Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

January isn’t supposed to be this warm.

The morning of day five arrives gently, pulling Reigen from sleep and up to the edge of his bed to rub at his eyes, to walk to his kitchenette, to water his plants, to brush his teeth. 

He gets dressed and circles his neck with his tie in the mirror, inspecting his face as he does so. His perpetual dark circles are lessened this morning, softer. Like the honest-adjacent conversation in Mob’s bedroom yesterday has lifted some heaviness off of his very soul. 

Reigen didn’t dream at all last night. 

Too busy lying awake thinking of his second phone call of the day with Tome, where she’d insisted that he and Mob spend the night in her guest room after the party.

The party.

He and Mob are going to a college party.

Tonight.

And it’s so silly, downright juvenile, he thinks, stepping outside to lock up his apartment - that the idea of escaping Seasoning City with Mob is making him feel like this. Light and airy and simmering with some kind of anticipation.

His phone buzzes, and when he pulls it from his pocket, the message on the screen is from Mob, lighting up in his hands, a beacon in the dark duskiness of the before-dawn sky.

good morning, it reads.

Reigen locks the door, and his fingers are already sliding over the screen to text him back.

A couple of hours and several massages later and it’s finally the end of the workday, the sun dipping low in the sky. Reigen’s coat is left unbuttoned as he steps out for a breath of fresh air. 

Serizawa locks up inside and it feels like it used to, those days last year when Reigen would step out for a cigarette and then the two of them would walk down to the bar.

Yes, like that, with some marked differences. 

Like that Reigen no longer has cigarette ashes in a half-moon at his feet, and that today his chest feels lighter than it has any business being.

Those two things might be connected. They might not.

“I’ll see you later, Reigen,” Serizawa smiles brightly as he pockets his key.

“See you on Monday,” Reigen grins back.

A trip home and a half hour of showering and shaving later, Reigen stands in front of his closet in a pair of gray boxer-briefs.

He has… nothing to wear.

What do people wear to parties like this, anyway? He briefly considers texting Mob but the idea of asking him is just a little too embarrassing, so he tosses his phone on top of his sheets instead. 

After some deliberation, Reigen eventually pulls out a white button down and the pink v-neck sweater Tome got him last year for his birthday. He tugs some navy-gray slacks that he never gets to wear out of the drawer and slides on his work shoes. That will have to do. 

Reigen pulls together his overnight bag and opens the apartment door, no coat - it’s too unnaturally warm for that - turning around to face inwards and ask himself if he forgot anything.

He goes through his itinerary in his head. Clothes for tomorrow... toothbrush… pajamas. Keys. Wallet. Ah, he has to make sure his license is in there so he can go check out the rental car before he heads over to pick up Mob. 

Reigen rummages through his wallet, cast in the blue shadows of the doorway of the apartment. 

It looks cozy inside the apartment, with blue hues blanketing his belongings, cool shadows across the apartment table, the couch. The colors stand vivid against the deep green of the houseplants, trailing cool blue tones all the way down to the shadows building in the kitchenette. He’s already watered all of his plants this morning - they should be good for the weekend.

The apartment looks small. Lonely. 

Reigen glances back one last time before the door closes.

The pink orchid seems to wave at him from the windowsill. 

“You missed your exit.”

It’s seven PM now, and Reigen still isn’t sure what he expected from the drive over to Tome’s faraway college.

But it’s been forty-five minutes of driving and Reigen hates driving and it doesn’t matter what side of the bed he woke up on this morning, he’s regretting ever volunteering to do this. These last fifteen minutes left on the GPS are going to kill him, he’s sure, he’s absolutely sure.

That is, if Mob’s comments on the matter don’t kill him first.

“Well maybe if it wasn’t so damn dark I wouldn’t have!” Reigen protests indignantly, frowning with a glance in Mob’s direction before adding in a mumble, “and that guy wouldn’t let me over.”

Mob sits in the passenger seat, GPS up on his phone, reflecting a soft glow against his white t-shirt. It’s emblazoned with a logo on the left corner of his chest, some sports brand. 

“You’re just saying that because you’re bad at driving,” he says tonelessly.   

“Right, because you’re so much better,” Reigen huffs. “Tell that to the seven thousand mailboxes you’ve killed.”

“It was only one,” Mob corrects him. 

They pull up to a stop light, glowing red over the road in the cold evening. Their overnight bags, sitting side by side in the back seat, shift slightly with the momentum change.

“Give me that.” Reigen leans to grab Mob’s phone, tilting it towards himself to squint at the map he has up on it.

Mob hands it to him instead. “We’ll have to tell Kurata-san we’re going to be late.”

“Ah, it’s fine. We’ll be there all night anyway.”

Mob is quiet, then. Which is fine, he’s been chatting off and on throughout the entire car ride and Reigen hasn’t defined a silence between the two of them as awkward for several years now.

Well, that used to be true. Recent events have turned that somewhat upside-down. 

But Reigen is driving. So recent events and figuring it out have gone out the window and the only thing that matters is this shitty little rental car and the road and - oh, shit, the light has turned green. Reigen hands Mob’s phone back to him.

Reigen hits the gas and Mob stays silent.

Minutes pass. Several, or maybe two. Maybe only one. 

Either way, Reigen sits with both hands on the wheel, simultaneously loathing the highway and allowing it to lull him into a reflective mood all at once. 

The streetlights overhead pass by smoothly, the new January moon sitting innocently in the sky, just a sliver of silver. 

They haven’t so much as acknowledged that yesterday happened. Reigen can’t help but wonder if that’s what Mob is thinking about, what’s got him so quiet.

Reigen pretends he doesn’t glance over to see Mob staring out the passenger side window. 

“I don’t expect anything from you,” he’d said.

There’s plenty of time, Reigen supposes, for Mob to chew over what happened in his bedroom yesterday afternoon - Reigen’s apology and what amounted to half a confession. He won’t press, but Reigen really would like to know what Mob thinks about it all.

Maybe if he were less of a coward he’d just ask.

Reigen should be watching the road. He’s stealing glances instead.

Mob is sitting with his legs apart - he’s wearing some sort of varsity jacket and a pair of dark distressed jeans that Reigen’s never seen - resting his hands in his lap, not leaning away but not leaning towards Reigen, either, and now Reigen is simultaneously trying to read body language and trying not create a MVA statistic out of the both of them but he really should be focusing on-

“Precognition.” Mob’s voice cuts through the silence.

“Huh?” Reigen says stupidly as he jumps and nearly breaks his neck to look back at the road. His eyebrows crease as his thoughts come to an abrupt halt. “What?”

“My new power,” Mob says. Another glance at him reveals that he’s staring straight forward out the front windshield. “I was embarrassed to tell you before.”

Reigen blinks. His hands flex on the steering wheel.

‘Before’ must mean last week at the office, the last and only instance Reigen had heard about this new power. At the time, he’d chalked up Mob’s knowledge that the aliens wouldn’t arrive at the mountain as some sort of telepathic communication ability, but if it’s not that, then…

Reigen’s voice sounds much more unsure than he’d intended. “You mean ‘precognition’ as in… what? Telling the future?” 

“Yes,” Mob answers him.

Well that… okay? That doesn’t explain much. Is this what Mob was being so quiet about? Working up the nerve to tell him this? 

Reigen makes a face at the road. The GPS prompts him at the exit and he switches lanes to follow it.

Precognition, some psychic power that predicts the future. He automatically thinks of that client from yesterday with the cursed necklace, but that’s not really the same as precognition, is it?

Precognition suggests a knowledge of everything. No warped visions of horrible outcomes, just a clear picture of the future, of the truth. Good or bad.

And if he really has that kind of power then Mob would have known everything from the start, right? He wouldn’t have been upset over Reigen and Serizawa’s short-lived situationship, because he would already know how it was going to end. 

Right?

He would have known that, and he would have known Reigen would show up at his house yesterday - but he definitely didn’t, if the memory of his mildly surprised expression is any indication, so-

“I don’t believe you,” Reigen says abruptly.

He can hear the subtle frown in Mob’s voice. “I’m telling the truth.”

“Prove it.”

“Well I can’t just-“

“Right. You can’t,” Reigen declares, only a shade smug. “Because you’re just trying to freak me out.”

They roll up to another stoplight, glaring red in the night.

“No, I can, it’s just limited,” Mob says emphatically. Reigen can see him pinching the bridge of his nose with a sigh in his peripherals. “Look,” he points ahead. “See that stoplight?”

Reigen turns his head to him, giving him an obvious and very unserious once-over. “Yes, Mob, I see the stoplight.”

Mob frowns at him before his eyes flick back to the light, reflecting red. He continues, clearly choosing to ignore Reigen’s comment. 

“It’s going to turn green…” he trails off.

“… Now.”

And viola, just like that, he can see it in the reflection in Mob’s irises - the light turns green in tandem with Mob’s prediction. 

Reigen turns his eyes away, back to the road where the green light urges him onwards and steps on the gas. 

“Lucky guess,” he says. 

“Not a guess,” Mob grumbles. 

Reigen leans over on impulse and gives Mob a solid, quick smack on the leg over his jeans. 

“Ouch!” Mob yelps, and Reigen’s eyes are glued to the road but he just knows Mob is blinking at him incredulously. “What was that for?!”

“If you could really predict the future you would have seen that coming,” Reigen smirks.

“It doesn’t work for people,” Mob huffs, and he has an annoyed little tinge to his voice that Reigen revels in. “I don’t, um, I’m actually… not sure why.” He hesitates, and then a sort of defeated, begrudging embarrassment colors his voice. “Hanazawa-kun says it's because there are too many choices that people can make. Or something.”

“So you can only tell the future for stop lights and alien encounters,” Reigen snorts.

He takes his eyes off the road for a moment to take in Mob’s annoyed stare, flat and half-lidded, the same type of look he gives Reigen when he’s called him out of the blue or told him he needs to pay for his own dinner.

Reigen can’t look any longer. Because of the traffic. 

“I’m right,” he says with a smile.

“I hate you,” Mob laments from the passenger seat.

Reigen laughs at that, he doesn’t even try to hold it in, grinning to himself in between breaths of amusement. 

Another look at Mob reveals his slightly-offended little frown is only becoming more and more amplified, and Reigen laughs again.  

“You said you wouldn’t laugh!” 

Reigen glances over at him again and he can hear the smile in his own voice, punctuated by another snort of laughter. “I said no such thing.”

“Yes you did,” Mob huffs, although there is no venom to it, and in fact he almost sounds amused despite himself. “The other day.”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Reigen smiles, lifting a hand from the wheel to gesture at the air in surrender. “I’m not laughing.” 

And Reigen manages to stifle his laugh, but it is funny. Mob - Mob who leveled a city at fourteen years old, Mob who can teleport, who can create new powers from a whim or a thought or even thin air - has finally met his match: 

The human condition of uncertainty.

In his peripherals, he can see Mob desperately trying to hold back his own smile. 

Even after the events of this week, after yesterday, after everything, Mob is still himself. Ability, or lack thereof, to tell the future notwithstanding.

Reigen meets his eyes and soon they’re both laughing, Mob covering his face like he’s trying to hide, red all the way to his ears, laughing despite himself. And Reigen will never get sick of that sound, he thinks as his heart swells.

It’s day five, and Reigen can’t deny the fifth and final step of the cycle, the one that he’s known was coming in the back of his head this whole time. It’s as frightening as it is exhilarating.

They’ll be at their destination soon. Reigen turns his smile back to the road. 

“That’s the most useless power ever,” he says. 

Mob smacks him on the shoulder.

As it turns out, Tome really does know how to throw a party.

Her university is located out in the countryside, hence why the car was a necessity. A cute and cozy little college town, modern but tasteful. No train lines, no subway tunnels, only the brisk clean air free from the smog or light pollution of the city.

The perfect location for a third-year Astronomy student to spend her days staring into space.

The inside of the house is a little more humble than Reigen had anticipated, a small two-story home, probably quaint and cozy during the daylight, but tonight it is full of people. Well, more specifically, full of 20-something-year-old college students. Blaring music, multicolor lights set up in the corner, assorted bottles of alcohol scattered across the kitchen counter. Red solo cup heaven. 

And Tome is a five-foot-four whirlwind of choppy black hair, mascara, and tight jeans in a little black one-shouldered top, jumping on the both of them the moment they’re in the door with a bright, contagious smile that Reigen has missed severely.

It’s not really a surprise that Dimple is here, too. Although Reigen doesn’t recognize him at first - in the body of some dark-skinned stranger, wasting no time in whisking Mob upstairs (presumably put Reigen and Mob’s overnight bags down), with directions from Tome that he’ll find the guest room at the end of the hall. 

Mob locks eyes with Reigen as he’s tugged up the stairs, looking back over his shoulder, and Reigen only has time to wave a short goodbye before Tome links his arm and drags him away and into the fray.

Reigen hasn’t been to a college party since… well, college. 

“Watch carefully, Tome-chan,” he says dramatically, flourishing his hand. “I’m about to show you one of my secret techniques…”

It’s been more than a handful of years ago now, but the muscle memory is there, specifically in his right arm - which he now uses to toss a little white ball into the last remaining red solo cup at the end of the pong table he’s standing on the opposing side of with Tome.

“...winning at pong.”

“Fuck yes!” She screeches as he hits the bullseye, holding up her middle fingers to their opponents - two boys who must be her friends from school.

The two friends in question return the gesture, laughing, and stumble off to the kitchen, presumably to refill their now-empty cups. 

“When were you going to tell me you were amazing at party games?” Tome grins up at Reigen, putting her drink down on the edge of the table so she can reposition the cups for their next victims.

Reigen brings his own cup to his lips and shrugs with a smile. “I’m full of secrets,” he says.

Tome’s presence is refreshing and easy, like it’s always been. She wears her innate juxtaposition of being an absolute dork with a healthy dose of preppy popularity so easily now, having grown into herself considerably.

“Sure you are.” Tome rolls her eyes before straightening up, patting him on the shoulder like it hasn’t been months since they’ve seen each other. “Oh, by the way, thanks for bringing Mob-kun. I’ve been trying to get him to come out for a party since, like, the start of last semester.”

“He’s been busy with school. I think maybe he actually cares about his grades, unlike some people,” Reigen grins.

“Not too busy to hang out with you!” Tome retorts. She crosses to the other end of the table, drumming her fingers along the plastic top as she does so. “And my grades are fine. Who told you otherwise? Actually, don’t answer that. I bet it was Dimple.”

Reigen smiles behind his acrid-tasting mixed drink. “If you really want to hang out with Mob you should try bribing him,” he says, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Promise him a free dinner. Works every time.”

Tome fishes the ping-pong ball out of a cup at the other end of the table and tosses it to Reigen, who catches it easily in his free hand.

“I’m being serious!” Tome pouts. “I never see Mob-kun anymore. I swear, ever since he broke up with Emi he’s been so hard to get a hold of. I’ve been begging him for ages to let me set him up with someone.”

Well that is… brand new information. Reigen looks up from where he’s finishing setting up the cups on their side of the table over at where Tome’s now waving over two new people to play against. As if in anticipation of inevitable defeat, they don’t look nearly as enthusiastic as the last two. 

And speaking of Mob, Reigen scans the crowd for a moment. He hasn’t seen a glimpse of him since Dimple took him upstairs, and -

“Between you and me, I get the feeling there’s a reason behind why he broke up with Emi, you know what I mean?” Tome is saying as she returns back to his side. He offers her the ping pong ball and she takes it, squints at it between her fingers. “Like… a reason that doesn't have anything to do with her, I mean.”

“Um, no, I’m not sure I do know what you mean. But-”

Tome tosses the ball and the match begins, Reigen’s words effectively cut off by the groan of disappointment at the other end of the table as she sinks a point on the first try.

“Anyway, how are you doing, huh?” She asks, elbowing him and flashing a white smile. “Dimple says there’s drama back at home.” She wiggles her eyebrows. “Not that he’ll spill about it. Did the office fall apart without me yet? ”

“You wish,” he responds immediately, feeling a faint twinge of amusement at her word choice - ‘ drama’ - and not much else. “But Tome-“

A little white ball sails past their pyramid of red solo cups. 

Tome bounds after it. “I invited Serizawa-san, too, you know!” She calls back to him. “He said he had a date and couldn’t make it. Imagine that!”

Oh, Reigen can certainly imagine that. Somehow he’s not surprised or offended that Serizawa chose to withhold this bit of information from him. He catches the ball that Tome tosses to him. 

“It would have been fun to have everyone here,” she says.

He turns around and bounces the ping pong ball on the plastic tabletop. She isn’t wrong. It would have been quite the experience with Serizawa here, to have everyone involved. A company event, he thinks with dry humor as he lines up his shot.

Mob wouldn’t have liked that, though. Reigen suppresses the wince he feels at the thought.

Nevertheless, he’s agreeing with Tome in a little white lie. “It would have been fun,” he echoes, and tosses the ball. It bounces into one cup, then back out, and goes right down into another. 

Tome whistles and Reigen clears his throat. “Listen, Tome, what were you saying about Mob?”

“Oh, about him and Emi?”

Not really. He was mostly referring to the “I’ve been begging him for ages to let me set him up with someone,” part. Reigen would rather die than clarify so he nods anyway. “Uh-huh.”

“Well, I dunno, it’s just a theory.” She shrugs, pausing to take a deep sip from her red solo cup. 

She turns her face up to look at him. She only comes up to maybe his shoulder, petite as ever. 

“He’s always been a little girl-crazy, so it’s a little weird that he doesn’t seem interested in meeting anybody new. And it’s been long enough since they broke up, don’t you think? I have a friend I’m thinking about setting him up with tonight.”

Ah, there it is. 

Their opponents across the table sink a point into a cup, and Tome plucks it out with two fingers. 

“But anyway, my point is that there’s kind of an issue with that, though…” she says to Reigen, pausing before locking eyes with him. “And it’s probably silly, really, but at the time I just couldn’t shake the feeling that when they broke up…”

She tears her eyes away, lining up her shot.

“…It was because he was in love with someone else.”

She makes the winning shot, much to the despair of her friends. It’s his and Tome’s point, but Reigen takes a reflexive drink anyway. 

Mob’s words from New Year’s morning amid the mess of his apartment flash through his head. “I’ve been putting my feelings for you aside since I was sixteen.” 

Tome isn’t looking at him anymore, waving her friends off as they drain their cups and wander off. “I’ll still try to set him up anyway. I’m not sure if he’s given up on whoever else there was, but,” she muses, “who knows.” 

Reigen has a feeling that he knows.

The music drones on and on, lights flashing. Today is Mob’s last day of Winter break.

“Anyway, want a hit?”

He blinks, looking from Tome’s face to down at her hand, where she’s proffering what looks like a vape pen in his direction.

Reigen looks again at her face, and she cocks her head to the side inquisitively. “Reigen-san?”

Reigen smiles. “I don’t smoke anymore,” he hears himself say. 

“No?” Tome blinks up at him. “Well, good for you.”

She tucks the pen back into her pocket, eyeing Reigen with a thoughtful little half-smile as she says:

“I guess more has changed than I realized.”

Reigen excuses himself to the bathroom not long after that. Just for a second to breathe without the ever-present onslaught of noise and movement.

He looks for Mob on the way there and doesn’t see him. This isn’t a very big house. 

Maybe he’s upstairs, or outside, probably being accosted by pretty college girls who just want a chance to hang off one of his biceps. Not that Reigen is thinking about his biceps. Or that Tome apparently wants to set Mob up with one of said pretty college girls. 

Reigen finishes up washing his hands, drying them on a towel before he sends Mob a quick text from his shiny new smartphone:

Where are you?

He steps back out into the hall, closing the door behind him. The music from the other room makes the house seem to shake with the force of it, but it’s muffled here, quieter. 

He takes a few steps down the hall, considering to himself if he should start his search upstairs, go back to the living room where he left his drink, or possibly check the kitchen for a sign of his ex-student.

“Shishou.”

Reigen nearly trips over himself turning around.

And there is Mob, jacket missing, one hand in the pocket of his dark jeans and the other holding a red solo cup. He looks a lot more relaxed than he had when they’d walked in the door together, tilting his head at Reigen with interest.

And, wow, his biceps do look good, but-

“Mob! Don’t sneak up on me like that, jeez!”

The dim hallway is making his hair look black as night, eyes as dark as Reigen’s ever seen them. “Sorry,” he says. 

And it’s not his typical flat one-line apology that he loves to hand out, not this time. 

He’s got a humorous little smile on his face, one that Reigen is now well-aware is reserved for his eyes only, one that has his creeping apprehension from earlier slipping away like the tide. 

Reigen can’t help his smile as he says: “You should be sorry.”

“I got your text. I was upstairs talking to Dimple,” Mob explains, but as he does he steps a little closer, looking down curiously into Reigen’s face. “How much have you had to drink?”

“I’m fine, Mob, I haven’t even had a whole cup,” Reigen waves him off with a grin. “Besides, that’s what I should be asking you.”

He brings his hand up and dusts something invisible off the inner part of Mob’s shoulder, leaning in closer to look down into Mob’s cup to see that it’s only about halfway full. “How many of these have you had?”

“Not even a whole cup,” Mob answers simply.

Reigen rolls his eyes, well aware he’s being subtly made fun of, and he should step away now, now that he’s confirmed Mob isn’t wasted and dusted invisible lint off of his branded white t-shirt. But he doesn't - he’s rooted to the spot. 

Because Mob’s free hand has found its way to the fabric at his hip, just the ghost of his fingers trailing along the navy side seam.

There is a beat of silence. All of a sudden, Reigen can feel his own heart in his ears. He swallows.

“Um-”

“Sorry,” Mob interrupts, flicking his fingers to the side as if discarding something to the floor. “You had a string.”

“Oh,” Reigen says stupidly, and waits for Mob to step back, but he doesn’t. 

So Reigen doesn’t either, and lets Mob get away with his excuse.

“Did you need something from me?” Mob asks him.

“Ah, no, I just wanted to, you know,” he twirls his wrist reflexively. “Know where you were.” 

Mob only nods, slow and calm and sure.

And then his fingers brush against Reigen’s side seam again, curling just slightly against the fabric. 

“I’m right here,” he says.

Reigen’s eyes dart down to his hand - still there, lingering for just a moment before he pulls away to take a sip from his cup. And god help him if Mob starts pulling moves in earnest, because-

He covers up his thoughts with a smile. “You’re sure you’re not drunk?”

“I’m sure,” Mob answers. 

His voice is too quiet, too soft. Reigen can smell the clean-laundry scent clinging to his shirt.

Reigen keeps talking. “You sound confident about that.”

“I have a high alcohol tolerance.” 

Mob smiles at him, humorous and private, and Reigen finds himself slowly returning it in earnest, letting out a genuine little snort.

“We’ll see about that,” Reigen grins.

Mob smiles. “That sweater looks nice on you,” he says.

They’re standing so close together, closer than yesterday.

And Reigen is suddenly tongue-tied, looking up at him, caught between replying with something idiotic like, ‘ I was hoping you’d think so’, or simply blurting out ‘ Tome wants to set you up with one of her friends and I can’t stand the thought of it ‘- or maybe just - just reaching out to touch him-

“Hey, Reigen!”

Reigen steps away abruptly, turning to face the owner of the voice that just echoed down the hallway, syllables shoving into the space between him and Mob. 

It takes Reigen a split second of confusion to recognize the person at the end of the hall, to remember that the stranger emerging from around the corner is no stranger at all. 

He’s about Reigen’s height, dark skin and black hair, grinning as he trots up to them. The expression on his face is familiar and uncanny all at the same time. Last time Reigen actually saw him possess someone was years ago now and he’s not even sure if it counts.

Mostly because he was being the one possessed, but, regardless. 

Dimple’s eyes widen, his smile faltering as he finally catches up to them. 

“Oh…hey, Shige, I was wondering where you went,” he says, somewhat awkward as his eyes flit from Mob to Reigen and back. 

A second interruption comes then, the buzzing of someone’s phone, barely audible over the upbeat music that fills the whole house. Mob flips his phone out of the back pocket of his jeans and gives it a cursory glance.

“Kurata-san is looking for me,” he says. He looks up over the edge of the screen to make eye contact with Reigen. 

“Um…Should I go?” Dimple asks, still surveying the two of them with a shrewd look. 

“No,” Mob says to him. “I was just going.” 

But despite his words, Mob hesitates, and his hand twitches once like he wants to reach out with it. He sighs, so soft and shallow that Reigen barely hears it.

“I’ll see you soon,” he says to Reigen, and turns slowly like he can barely stand to pull away.

“See you,” Reigen says back, dry-mouthed.

And maybe it’s just because he’s had a few sips and unlike Mob, Reigen’s alcohol tolerance is in the trash.  But briefly, he wishes he still had his drink in hand. That Dimple didn’t show up. That he could open his mouth and for once just say how he really feels. 

But the moment is over, and Mob is retreating down the hallway, casting yet another lingering, rueful look over his shoulder at Reigen before he disappears around the corner.

“Sorry for depriving you of Shigeo earlier.”

Dimple has dragged him to the kitchen, depositing him by the little island, pouring two shots of some American brand of alcohol that Reigen doesn’t recognize.

“I was spending time with Tome,” Reigen says simply.

Dimple doesn’t let him off the hook that easily, sliding the shot glass to Reigen with a knowing smirk. “Right,” he says. “Sorry for interrupting your time with Shigeo just now, then.”

Reigen just gives him a flat look before he takes the glass with his fingers and downs it in one go. 

“Oh, don’t give me that look.” Dimple grins, knocking his own shot back, clearly enjoying all the perks that come with having a body. “What did I see just now, in the hall, huh? I’m not an idiot.”

Reigen watches Dimple somewhat uneasily, feeling a little… put off and awkward talking about this in public. 

Especially talking about it with Dimple while he looks like a total stranger. Familiar mannerisms with a completely different face. 

“Do we have to talk about this here?” Reigen asks. 

“Fine, fine, okay.” Dimple waves his hand, gesturing for Reigen to follow as he starts back towards the front of the house. “Come on, and stop looking at me like that.”

“Sorry,” Reigen frowns, following reluctantly. “I’m just not used to seeing you in a body. It’s weird. And creepy.” 

“I could stop possessing him, if you want. Then you’d just look like a psychopath talking to yourself.”

“Funny. Why do you need a body, anyway?”

“I don’t. I can’t even get drunk, I just like the taste. Feels nostalgic, somehow,” Dimple says, curly hair flopping as he turns to walk backwards and grin at Reigen. “Tome always has at least one friend that passes out early. I’m just doing what any self serving evil spirit would do.”

They reach the base of the stair landing and Reigen snorts. “That doesn’t sound very ethical.” 

“Whatever. Like you’d know anything about ethics,” Dimple says, starting up the stairs. “ Anyway, I took Shige-chan upstairs earlier because I wanted to talk to him. Well, I guess ‘apologize to him’ is probably the more operative phrase.” 

They reach the landing, and Dimple sits down on the top step, patting the floor beside himself.

There are several doors up here, along the hall, maybe four. He recalls what Tome had yelled up to Mob and Dimple earlier, as they climbed the stairs -  directions to the guest room at the end of the hall. 

And there it is, a closed white door, entirely unassuming. 

Reigen turns his attention back down to Dimple, who pats the spot next to him again emphatically. 

“Don’t tell me you’re drunk just from that little shot,” Dimple smirks.

Reigen sits down. “I’m fine,” he says, though he can feel it in the forefront of his skull, the slight warp of subtle tipsiness. “So what did you apologize for?”

Dimple smiles at him out of the corner of his eye, looking forwards towards the upper window above the front door visible from the top of the staircase. 

The moon is visible through the window - looking the same as it was on the drive over - thin and almost entirely blocked out, nearly eclipsed. A new moon. 

“I apologized for being a dick about his thing about you,” Dimple sighs at last. “Not that I didn’t have a reason to, you responded exactly how I thought you would,” he says, pausing before he adds: “At first.” 

Reigen ducks his head on instinct, and can’t meet Dimple’s eyes when he turns to look at him. 

“Shigeo says you guys talked about it a little yesterday, but he wouldn’t budge when I asked him to tell me about it.”

Reigen keeps his mouth shut.

“Oh, so you’re not gonna budge, either, are you?”

Reigen swallows, putting his elbows on his knees. “It’s complicated,” he says.

“And? You still giving him mixed messages, or were you honest with him for once?”

Reigen rolls his eyes.

“Hey! I’m just asking because I have to look out for Shigeo, okay?” He says. “And you , of course I’m looking out for you, too, you have no idea how much I’ve done for you, by the way, you ungrateful-”

“I get it, I get it.” Reigen waves both of his hands. “I’m very grateful, it’s just… I don’t know what I’m doing, or where this is going, or if, if it’s, well, anything at all? There’s so many… things we haven’t discussed.” Namely, Mob’s parents, Ritsu, goals and futures and age gaps and- “I’m figuring it out.”

“There you go, there’s some honesty. I didn’t even have to beat it out of you this time.”

Reigen makes a face at him.

“Shut up,” Dimple says, even though Reigen hasn’t said anything. “And, just a thought, hear me out - but have you thought about maybe including Shigeo in the ‘figuring it out’ part?” 

Reigen huffs. “Like I’ve said before, it’s not that simple.” 

He’s quiet for a moment, and Dimple stays silent, like he can read that Reigen isn’t done with what he has to say. 

Reigen stares down at the bottom of the steps and Dimple waits.

“Today is his last day of Winter break,” Reigen says at last.

There is a weighted silence, then. Thick and viscous. 

Only one day left. One day, a day that Reigen’s basically already used up, only hours remaining. He puts his hands together, elbows still balanced on his knees, and squeezes. 

“Reigen, you don’t have to figure this out today.” 

“He’s going back for Spring semester this weekend.”

“So? Ask him to visit more often. Talk to him. God.” Dimple sighs, long and exasperated. “You and Shigeo are my best friends. I like to think I know you guys pretty well. Shige-chan is a pain in the ass, but he’s patient.” 

Dimple coughs, and then adds: “Well, if you don’t count that stupid power he went and conjured up. I’m amending my statement. He’s patient enough when he’s not freaking out.”

Reigen turns to him immediately. “Wait, what power?”

Dimple blinks at him. “Um. Precognition? I thought you knew about that?”

“Oh that one. Yeah, I do. He just told me about it like two hours ago.”

Dimple looks genuinely surprised, and Reigen barrels ahead before he can think about that too closely. “I know he can’t actually tell the future,” he says.

“Um,” Dimple says, blinking again. “Yes he can.” 

Reigen throws his hands up. “Okay, but only for things that hardly matter,” he argues. “Like street lights. Maybe he can predict when paint will dry. Ah, you know what, he can probably predict the weather! Why didn’t he come up with this ages ago? I could have really marketed that.”

Dimple gives him a deadpan stare.

Reigen flourishes his wrist. “See, this doesn’t have anything to do with being patient or not , Dimple, he’s a budding entrepreneur.” 

“And why do you think he came up with it, huh, genius?” 

“Business mindset.”

Dimple angles himself towards him, leaning back against the wall with his arms crossed, apparently not having it. 

“Think about it, Reigen. Why would Shigeo come up with a power that allows him to see into the future, and now of all times? Why do you think he’s so frustrated that it doesn’t work on the futures surrounding humans?” 

Before Reigen can respond, Tome comes around the corner at the bottom of the stairs, some people following her. And that’s not all; she’s pulling an exhausted-looking Mob along by the hand. 

She points up at Reigen and Dimple, proudly shouting out:

“We’re all going to the bar!”

Dimple snorts before he pushes himself up to stand. 

Reigen can see Mob looking up at him from the crowd of Tome’s friends, eyes flicking between him and Dimple, seeming somewhat nervous, in that subtle way that’s invisible to the untrained eye. 

But all the same, he offers Reigen a little smile that turns into a look of surprise as Tome shoves a red solo cup up in front of his face.

Dimple walks down three steps before turning back to where Reigen still sits on the top of the stairs. “I’ll give you a hint,” he says.

It’s then that Dimple cups his hand over the side of his mouth, and a soft smile graces his lips as he whispers: 

“It’s because he wants to know the ending.” 

The bar that they end up in is just down the street, a block and a half away at most, some little local spot serving drinks on the bottom floor with a dance floor upstairs. 

It’s nothing special on the inside. Wood paneling and dark countertops, dim mood lighting and energetic music filtering in from the upper floor creating a comfortable atmosphere. 

Tome must frequent this place a lot, Reigen thinks, seeing the way she greets the bartender enthusiastically, leaning over the bartop as best she can.

And it’s not long until Reigen has a lemon sour in his hand, standing with his elbows braced on the bartop behind him, sipping his drink while he listens to Mob and Tome bicker.

“So who is it, huh?” Tome is lamenting to Mob as the bartender slides a beer across the countertop to the spot where he stands beside Reigen. Her words are more slurred than they were earlier, and the now-empty green tea shot in her hand isn’t helping. “I know that you like someone. Come on, tell me!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mob responds coolly. 

He’s back in his letterman jacket, pulling his hand from the pocket to take hold of the beer bottle, as stoic as ever in the face of Tome’s valiant attempt to get him a date.

“Sure you don’t. You’re not gonna get anywhere if you don’t try, you know,” Tome says, hands on her hips. She turns her attention to Reigen and points a finger in his direction. “Reigen-san, you’ll talk some sense into him, right?”

Reigen smiles. “Absolutely.”

She seems satisfied with this, nodding sagely before turning around. “I’ll be right back,” she says, then announces: “I have to pee so bad.”

Reigen shakes his head in amusement as she marches off with her black heels clacking against the flooring. 

He then tilts his head back to look at Mob, who stands beside him facing the bar with his forearms resting on it, looking worn-out. 

Reigen takes a sip of his lemon sour. It’s much better than whatever the hell he was drinking back at Tome’s apartment. 

“Seems like Tome’s pretty serious about trying to set you up with one of her friends,” he says inconspicuously.

Mob’s eyes slide to his. “Not successfully,” he deadpans, looking so done with it that Reigen has to fight down an amused smile. 

“I can see that.” 

“I’m sure you can.” 

“Maybe you should take her up on it.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

Reigen hums and Mob lifts his beer to his lips, taking a deep drink from it. Reigen takes another sip from his own glass, a much more shallow one. 

Reigen’s already lost track of which of these other bar patrons are from Tome’s party and which aren’t. Dimple has since disappeared into the crowd, nowhere to be found as Reigen takes a quick scan of the room, leaning back against the bar. 

The smooth black countertop below Reigen’s pink-sweatered elbows is cool to the touch, the same color as Mob’s hair, as the dark eyebrows over his eyes - even-blacker eyes that now watch Reigen with something like a challenge.

Reigen crosses one of his ankles over the other as he meets that challenging gaze with one of his own, leaning in towards Mob just slightly. “And how are those chances?”

Mob looks like he almost smiles at that, eyes softening with a slow blink. His beer is forming condensation under his fingertips, dripping down the bottle like sweat. 

“I guess I’ll just have to wait and see,” he says.

“I guess you will.”

It’s then that Mob’s eyes narrow. He seems to scan their surroundings for a split second before he steps closer, sliding his beer along with him, ducking his head so that he’s eye level to Reigen, who blinks in surprise.

“Mob?” Reigen smiles with a nervous laugh. “Everything okay?”

“I, um,” Mob clears his throat, and his voice drops quieter, lower, and he seems to take a deep breath before he continues with: “What you said yesterday, that I’m the person on your mind, did you mean that?”

Reigen blinks at him. And suddenly he’s thinking about Dimple’s words from only an hour ago, about honesty and sending mixed messages and “it’s because he wants to know the ending.”

“Sorry. I was just - just thinking about it,” Mob follows up sheepishly. “And I just want to-” he huffs out a breath. “Be sure.”

And god, what an amazing opportunity to practice some communication - to get on with it, just tell Mob how he feels but - but- 

Reigen swirls his drink, fingertips to the rim as hides his anxiety under a smile: “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were accusing me of lying.”

Not quite a deflection, but not quite an admission, either. Flirty but not too flirty. Cryptic but not too cryptic. The words of a coward, absolutely. 

“I don’t think you’re lying,” Mob replies seriously.

And their eyes meet - a loaded second, Mob’s face ducked down towards him. He looks so intense, so sincere, eyes flicking to Reigen’s mouth and back. 

And how is he supposed to respond to that? To Mob, so genuine, telling him exactly how he feels, displaying so much openness and trust that- that-

That, what is he supposed to do? What is he-

The words are falling out of his mouth before he even realizes it: 

“I don’t think I’m lying either,” he confesses, and the moment he says it it’s like his chest feels ten pounds lighter. 

Mob blinks, slow and calm, thick eyelashes shadowing his already pitch-black eyes. He’s so close. How anyone can look so good in a plain t-shirt and jacket is absolutely criminal. 

Reigen wets his lip, and Mob’s eyes follow the motion.

That is, until he’s totally knocked off balance in the next second.

Reigen’s drink nearly flies out of his hand - which is fitting, really, because he’s just come to the conclusion that he does not want to be drunk tonight. It’s a miracle that lemon sour doesn’t splash all over Mob. 

“Reigen-san!”

Tome has reappeared, crashing against Reigen’s shoulder, sending him off-balance and almost face-first into Mob’s chest before she pulls on his arm to set him back upright. 

“Come dance with me!” She insists, tugging lightly on Reigen’s arm as he braces the other hand against the counter, trying to recover from the startle.  

“Now?” Reigen blinks, thinking that Tome delivers a surprising amount of force for someone of her size. “Tome, I’d love to, but-” 

His eyes dart to Mob, who looks back with his eyebrows lightly pinched together.

“Pleaaase,” Tome begs. 

Her movements jostle Reigen again, and Mob surreptitiously slides the lemon sour away from the two of them. 

“I know Mob-kun won’t come dance with me cause he has, like, no rhythm, so you have to.” She says.

“There you guys are!” A familiar voice calls out.

Reigen looks up as a very tipsy Tome latches to his arm again, hanging from it with a smile.

Dimple, who he recognizes quite easily now, seems to have materialized in the hazy outlines of the crowd, making eye contact with Reigen as he quickens his steps.

Letting go of Reigen’s arm completely, Tome whirls around and yells out: “Dimple-chan!” much to Dimple’s apparent displeasure, judging by the unamused expression that falls over his face. 

“How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that?” He complains. 

Tome isn’t paying attention, turning back to Reigen and clasping her hands together as Dimple and Mob exchange a glance over her head.

“Reigen-san,” she begins dramatically. “Can you pleeeaaase tell Dimple to tell me all the drama you guys have apparently been having without me?”

Dimple visibly winces.

And all at once, there are three pairs of eyes watching Reigen with varying amounts of eagerness. 

“Uh,” Reigen says eloquently.

The… drama. Tome wants to know about the drama. 

Between himself and Mob and Serizawa.

Before he knows it, Reigen finds himself turning his head back towards his ex-student, searching for Mob’s gaze - for help, for anything-

Mob takes another sip, gazing placidly back. He doesn’t look altogether bothered at all, though Reigen is absolutely sure he is well aware of the drama and his involvement. 

Instead, Reigen watches as the edge of Mob’s mouth turns up in a tiny, almost bashful smile.

And that’s just like him, isn’t it? Mob is someone who can accept himself, the good and the bad, the past and the present. Someone who bravely moves forward into the future with new lessons learned and new resolutions in his head.

It’s not over - the drama, Reigen is sure. What is now the past is sure to linger. Family turmoil and nicotine addictions and complicated messy love triangles.

But Mob, who Reigen is now certain has only been avoiding Tome’s questioning for his sake, now gives him a tiny, microscopic nod. 

No, it’s not over. But somehow, he can tell he’s not going to be alone for whatever comes next.

This is a new page. A new chapter.

It’s time Reigen starts being brave for once, too.

“You know what?” Reigen starts, sighing dramatically as he breaks eye contact with Mob. “Sure.” He glances first to Tome, then to Dimple standing just behind her. “Have at it.”

Tome lets out a whoop of excitement, and Reigen can practically see the stars in her eyes. “Finally!”

“Wait, for real?” Dimple lets out  a disbelieving laugh. “Who are you and what have you done with the real Reigen?” 

“For real,” Reigen grins back with amusement. “But only because I know you’ve been dying to talk shit.”

“I’m going to tell her everything, you know,” Dimple warns with a smile. “All the juicy details.”

To their left, Mob clears his throat, and Dimple looks over at him, instantly holding up his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay, you don’t have to give me that look. I’ll withhold anything too scandalous, jeez.”

Mob just gives Dimple a flat glare and Reigen snorts, grinning innocently at Dimple. “Careful, Dimple. I heard he specializes in exorcizing annoying green evil spirits who gossip too much.”

Dimple just rolls his eyes, covering the side of his face inconspicuously to say to Reigen: “You should get a leash for him. He’s dangerous.”

“That’s what everyone says about you,” Mob fires back. 

“Alright, then! I’ll be taking this,” Dimple says, fully ignoring him in favor of stepping back to whisk Tome away, turning her around by the shoulders and marching her into the crowd. 

Tome laughs, waving to Reigen and Mob briefly as she lets Dimple lead her away. It’s impossible to be sure under the noise of the bar, but Reigen thinks he hears her say:

“Dimple-chan, we have so much to catch up on.”

Dimple looks back over his shoulder, wearing a very familiar grin on his face - looking between the two of them almost knowingly. Reigen can almost imagine the red circles on the apples of his cheeks, calling out to the both of them: 

“The back door to the house is unlocked. See you guys tomorrow!” 

Reigen watches as they disappear into the crowd. 

The music from upstairs is pulsing, hypnotic, and Reigen sees some people climbing the stairs up to the dance floor, laughing, shouting excitedly at each other. Not a care in the world, in this little college town, away from the city and the smog and watchful public eyes. 

Beside him, Mob takes another sip of his beer. Reigen turns to fully face him, drumming his fingers contemplatively against the shiny black bartop. 

Mob tilts his head at him and Reigen meets his eyes.

“So,” Reigen starts. “...Do you wanna go dance?” 

“If you wanted to dance,” Mob starts from his place one step behind Reigen, “Kurata-san might have been a better choice.”

He’s close behind Reigen on the stairs leading up to the dance floor, close enough for their arms to bump against each other, but he’s still forced to raise his voice as the music grows steadily louder. 

It’s a short flight of stairs, and when they crest the top of it, Reigen is greeted by the dance floor of the bar’s upper level. Something upbeat and repetitive is playing over the speakers, much to the delight of the crowd, which is thick enough that Reigen can’t immediately see a way in.

The dance floor, when Reigen steps onto it, is a shiny, void black, to match the bartop downstairs. He looks back to Mob, still lingering just behind him, offering a smile.

“I didn’t want to dance with Tome,” Reigen replies, and even beneath the cool, dim lighting, he thinks he sees the hint of a flush settle in on Mob’s cheeks. “Besides, she has drama to catch up on.”

He’s doing his best to be brave, ushered onwards by liquid courage - a third of a lemon sour, which he’d abandoned back at the bar, and the single shot of mystery alcohol he’d had at Tome’s.

But Mob smiles back at him, a small, nervous curve of his lips that makes Reigen’s heart flutter with nerves. “Dimple seemed happy about that.”

Reigen snorts. “Can’t say I blame him.” He eyes Mob, coming to a stop somewhere on the outside ring of the crowd. “Though, it seems like you might, from that look you gave him downstairs. Are you sure you two made up?”

Mob comes to a stop beside Reigen by the edge of the dance floor, half-empty beer bottle in hand. “He told you about that?” he asks, lifting the bottle to his lips. 

“Yeah,” Reigen says, watching the column of Mob’s throat out of the corner of his eye as the esper takes a sip of alcohol. “He seems to be under the impression that you guys are all good.”

“We are,” Mob reassures him quickly, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, then tacks on: “I think.”

“You think?”

“Well, he apologized for a lot of stuff that he didn’t have to,” Mob explains with a shrug, stepping a little closer so he doesn’t have to talk so loudly, ducking his head just a bit. “But, um, mostly he just apologized for discouraging me from, uh, confessing to you.”

Dimple’s words from earlier echo through his brain. “You responded exactly how I thought you would. At first.” 

Reigen falters, bravery slipping. He suddenly doesn’t know what to do with his hands. He puts them in his pockets. 

“Did he,” is all he says.

Mob nods and clears his throat. “But, um, Dimple also said he was ‘still right’ , which, I’m not really sure what that means.”

Reigen has never been one to give up the opportunity for deflection, so he smiles, even though he mentally kicks himself for it at the same time: “Dimple always thinks he’s right.”

“Well…” Mob pauses, standing stoically, casually, his half-lidded gaze staring down at him. “Do you think that? That he’s always right, I mean. Do you think I should have listened to him?”

And it’s certainly a challenge. Even though his body language is reading as casual, his eyes betray him. Watchful, cautious, dark and focused, Reigen notes, shifting on his feet. 

But his answer is already on the tip of his tongue, and he has to say it. He can’t keep deflecting, can’t keep dragging this out, can’t-

“I think…” Reigen begins slowly, carefully, doing his best to speak around the way his heart beats in his throat. “If you had listened to him… I don’t think we’d be standing here right now.”

Mob eyes him thoughtfully, a small smile growing on his lips, and then- 

The song changes; pop, female vocals, a clear beat. 

Reigen claps his hands together abruptly.

“Now, are you going to dance with me or just stand here all night?” Reigen says, pulling a smile. 

In a fit of impulse, he reaches out and grabs Mob’s free hand as he turns around.

Shuffling past a ring of college girls, Reigen drags him to a decent spot among the throng on the dance floor, not near to the center but not hanging off the outside, either. 

It’s only once Reigen comes to a stop and turns back to Mob that he sees the esper’s soft smile has morphed into something more grimace-adjacent.

“I’m not very good at dancing,” Mob confesses, like it’s some shameful secret and not what Reigen had already been anticipating.

“That’s alright,” Reigen responds with a smile. “Nobody’s looking at us.” 

Mob looks like he’s going to say something else, but he doesn’t get the chance. Several things happen in a matter of seconds:

One, the crowd picks up as the song dips into the chorus, strobe lights flickering.

Two, a stranger behind Mob bumps into him.

And three, there is suddenly much less space between the two of them. 

Now they’re just a part of the crowd.

As it turns out, being brave in uncharted territory is easier with some strobe lights, a pop music soundtrack, and a bit of alcohol in your veins.

Reigen moves in time with the beat and suppresses a laugh at Mob, who is looking at Reigen like he’s crazy. Slowly, an unsure smile pulls at his lips, and it’s not long until Mob starts to move with him, trying his rhythm-impaired best.

And Mob really is bad at this, Reigen thinks to himself, beaming, but lack of rhythm aside, god, it’s fucking adorable. 

Those sips of lemon sour from before must have been stronger than he’s used to. The only thing Reigen can see is the bashful smile spreading across Mob’s face, the way his muscles move under that t-shirt-

“I had a talk with Dimple, too, you know,” Reigen blurts out, unable to help himself. “He told me that your new little fortune-telling power is legit.”

Mob responds by rolling his eyes. “You’re gonna believe him about that, but not me?” he says drily.

“Well, it’s not really that-” Reigen backpedals with a smile, still moving in time even as he glances away in anticipation of what comes next. “He just- ah, he um, told me… why you were trying to tell the future in the first place.”

Mob is quiet, and when Reigen takes a glance at him he can see that he’s not dancing anymore - no awkward, off-beat steps. He’s just - he’s standing there, looking terribly uneasy, and Reigen falters.

Shit, Reigen thinks.

The people around them continue to move, to dance, lights strobing in different colors.

Reigen opens his mouth again. “And it’s, you know, it’s okay that-”

“We don’t have to talk about it,” Mob interrupts him somewhat abruptly, shifting uncomfortably on his feet, ducking his head. “It’s embarrassing.” 

He’s taken to worrying at the corner of the label sticker on his beer with one nail.

“No I mean - sorry,” Reigen says. “I’m just trying to say that. Um.” 

He pauses for an inordinate amount of time, trying to gather his scattered thoughts, feeling extraordinarily awkward - just standing here, in the middle of the dance floor, no longer dancing, just standing here. On the dance floor. Not dancing. With Mob and Mob is looking at him like- 

Reigen twirls his wrists. “I guess I’m not… I’m not doing a good job at communicating, am I? I’m doing a very poor job, actually, and it’s sort of loud in here, isn’t it? Probably not the best place to talk. But here we are, so anyway -”

“Shishou.” 

Mob cuts him off with that one word and a familiar look, the one that says ‘ get to the point ’, and Reigen deflates.

Maybe it’s unfair to confront Mob like this, over something he’s so clearly still self-conscious about, shaking the already unsteady confidence he’s built up tonight at the foundations.

But Reigen’s having no luck figuring things out all on his own, is he?

“Okay, okay, I just - “ he sighs. “What I’m trying to say is that I … I guess I just… I want to know, too.” He says, averting his eyes again. “I, um, I also want to know. What will happen next.” 

His admission hangs in the air between them. 

Reigen glances at him and Mob’s expression has turned sad, sympathetic, the two of them all but motionless now in the middle of the dance floor, surrounded by strangers who cavort carelessly, perpetually whirling and moving.

The dance floor seems to flow and surge as its own conscious entity around them, waxing and waning, the night in motion. 

The night of Mob’s last day of Winter break. 

Day five is almost over.

“So, I wanted to ask you,” Reigen continues, “if you… could tell me what will happen next.”

“I can’t predict what people do. Remember what I said in the car, there’s too many-”

“Too many variables,” Reigen finishes for him in a rush. “I know. Can you try anyway?” he asks, just shy of pleading. “Guess, if you have to, just - just tell me what you think I’ll do next.”

And this is a stupid idea, really stupid - and even Mob probably thinks so, probably sees right through him. Reigen watches as Mob looks him up and down for a split second, and, ah, nevermind, he’s clearly not getting it, but-

Mob gives him a rare raised-eyebrow expression. “You really want me to try?” he asks.

“That’s what I said.”

“Well, just so you know, it’s not going to work.”

Reigen waves a hand through the air dismissively. “Humor me,” he says.

Letting out a sigh, Mob shifts his weight for a moment. “Okay. Fine,” he huffs.

Mob’s eyes flit around the room for a moment while he thinks, turning his head to take in the whole of the club around them. 

Then, he gives Reigen a curious glance, and hints of suspicion color his voice when he says: “You’re going to… you’re going to… um, put your hands in your pockets?”

With an exaggerated gesture, Reigen does just that, privately amused by the mundanity of the ‘prediction’. Real creative, Mob.

“What’s next?” He asks, the beginnings of a relieved grin on his face as he looks up at Mob’s exasperated expression.

Mob all but frowns at him. “Really?” 

Reigen offers him an aloof shrug, and says airily: “I guess you’re pretty good at telling the future, after all.”

A beat. And then something sparks in Mob’s eye, and his frown softens into an expression closer to understanding. It melts the tension from Reigen’s shoulders and he lets out a quiet breath he hardly knew he was holding. 

And Mob hesitates, gnawing momentarily on his lip before he speaks again.

“You’re going to… I think you’ll take a step forward.”

Reigen does, hands still in his pockets. 

Mob watches him intently. “And now…” He blinks, slow and careful. “You’re going to come closer.”

And Reigen does, stepping even closer in the dim lighting, right up to him so that the fabric of their sleeves brushes once more, like it did earlier, in the hallway. 

Reigen’s voice comes out low. “And now?” he asks.

Mob regards him suspiciously, his eyes narrowing as he looks down into Reigen’s face. 

“Maybe you would…” he begins slowly, “Maybe you’d take a sip from my drink.”

He tilts his wrist, proffering the half-empty bottle of beer towards Reigen, who’s long fingers brush against Mob’s as he closes them over the neck of it without looking.

Reigen locks eyes with Mob as he lifts the bottle to his lips. He watches the esper from beneath his eyelashes, blinking lazily, and takes a tentative sip. 

Despite the alcohol, Reigen’s throat feels dry as he swallows, feeling Mob’s gaze burn into him.

“It looks like you were right again,” Reigen smiles, lowering the bottle from where it pressed against his mouth.

Mob reclaims his drink from Reigen, takes a long sip of his own, his mouth closing over the same place Reigen’s had, and that shouldn’t have Reigen’s heart beating faster, but, god, it does.

And then he lets go of the bottle, leaving it to float mid-air, not taking his eyes off of Reigen’s even once.

“…Are you- are you going to ask me something?” Mob says, nerves, or hope - one and the same - fluttering in his voice.

“You’re the one who can tell the future.”

Unbidden, his eyes flick down to Mob’s lips, then back up to hold eye contact.

“I think…” Mob says, and swallows dryly, staring down at him like he doesn’t dare to breathe. His eyes flick to his lips, too. Once, twice. “I think you should. I think there’s something that you should ask me.”

And it’s not a prediction, not even a pretend one, this time. It’s a request. A hope, a dream. With this, Mob is leaving it in Reigen’s hands and -

And the only thing Reigen can see is Mob, awkward and off-beat and dark and fucking gorgeous. A Hellebore flower - beautiful, poisonous temptation. Reigen really should leave it alone. 

But he’s so close to him now, and he’s crazy, he’s in too deep.

The line is no longer blurred, it's crossed, it's - 

“Mob,” Reigen blurts out before he can think about what he’s saying, that first reverent syllable falling from his mouth, his favorite prayer. 

In a fit of impulse, he steps forward, closing the last centimeter of space between them to curl his hands into the soft white fabric of Mob’s shirt.

“Mob,” he says again, desperate, out of his mind. “Kiss me.”

The crowd around them moves seamlessly, perpetually, and the music pulses, and the multicolor lights strobe on and on and on, a storm of sensory overload, and it should be distracting.

Instead, It’s like they don’t exist. It’s like nothing else exists.

And then Mob’s hands are on him, answering in an action, pulling him in closer, permission granted. 

Mob leans in while Reigen holds perfectly still, eyelids sliding shut, not even daring to breathe. Not even caring that they’re surrounded by people, by eyes all over the entire room.

Mob kisses him.

He kisses him, and it’s as gentle and slow as he remembers, the soft, careful press of his lips that Reigen sighs into, tension seeping from his whole body. He brings his hands up to cradle the smooth, sharp curve of Mob’s jaw. 

Mob tastes like beer, his breath hitching as Reigen kisses him back.

The music pulses in his ears. Mesmerizing, hypnotizing.

One of Mob’s hands leaves his waist to press between his shoulder blades, tentatively crowding him closer. The way his thumb swipes back and forth across his waist is kind of driving Reigen crazy. And it’s not enough, not enough. 

Reigen tilts his head to the left and opens his mouth to invite him in.

And there they stand, making out open-mouthed on a little dance floor in a bar in the middle of nowhere, and Reigen feels fucking infinite. 

After what must be minutes, Mob pulls back, out of breath, his bangs beginning to lift off his forehead, and Reigen opens his eyes. 

He almost expects to see everyone in the room turned to look at them, maybe staring, maybe scandalized, pointing and gasping - but no one is looking, not even one of them seems to care.

No one is looking at him. No one except for Mob.

And Mob is looking down at Reigen so intensely that Reigen almost yanks him back in for another kiss.

Instead, all pretense abandoned, he hears himself ask: “Do you want to go back to the house?”

Mob’s hold loosens just slightly as he searches Reigen’s eyes, wearing an expression like he can hardly believe what he’s hearing. Mob’s tongue swipes across his own bottom lip and, wow, that is very distracting . 

“...Do you?” Mob asks back, so timid even as Reigen can feel the electrical impulse of his power racing across his skin, sinking in until the wild energy feels like it could be his own.

“Yes,” Reigen says instantly. He can hardly believe his own forwardness, he’s opening his mouth to speak again. “Is that alright?” 

“ Yes ,” Mob whispers fervently, and that’s all the permission Reigen needs to grab him by the hand and pull him out of the bar.

The back door to the house is unlocked, just like Dimple said it would be.

And Reigen discovers this because as soon as it’s open he’s being kissed against the door jam, which turns into the kitchen counter, the hallway, the staircase. 

It’s as if a dam has burst, pressure and fireworks exploding all along every square inch of Reigen’s body, the ocean pulled in to meet the moon. 

They kick off their shoes, clumsily, hastily, not caring where they land. 

Making it upstairs is a battle in and of itself, because every time he breaks from Mob’s mouth for air he’s attacked at the neck, his jaw, and then his mouth again, and all he can do is part his lips and hold the sides of Mob’s face as they crash against the white door at the end of the hall. 

If Mob was looking exhausted before, he certainly isn’t now.

Days of buildup. Weeks. Maybe months. Reigen doesn’t know.

Reigen grapples for the doorknob, and the door opens without ceremony. 

The room is dim, illuminated only by the hallway light, left on even though the house has been empty for hours. The walls are white, the ceiling is black, and their overnight bags sit on the floor by a nightstand with a lamp. Over on the side wall hangs a mirror.

Reigen shoves Mob backwards onto the double bed, creasing the deep blue sheets.

And Mob drops down obediently, wrestling out of his letterman jacket, throwing it to the side - pupils blown as Reigen wastes no time in climbing on top of him. 

Mob speaks up for the first time since they made it inside, voice low and breathy as he says: “Should we shut the door?”

Reigen straddles him squarely over his hips. “I don’t care,” he says, surprising even himself. 

He doesn’t have time to care, or second guess; he can hardly believe this is happening at all. He can hardly believe it hasn’t happened before.

Mob just stares up at him, hair splayed out on the pillows like an ink spill, a soft red blush dusting across his face. His lips are parted just slightly, breathing heavily, body warm and solid underneath Reigen’s thighs, where his hands climb up.

Mob squeezes over the blue-gray fabric of Reigen’s slacks as he asks with a breath: “Are you sure this is okay?”

The room is simmering with energy, with psychic power curling all around them.

The bravery comes to him easier than breathing.

“You tell me,” Reigen answers him. 

Reigen leans down and Mob meets him eagerly, an answer in and of itself - pressing their mouths together once, and then again, and again. Mob’s hands slide up his sides over his sweater, stopping at his waist to squeeze there, too. 

Mob holds onto him like he can hardly believe this is real. He’s not the only one. 

Reigen breaks the kiss and sits back, watching Mob’s face, knowing his own is just as red, before turning his attention elsewhere. 

He lets his hands travel to wander over the expanse of Mob’s chest, covered by his soft white t-shirt, momentarily amazed. 

This is moving so quickly, Reigen can’t even believe it, the buildup of everything, everything-

He’s thrown off balance as Mob sits up, rocking Reigen back in his lap. He brings his hands up and frames Reigen’s face, kissing him hard.

It feels almost like a dream.

Mob kisses him, thoroughly and adoringly.

Reigen traces his hands over his shoulders – to those biceps he’s been eyeing all night and god, how did he ever resist this.

And Mob’s hands are exploring as well, tracing along Reigen’s long legs that are folded up by Mob’s hips. He traces along his calves, his ankles. The junction of where his thighs meet his hips.

How did we get to this point? Reigen finds himself thinking as he’s opening his mouth again to let Mob in. Just where did this begin?

So many moments come to mind. The hallway at Biscuit University, the flower show with Serizawa, even in that old woman’s house, where Reigen knelt on that dirty floor, holding a storybook.  

Ice skating on Christmas eve, on a bridge overlooking the water.

Maybe it began in that little, abandoned room, a conversation with a lonely spirit. Ghosts in the mirrors.

Or with warm fingers pressed to the scar on the left side of his forehead, Mob in tears on his apartment floor.

Maybe every second in between, every breath, every passing glance.

Maybe he was never going to escape this fate in the first place, this beautiful truth, coalescing on a dance floor in the middle of nowhere, fueled by liquid courage.

Mob sighs against his mouth, breaking their kiss, kissing to his cheek, his jaw, leaving Reigen shivering as he goes all the way down to his neck.

Mob tips them both over again, and this time Reigen’s back is the one that hits the sheets. 

He lifts off Reigen momentarily, pulling his shirt over his head in one fluid motion, throwing it down unceremoniously. 

And-

Holy shit, Mob’s shirt is off.

Reigen stares, still lying on his back.

Mob’s chest is well-toned, so bare, so pale, an expanse of skin that Reigen’s seen before, but not like this - certainly never, never like this.  

Somehow, more than anything else, more than making out with him, or sitting in his lap, or any of the other scandalous things that are happening in Reigen’s brain – this is the one that is the most sobering.

Here they are, miles away from home.

Miles away from home, doing something Reigen’s been actively running from, has been actively denying the both of them. And here they are, actually doing it. Not a dream, not an idea. Real flesh and blood. 

And even if they just – if they just kiss, roll around shirtless for a bit – then what?

What happens when they get back? What happens tomorrow?

What happens after Mob gets what he wants?

And what about the aura that certainly clings to him now - is it still reminiscent of sun showers and city lines after the rain? 

Does it still look misty and ethereal, angel dust incarnate? 

What if it doesn't? What if it doesn’t?

Mob bends to kiss him again, naked from the waist up, and Reigen feels like he’s going to die, a cascading rush of hot, light-headed fear.

“Wait - ugh, wait-” He pants, hands up to Mob’s chest - which he retracts instantly as his fingers meet bare skin. Mob kisses him again and Reigen throws his head to the side. “Wait!”

And all movement comes to a halt. 

Mob peels himself from Reigen instantly, scooting backwards on the bed to put some space between them, looking him up and down with concern flooding his features. 

“What? What’s wrong?” He asks breathlessly. “I’m sorry. What did I do?” 

“We,” Reigen takes a moment to catch his breath, and Mob looks all over his face. “We need to- to slow down,” he says.

Mob blinks once, before nodding furiously, dark hair messy and stark against the white walls of the room - rising off his scalp like he’s underwater. 

“Okay,” he says, pupils blown to oblivion. “That’s fine.”

“Just need to slow down for a minute,” Reigen repeats.

“Right,” Mob agrees with him again. “We can do that.” 

Reigen hums, watching him carefully, absolutely sure he looks like a crazy person - but he’s searching him, face, body language - for any sign of regret, anything, anything. 

But Mob just stares back at him, still catching his breath, still looking at Reigen with something like alarm.

And ugh, Mob’s arms look insane like that, fingers curled just slightly into the sheets where he sits. The expanse of his chest looks like he belongs in a fucking magazine. His jeans look tight.

Reigen averts his eyes and stands up abruptly.

Mob sounds scared. “What’s wrong?”

“Um,” Reigen says eloquently. 

Mob waits, and Reigen can barely stand to look at him, feeling incredibly fucking sober, disoriented, and lost, all at once. 

In his periphery, he can see Mob move to the edge of the bed, sitting with his feet on the floor. 

He’s sitting like he’s poised to move. Like he’s prepared for Reigen to run away again.  

“Reigen-Shishou?” Mob tries again. 

Reigen is snapped into the present, blinking at Mob.

“I’m - um,” Reigen stutters.

The room is impossibly quiet. No distant train lines, no sounds of cars or buses or city congestion.

“I’m… afraid that… if we do this…” Reigen forces out, turning to face him, feeling flayed open, cut open from sternum to belly by a knife in his own two hands. 

But he needs to say it. He has to say it. 

“If we do this, and then you change your mind,” Reigen says. “It’ll kill me.” 

“Oh.”

It’s in that moment that the sound of a door opening echoes up from downstairs, voices and laughter flooding through the open door of the bedroom as the other party-goers return. 

Mob gets up, fluidly crossing the room, and shuts the door softly - enclosing the both of them in darkness and in quietness. 

The bedside lamp flickers on, flooding the room with - oh, not just any light. It reflects in a pattern like a dazzle of stars, constellations projected across the dark ceiling, soft yellow and illuminating. 

It’s clear who decorated this particular guest room, and in another circumstance Reigen might point it out, maybe grin to himself about it, but not now.

Not now, because now he’s watching Mob, who is slowly lowering his hand from his place by the door - having psychically turned on the lamp, looking frighteningly contemplative before he looks right at Reigen and says:

“I’m not going to change my mind, though.” 

Reigen’s shoulders curl inwards. “But how can you know that?”

“Because I’m in love with you,” Mob responds, instantly, like it’s the obvious answer. The only answer.

And that’s just it, isn’t it? 

That’s what Mob has said to him over and over by now, that’s what Dimple’s told him, what Serizawa has hypothesized and what even Tome’s words alluded to, whether she knew it or not. 

All coming back to this one fact that should be simple, but it’s not, and it always leaves him right back at square one because-

“But Mob,” Reigen’s eyebrows crease. “You keep saying that and I… I don't know what it means. You could just be -” he rolls his wrist, looking for a word. “Infatuated,” he says, wincing the moment it leaves his mouth. “Or, I don't know, maybe you're not thinking straight, and then tomorrow or the next day or once it’s out of your system… you'll snap out of it.”

Mob blinks at him for a dreadful moment, before turning his head away, looking blankly out of one of the windows, gazing up at the night sky beyond the blue chiffon curtains. 

“You’re saying you think it’s a phase,” Mob says, voice flat.

“I-” Reigen cuts himself off with another wince. “I guess I am, but only because I want you to consider it. I don’t want to… to rush into anything, and then…” 

And then hurt us both even more than we already are, Reigen finishes the thought in his mind, letting the silence settle between them. 

Mob just hums, and leaves his spot by the door to go back to the bed, sinking down on the edge of it. He’s still not looking at Reigen, and the silence is muddled by the quiet sounds of people in the rest of the house. Going to bed, Reigen guesses, hoping to god that neither Tome or Dimple knocks on the door right now. 

Reigen chews on his lip, and is about to run his mouth to fill the that muddled quiet with anything when Mob turns his head to him and softly says: 

“Do you know how I felt when I found out something was going on between you and Serizawa-san?” 

It’s a genuine question, not passive aggressive, not even rhetorical, even though Reigen knows how Mob feels about Serizawa right now after their conversation yesterday. 

But Mob looks calm and open, sitting there with his feet on the floor and his hands resting in his lap. 

“I have… an idea,” Reigen says cautiously. “I know you weren’t happy.” 

Mod nods. “I was angry, and confused,” he admits. “I didn’t understand.”

His hair has since floated back down to rest in its usual way on his forehead, moving with weight as he turns on the bed to face where Reigen is still standing in the center of the room. He heaves a deep breath. 

Reigen hums, shifting foot to foot. He looks away.

“And I know that afterwards I should have just tried harder to talk to you,” Mob admits. “But…”

“… I wouldn’t give you a straight answer,” Reigen says, finishing the sentence for him.

Mob gives him a small, almost-sad smile. “No, you wouldn’t. You didn’t. For weeks.”

Reigen frowns, a little flash of guilt creeping up, remembering his absolute denial in the beginning of all this - asserting over and over that nothing was going on between him and Serizawa. He glances towards the door as he hears some movement in the hallway, muffled voices, some laughter that seems to dissipate like its owner has gone into another room.

“But Mob,” Reigen begins gently, swallowing his guilt, turning his eyes back to him. “However you felt, either then or, or… now, that doesn’t… it doesn’t prove anything.” 

“You’re right,” Mob agrees, “It doesn’t.”

“So how can you be sure that this is what you want?”

Mob is quiet for a moment, clearly deciding what to say next. 

“After we talked in your apartment on New Year’s, and I started to accept that there’s no way to know the, um…” He looks away like he’s embarrassed. “To know the future. I did a lot of reflecting. About what I want and if it’s worth it.” 

The space between them feels so far and so close all at once. 

“And is it?” Reigen shifts on his feet. “Is it worth it?” He asks.  

“Yes,” Mob answers instantly, although he looks sheepish as he continues. “And what I want, it’s not just-“ he gestures between the both of them, the bed, face turning pink “- this, of course I want this, but it’s more than that. You’re the only one who's ever known me. Really known me. Even back then, you knew me and accepted every part of me. Even the parts that I’m not proud of.”

Reigen resists the urge to reach up and feel the scar on the left side of his forehead.

Instead, Reigen watches Mob, watches his bare chest move up and down with a breath, the way he’s so brave and so heart-wrenchingly honest.

Reigen looks away. “And what if it doesn’t work?” He asks. “What if, even with all of that, days or weeks or months down the line, it’s just not enough?”

Mob’s voice is so calm, so sure. “Then we’d talk about it. We’d figure it out together.”

“But I- Mob,” Reigen’s voice breaks. “You have to understand why I’m worried.”

“I understand,” Mob nods. “You’re scared. I think maybe you’re expecting this to hurt you, or to hurt me, somehow, but...” 

Mob gives him another smile, small, sad, opened up from the inside out. “But Shishou, when I say I’m in love with you, I think what I mean is that I can't picture a future where you’re not there with me.”

And Reigen can’t bear that look on his face. His weakness has always been just this, whether Mob knows it or not.

“I can’t picture that, either,” Reigen admits. “I never want to.” 

Mob’s eyes widen before his head tilts to the side, expression softening as he moves his hand to settle on the sheets beside him, exhaling in a little breath. 

The way that Mob is looking at Reigen will be branded to the back of his eyes for weeks.

“Will you come back over here?” Mob whispers. 

And just like that, Reigen is reduced to what he’s always been when it comes to this person - a moth before a flame. 

Reigen takes one step, and then another. Returning to Mob’s side to sink down onto the mattress beside him. To bask in his warmth even though it might damn well kill him.

Mob doesn’t touch him, but the smile on his face is so gentle and warm and unconditional that Reigen is almost overwhelmed all the same.

“All I’m saying is, I’m not going to change my mind,” Mob begins softly. “I don’t have any proof, but I don’t think I need to. Because you’re you, and I’m me, and I’m in love with you.”

He’s said those words once before, Reigen remembers, on the bridge overlooking the water. That bridge they always end up on, turning the tides of their relationship over and over and over.

Because you’re you, and I’m me.

The last time these words left Mob’s mouth Reigen begged him not to say what came next. Begged him because he wouldn’t be able to take it back. Because it would change everything. 

And it has. 

But maybe everything was inevitably going to change regardless of whether he said the following line or not.

Reigen leans an elbow onto his knee and presses his knuckles to his forehead, staring at the floor. He thinks of this past week, tangled on his desk with Serizawa, giving in to the worst version of himself. 

Even the parts I’m not proud of.

The person who sits beside him is someone who knows who he is and accepts him anyway. Chooses him anyway.

Reigen turns his head to peek at Mob. “Where did you learn to be so convincing?”

Mob gives him the most gorgeous fucking smile. “I had a good teacher,” he says.

Reigen snorts, closing his eyes with the heel of his hand pressed between his eyebrows. “I’m ruining my relationship with Ritsu - which took me like, seven entire years to build - over this, you know.”

He can hear the soft smile lingering in Mob’s voice, the playful roll of his eyes that Reigen can basically hear. “He’ll live. I’m not worried about him.”

And that could be true. Ritsu did let him in the door yesterday, when he had just about every reason under the sun not to.

Reigen sighs, leaning back on his hands. He opens his eyes to the ceiling, and thinks to himself, am I really doing this? 

This is Mob. 20-year-old Mob, a college student with so much of his future ahead of him. Reigen’s known him since he was a third of his height, since he was an awkward middle schooler, since he was half Reigen’s age.

And Mob is right, he is expecting this to hurt, for it to go wrong, because - because-

Reigen’s wandering eyes find the mirror on the side wall. 

In the mirror, he can see himself, and Mob, too, right beside him. 

It’s been a long time since Reigen looked into a mirror and saw himself with someone else. Someone who isn’t a spirit, someone tangible, warm and solid.

The two of them sit close together, the black ceiling above them looking like the entire galaxy with the way the lamp reflects patterns of the heavens over it. Mob looks so relaxed, so different from that boy Reigen once knew. 

A thought hits him like a freight train:

He shouldn’t be asking why , or when, or how or for proof - because of course, of course it would be this person. This person, who knows better than anyone else on this earth that Reigen is a liar, a manipulator, veins laced with mercury. 

This person who wants me even though he knows exactly who I am. 

This person who wants me because he knows exactly who I am.

Mob meets his eyes in the mirror. A sharp obsidian contrast against Reigen’s brown eyes, his strawberry blonde hair. The dark side of the moon, incarnate. 

Because of course it’s you. It’s you, it’s you, who else could it possibly be?

“Shishou?”

Reigen breaks his gaze away from Mob’s mirror image to look at the real Mob, flesh and blood, tilting his head as Reigen’s eyes flit from his eyes to his mouth and back. 

“Hm?” 

“Do you want to go to sleep?”

Mob is still turned to face him, and Reigen pauses a long moment, thinking, before turning to pull a leg up on the bed, facing Mob full on. Close enough to reach out and touch him.  

He’s so handsome. He’s grown up, he’s his own person, emotions and all. Muscles and warmth and soft skin. 

Yes, his own person - but somehow, despite this, still just as capable of occupying all of the space in the center of Reigen’s universe as he was back then.

“Mob,” Reigen begins, feeling his name on his tongue. He reaches across and places his fingers atop Mob’s, who blinks back at him.

“I want to be with you,” Reigen says to him.

Mob’s powers fizzle through the room, rustling blue chiffon curtains and knocking the bed frame against the wall. He blinks, fingers twitching underneath Reigen’s, shifting against the sheets.  

“And I’m not very good at voicing my feelings, but,” Reigen says, even though there is not a doubt in his mind that Mob is already very much aware of that . He twirls his other hand somewhat nervously as he continues. “I want to be more honest with you.”

Mob places his other hand on top of where his and Reigen’s hands rest together on the sheets. “You can always be honest with me.”

“I know,” Reigen gives him a little smile. “But my, um, my point is, I don’t know what the future holds, or how long it’ll take, or -“ He flourishes his free wrist again. “If Ritsu will have my head on a stick or how you’ll mend your friendship with Serizawa, but… I…”

Mob frowns at that but Reigen pushes onwards:

“…I think I want to give this a try,” he finishes.

Mob curls both his hands to hold Reigen’s between them, like he’s something delicate. “I want that too,” he says softly.

Mob’s hands are warm. Calloused from his time in the gym, sure, but they’re solid. He squeezes around Reigen’s fingers and it takes Reigen back to just minutes before, when he was sitting in Mob’s lap, kissing him breathless, when Mob’s hands were squeezing at the dip of his waist.

Reigen bites his inner cheek, inhaling through his nose. “... You know how, earlier, you were talking about what you want and if it was worth it?”

Mob nods at him, humming, dragging his thumb across the back of Reigen’s hand. 

“Well, I… I think I want you to tell me more about that,” Reigen says as his eyes flit down to the movement, and he shifts, wetting his lip reflexively. “About what you want.”

Mob leans just a few centimeters closer, smiling down at the sheets somewhat bashfully. “I just want to be here with you.” 

“I think you could be a little more specific.”

Reigen meets his eyes, and he looks intently at Mob, tilting his head pointedly down at the bed they’re sitting on, and Mob’s eyes widen incrementally. 

He must be getting his point across somehow, because Mob’s face and bare shoulders are turning pink, and now he’s wetting his lip too, fingers squeezing again over Reigen’s. 

Mob shifts closer again, one of his hands climbing to the hem of Reigen’s pink sweater sleeve, the other reaching out to ghost over his kneecap. 

“Well, I think I…” He swallows, eyes darting to Reigen’s lips. “I want to see you more often.” 

They’re so close now. Reigen hums, willing his voice not to waver. “Your education is important,” he says.

“I can teleport,” Mob says flatly, though he’s bringing one of Reigen’s hands up to his face, locking eyes with Reigen before very carefully pressing his lips over the inner part of his wrist. “I can bring my assignments to your apartment.” 

Reigen fights down a full-body shiver, eyes traveling all over Mob’s face, the expanse of his chest, porcelain pale skin, back up to those eyes - the perfect shade of black. 

“I could have sworn there was something else you wanted,” Reigen says, low-voiced.

Mob holds his gaze, pressing his mouth to Reigen’s wrist again. “I want you to ask me to kiss you again,” he whispers against Reigen’s skin. 

His face is only inches away. Reigen uncurls his fingers of the hand that Mob holds, brushing against Mob’s cheek as he gives him a coy, shy smile.

“Will you kiss me?” Reigen whispers to him.

And Mob leans forwards, closing the distance between them as Reigen’s eyes slide shut. 

This kiss is chaste, slow, nothing like earlier. Soft and sweet and gentle. When Mob pulls away, eyelashes still fluttering as he presses his forehead to Reigen’s, he breathes out, near-nervously.

Mob’s voice is husky. “There’s something else I want, too.” he says.

“Oh?” Reigen murmurs. “And what might that be?”

Mob drops his forehead to Reigen’s shoulder, and his face is warm, blushing head to toe. He drops Reigen’s hand, his hands instead finding his waist, running his thumbs against the fabric.

“I, um,” Mob starts, before he lifts his head, no longer hiding, running his tongue over his lip. “I want you in my lap again. If, um, if you want to.”

Reigen couldn’t deny him if he tried. So he sits back, letting Mob push himself to the center of the bed, before Reigen climbs into his lap, fighting down a creeping sense of embarrassment. 

His thighs rest over Mob’s hips, which rock him into a more comfortable position. Mob stays sitting up, a hand finding Reigen’s back, another at his chin, kissing him gently. Reigen knows his face must be red, red all the way to his ears. 

Reigen isn’t short. He’s not as tall as Mob, sure, but he’s not small, and he’s thin, sure, but not small, he thinks to himself. Compensation for the fact that Mob’s hand feels like it takes up more than half of his lower back, counting his vertebrae through his pink sweater.

As for his own hands, Reigen lets them fall to his sides, unsure of what to do with them, sighing as Mob tentatively kisses his jaw, down to his neck.

“Tell me if I’m going too fast, or if you’re not comfortable, but,” Mob’s low voice seems to rumble through his whole body and into Reigen’s. His hands are suddenly at the bottom hem of the sweater. 

“Can this come off?” He asks, tugging it just an inch upwards. 

Reigen bites down on his bottom lip for a moment, before he nods, and lifts the hem upwards to peel the sweater off, revealing the white button-down underneath that’s still tucked into his slacks. 

He pulls the sweater over his head, and for a moment all he can see is that color - pink, pink sweaters, pink ties, pink Camellia petals, raining over Mob’s body as he tosses the sweater to the side, leaving it to join Mob’s jacket somewhere on the floor. 

And he holds his breath as Mob’s fingers find the white fabric over his stomach, tracing upwards to his collar, where he gently undoes one button, and then the next. 

He blinks slowly at Reigen, giving him time and space to pull away if he wants to.

Carefully using his hands to undress him even though Reigen can feel the intangible fizz of psychic powers beginning to rise around them again, fluttering the edges of Mob’s bangs.

Mob undoes the last button and gently pulls the fabric from Reigen’s slacks, pushing it open, from his shoulders, eyes tracing all over his body.

Reigen removes his hands from the sleeves, letting the button-down crumple on the mattress beside them. Momentarily avoiding Mob’s gaze, sucking in a breath as he feels fingers meet the bare skin of his flat stomach, tracing over his navel.

“Reigen-Shishou,” Mob murmurs as his hands travel upwards, one of them ghosting over a nipple in a way that has Reigen shivering.

Reigen meets his eyes, knowing he’s flushing impossibly redder, fighting for his life to keep control of his voice as he says: “Well? Is there anything else you want?”

“Yes,” Mob whispers reverently.

Mob wraps his hands as best he can around Reigen’s chest, sliding slowly down to his ribcage, his waist, his hips, over the dip of his low back, and back up again. 

Like he needs to feel everything, every square inch of skin. His eyes dip, raking over his body, and Reigen swallows. 

Reigen wants to touch him. 

Badly, so badly, because every little detail is serving to drive him crazy - Mob’s fingers traveling down to flex over his ass, the high-definition surround-sound not-so-subtle twitch he can feel beneath him. R-rated, downright filthy. God, this is how he’s going to die.

But there’s something about putting his hands on that skin on Mob’s chest, his stomach, so perfect and flawless and he can’t-

Mob’s voice is quiet. “You can touch me,” he says, lifting to bring his face in to kiss Reigen’s shoulder, trailing up to his neck.

Reigen holds back a groan. “I know that,” he grumbles as Mob squeezes his ass again, humming into his neck.

“I’ve done stuff like this before, you know,” Mob says, and his hands leave Reigen’s body to find his hands, slotting their fingers together.

“Maybe with girls,” Reigen huffs.

Mob hums again. “I don’t care that you’re not a girl,” he says, rolling his hips upwards in a sudden motion as if to prove his point. 

The movement has Reigen exhaling sharply. “Mob,” he says, squeezing Mob’s fingers. 

“You can touch me,” Mob repeats, bringing both of their hands up between their chests. His dark eyes are careful, gentle, absolutely smoldering, watching Reigen’s face as he slowly brings Reigen’s hands to his own chest, to his shoulders. “I want you to touch me.”

Mob leaves his hands there, and he’s even warmer and more solid than he was when he had his shirt on. 

Reigen is tongue-tied. 

After a moment, he tentatively starts feeling over his shoulders, his chest, down to his stomach, captivated by the contours and amazed that this is happening.

Mob crowds him closer, wrapping his arms around him in an embrace, kissing his cheek.

“Are you okay?” Mob asks him.

Reigen nods furiously, tracing his fingers along one of Mob’s clavicles. “You’re warm,” is all he can say.

Mob pushes his face up into Reigen’s neck, nuzzling against him for a moment - a moment that does not last, because Reigen jolts as he feels something warm, and wet along the shell of his ear, letting out a squeak. 

Mob breathes out a little laugh. “Sorry,” he says.

And then Mob moves to kiss him, hands traveling from the inside of Reigen’s arms down to his chest, slow and adoring, sending butterflies bubbling anew up from Reigen’s belly.

Mob parts his lips and Reigen licks into his mouth, slow, delighting in the way that he shivers, the little pleased sound that he makes along with it. 

Pulling back just slightly, Mob regards him with a soft smile over his face.

“Can I try something?” Mob says to him.

Reigen is going to die if he keeps looking at him like that. “I think it depends on what ‘something’ is,” he says.

Mob smiles. “You’ll see.”

And then suddenly, Mob is lifting Reigen in his lap to kiss along his sternum, mouthing down to his chest.

He’s showering the expanse of Reigen’s skin with kisses, little, soft bites.

And Reigen hardly has time to recognize what’s happening, looking down at him, because Mob makes his way to his chest and then all of a sudden he’s no longer kissing. 

All Reigen sees is a flash of pink tongue and - holy shit, fuck - Mob’s tongue flicks one of his nipples.

“Mob,” Reigen manages to yelp out. 

He reflexively curls in as Mob does it again, bringing his other hand up to squeeze Reigen’s other nipple gently between two fingers as his entire hand gropes at the practically nonexistent flesh of his pec. 

Reigen feels a burn of embarrassment, suddenly breathing hard as Mob drags his tongue slowly over sensitive flesh, slow and excruciating and fuck, now he’s sucking on it. 

Reigen writhes, and Mob’s other arm wraps around him, holding him there, and he’s not sure if he can take much more of this - Mob shifts underneath him and Reigen can feel him, hard as a fucking rock in his pants and Reigen knows he’s not faring much better but- 

Mob tips them over, and he only separates from Reigen’s chest to switch sides. 

He brings both hands to Reigen’s ass as his back hits the sheets, effortlessly lifting Reigen’s lower half off the mattress to press his groin into him. 

Reigen looks down at his chest, breathing hard, barely stifling a sound with his hand pressed over his mouth as Mob closes his teeth lightly over his other nipple, flicking it with his tongue as he does so and holy fuck, where in the world did he learn to do this?

“Mob, Mob, oh my god,” Reigen chokes out from behind his hand, the other finding its way to Mob’s hair, wrapping his legs around Mob’s waist as he cants his hips, squeezing Reigen’s ass with both hands. 

Mob releases his nipple from his mouth with an explicit-sounding pop, leaving his chest wet and shiny with saliva. 

Reigen gasps, removing his hand from Mob’s hair, impulsively shoving it down between them to palm over Mob’s jeans and Mob groans out a “Shishou,” dropping his forehead into Reigen’s shoulder.

The room shudders with psychic power, the starry pattern of lights on the ceiling flickering once, twice, humming with electricity.

Reigen huffs out a moan as Mob ruts against his hand. 

And Mob shudders, setting Reigen’s hips down, sitting up, pupils completely blown out, undoing the button to his jeans, unzipping them. 

Their eyes meet - hot and smoldering. Mob looks downright ravenous. 

Mob then grabs Reigen’s hand, guiding him to sit up, to press against the front of his black boxer-briefs again as he lowers his pants, kicking them off, shoving them to the floor somewhat clumsily as Reigen palms him. 

And god, fucking christ, he is packing. It would make Reigen feel insecure if he weren’t so unbelievably turned on, actively thinking about what Mob’s cock would feel like if it were-

Reigen sits up to kiss him hard, squeezing Mob through his underwear and he can’t even believe it, can’t believe himself, Mob panting into his mouth. 

And when Mob breaks the kiss to stare at him, Reigen swears his eyes look red, deep, deep, red, crimson, his hair mussed and rising about his head like a black halo. 

“You’re so cute,” Mob breathes in earnest, even though Reigen doesn’t feel cute, with his hand only a thin layer of boxer-brief fabric away from-

“Where the hell did you learn to do all that,” Reigen manages to blurt out.

And Mob leans over him, smirking. “College,” he answers simply, hands by his thighs, and Reigen’s eyes flit down over his nearly-naked body, down to the trail of black hair on his lower belly, to where his hand is pressed over Mob’s underwear. 

Mob leans in, shuddering as Reigen squeezes him. “Can I tell you more about what I want?” He asks him lowly.

Reigen wets his lip, breathing through his nose. “Of course you can.”

The items throughout the room shudder, rattling noisily. 

“I want to make you feel good,” Mob whispers into his ear. 

Reigen swears the bed is floating, and he’s suddenly sweating, shivering from head to toe.

“I want to pin you down,” Mob murmurs, pressing closer, and Reigen’s hands are pulled away when Mob takes both of his wrists, pushing Reigen down again onto his back, pinning his wrists over his head. “I want to hear your voice.”

Mob leaves Reigen’s hands there, kissing his neck, sliding his own hands down the length of Reigen’s body to the button on his blue-gray slacks, flipping the button open. 

Reigen arches his back, gripping the pillows with his hands as he watches Mob slowly undo his zipper, eyes watching Reigen’s face as he begins to lower his pants - giving him time to run away, time to say no.

And god, the reality that Mob is removing his pants is going to kill him if he keeps looking, so Reigen doesn’t look - hooking his thumbs into his pants to help Mob get them off instead. 

The constellations from the lamp stare down at him, imagery of the heavens, illuminating along Mob’s skin, arrays of stars on the black ceiling. 

Reigen no longer has any doubts that his own skin is looking a lot like that, like halos in the light, misty and ethereal. It has nothing to do with the sweat he can feel on the back of his neck. 

It’s aura, intangible to his own touch, visible only to Mob, Mob, the only person who really knows him, throwing Reigen’s pants over the edge of the bed to join the rest of their clothes, fingers tracing excruciatingly along the outline of Reigen’s dick through the same gray underwear that he wore standing in front of his closet this morning, and it feels like that happened in another universe, another lifetime. 

“Reigen-Shishou,” Mob presses a hand flat to Reigen’s lower belly, breath ghosting against the side of his face as he says, “I want to be inside of you.”

Reigen arches his back as heat courses through him, huffing out a shaking breath as Mob presses his lips against his neck softly, breathing in deeply over his skin, chest-to-chest. 

Reigen’s face is burning. “Mob, oh my god,” he forces out.

“You smell so good,” Mob sighs dreamily against his neck. 

Mob hooks his thumbs into the band of Reigen’s boxer-briefs.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Reigen breathes, his hands coming down to grip Mob’s wrists.

Mob kisses his neck but removes his thumbs, pressing his hands to the mattress on either side of Reigen instead. “Am I moving too fast?” He asks between kisses. 

Reigen nods, breathing hard. “Yes, and, um, I know you- you said you’ve done stuff like this before, but um- this -”

“Mmmm, I have.” 

“-But this, it’s different, it’s a little different, with a guy, so.”

In response, Mob ruts against him in a single dry hump that feels wickedly different now that only two layers of thin fabric separate them. Reigen bites back a moan.

“Kurata-san said there’s condoms in the nightstand drawer,” Mob murmurs.

Reigen covers his face with both hands. “Oh my god.” 

Mob pulls back, and Reigen, through the gaps in his fingers, can see him smiling in that devilish little way he does. “I’m just kidding,” he says.

Reigen lowers his hands incrementally. “About the condoms?”

“Well, no, she really did say that,” Mob says with a little, adorable laugh. 

He removes himself from overtop Reigen, settling to lie down on his side on the mattress beside him, propping his head up with his hand. 

Reigen drops his head to the side to look at him, and Mob brings his hand up, brushing Reigen’s blonde hair back from his forehead. 

“But we don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with. We could stop right now, if you want,” Mob says.

A wave of affection bursts up into Reigen’s chest, and he must be the luckiest person in this entire world, he thinks, shaking his head with a breathy laugh. “You’re gonna kill me, you know that?” He says. 

Mob hums, tracing his thumb over the scar on Reigen’s forehead. “Well, it didn’t work the first time,” he says around a smile.

“Hilarious,” Reigen huffs, catching Mob’s hand to bring it down from his face, hiding a smile behind both their hands. “Way to set the mood, Mob.” 

And Mob just smiles at him as Reigen turns on his side to face him. 

Mob brings Reigen’s hand to his own lips and kisses his knuckles, giving him a playful look.

“You’re beautiful,” Mob whispers to him. 

And how unfair is that, Reigen thinks to himself, blushing down to his toes. Being called beautiful by the embodiment of a fucking supernova. 

“I’m nothing special,” he grumbles in response, deflecting, as Mob tilts forward to kiss his face.

Mob smiles against his cheek. “Yes, you are,” he says, his hand trailing lower.

Reigen shivers, looking down as Mob’s fingers trace along the band of his underwear, kissing patterns over his cheeks, his forehead, his jawline. Reigen’s hands find Mob’s shoulders, holding on for dear life.

Mob presses their foreheads together and whispers: “Can I take these off?”

Reigen sucks in a breath as Mob palms the front of his underwear, curling into Mob’s shoulder as they lie together on the pillows.

“You can say no,” Mob murmurs softly. 

Reigen breathes out through his nose. He knows what he wants. 

And what he wants is the blanket-statement opposite of stopping right now or even taking things slow, he thinks, glancing down between them where Mob is stroking him through the fabric, where he’s once again straining in his own boxer-briefs, a sight so explicit that Reigen closes his eyes against Mob’s shoulder.

“... I don’t want to say no,” Reigen confesses to him. 

He can feel Mob’s breath stutter, like this wasn’t the answer he was anticipating, the near-nervous jitter in his voice as he says, “I’ll go slow,” and his fingers slide tentatively under the waistband. 

And Reigen bites into his shoulder, eyes still skewed shut, listening to Mob’s breathing as Mob slowly starts lowering his underwear, pushing Reigen back onto his back to get them over his hips, going agonizingly slow. 

Agonizingly, torturously slow. 

One inch, then another, too slow, too slow, to the point where Reigen is sitting up, he can’t take it anymore.

He pushes Mob back up to his knees and takes his boxer-briefs off himself, kicking them off to the floor.

Mob is staring at him wide-eyed, eyes raking over his body, another tremble of psychic power running through the room. 

And Reigen stares back at him, breathing hard, and he’s naked and Mob is staring at him, and the next thing he knows they’re colliding again, kissing hard. 

Reigen’s hands find the waistband of Mob’s boxer-briefs, pulling them off of him clumsily, and Mob lifts his knees to help him get them off, tilting them both off balance.

They crash to the bed again, and Reigen pins Mob down by the shoulders, sitting on top of his thighs, kissing him open mouthed, and now there is nothing separating them; they’re skin-to-skin, and it feels like raw electricity. 

Reigen reaches down to wrap a hand around the both of them together and - Mob is thick, and he definitely has an inch or two on him, fuck - and Mob writhes, breaking their kiss to throw his head back with a barely-contained grunt. 

Reigen sits up, watching him, feeling out-of-his-mind, knowing his hair is a mess . Mob grips his hips hard enough to leave bruises, huffing as he lifts his head, face red, mouth open, eyes tracing down. 

“So,” Reigen starts slowly, even though his heart is pounding while he shifts smoothly against Mob . “Did Tome happen to mention if there was lube in that nightstand drawer?”

“Uhm, uh,” Mob’s eyebrows crease, hissing as Reigen drags his thumb over the head of his dick. “M-maybe? Ah, why?”

Reigen swallows, biting hard over his bottom lip. “Well, do you want to… you know…”

Mob stares up at him with wide, astonished eyes. “Shishou,” he manages, “Are you - ugh - Are you sure? I don’t mind, we, um, haah, we can just take things-” he cuts himself off to throw his head back again, hands climbing to the thinnest part of Reigen’s waist. “- just take things slow.” 

Reigen leans down over him, hiding his face in Mob’s neck as he says it. 

“Mob,” he says, punctuating his name with a kiss to his ear before he whispers, “do you want to fuck me or not?” 

The next thing Reigen knows, his back is propped up against the pillows and Mob is poised between his thighs.

Because, as it turns out, there was lube in the nightstand drawer, the bottle of which now lies on the sheets next to a strip of condoms.

And Mob’s fingers are lower than Reigen had ever dared to dream they’d be, free hand to the underside of his thigh.

“Is this okay?” Mob is asking him softly.

Reigen has a hand clamped over his own mouth, nodding with only a grunt in acknowledgement, because instead of the quick, hasty prep he’d been anticipating - it’s been minutes and Mob is still pumping only a single finger in and out of him, teasingly, tortuously. 

Mob kisses him softly, all over his face. His cheeks, forehead, ears, slowly making his way to his jaw, to his Adam’s apple, moving down to the crest of his clavicle, moving all the way down to the flat surface of Reigen’s stomach. 

He’s kissing down, down, down, until he’s basically lying on his stomach, kissing and biting all the way to- 

“Mob, ah, what are you-“

And in a second, all Reigen’s bravery, his bravado from minutes ago - it’s gone. 

Gone, six feet in the ground, because in seconds Reigen is a mess. 

His hand flies to Mob’s hair, which he grips harshly because-

Because all of a sudden, Mob’s mouth is on his dick, kissing and mouthing and clumsy. He parts his lips to use his tongue and Reigen sees stars, unable to keep up because Mob likes girls so- 

There are sounds falling from Reigen’s mouth that he’d die if he ever had to hear back, his entire body flushed all the way to his toes. He’s got a hand over his mouth, a hand clinging to Mob, then to the sheets, toes curling as Mob pushes in another finger.

Mob lifts his head, sweat starting to make his bangs stick to his forehead. “Does it feel good?” He asks. “Do you like it?”

He asks that like he’s not actively fucking Reigen to the brink of death on his fingers. The audacity, the fucking audacity. 

Reigen drops his head back. “You - ugh- can you please-”

“Is that a yes?”

“Mob.”

Mob smiles at him, which immediately drops into a look of surprise as Reigen seizes his hand, removing his fingers before pushing him up and backwards to fall back towards the base of the bed, a noise of surprise escaping his throat.

Reigen makes quick work of ripping a condom off of the strip, shoving it into Mob’s face. “Put this on,” he says.

Mob immediately obeys, blinking rapidly as he tears it open, rolling it on even as Reigen climbs on top of him, knees to the sheets.

Mob is still up on his elbows, his hair mussed beyond belief. He looks like a dream. “Are you sure you’re ready?”

“I’m positive.”

“Okay, I’m just checking - I don’t want to pressure you. We can always just-“ 

He cuts himself off with a groan as Reigen starts to lower himself down.

And it feels incredible, hot and electric and Reigen sinks down to about halfway onto him, biting a noise back in his throat as Mob’s head falls back. Reigen braces his hands to Mob’s stomach, which tenses beneath him. 

Mob’s hands find his waist.

The last time Reigen did this must be two years ago now, three years ago, a hookup he barely remembers with someone who didn’t mean anything to him, some random stranger from the bar to add to the admittedly small roster he’d accumulated in his early twenties and in college.

Reigen fights to keep his voice level. “‘We can always just’ what, Mob?”

But this, this is nothing like it was with anyone else. 

And not because Mob is downright gorgeous or that there is psychic energy rippling along the bedsheets or even that he’s big. No, this is nothing like any other time, like anything else he’s ever experienced.

“I take it- I take it back,” Mob breathes as Reigen finally bottoms out with a hiss. “We can - ah, we can just do this. This is fine - you feel, ugh, you feel so- ”

Mob collapses back on the bed, eyes glued to Reigen, mouth open in a gasp as his hands move to Reigen’s thighs, braced on either side of his hips. 

Reigen wipes sweat off his brow with the side of his hand, breathing heavy, feeling dizzy just looking down at him. Dizzy and hot and this is too much - it’s not enough - it’s-

Reigen moves his hips experimentally in a semi-circle. “And in your opinion, this is just-” He holds back a groan, “-just ‘fine’?” Reigen asks him.

“N-no!” Mob says instantly, eyes wide, and his fingers dig into Reigen’s thighs in a death grip. “That’s not what I-“ he groans, “what I mean at all, I was- ah- just-“

Reigen rocks his hips and Mob cuts himself off with a “fuck,” whispered with reverence under his breath, stomach muscles flexing under Reigen’s fingers.

God, he must have it bad if Mob swearing is enough to have him huffing out a breath as a thrill bubbles up from his belly, head tipping back as he goes to move again, to start moving in earnest when-

Mob’s hands grab onto his waist and hold him down in a deathgrip.

“Wait,” the esper grunts out, spine curling in just the tiniest bit, face screwed up. “Just, haah, w-wait a minute, if you keep doing that I’m, ugh, I’m gonna-”

Reigen blinks down at him, about to open his mouth to ask what’s wrong when - oh. Oh. 

“Mob, oh my god,” Reigen stifles a laugh with a hand over his mouth, instead looking down at Mob with a devilish smile. “Is it really that good?”

Mob just huffs, frowning as Reigen shakes his head at him. 

Reigen flattens his palms over Mob’s chest. “You flatter me,” he says smugly.

“I hate you,” Mob groans back, but his grip loosens, and he seems to collapse back again, looking wearily up at Reigen.

Reigen grins down at him. “I’m sure you do,” he murmurs. “And here I thought you wanted to pin me down, and hear my voice, and, ah, what was the other thing?” He smiles deviously as Mob’s hands find his waist, bending his legs upwards beneath him. “Oh, right, you wanted to be inside me-”

Mob thrusts upwards and Reigen bites back a cry, feeling it all the way to his toes, effectively cut off as Mob’s fingers tighten. 

“AH! Mob, you-”

“I’ve been wanting to do this to you for years,” Mob grinds out, thrusting up again.

Reigen throws both hands over his face even as he grinds his hips down against him, electricity bounding up his spine. “Mob, you can’t - ugh, you can’t just - oh my god - you can’t say that-”

“It’s true,” Mob murmurs, setting a pace that he shouldn’t even be able to keep up as he sits up to mouth at Reigen’s nape, hands pushing Reigen’s hips to cant against his own.

Reigen gasps, shutting his eyes tight as his hands move to grip Mob’s shoulders. “Please don’t - don’t tell me things like that,” he huffs, punctuating it with a low whine as Mob kisses up to his jaw.

“I have to,” Mob groans against his ear, breath hot against his skin. “You make me crazy. Don’t tell me you’ve never thought about this.”

Mob presses his hips down, thrusting impossibly deeper, and his fingers are going to leave bruises, Reigen is sure - he’s absolutely sure -

“N-not when you were- when you were- haah-”

Mob’s bruising hands leave his hips, circling around to grab fistfuls of his ass. “But you think about it now.” 

Reigen grits his teeth, a sob escaping him as Mob lifts him up and down. “I - ugh-”

Mob buries his face in Reigen’s neck, kissing him sweetly, tenderly, fucking Reigen from below as he gasps.

“I’ve had- I’ve had dreams,” Reigen forces out. 

Mob hums against the junction between his neck and jaw, a low rumble that seems to spread through Reigen’s entire body, all the way down to his bones.

“In my dreams, s-sometimes we, ah, we do - this,” Reigen breathes. “And sometimes you - ah, AH! Mob!” 

Mob pulls his face away from Reigen’s damp skin, hair rising, and his eyes look red, again - scarlet irises, blood red, crimson, staring half-lidded into Reigen’s soul. “Sometimes I what?”

And Reigen shudders, overstimulated, gripping Mob’s shoulders like they are the only things tethering him to the earth. His hips are already aching, jolting as Mob’s fingers dip down to drag slickly around their point of connection.

“Shishou,” Mob murmurs.

Reigen’s voice comes out ragged, in a whisper, reliving the scene deliriously in his mind. “Sometimes you watch me.” 

The sound that comes out of Mob’s mouth nearly sends him into cardiac arrest. 

Mob then presses his forehead to Reigen’s clavicle, winds an arm around his middle, and tips him backwards, pulling out momentarily before pushing back in not even seconds after Reigen’s back hits the sheets.

Reigen cries out, head falling back against white pillows as Mob grips one of his legs, throwing it up over his shoulder, tipping Reigen’s hips sideways. 

Mob looms over him, bending him nearly in half, panting, pulling all the way out again just to press in hard in one deep thrust.

“Mob, holy fuck - holy shit -”

“And when you -” Mob pants into his ear, “When you wake up - do you still think about me?” 

“I think about you - a-all the time. Sometimes I- Mmmph! ” Reigen clamps his mouth shut, turning his head to the side as Mob licks up his ear, sending a full-body tremor down his entire spine. “I think I’m - oh my god, that I’m going - crazy.” 

Mob pushes in again, and again, setting a pace that has Reigen’s mouth falling open, looking down between them, seeing stars - 

Mob’s spine bends to kiss down to his shoulder. “I think about you, too,” he murmurs, moving lower to Reigen’s chest, bending so that his breath ghosts over a nipple. “I think about this, about how - haah - how you’d feel, about what you’d sound like-”

Mob drags his tongue over it and Reigen grits his teeth, clawing at Mob’s back, swallowing back a sob.

Mob lifts back up, arms wrapping around his middle, Reigen’s leg trapped over his shoulder. “But mostly I, ah, I think about other things,” he says.

“What - mmm,” Reigen groans as he stares up at him, watching his dark hair move like it's underwater. “What things?”

Mob ducks to press his forehead to Reigen’s skin. “I - mm - I think about your face when you’re thinking, when you’re at - at your desk and - ah - you chew on a pencil when you think no one is looking.”

If the bed wasn’t floating before, it definitely is now, off center, tilting slowly, miscellaneous items floating and shuddering in the room. The constellation light flickers with each thrust, blinking stars on the ceiling.

Mob continues, panting, breathing over Reigen’s skin like all the warmth of summer combined, forehead pressed to his shoulder. “I think about - about everything. About how your voice sounds when you’re angry, or excited, or annoyed with me - ah, Shishou. ”

Reigen arches up against him, their bodies slick with sweat, and when Mob dips down to kiss him, he kisses back like he’s going to die.

Mob breaks away to pant and Reigen kisses his face, all over, every bit of skin he can reach, and Mob presses into him again, and again, and again-

“I think about how your hair looks in the sun,” Mob breathes. 

And Reigen - panting, arching, he can almost see it - aura, blanketing him, his skin replaced with a stained-glass window. 

Reigen frames Mob’s face and pulls him down in another open-mouthed kiss. Mob’s hand travels to his hair, running his fingers through it as he licks the back of Reigen’s teeth.

“I - ah, I miss you when - you’re not here,” Reigen gasps against his mouth when they separate, moving to mouth at his cheek, his jaw - “And I know that you - you have college, so - haah- so it’s- it’s pathetic - but-”

Mob pants into his ear, rolling his hips. 

“But s-sometimes I feel like my - my life is just a blur,” Reigen grinds out, curling his spine inwards. “Waiting for you to come back.”

“I’ll always come back to you,” Mob murmurs in his ear.

And Reigen jolts as Mob snakes a hand down in between their bellies, wrapping his hand around Reigen’s dick, hand starting to move in tandem with his thrusts and it feels like nothing else on this earth, a blitz of heat exploding in his stomach, and it’s too much - too much -

Reigen throws his head back, arching impossibly, legs shaking - “Mob - Mob, if you do that I’ll-” 

Mob presses down on him, pressing Reigen’s knee to his chest, one arm curled around his middle and the other still shoved between them. 

He presses his forehead to Reigen’s left temple, whispering out raggedly, “I’m selfish. I know I am, I just - even though I make you wait for - for me - haaah - I want you. I’m in love with you. Shishou.”

Reigen has made him wait, too, maybe for even longer - maybe, maybe - but the only words that he’s capable of are pleas - are sobs because this is too much, he’s going to-   “Mob, I’m- oh god, I’m- I’m gonna-”

Mob’s voice shakes, his skin sticks to Reigen’s, his body moves against him relentlessly as he says - “I want to call you by your first name and for you to call me by mine.”

“Shigeo-” Reigen chokes out.

And he swears - through the blinding white static of his own climax - Reigen swears he hears it - four syllables that fall from Mob’s lips, quiet and gentle, pressing deep inside him as heat explodes in Reigen’s belly. 

Mouth pressed to his temple, to his scar, the sound vibrating all the way down into Reigen’s very soul.

Four syllables - one after the other.

It’ll be branded into Reigen’s mind until the day he dies. 

Reigen’s eyes slowly drift open.

It’s dark, and he’s warm. 

So impossibly warm that he nearly closes his eyes to drift back into sleep. The analog clock about a foot in front of his nose on the side table indicates that it’s three AM. 

Reigen shifts under the covers and - ah, his hips are aching, one of his legs is terribly sore, he’s not wearing a shirt. He sighs, huffing in half-asleep displeasure, about to close his eyes again when he shifts against something warm and solid and-

Reigen whips his head around to look behind him. 

Mob.

Mob is sleeping behind him, face nuzzled into a white pillow. 

He’s got one arm slung over Reigen’s stomach, his legs pressed against the back of Reigen’s, and the blue sheets cover just enough to reveal that he’s shirtless, too.

Reigen blinks.

The blue chiffon curtains over the windows are made visible only by the soft illumination from the outside lights, pouring through the glass, all blue-toned and washed-out. It makes Mob’s skin look like starlight. 

They’re in the guest room at Tome’s college house. In the middle of nowhere.

And Reigen remembers all of it.

Mob’s ink-spill hair is still damp from the shower, the one he took after Reigen, after they’d laid together on the sheets, after the furniture in the room made peace with gravity, after they’d talked and argued and kissed and had sex. After Reigen had sex with Mob. 

Reigen turns, gingerly, slowly, careful not to wake him. 

And he’s so gorgeous, Reigen thinks to himself, it’s really not fair. Not fair at all. His little ex-student - not his student, or even little, not anymore. 

Reigen curls his hands to rest below his chin, facing him, studying his sleeping face. 

He waits for regret to wash over him.

Mob breathes softly and evenly, and as he waits, Reigen can’t help but think of how much he’s changed. 

Mob - who has grown up, grown into himself, emotions and body and spirit. Reigen has grown too, left things behind; reflections of spirits in the mirror, cigarette ashes, grief cycles.

Regret never washes over him. But another emotion certainly does.

It’s acceptance. 

It’s the remnants of day five, which sits in the past now, now as they tumble into the future. 

Now that Reigen cannot deny his feelings any longer.

In the morning, maybe Tome will tell Reigen she knew the whole time. Maybe Dimple will look between the two of them and shake his head, and maybe Mob will blush head-to-toe as the spirit laughs at him. Maybe Reigen will text Serizawa and ask how his date went. Maybe he'll call his mother and try - one more time, to mend his relationship with his parents, his father, before the inevitable future. 

Maybe in the morning, before Mob has to go back to his university, Reigen will ask him if he’ll come to Amane’s baby shower with him. 

“I’m in love with you.” 

Mob’s words from Christmas Eve, from New Year’s Day, from just hours ago - Reigen is yet to return them.

But he will. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe the next day. He won’t keep Mob waiting, not for long.   

But right now, between waking and dreaming, between the end of the world and the coalescing of it here on this dark blue bedspread in this room that looks like the night sky -

Images of sunshowers fill his head, the city after the rain, halos in the light, misty and ethereal, angelic aura tracings and Reigen knows what it is now. 

He thinks maybe he always has.

Reigen used to think that to love someone meant to exist separately, without distortion, without any ripples in the water. 

Mob’s eyes drift open, blinking slow, hazy, deep black in the blue haze of the room. 

“Shishou?” He rasps, voice thick with sleep. “Everything okay?”

“Yes,” Reigen whispers, a soft, apologetic smile pulling at his lips. “Go back to sleep, Mob.”

Mob hums, hand flexing over Reigen’s side as he closes his eyes, breath evening out once again, sinking into sleep, pulling Reigen closer.

Reigen curls in.

Maybe, Reigen muses to himself as he closes his eyes, love without change does not exist. 

There’s a voice. 

Garbled, indistinct. Four syllables from the moonless sky. 

There are rolling hills at his back, a sea of yellow stars in the dark blue sky high above. He’s standing on the grass in a flowering field, nostalgic, storybook green.

Reigen has had this dream before.

The moon is at his feet, where he knew he’d find it. In the center of a black Hellebore, dark, handsome, and unique, unique in all the world. 

And, above him - that person reaches for him.

Reigen looks upwards. 

This time - he can see who it is, the owner of the voice, this person who reaches for him, fingers outstretched, palm open. 

This person, the only one who’s ever mattered. The one he’s seen before at the end of the world. This person he was made for, he’s sure, crafted in flesh and blood, in sunshowers and in nicotine smoke.

This time, when Reigen reaches upwards, he already knows the ending.

The ending, silent, gentle, unyielding and deafening- 

Reigen takes his hand. 

fin.