
The server finally returns with their change, and Mob gets up as quickly as he can.
They’re out on the street when Reigen starts up again. “People aren’t always ready to be accepting, but they still have problems, and their money’s good. Sometimes you make compromises. That’s what being a professional means.”
‘What’s with the retarded kid?’
Mob looked up from his science homework. It was better than math, but rocks bored him. Biology was much better at holding his interest. The customer looked vaguely disgusted, and it was only then that he realized that he was rocking back and forth in his chair to focus.
‘Excuse me?’ Reigen’s voice and expression were normal, but there was something off about it. It reminded Mob a bit of the way he felt right before losing control.
The customer turned around. ‘I came here about a curse. This is supposed to be an office, not a daycare for your ret-‘
‘Get out.’
‘What?!’
‘Get. Out.’ Mob had never seen his shishou gesture quite like that before. His movements were choppy and harsh, like he was a second away from punching the man. His tone stayed light and cheery, but he was talking faster than usual. ‘Vamoose. Scram. Your money’s no good here. Exit’s thataway. You're outta here! Feel free to find any psychic in the world who’s not me. Ciao!’
‘But – I’m a paying customer. Look, I’m sorry. Whatever. I’ll pay double.’
‘And I’ll call the cops if you’re not off the premises in the next thirty seconds.’
‘I –‘
‘Twenty-nine.”
‘Fine! I’m going!’
Later, Mob asked him about losing business and he rolled his eyes.
‘That guy’s business wasn’t worth it.’ Seeing the confusion in his student’s eyes, he put on his shishou voice. ‘Listen up, Mob, because this is important: any good businessman doesn’t let people mistreat his employees. Never work for someone who lets you be mistreated. It’s not just about your feelings – it’s also a sign they don’t know what they’re doing. People like that don’t value talent or hard work, so their best employees leave as soon as they can for something better. Going to work for someone who values a single customer over your dignity is like tying yourself to an anchor. They’ll go down, and they’ll drag you down with them.’
Well, that piece of advice aged interestingly.
Mob reels himself back to the present and considers the man walking beside him. “I don’t think that that’s true. You wouldn’t let a customer treat me like that.”
“Of course not.”
“So why are you different?”
“Because I’m responsible for you!”
Mob focuses in on Reigen’s right hand, whose fingers are currently digging into his left arm. “So, it’s because I’m a kid.”
Reigen groans and throws up the hand. “No. Of course not. It’s because I can decide how I get treated at work – I own the business, after all. But you’re coming in to do what I tell you, and it’d be unethical to tell you to put up with crap from clients. You deserve to come to work and know you'll be comfortable there.”
Mob considers that. It sort of makes sense, even though it sounds like the same kind of rationalization that he makes when people tell him he’s too forgiving.
“Okay, but what if you’re not telling me?”
“Huh?” Reigen stops running a hand through his hair and squints suspiciously at Mob. “Look, I don’t know what you’re thinking, but –“
“You once told me that a good businessman should treat his employees with respect. We just talked about how I get more say in when I come in. So, I’m saying that I want to come in this week, and I’m okay with whatever people do.”
Reigen straightens. Mob can almost see him putting on the “adult” persona. “I know you believe that, Mob, but you don’t know – “
“No, I don’t. But you do, and you’ll be in charge. You can ask me to back off if you think something’s too much, but I want to be there.” He bows slightly. “I trust you to keep me safe at work.”
He glances up. Reigen’s mouth is slightly open, finger raised as if to accentuate a point he hasn’t thought of yet. He couldn’t look more shocked if Mob had slapped him.
They stare at each other like that for a few seconds before Reigen concedes defeat. He rubs his neck. “Okay, kid. You can come in tomorrow. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, though.”
Mob nods. “Thank you, shishou.”
There are protestors outside of Spirits & Such the next day.
They’re not at the door itself – Reigen must’ve threatened to call the police again – but they’re standing on the sidewalk in front of the building. There are maybe 15 or 20 of them. Several carry signs – “Real Psychic? Fake Man,” “Spirits & Sickos,” “Protect our Children,” “Men are Men,” “XX ≠ XY.” As people pass, especially if they look like they’re turning towards the building, the protestors call to them, telling them to stay away. They smile, and they tag on bits about “helpful advice” and “I hope you’re aware,” like this is some kind of friendly neighborhood informational committee.
Mob looks at them and wonders how none of them have anything better to do with their Wednesday afternoon.
He’s watching them from across the street for now, and he’s so focused on them that he almost misses the other person watching the building. A woman, maybe in her twenties or thirties, wringing her hands and looking at the doors like she’s working through an algebra problem.
His instincts aren’t great ones, but he has a hunch that he knows what’s going on. A brief tickle of spiritual energy coming from her bag tells him he’s right.
“Excuse me, miss?” he asks. She startles, but relaxes when she sees it’s just a kid.
“Yes? Can I help you?” She sounds nervous, but not hostile.
He cocks his head towards the building. “Are you one of Reigen-san’s clients?”
“Um…” She’s clearly trying to figure out if he’s with the protestors. “Sort of.” She sees his eyes going to her bag. “I had something I wanted him to look at, but I think it’s too late.”
“Maybe not.” He thinks for a second. Getting two people in shouldn’t be much harder than one. “I work for Reigen-shishou after school. I was just going to go in. You can come with me – they won’t bother you.”
She doesn’t seem to fully believe that, but tags along, anyway. (He suspects that she’s more worried about him than anything.) They cross the street together, Mob slowing to match her pace when the protestors fixate on them.
When they’re a foot from the sidewalk, he mutters, “Stick close” and throws up a barrier. She almost walks into it.
The lady coming up with some kind of pamphlet does walk into it. Then there are voices, confused fading into angry, as people realize that Mob isn’t a bystander. They shout and warn him about Hell and call his master a manipulative woman who’ll hurt him in terrible ways. A few hit the barrier.
Mob and the client just keep walking.
The protestors follow them to the door, but Mob just reshapes the sphere into a lopsided hemisphere and unlocks the door with his spare key. (Reigen had never asked for it back.) He leaves it up until they’re inside and the door is locked again. Then he turns to the client.
“It’s just upstairs. I can take you.” She’s staring at him, eyes watering a little. “Are you okay?”
“That was amazing,” she says, and Mob belatedly remembers that most people don’t see espers throwing up shields every day. “Wow! I wasn’t even sure I believed in this stuff, but that – I mean,” she seems to recall she’s an adult, “Um, thank you. Are you alright? Those people were saying some hurtful things.”
He nods. “I’m fine. Thank you for asking.”
“Good. That’s – that’s good.” She nods a little, as if she’s trying to convince herself of something.
They walk upstairs together, and Reigen answers the door like it’s an average business day – suit neatly pressed, chipper, unfazed by what turns out to be his 8:30 showing up at 15:15. Mob makes short work of her cursed bracelet and walks her back to the subway.
When he returns, Reigen has tea ready. “Good work, Mob! Fastest exorcism in the West!” He shoots a couple of finger guns at Mob and grins. It’s only undermined by the sound of a chant from outside.
Mob sits down and blows on his tea. “Thank you, shishou.” There’s no smell of incense. No rock salt littering the carpet. “Was she your first client of the day?”
“Of course! You heard her – she was my 8:30!”
Mob frowns. “I mean, was she the first who actually came in?”
Reigen picks up his own tea. “… Yeah. Like I said, it’s going to be a little slow this week. I’m calling people to reschedule.”
“Maybe you don’t have to. You could call today’s clients and tell them to come in and call you when they get here. I can get them up.”
“That’s not your job.”
Mob shrugs and reaches for his Ritsu impression. “It is today. Or I could just sit here and do my history homework.” He shrugs a bit awkwardly. “Your choice.”
He makes as if to walk over to his desk until Reigen raises his hand in a stop gesture: “Okay, I get it. You’re here, you can help. It’s a good plan. But listen,” and he leans forward and stares at Mob, like he’s trying to beam words into his brain. “It gets to be too much, and you tell me. We have another 12 or 13 clients to squeeze in, and you don’t need to be playing escort on top of your regular job and your homework.”
“Yes, shishou.”
“Okay. Thank you.” The smile’s a bit weak, but it’s there. “I’ll make some calls and let you know when you’re needed.”
Mob turns back to the desk. He’s just sat down and taken out his history homework when he remembers. “Um, shishou?”
Reigen pauses mid-dial. “Yes, Mob?”
“Never mind. This will take a minute. I can ask after you call.”
Reigen looks like he’s going to argue for a second, but shrugs and gets on the line. Mob works on the late Edo period through a dozen upbeat assurances that the office is open, and they’re offering personalized escorts into the building for clients’ safety.
Finally, Reigen slams the phone down with a triumphant, “We’re in business!” and remembers that Mob wanted something. “Alright, calls are made. What’s up?”
Mob closes his textbook. “I have a question. Well, actually, I have several questions, but… I know I don’t always say things the way I want them to sound, and it’s not your job to tell me personal things.” Reigen opens his mouth, but shuts it when Mob looks up at him. “I don’t really understand what’s going on, and I couldn’t find anything reliable online. Could you tell me where to look? To learn about this transgender thing?”
For a brief, horrifying moment, Reigen looks like he’s going to cry. But before Mob can really spiral into not knowing how to comfort a crying adult, he clears his throat.
“Um, yeah. I can get some things together while we’re between clients.”
“Thank you, shishou.” Mob’s going to get back to work before he remembers something else he needs to say. “And I’m sorry, if I’ve said anything wrong about this, before. I didn’t know.”
Reigen’s expression is hard to read. It’s not exactly a smile, but it’s not downright scared or troubled. It’s one of those looks that makes Mob wonder if there really are some emotions he won’t have until he’s an adult.
“You’ve never said anything wrong, Mob. You’re a good kid, and you’re doing great.” His face twitches a little when he says it, like there’s something else he wants to say. But he doesn’t, because that’s when the phone rings and he jumps.
“That’s probably our 3:30! Look alive, Mob!”
Mob puts his homework away.
“Yes, shishou.”
“It started a few weeks ago. This high-pitched screaming, like someone being tortured to death, and – hey, wait a second! I remember you!”
Reigen’s smile tightens on his face. “Oh?”
“You’re that TV psychic! The girl who threw a bunch of salt at that teenager!” The client’s grinning now, snapping his fingers. “Your real name is – what was it, again? – it sounded kind of like the one you use, but – “
“Excuse me, sir.”
Reigen whips around. Mob’s laser-focused on the client and ignoring every ‘Stop, don’t’ gesture he knows how to make.
“I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
The client smirks. “On what authority, kid?”
“You’re being disrespectful of the people who work here. It’s bad for business.”
The client stands up. He’s not tall enough to be intimidating, especially since Mob’s growth spurt, but he has a certain aggressive presence. “Look, kid. Your boss here wants to take care of this, so she should – “
“I’m not referring to him.” Mob’s st- no, he’s glaring at the man. No way around that. “I’m uncomfortable working in an environment where that attitude is tolerated. It’s stressful and makes my job harder.”
The man rounds back on Reigen. “Are you just going to let him talk to me like that?”
His mouth is open. He shuts it and resets. “You know what? I am. Kageyama-kun is a valued employee, and his input is appreciated.”
He doesn’t know if it’s the fake nonchalance, the refusal, or the corporate-speak that does it, but he’s pretty sure the client’s going to have an aneurysm.
Doesn’t matter. He leaves quickly enough.
After he’s gone, Reigen glares over at Mob. “That was not the point of the resources I gave you.”
For someone who has trouble expressing his emotions, Mob’s projecting smug pretty well right now. “My apologies for misunderstanding. Are there other resources that would be better, Reigen-shishou?”
There fucking aren’t and he knows it. “I – look, just… get back to work.”
“Yes, shishou.”
Reigen glowers at Mob as he goes back to his desk. He does his best to focus on the frustration at losing a client, because if he stops thinking about that, he might do something ridiculous.
(The udon he takes Mob out for that evening isn’t ridiculous, dammit. He was just hungry.)